Ask Chris #259: How I Learned To Love Achewood

by Chris Sims September 25, 2015 1:00 PM

Q: What in the world is so great about Achewood? Ive tried it a couple times , and its always seemed average at best. @DylanJBurnett
A: Believe it or not, Dylan, there was a time when I was just like you. Much as I love it now, Chris Onstads Achewood didnt click with me the first
time I read it, or the second. Or the third or fourth, for that matter, and every time one of my friends would respond to a joke about Airwolf or the
Smiths with a link to the strip, Id wonder why anyone liked this comic about the weird dog running around in his underwear.
Then one day it just clicked. It might have been when I finally realized that Ray was a cat who was running around in his underwear, and it might
have been when I finally sat down to read a complete story, but it all fell into place, and I came away firmly standing behind the idea that The Great
Outdoor Fight is the single best comic of the 21st century.

Chris Onstad
The thing about Achewood is that unless you sit down and actually read it and unless you know exactly where you ought to start with it its
actually a pretty hard sell. On paper, it sounds ludicrous to the point of being mystifying: Its a comic strip about a bunch of stuffed animals, except
that its actually about two cats, except that theyre usually just treated as though theyre people. One of them is a hip hop record executive with a
seemingly unlimited amount of money who is terrified of diabetes and loves Braveheart, and the other is his best friend from high school who has
crippling depression and married a dead Welsh woman from the 17th century after she came back to life and worked at Taco Bell.
See? I havent even gotten to Todd yet and already this sounds like a fever dream.
Even the format is daunting the individual strips vary in length, and the stories go from long-form narratives to non-sequitur interruptions to
character-driven gags without much warning, often in the span of a single story. And the plots of those stories are just as hard to describe.
Great Outdoor Fight is a story about best friends, about legacy, about fathers and sons and about trying to live up to the shadow of someone youve
never known and eventually deciding that finding your own path and forging your own friendships is more important than anything else in the world.
Its also a story that opens with a meth-head squirrel trying to get a cat to help him found a business selling fake testicles that you can put on your
phone, and where the major emotional turning point of the story involves a country music singer getting his face ripped off.
And thats just the major stories. There are others that sound even weirder: Ray challenges the president of Williams-Sonoma to a live lesbian
erotica-writing competition while wearing elephant costumes, causing Roast Beef to be murdered by a specter of death that plays the musical saw.
Todd the meth-squirrel gets trapped in a text-based adventure with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. And, of course, my personal favorite, a five
year-old gets sad when his family gets a new couch and ends up almost dying in a garbage dump before the aforementioned rich cat saves him by
buying Airwolf on a secret version of eBay.

Chris Onstad
There might be some appeal in how weird it sounds, but theres definitely a way to describe it that doesnt make it sound good and to be perfectly
honest, its not exactly flawless. There are some regrettable characters from early in the comics run (lookin at you here, Ultra Peanut),
and Achewood isnt exactly great about gender representation, either. Theres only one woman in the main cast, and while Mollys got a lot of
interesting character traits like, say, dying in a shipwreck in 1676 and meeting her future husband in heaven shes most often used as a way to
set up and reflect elements of Roast Beefs character rather than her own.

Also, one of the main characters is named Roast Beef. That can be pretty hard to get past.
Even if you do get past all that, its a surprisingly difficult comic to start reading. The temptation with virtually every webcomic especially one
thats so notably character-driven is to start at the beginning, but with Achewood, that doesnt really work. The early strips about the stuffed
animals goofing around the Onstad household are about as far removed from what Achewood would become that theyre barely worth checking out,
to the point where the printed collections not only didnt start with them, but put them in as an appendix to Volume 2.
And yet, if you click on the link that takes you to the first comic, thats what youre going to get, and while its tempting to just dive in at random,
theres so much continuity and character work that builds on itself that its pretty easy to get lost. I mean, how can you really enjoy the later
era Achewood strips if you dont know about Rays fetish for sitting on cakes?

Chris Onstad
What Im getting at here is that its a very hard strip to start with, so if youve been having difficulty getting into it, thats not necessarily on you. The
thing is, its worth it.
Despite its flaws, Achewood has what might be the greatest character work in comics. The people well, cats, but for all intents and purposes,
people in the strip are realized in a way thats not only thorough and subtle in a way that seems effortless, but also complete. Once you read
enough of those strips, characters like Ray and Beef dont feel like characters, they feel like people that you know. Theres a depth there that comes
through in these strips that got its hooks into me like few things that Ive ever read.

Chris Onstad
That, I think, is the main appeal of The Great Outdoor Fight, and the reason that when it came time to put the series into print, it was the first story
that was collected. Its not just that its long enough to fill a book, but because its the single most revelatory story about the characters
in Achewoods long history. And, in a lot of ways, its Achewood in its purest form.
It starts off with a joke the one I mentioned before about ChatSacks, the TruckNutz for your phone and then quickly spins into something
bigger. The idea at the core of the story, that theres an annual fight between three thousand men on a lawless fenced-in farm somewhere outside
Bakersfield held on Valentines Day, no less is ridiculous on an almost superheroic scale, but the story that plays out is a very personal one. Its
about what Ray wants, and what Roast Beef wants, about the approval of a father and the happiness that you can get by just being near someone
whos destined for greatness. it is, in other words, a great story and one thats relatively self contained if you can get past the thing where
everyones a cat.

Chris Onstad
The thing is, its not the only one. Its the most notable, sure, and the easiest to get into, but there are other stories that have just as much impact. The
only problem is that they build on each other, sometimes going back for years. Philippes Journey Home is one of the most emotional stories that
Ive ever read, the kind of story where youre almost afraid to see how it ends, and when it does, the relief that you feel is crushing.
But again, it only works if youve been through years of having Philippe around, reading the newspapers that Roast Beef helps him put together or
seeing him react to Lie-Bots Saddest Things. Which, fortunately, is something very easy to do.
In the end, Achewood is one of those things that you have to kind of force yourself to get through, at least for a little while, and if you do that and it
still doesnt work, then its entirely possible that its just not for you. But if youre like me, then theres going to be a moment where it all falls into
place, where you realize that Roast Beef and Ray have become closer to a couple of knuckleheads from back in the day than they are to cartoon cats
that occasionally drive around in an Escalade, and then youll find yourself killing time by hitting that Random Strip button over and over. And thats
when youll realize that Ray buying Airwolf makes perfect sense, and is in fact the best moment in comics for at least three years in either direction.
Ill tell you right now, though: Youre never going to figure out Cartilage Head.

Read More: Ask Chris #259: How I Learned To Love 'Achewood' | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-259-achewood/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #258: Why Superman: The Animated Series Is The Underappreciated Gem Of The DCAU
by Chris Sims September 18, 2015 10:00 AM

Q: How do you feel about Superman: The Animated Series? A faithful adaptation that distills the Superman mythos the same way
as Batman: TAS? @Trilby64
A: Superman: The Animated Series is great, which is one of the reasons that its so weird that nobody ever really talks about how great it is. Even
here at ComicsAlliance, when I was looking for things to dive into for an in-depth episode guide, it never even came up for consideration but to be
honest, a lot of that was because theres not a whole lot to make fun of in that series. It synthesized one of the best versions of Superman ever brought
to any medium, and it did it with an incredible style that was well done on pretty much every level.
Theres just one big problem: Its not Batman.

That probably sounds facetious, but its true. As good as the show mightve been and it was very, very good it has the misfortune of falling into
this weird pop-cultural No Mans Land between Batman and Justice League, and because of that, its always the one that doesnt get the attention
that it deserves.
With Justice League, the appeal speaks for itself. It was the first time that wed seen DCs biggest heroes teaming up since Super Friends, and while
I think wed all gotten used to the standards in animation that Warner Bros. was putting out by that point, its still a pretty beautiful and visually
engaging even if Green Lantern did have a tendency to use a power ring that can do literally anything to make laser beams and bubbles. And when
it rolled over into Justice League Unlimited, and they had a mandate to feature everyone? Forget about it. Never mind that there was a (great) Booster
Gold episode; that show had the dang Seven Soldiers of Victory on it at one point, and when youre going that deep, thats a selling point that trumps
pretty much everything.
Batman, on the other hand, was an entirely different beast. I dont want to blow anybodys mind here, but BTAS was groundbreaking, to the point
where there are episodes of its original run that still feel fresh and innovative today, 23 years after it first premiered. It had a moodiness to it that you
just didnt see in kids programming in 1992, with takes on villains visual and narrative that would become the standard.
The thing is, that visual style that made BTAS such a huge hit didnt come out of nowhere, and as talented as Bruce Timm is pretty talented, as you
probably already know it wasnt just him inventing the look out of thin air. There was a huge, huge influence from Max
Fleischers Superman cartoons from the early 40s. Just watch that first one and compare the Mad Scientists death ray to the one Maxie Zeus builds
in Fire From Olympus.

Also, watch that first one and just try telling me that Superman literally punching out a death ray not the gun, but the ray itself is not still the
hardest thing youve ever seen.
Anyway, the point is, what worked for Superman in the 40s those moody Art Deco backgrounds and sweeping adventure scores ended up
working for Batman in the 90s. When it came time to adapt that visual back into Superman, though, wed already seen it. The ground had already
been broken for a new generation, and so instead of feeling like Superman getting back to his animated roots and reviving a a great style that had
been a hit in the years that launched him to success as a household name, it just felt like a spinoff from Batman that didnt have as many cool villains.
It also doesnt help that it lacks the kind of opening sequence that made BTAS so instantly iconic. Ive written before about how that intro might be
the best 57 seconds in television history, and getting something similar for Superman wouldve been amazing. Instead, its just a bunch of shots from
the show itself that have been repurposed like a sitcom. Its frustrating, but to be fair, BTAS is kind of the anomaly. Justice League had that weird
squeedly guitar thing going, and even once we got to Brave and the Bold, it was just Batman climbing around on the names of all his friends.
Put these things together, and youve got a show that just doesnt feel as big as B:TAS or Justice League, and I suspect thats why you dont usually
hear people mentioning it whenever the conversation turns to how great those DCAU shows are. And really, thats a shame. As much
as Superman might have been the next logical step towards taking the animated aesthetic and applying it to the larger world and as much as it was
the show that formed the basis for an expanded universe with guest appearances by characters like Dr. Fate and Green Lantern it went beyond just
filling up time and doing its job. Its a really good show.

At the start of this column, I mentioned that S:TAS was a synthesis of some of the best Superman ideas from the comics, and thats one of its defining
qualities. If Batman was built around stripping things down to the bare essentials and letting them work, then Superman was about taking pieces of
what had already worked and combining them into the best possible versions. They did it right at the start, with a Krypton that felt like it was a
perfect mashup of the Silver Age version and John Byrnes post-Crisis take.
Just look at Supergirl:

The Kara Zor-El who appears on the show is probably my favorite version of the character, because of how well they were able to filter different
versions into something that worked. They took the Silver Age origin of being the last survivor of Argo City and combined it with a more modern
relationship with Superman and that costume that Ive always liked, even though I will freely admit that its about as 1998 as the Batgirl of
Burnside is 2015.
Compare that to the comics at the time, where Supergirl was an Earth-born angel inhabiting the body of a synthetic Lana Lang from a pocket
dimension where General Zod committed genocide. Thats a little complicated, even for a series that was willing to introduce the world to the Fourth
World saga.
And it was like that for the rest of the major cast as well. The Luthor of the animated series was the ultimate expression of the idea of Businessman
Lex, and adding Mercy as his bodyguard and sounding board was almost as brilliant as casting Clancy Brown, who owns that role nearly as much as
Kevin Conroy owns Batman. Hes a charming schemer fueled by hate, an untouchable industrialist who will still go down to his basement and turn a
man into a Kryptonite-powered robot if it will help him regain control.
And Dana Delaney as the shows violet-eyed Lois Lane? Perfect.

That moment in the Worlds Finest movie where the bad guys try to hijack her plane and then realize that shes that Lois Lane, right before
Superman shows up and flips the plane over while shes cheerfully taunting them, safely belted into her seat? Thats got to be in my top Lois
moments of all time, and the shows full of great little touches like that.
Unfortunately, Jimmy Olsen gets the short end of the stick yet again, but, well, nobody bats a thousand.
The villains were a great mix, too. I mentioned above that there arent as many cool ones as there are in Batman, but the ones that Superman does
have tend to be done pretty well. Theres Lex, of course, and the shows Frankensteind-up version of Metallo that comes along with him, but theres
also the almost-too-creepy version of Toyman that the show had, and Mr. Mxyzptlk, who brings in some really great Silver Age fun.
And then theres Darkseid.

Id stack Apokolips Now! up against anything in the DC Animated Universe for sheer action and emotional content, and as Ive said before, its
one of the best Darkseid stories ever, across any media. And its not just that its good on its own, but that it was built up in previous episodes as well
and the fact that S:TAS managed to do stories that were a little tighter with continuity than the (mostly) purely episodic stories of its darker
counterpart speaks pretty highly of how well that show was structured.
Plus, its worth noting that that was the episode that showed Maggie Sawyer being visited by her girlfriend in the hospital, without leaving any
ambiguity about who she was. Unless, of course, you were willing to believe that your Very Good Friend would not just sit with you after an injury
but also hold your hand during very emotional moments you were both watching on television, I suppose. Point being, while it was a pretty mild and
pretty minor thing in the grand scheme of the show, that was a bold move for 1998 over a decade before wed get stuff like Legend of
Korra and Steven Universe and something that we still dont see enough today.
So yeah: Superman holds up, even if its not quite the distillation that Batman was, and even if its overlooked as the middle child of the DCAU. Its
a highlight, both in terms of what made it to the screen and the stories that it inspired in Superman Adventures. If its been a while since youve gone
back, its well worth watching again.

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Ask Chris #257: The Head-Canonical Batman Family

by Chris Sims September 11, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: Someone asked me this one, so now you have to do it: who, in your head canon, do you consider to be
the necessary members of the Bat-family? Benito Cereno, via Tumblr
A: Finally! Ive been waiting for like five years for someone to ask me a question that would allow me to go into a
needlessly in-depth explanation of how some part of Batman worked, and now, after all these years, it has
happened for the very first time.
As for this particular question, its an interesting one, and if youd like to see Benitos answer to it, its up on his
Tumblr. If you do go look at the list, though, youll see the problem in trying to answer it. After 75 years of
collecting sidekicks, butlers, teammates and assorted hangers-on, Batman has a whole lot of people in his extended
family. And if I had my way, Id keep em all.

I mean, thats Grant Morrisons big First Truth of the Batman, right? That hes never alone, that there was always
someone there with him, supporting him and helping him. And as much as there are readers out there who vastly
prefer the noir-inspired take on Batman where hes a lone vigilante in a gritty urban hellscape taking it on himself
to wage a one-man war on crime, Morrisons interpretation is something that the comics bear out, too.
It obviously took a while for everyone to show up, but Robin was a very early addition to the story, showing up
about a year into it in 1940, and Commissioner Gordon makes his first appearance right there in Detective
Comics #27, exactly one panel after Batman himself.

So yeah, the Batman Family is a pretty big part of the story so big, in fact, that its actually a pretty unwieldy
group to have kicking around with keys to the Batcave, especially once you start getting into teams like the
Outsiders and the Club of Heroes.
But at the same time, I like almost all of those characters, and even the ones I dont like usually have enough
potential to be part of a really solid storyline that theyre worth keeping around. It makes things pretty tricky, and
thats before you start getting into the bigger problems of alternate versions. Is Terry McGinnis a necessary part of
the Batman Family? Is Carrie Kelly? Its complicated.
But that said, if were talking about allies and supporting cast members not villains, not the detectives at the
GCPD, and not the teammates on the Justice League, just people who would regularly show up in Batman comics
and weve only got a few spots lets say five heres who Id choose, in order of how important they are to the
character.
First up: Alfred Pennyworth.

I get the feeling that picking Alfred as the single most necessary character in Batmans supporting cast might not be
the most popular idea, but on the other hand, hes been upgraded into that role in almost every major Batman
project in the past thirty years.
The Christopher Nolan movies, Batman 89, Beware the Batman, a good chunk of Batman: the Animated Series, and
comics like Zero Year and, yes, Earth One put him in first and foremost, and its not difficult to see why. On a purely
technical level, it gives Batman someone to talk to, or to discuss a case and having someone, anyone else hanging
out in that giant mansion and its anti-crime basement does a lot to humanize Bruce Wyane, especially if the person
hanging out has a tray of tea and sandwiches.
More than that, though, Alfred serves an incredibly vital function within the story. Hes a living reminder of
Batmans parents on a very real level he was a member of their family, too, after all and as a result, he can
serve as a surrogate father in a very interesting way. Ive written before about how part of the childish fantasy of
Batman was that his parents die, but he still gets to have a parent, and its a parent that hes actually the boss of, so
that he can stay out all night no matter what his new dad says, and while that might be a little reductive, its also a
pretty accurate description of their relationship.

Plus, having Alfred around helps to smooth over a lot of the questions that are going to crop up if you plan on
following the idea that Bruce Wayne left Gotham City to train and returned years later to become Batman. I mean,
yes, you will also raise the question of, Wait, so his parents died and he was raised by his butler?! but, yknow, we
all have stuff to deal with.
Coming in at #2, Dick Grayson.

So heres the problem: My initial thought for the #2 spot was, of course, Robin not necessarily a specific
character in the role, but just Robin, the idea, the back half of Batman And
But, being a member of the generation that I am, the Robin that I actually wanted to put here was Tim Drake.
Thing is, you cant have Tim Drake without Dick Grayson. You cant really have Jason Todd without him, either, and
you definitely cant have Damian, at least not without losing a lot of what made those characters work in the first
place. They all exist as reactions or counterparts to Dick, and by definition, that makes him the most important of
those characters.
Dick Grayson is Batmans first success story, the kid who doesnt have to become Batman, because Batman is
already there to help him. He is the Batman family, and more than that, hes a character that weve seen grow up in
this strange and wonderful world, filling the roles of surrogate son and partner. So whether hes filling that role as
Robin, Nightwing or Spyrals Agent 37, theres a connection there thats always going to mean something for
Batman and its going to help shape all of his other relationships, too.
At #3, Tim Drake.

Hes the best Robin. Deal with it, haters.

At #4, Commissioner Gordon.

First of all, if you dont think Gordon beating up Flass in Year One is the hypest thing that has ever happened in
comics, then were going to have a hard time even relating to each other as human beings.
Second, I love Jim Gordon, and a lot of that comes from the way that he reinforces ideas about Batman on that same
metaphorical level that Dick and Alfred do. He shows us Batmans necessity, the idea that a good man working
within the system still cant change it without someone working outside of it to help. Theyre two people fighting
the same enemy from different sides, but without Batman, Gordon wouldnt have been around for his half.
And finally, rounding out our top five, Barbara Gordon:

Again, this is another one where Im perfectly fine if shes around as either Batgirl or Oracle, but if Dick represents
the Batmans victory as a person, Barbara represents Batmans victory as an idea. Shes the one who joins up
without a motivating tragedy, without a dark origin, just a sincere desire to help and a realization that she can do it
in a way that doesnt involve following her fathers footsteps into the police. Shes the aspirational one, the one who
reminds us, like Superman, that you just need to take the step of doing something good to be like your heroes.
To be honest, she might actually be my favorite of Batmans sidekicks. Pretty much everything I like about Tim
Drake is something that originates with Barbara, from the emphasis on brains to the wholly altruistic motivation
but the idea of Robin just barely squeaks ahead based on how much of the legacy is tied into Batman. Showing
up in 1940 gave the pixie boots a head start, you know?

Still, Barbaras a phenomenal character, something thats evidenced by her tenure as Oracle, where she was
completely reinvented and still remained vital and engaging and extremely prescient, given how much the
Internet would rise to prominence in the decade after her re-creation.
Thats my top five, the supporting characters that Id consider to be the most absolutely necessary for Batmans
ongoing story, but really, its just the start of things. Catwoman would definitely slide in at #6, and after her, theres
Superman, Leslie Thompkins, Huntress, Lucius Fox, Cassandra Cain, Ace the Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite, Knight and
Squire, Chief OHara, and a dozen more besides.
Whether theyre strictly necessary or not might be up for debate Ill concede that OHara might actually be
the least necessary out of the whole group but I still want them all, making up a rich and vibrant universe that
goes beyond just thematic crime and rocket cars.
Well. Except Harold, I mean. I think were probably all perfectly fine without a weird hunchback that lives in the
Batcave and builds Batmans car. That ones a little too weird, even for me.

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Ask Chris #256: The Inherent Goofiness Of Future Space Teens

by Chris Sims September 4, 2015 1:00 PM

Q: Do you think its possible for the Legion of Super-Heroes to work today, or are the trappings too corny?
@jdkrach
A: My first instinct on this one is to say yes, and not just because the Legion was, for a long time, one of my absolute
favorite comics. The entire superhero genre is, after all, full of corny ideas that have become timeless, right down to
the fact that the entire thing is built around the idea of a very nice man who came from space and fools everyone
into thinking that hes a very nice man from Kansas by wearing a pair of glasses.
But the Legion represents an entirely different question. Its not just the optimism of a bright future and names like
Lightning Lad that can come off as corny, its the entire universe that allowed them to exist in the first place
and for a team thats been rebooted more times than just about anyone else, they sure do seem to have a hard time
keeping up.

That was actually one of the biggest disappointments of DCs New 52 relaunch a few years back, that the Legion
was one of the first books on the chopping block, and that despite coming out of the gate with two ongoing series
which, in retrospect, probably wasnt the best idea for a team whose niche popularity had been steadily waning
over the previous decade.
But thats not really something you can pin on the relaunch. The Legion had been muddled for years, to the point
where there was a time back in 2007 where there were three separate versions of the team running around
various pieces of the DC Universe that had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
When thats the kind of confusion youre dealing with just in the course of regular storytelling, corniness is the
least of your worries.
But it is there, and the thing is, a lot of what makes the Legion great is rooted in it. A huge part of the appeal for
me, at least is tied up in stuff like clubhouses and the Planetary Chance Machine, a bizarre little plot device from
the 50s that selected Legionnaires for missions based not on their particular skills, but by spinning around real
fast and then bouncing a miniature planet off their heads at random.

That things great. I mean, yes, its also goofy as hell, but thats part of the charm of the franchise, and when you
start stripping things like that out, you start to get further away from the heart of what makes them work the
idea that the Legion is made up of kids.
I wrote about this a while back, but the one thing that grabbed me about the Silver Age Legion is that if you really
look at those stories, they actually act like a bunch of children. Its something thats set up right in their first
appearance, where they use a time machine a time machine to go back a thousand years to meet their hero
and play a series of increasingly cruel pranks on him to see if hes cool enough to hang out with.
Seriously. If you havent read it, that is the actual plot of their first appearance.

And from there, it ends up becoming more of the same. They are, at heart, a bunch of kids who formed a club with a
needlessly complicated set of rules that, if anything, seems to be built less for efficiency in galactic crime-fighting
and more for keeping out anyone who isnt already their friend until they finally prove that theyre cool enough to
hang out with. They play tricks on each other, invent complicated lies when its way easier to just tell the truth, and

theres more than one story about the less popular Legionnaires suddenly climbing the social ladder and taking
their revenge on the rest of the club.
In its earliest form, the Legion is basically a high school clique with jetpacks. And thats great.
But it does put an interesting kind of limitation on the franchise. Because the Legion was originally conceived as
something childish and I mean that in the purest sense of the word, not with the negative connotation that it
usually has it can be a tough sell for the more hardcore audience. Which is itself a pretty big problem, because
the hardcore audience is pretty much all the Legion has. I mean, Im sure theres a casual fan of the
Legion somewhere, but most of the people who love the Legion are all-in, with shelves full of pricey archives and
very rigid opinions on things like Baxter paper and the words five years later.
I think thats probably why so many of the attempts at reviving the Legion have involved recasting the team as
adults. Theres precedent for it going back all the way to the Silver Age since they were originally a spin-off of
Superboy, the vague and nebulous time-travel rules of the time meant that whenever they showed up in Superman,
they should also be adults.

Otherwise, I suppose, a grown-ass Clark Kent wouldve been best friends with a bunch of teenagers, and you can
really only get away with that sort of thing if you live in Gotham City.
It really starts to take hold in the 70s and 80s, though, as the characters move into a new era and get those
new Mike Grell designs that include Star Boys lumberjack beard. On one level, Im sure that was a function of
creators like Jim Shooter who legendarily began sending in scripts for LOSH stories when he was 13 because it
was his least-favorite comic growing up and wanting to recast the team into a form that was more relevant to
them personally, but I have to imagine that at least a part of it was meant to appeal to a readership that was
growing up along with them.
That was, after all, an era that was marked by a desire among comics to grow up and tell darker stories, a
reaction to public perception of comics fueled by Batman 66 and the natural evolution of storytelling that, in the
long run, ended up producing a bunch of stuff that was just as immature as what came before.
But, yknow, thats for another time. The point right now is that the Legion was at the leading edge of this idea.
Before New Teen Titans launched to specifically fill that role, Legion was, in a lot of ways, DCs answer to X-Men, full
of long-form storytelling and soap operatic drama and, not incidentally, Dave Cockrum art that replaced the
childish bits of its earlier structure.
And thats not inherently a bad thing. There are plenty of good stories that resulted from that idea. The Great
Darkness Saga is 100% off the chain and one of the best non-Kirby Darkseid stories ever printed, and Eye For An
Eye, the story where the villains decide to get serious about killing the heroes and Karate Kid is literally beaten to
death by a traitor who then gets his neck snapped by Princess Projectra one of the darkest and most violent
rejections of Silver Age optimism ever is also a really great story in its own right.

Its not limited to that era, either The Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes story by Geoff Johns and Gary
Frank is probably Johns best work in superhero comics. Its one thats directly inspired by the darker take that
came about in the 80s, right down to the logo, and like those, it rejects a lot of what might be considered corny in
favor of showing a dystopia built on xenophobia and racism, using a lot of those elements that first cropped up in
the bright, poppy Silver Age stories.
Those are all great takes, and theyre some of my favorite Legion stories, and part of the reason that they all work
as well as they do is because theyre reacting to the brighter stuff thats already in place. But at the same time, I do
think that thematically, theyre missing something. The Legion always works best when theyre teenagers, when
theyre literally and metaphorically representing the future, and when theyre a group thats so inspired by the
stories of larger-than-life heroes that they decide to continue their legacy themselves.
Theres a corniness thats kind of inherent in that. At its most simple, functional level, the existence of the Legion
implies a future built on the idea that the Good Guys Win. Theres a core of optimism there, and as much as it might
make it a little harder to suspend our disbelief part of the price of admission when you sit down to read a
superhero comic the alternative is a whole lot worse. Setting the Legion in a dystopia rather than a bright and
optimistic future the kind of bright, optimistic future that comes with making kids your heroes means that all
the books were reading now are pointless because it just ends up being crappy anyway.
Admittedly, thats a reductive view. If nothing else, the thousand-year gap means that you can build plenty of
caveats into whatever you want to do with the Legion, up to and including bringing in Jack Kirbys Great Disaster
as a part of their Official Future History. But at the very least, showing us that theres always going to be a need for
heroes is close enough to telling us that nothings ever really going to get better, that it becomes a pretty difficult
line to walk.
I think thats why so many reboots of the Legion have taken them back to the idea of being teenagers, returning to
that optimism in various degrees whenever the pendulum swings too far into darkness. And it works, too the
post-Zero Hour Legion, the one with all the updated codenames and those great sandwich-style costumes, has some
of the best elements of the long history of the franchise.
Because they figured out one crucial point, one thats been at the heart of the Legion for decades: The corniness
doesnt always have to be at odds with the darkness. They can actually work together and combine into something
greater.

The Legions strange status a spinoff of an alternate version of a character that was also set a thousand years in
the future means that they werent quite beholden to the same rules as the other Silver Age titles. While new
elements were introduced and referenced more often than youd think, Superman was usually back to status quo at
the end of every story, but the Legion was just distant enough from the rest of the universe that they
were always changing things up.
Mostly it was just the ever-expanding roster of new characters, but you also had a lot of the blueprints of modern
storytelling going on there. Characters joined and left, they died and came back to life, and, in Lightning Lads case,
they lost arms. And folks, there is nothing more Modern DC than a character losing an arm.

But through it all, it was still a book starring children that largely operated on the logic of children, with all the
corniness that implied. The two ideas have never had to be mutually exclusive, they just seem like they are because
of the way those stories have developed over the years.
So, long story short, the answer is yes. The Legions not around now and to be honest, as much as I miss them, I
think it was probably a good move to give them a break but I hope that when they come back, they bring all that
goofiness with them, from clubhouses to super-pets to Science Police.
The Planetary Chance Machine can probably sit this one out, though.

Read More: Ask Chris #256: The Inherent Goofiness Of Future Space Teens | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chrislegion-of-super-heroes/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #255: In Defense Of Snapper Carr

by Chris Sims August 28, 2015 10:00 AM

Q: Why does Jimmy Olsen work so well as Supermans Pal when Snapper Carr doesnt work as the Justice
Leagues? @luckyrevenant
A: I honestly hadnt considered it until I saw this question, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that
youre right. Snapper Carr, the finger-snapping teenage mascot of the Justice League from back when it actually
wasnt that unusual for the Justice League to have things like teenage mascots, really is the direct descendant of
Jimmy Olsen at least from a character standpoint. They fill that same role, the kid who gets to hang out with all
your favorite superheroes so that you too can imagine yourself hanging with Batman and Superman. And yet, while
Jimmy ranks at #3 in my illustrious and immutable list of the greatest comic book characters of all time, Snapper is
one of the most ignored and forgotten characters of the entire Silver Age.
But the thing is, its not because hes a bad character. Snappers actually kind of great. Just, you know, not when he
hangs out with the Justice League.

The reason why Snapper didnt work as the Justice Leagues kid sidekick is so obvious that its pretty much right
there in the question, but you cant really blame the editors at DC for giving it a shot, especially if youre looking at
him in the context of Jimmy Olsen.
Ive referred to Jimmy before as the Harley Quinn of his day, since he was imported from the radio show, but it
might also be a pretty accurate metaphor for his popularity, too. I mean, really, it can never be overstated how
bizarre it was that there was a time in this world where Jimmy Olsen, the third most notable character in
Supermans supporting cast, had his own ongoing series for well over a hundred issues, but that it actually did exist
is a huge testament to how popular he was. They werent exactly handing out solo titles for characters that they
didnt have absolute faith in back in the 50s, especially since the prevailing theory the exact opposite of the one
that were working under today was that readers wouldnt trust a comic without a long history.
That line of thinking would start to fade in the early 60s for obvious reasons, but it held on for a while, and in the
50s, there was a good reason. Since readers had been burned already by the boom and bust of the Golden Age,
when the market was flooded by a whole slew of new titles trying to capitalize on the new superhero genre, the
idea was that a first issue or a new series was a comic that you couldnt really trust, while books like Action
Comics or Batman had a proven track record of a hundred issues.
That made the editors and publishers at DC very apprehensive about launching a new series, and really, they could
afford to be. Anthology titles like Showcase, Adventure Comics, Brave and the Bold, and even Action offered the best
of both worlds, working as titles where publishers could try out new characters like, say, the Justice League of
America - before they actually committed.

But while Jimmys first few solo adventures did appear in Action to test the waters, he got his own title in 1954
with a new #1, and like I said: Thats huge. Robin didnt have his own title. Aquaman didnt have his own title. Lois
wouldnt have hers for another four years. Clearly, somebody out there liked that character enough to make him a
hit.
So when it came time to revive the idea of the super-team and reincarnate the Justice Society as the Justice League,
it makes sense that theyd try to tack on something that would capture the success of Jimmy Olsen, too. Theres
even precedent for it The JSA had their own mascot type characters, in the form of Johnny Thunder, whos
often seen as Snappers counterpart when the two groups hang out with each other.
Of course, there was also Ma Hunkel, the Golden Age Red Tornado, but if were going to be completely real with
each other, shes way more of a superhero than, like, 75% of the JSA. Shes worth at least two Hawkmans and four
or five Golden Age Atoms, bare mins.

Anyway, thats how you get Snapper Carr, short-lived Teen Sidekick to the Justice League of America, and while Ill
admit that I havent read a whole lot of Silver Age JLA in all honesty and with all due respect to Gardner
Fox and Mike Sekowsky, that stuff usually bores me to tears theres a pretty obvious problem with that setup.
The Justice League, or at least that Justice League, isnt really built around having supporting characters hanging
around.
The whole idea, after all, is that theyre DCs most powerful characters (and Aquaman), dealing with threats that
are beyond the ability of just one of them, and when somethings beyond Silver Age Supermans abilities, thats a
pretty serious threat. Which, when you think about it, is why so many of them are massively powerful aliens with
the ability to turn the Justice League into trees.

Well, they cant all turn the JLA into trees, but you know what I mean. Some of them have Gamma Gongs.
Point being, with a story structure like that, where the focus is on superheroic action on the largest possible scale,
you dont really need some kid just hanging around snapping his fingers. As Benito Cereno put it when I mentioned
this to him, even if Gardner Fox had been as good at building characters asOtto Binder, Jimmy Olsens primary
architect, there just isnt a whole lot of room in a Fox story for anything thats not superheroes dividing into teams
and fighting monsters.
So really, its not a problem with Snapper as a character, its his role in the story. You dont really want to see Alfred
or Commissioner Gordon hanging around the Justice League either, you know? I mean, I do, but Ive long since
accepted that this is my own problem to deal with.

The thing is, once hes there, you cant really get rid of him. Hes always going to be the footnote, the asterisk,
because hes actually a member of the Justice League and if theres one thing that DCs really good at telling us, its
that being in the Justice League is kind of a big deal. Hes tied to a very specific part of the history of that universe,
and more than anything about his character, that makes him a big deal.
This, incidentally, is kind of the same problem that you got with Rick Jones over at Marvel. The last thing the Hulk
needs is a guitar-strumming ham radio enthusiast cramping his style, but when hes in there as a bit part of his
origin, you cant ever really get rid of him. With Rick, though, the solution was just to keep on bouncing him around
the universe until something stuck, sending him to sidekick for Captains Marvel and America and eventually and
bizarrely ROM Spaceknight, until the fact that he was just perpetually drifting around the fringes of the universe
became a defining characteristic in its own right.
With Snapper, though, they took a very different path. In the 80s, there was briefly an attempt to revive him with
super-powers and a spacefaring team of heroes that came out of Invasion!
Ive mentioned that book before as being one of DCs best crossovers, ranking right behind DC One Million, but
while it did a whole lot of stuff right coming in at three eighty-page giant issues rather than a longer maxi-series,
giving a stage for some of the best crossover tie-ins ever, using existing features of the DC Universe to add
something big, adaptable and interesting in the form of the Metagene the bold new direction for Snapper Carr
was not one of them.
I suspect that might have had something to do with tethering his new super-power of teleportation to his existing
gimmick of snapping his fingers.
But heres the thing: Unlike Jimmy Olsen, who never quite got another shot at being great once the DC Universe
made its big change in 87 and the Superman franchise moved away from the kind of storytelling that allowed him
to have a pal who was prone to hijinx, Snappers status as a perpetual third-stringer who never quite worked out is
actually the thing that ended up making him a really great character.

It happened in the pages of Tom Peyer and Rags Moraless Hourman, which, at 25 issues, would seem woefully
short-lived if it didnt also feel like it was the perfect length for that series. Thats where Snapper Carr really made
his return. Its as much his book as Hourmans, really, and #16, where Peyer and Morales re-tell the story of
Snapper accidentally betraying the Justice League to the Joker, is one of the single best updates of a Silver Age story
ever printed.
But aside from Snappers amazing collection of t-shirts they were all based on slightly obscure superhero logos
what really made him work as a character was that he was built around the idea of legacy. Time and time again

Ive written about how that was the driving force of the post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint DC universe, but its true, and it
made perfect sense for Snapper to embody that idea. Its that same thing that you get from our discussion of issue
numbers earlier theyd established that these were heroes who had been around for a while and had been a very
important force in the world, and part of that meant that acknowledging that there were things that changed over
the years.
And thats what makes the more modern version of Snapper so appealing. Wally West might be legacy incarnate,
but in Hourman, Snapper finally became the character readers could identify with that he was originally intended
to be. He was a fan at heart, someone who had loved superheroes with a passion back when he was a kid, but who
lost that personal connection somewhere along the way and had resigned himself to the fact that while he was still
going to keep up with them, things were never going to be as good as he remembered until he found that
connection with a superhero that nobody else was reading about.
Or maybe thats just taking the metaphor a little too far.
Either way, it was an amazing rehabilitation of the character, one that played as an update that made sense without
dismissing anything that had been there to like about him in the first place. So while Snapper Carr might not have
worked as a sidekick for the Justice League, he eventually worked becauseof that in a way that very few other
characters wouldve had the history to pull off.
Read More: Ask Chris #255: In Defense Of Snapper Carr | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-255-snappercarr/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #254: Whats So Great About The Silver Age?

by Chris Sims August 21, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: Why was the Silver Age awesome? @sackobooks

A: Never before in the history of this column has there been such a complicated, open-ended question that could be
answered with a picture of Superman with a lion head. I mean, lets be honest with each other here: That pretty
much covers it, and if you can look at Superman, cursed with the head of the most noble of beasts, lamenting about
how his girlfriend must forever be condemned to date a lion-man now, and not think that its at least a little bit
awesome, then theres not a whole lot Im going to be able to tell you to change your mind.
But that doesnt mean that Im not going to try, and while the lion head is a pretty big part of it, I think a lot of it
comes down to the simple idea of seeing how creative people were able to work within some of the tightest and
weirdest sets of storytelling rules of all time.

So, first things first: When we talk about The Silver Age, were not actually talking about all comics printed
between October of 1956 and October of 1970. Not really, anyway. Its certainly the catch-all term for that
particular time, and a very useful way of distinguishing one era of comics from another, but in terms of that
aesthetic that always comes to mind when we hear those words, the strange adventures, the colorful bank-robbing
villains, the limitless possibilities of imagination, and the very real limits imposed by the Comics Code, were really
only talking about one thing: DC superhero comics.
And if you want to get really specific about it, were talking about Superman.
Thats not to say that there werent other comics being published in those years that are worth talking about
there were, you know, a lot of em that ended up being kind of a big deal after 1961, in fact. But even then, theres a
huge difference, and you just have to look at them next to each other to see how deep that difference runs.
Grab an issue of Amazing Spider-Man or Fantastic Four from, say 1965, and read it back-to-back with the same
months issue of Action Comics or Batman, and they barely even feel like theyre from the same genre, let alone the
same year. Thats not a judgment on quality, either I think Im pretty firmly on record as being someone who
will very happily read the heck out of some Silver Age Superman comics but its about how they were built.
The Marvel books from the 60s are dated, sure, but they feel like theyre the prototypes of modern comics: Fullissue stories that tell a continuing narrative where things evolve and change over time, or at least give the illusion
of it. The DC books, on the other hand, are shorter stories, eight- and eleven-pagers built around clever hooks
rather than soap-operatic drama, where everything comes back to the starting point by the end and you still have
room for Caps Hobby Hints and a PSA about the magic of library cards.

Just to throw another contrast in there, and I promise that this is all going to come together in a few minutes, lets
look at Golden Age comics. Ive written before about how the single best thing about reading comics from the early

40s is that you can see people who have no idea what theyre doing trying to figure out what the rules are in an
entirely new medium and, more often than not, failing in pretty spectacularly interesting ways. Its how you end up
with stuff like superhero stories that involve kids having their eyes pried out with crowbars that seem completely
bonkers in retrospect, because creators are fumbling their way towards genre conventions that didnt exist yet
and, not coincidentally, how you got one of the greatest characters of all time out of a story that was just straight up
ripping off the pre-existing popularity of The Shadow.
Over time, those genre conventions would evolve, and because he was the character who kicked off the entire
thing, most of them would form around Superman in one way or another, whether they were taking cues or
reacting to them. But at the same time as you had that set of rules evolving naturally from creators figuring out
what worked (and editors figuring out what sold), you also had another set of rules that were coming in from
outside the stories: The Comics Code.
Its always worth noting that the Comics Code was never actually meant to do the thing that it said it was doing.
Even though it was the product of a moral panic about how comics were poisoning childrens minds with their
lurid violence, the Code was nothing more than a marketing tactic with two primary functions. First, it allowed
publishers to bypass (or at least assuage) parental concern by presenting them with an official stamp promising
wholesome entertainment free of eye trauma, and second and probably more importantly it put EC and their
extremely popular horror comics out of business.
The thing is, the Code stayed around long after EC was gone, and those rules helped to shape the Silver Age in the
same way that the natural evolution of the characters did. Which, at last, brings us back to Superman.

As the 40s became the 50s, creators like Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Otto Binder, Curt Swan and Wayne Boring, had
pretty much figured out what Supermans deal was, just as Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff, Dick Sprang and others
had figured out Batman. Theyd realized very quickly that the hook of their character was that he was the most
powerful person alive, and as the boom of the Golden Age had continued and everyone had tried to top each other,

Supermans powers expanded far beyond the scope of that original building-leaping, shell-bursting power set, even
though that had been built around the same idea.
But at the same time, Supermans popularity with children and the reaction to the wildly popular Captain
Marvel, and the fact that the Comics Code pretty much determined that all superheroes were only for children
meant that they quickly found themselves being only able to tell one kind of story, and while I honestly doubt that
we were ever in danger of a Superman comic that glorified eye trauma, that was still a limitation on the kinds of
stuff he had to deal with.
So what did that leave us? You have a character who is portrayed as the most powerful person in the universe and
a champion of the common man, but who cant really battle against any actual crime thats more severe than, say,
bank robbery. Oh, and he has to be a steadfast moral authority at all times. Oh, and these stories have to be kept
simple enough for an audience of children to follow along, but also have to have a tight enough continuity and
internal logic to hold up under scrutiny, because it turns out that children love nothing more than obsessing over
the details and writing snotty letters about mistakes. And, since readers wouldnt be satisfied with just one story,
you have to figure out how to do it in five or six stories every month.
Thats a weird set of rules, and its honestly pretty difficult to imagine having to write stories that would meet those
criteria, if only because of how hard it would be to cram all that stuff into an eight-page story with the assumption
that a good chunk of the audience might be reading about this character for the first time. But those were the rules,
and they shaped those stories.
And somehow, those stories turned out amazing.

Thats the thing about the Silver Age: Even though theres a very rigid, very definite set of rules a set of rules that
you can often see the creators struggling against and doing their damnedest to work around those were
the only rules. Reading those stories, it seems like everything that wasnt expressly forbidden was fair game, a
philosophy that you may recognize as the Air Bud Principle.
Because of that, those stories are this amazing, bizarre blend of completely formulaic and completely
unpredictable. You may know exactly how theyre going to end bad guys defeated, faith in morality rewarded,
everything pretty much back to the way that it was when we started but you never, ever know how theyre going
to get there.
Admittedly, its not perfect. There are a lot of stories that feel like cheats and cop-outs, and if you sit down with a
handful of Silver Age Superman comics, I can guarantee that youre going to get tired of seeing the words Red
Kryptonite every time something gets a little too weird to fix any other way. And on top of that, you also run into
stories where literally every tiny detail of a character is explained

but to be honest, those are usually weird enough that it ends up working.
That, more than anything else, is what defines the Silver Age for me, and what makes those stories so fun: That
conflict between the limits of the rules and the endless imagination that was used to get around them.
Which mostly just means that sometimes, Superman had a lion head.

Read More: Ask Chris #254: What's So Great About The Silver Age? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-254silver-age/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #253: Access the Amalgam Age Of Comics

by Chris Sims August 14, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: I found Bruce Wayne: Agent of SHIELD in a box of 50-cent comics. Great idea or terrible one? Fun new
direction or misread of the character? @Keith_Frady
A: Oh, that one was a great idea, but not for the reasons you might think. See, Keith, what you have stumbled across
is neither a misread of the character nor is it a bold new direction. Youve just found yourself a piece of the
Amalgam Age of Comics.
Originally published in 1996 and 1997, the Amalgam books were quite possibly the strangest mainstream
superhero project that ever happened: A not-quite-series of 24 comics that mashed up Marvel and DC characters
into weirdly amalgamated versions that were actually produced by Marvel and DC, and that frequently made
absolutely no sense at all. And, as you might expect from the fact that this all happened when I was 14, I loved it.

The whole thing came as a strange byproduct of DC vs. Marvel, a series that itself is probably worth discussing as
the exclamation point on an entire era of comics. Its one of those moments where it feels like you can put the pin
on the calendar in the same way that I feel like you can definitively mark the end of the Silver Age with late 1970
and Jack Kirbys arrival at DC, I kind of feel like DC vs. Marvel was the book that ended the 90s.
Not the decade, you understand there were obviously four more years to get through before that would happen
but for the idea of the 90s, that aesthetic that always comes to mind when we hear those words. If the early
part of the decade was marked by those million-selling books and the rise of the annual Events that were geared at
spiking sales, then the last half of it feels like something completely different. The launch of books like JLA, and
Marvels successful gamble at dragging itself out of bankruptcy, dont really feel like they belong alongside stuff
like Extreme Justice and the launch of Image, you know? And for me, DC vs. Marvel feels like a pretty good place to
mark the turning point.
What it all comes down to is that in an era that was defined by the Event, from The Death of Superman to Mutant
Genesis to Knightfall, DC vs. Marvel was probably the biggest Event that could possibly happen, at least in concept.
Its a similar idea to the one that I always talk about with Crisis On Infinite Earths: for all its flaws, it actually did
what it said on the cover and changed everything forever.

DC vs. Marvel did the same thing. OK, it didnt change things forever it didnt change anything, other than to add
a few new sentences to the Superman vs. Hulk argument that had been going on for thirty years but it delivered
on a promise. It wasnt just two characters or even two teams meeting each other, it was an all-out brawl between
two entire universes, and they let the fans pick the winners! Thats huge!
Im also pretty sure that was a mistake the voting part, anyway. I mean, its generally a pretty bad idea to let us
decide anything, even if it did give someone, somewhere, the flickering hope that Lobo could win a popularity
contest against Wolverine. Its probably just best to let Kurt Busiek decide these things, which I suspect is why
nobody really talks about DC vs. Marvel anymore and we all just agree that JLA/Avengers is the best possible
version of that story.
Anyway, somewhere along the line, someone figured out that while the big fights between the characters were
definitely the thing that was going to bring in readers, the unique opportunity provided by mashing up the two
universes in the way that you have to do to get those fights actually provided you with a completely different
opportunity: Taking that idea to the next level by mashing up everything.
Which is what they did.

The basic idea of Amalgam Comics so named because presumably Combined Comics was a little too on the
nose was that theyd take a Marvel character and a DC character (or a team) and mash them up into one. Iron
Man and Green Lantern, for instance, became Iron Lantern.
Most of them followed that simple convention of just mashing up the names, too my personal favorite was
Shatterstarfire but occasionally, youd get a book where theyd try to mash up the concepts and give them a new
name, like Storm and Wonder Woman combining to form Amazon, and the truly inexplicable Wonder
Woman/Punisher book, Bullets and Bracelets. Also, its worth noting that while most of them were a simple A + B
mashup, youd also get one like Speed Demon, which combined the Flash, Ghost Rider and the Demon, or Dr.
Strangefate, who was secretly Charles Xavier for reasons I still do not understand. Anyway.
Its a simple idea, but its one that definitely grabbed my attention, even though I wasnt all that interested in DC vs.
Marvel itself. These, however, twisted things into something that made me want to check them out, and what really
made it work was how they were presented.
All the books were #1 issues (because why wouldnt they be), but they were created under the premise that these
were just relaunches of titles that already existed, right down to having letter columns full of missives from fake
fans talking about their favorite Spider-Boy stories from the past. As a result, instead of getting the origin of Iron
Lantern or Thorion of the New Asgods, youre just getting that months issue. Theyre presented as though you
already know who these characters are, and theyve even got cliffhanger endings to get you excited for the next
issue which, of course, does not exist.
Unsurprisingly, Batman was popular enough to be featured in more than one title, despite the fact that doing more
than one mashup of a single character doesnt make a whole lot of sense. The one you found, Chuck Dixon and Cary
Nords Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., was a pretty simple What If-style story about Bruce Wayne being
recruited by the government and fighting a mashup of Bane and Nuke, but the other, Legends of the Dark Claw, was
next level bonkers.
Its been a while since I read it, but the one thing I really remember from Larry Hama and Jim Balents take on what
Wolverine would be like if he was Batman aside from Sparrow, the super-rad Jubilee/Robin mashup that I will
defend to this day was that in his secret identity, Logan was an artist who made a ton of money selling paintings
that looked like his claws. That is fantastic, to the point where Ive never been able to decide if its the best thing
about Amalgam or the worst, but either way, the character was popular enough (again, no surprise there) to get a
follow-up the following year in the form of Ty Templetons Dark Claw Adventures, an animated style take on the
character that I remember liking a lot.
While Dark Claws paintings of dark claws are both hilarious and a personal favorite, the best entry in the series is
almost certainly Dave Gibbons and Mark Waids Super Soldier.

Everything about the character just clicks into place perfectly, and its got a twist to the plot that plays with familiar
elements in a way that makes you really want to see the consequences for the characters, which might be the best
thing you can say about a comic that was only ever meant to have one issue. They even sidestep dealing with it a
year later by making the follow-up, Super Soldier: Man of War, a flashback book set in the Golden Age. Its well
worth tracking down.
And unfortunately, tracking down is exactly what youll have to do. Four paperbacks two each for the 96 and
97 runs of the Amalgam books were put out in the 90s, but other than that, theres not much there. Since the
characters are all jointly owned by Marvel and DC, and since the competitive relationship between the two
companies likely means that nobody wants to sit down and hassle with the legal stuff, getting a new version or a
digital release doesnt seem very likely. Even so, its not a tough run to put together if youre curious.
But maybe thats for the best. The thing that made me so obsessed with the Amalgam books back then was this idea
that they were things that definitely should not exist, right down to frequently having names that no one would
ever give to a character if the simpler (and pre-existing) options werent already taken. Having the entire series
wind up in dollar boxes as something that you can only find by stumbling across it and trying to get your head
around why they exist actually seems pretty perfect.

Read More: Ask Chris: Access the Amalgam Age Of Comics | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-amalgammarvel-dc/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #252: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Jason Todd?
by Chris Sims August 7, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: Does Jason Todd/Red Hood belong in the Batman family? Should he be wearing a Bat symbol on his
chest? @Doubting_Tom
A: I doubt its going to surprise anyone reading this to find out that I have some pretty complicated feelings about
pretty much everyone who has ever been called Robin, and Jason Todds no exception. Really, though, theres a
pretty simple answer to this one: No, I dont think he should be part of the Batman family the active Batman
family, anyway because Jason Todd oughtta be dead. If nothing else, we didnt collectively dial those 1-900
numbers ten thousand times to make that happen just for some retcon to come along twenty years later and bilk us
out of fifty cents a call.
If, however, Jason Todd has to be alive, and its become pretty clear over the past decade that somebody definitely
thinks he does, well thats where things start to get complicated.

For me, Jason has always been one of those characters whos way more interesting dead than he was when he was
alive, although I think a lot of that has to do with being a kid who was getting into Batman right before Death in the
Family. Even though Ive certainly gone back and read those comics in the years since, I grew up with a Batman
and a Joker who were at least partially defined by Jasons death.
And really, if you do go back and read those stories, its pretty easy to see that theyre telegraphing Jasons death
from a mile away and not just because Dark Knight Returns had mentioned Something Bad happening to Jason,
leaving everyone in the late 80s in a rush to see who could make their comics line up with that story first. It was
set up as the only end for that story long before it actually happened, and even the ad for the call-in number that
ran back in Batman #427 doesnt say, you have the choice to save Jason Todds life, it says, ROBIN WILL DIE
BECAUSE THE JOKER WANTS REVENGE. Oh, and also, you can try to prevent it, I guess.

Its not exactly something they were subtle about.

Ive written about this pretty extensively before because it was one of my first comics, and the first that really made
an impression on me, but Jasons fate is sealed as early as Batman #424, when he kicks a guy off a building to his
death. The scene is portrayed as ambiguous, but only in the barest, most academic sense you dont know that
Jason kicked him off a balcony, but, well, thats definitely what happened.
Admittedly, the guy that he kills in the story is a complete scumbag who committed a truly reprehensible crime and
is going to skate on it because he has diplomatic immunity, because this is one of those comics where a guy who
dresses up as Dracula and drives around in his rocket car fighting bank robbers decides that he has to obey the
strict letter of the law, but still. Being Robin and committing premeditated murder arent exactly character
traits that go well together.

One way or the other, that was the beginning of the end of Jasons tenure as Robin, and the beginning of the idea
that Jason was someone that Batman couldnt save, if only from himself. Its the idea that the same kind of anger
that drove Bruce Wayne to become Batman isnt always something that can be channeled into a positive effect; that
theres a difference between the revenge that Jason wanted and the justice that Batmans looking for.
Its the counterpoint to what you see with Dick Grayson, who goes through the same tragedy that Bruce does and
emerges as a better, happier person because he didnt have to go through it alone. The difference, though, is that
Batmans there on Day One of Dicks tragedy to guide him through it. With Jason the anger and pain have time to
fester, going deeper into the core of who he is.
And its not focused, either. Bruce and Dick both have those single, brutal, violent moments of tragedy, and they
both know that theres someone responsible for it who can be brought to justice. In Jasons first appearance you
know, the one where hes ripping the hubcaps off the Batmobile? we find out that he watched his mother slowly

die of disease and an overdose. Thats a different kind of tragedy, and one that doesnt condense that hatred into a
focal point. Instead of being mad at criminals, or even the concept of Crime, Jason Todds just mad.
Which probably came as a surprise to everyone who was reading Detective Comics at the time.
See, while Jim Starlin, Doc Bright and Jim Aparo were over in Batman working on the sullen, moody, unstable Jason
Todd that everyone remembers, Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis were doing stories with what seemed like a
completely different character over in Detective. They even called him Jay instead of Jason in that book, and Jay
was all big smiles and bad puns, written and drawn to seem a whole lot happier and a whole lot younger than
Jason.
Which makes sense, really. Barrs year-long run with Davis, Jim Baike, Norm Breyfogle and Todd McFarlane was
designed to be a bit of a throwback. It was a run that combined Silver Age hooks with distinctly modern
storytelling, and the chummy relationship between Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder was a pretty big part of that.
Even there, though, they set up Jasons death well in advance of the actual event. In Fear For Sale, one of the
single greatest Batman comics ever published, the Scarecrow makes Batman sloppy and overconfident by
removing his fear of failure, leaving Batman to conquer it by imagining the one thing that scares him most of all:

Intentional or not, if thats not the biggest bit of foreshadowing in comics history, then I dont know what is.
All of which is to say that when Jason actually does die, it feels like a pretty natural consequence of whats
happening in the books at the time, and so does the aftermath. Its one of those moments that marks the transition

from one era to the next, a bloody crowbar serving as the exclamation point for a Joker that, after being steadily
pushed into darker and scarier territory since the 70s, couldnt really go back to just robbing banks anymore.
Im of the opinion that Batman doesnt need to be relentlessly and cynically dark, but there is a level of give and
take that I think the mythology needs to have in order to keep going. Jasons death represents a pretty big
balancing of the scales for two of my favorite ideas of Batman, the aspects of his character that I always find most
appealing: The idea of family and the idea of what Crime is in his world.
As a child, Bruce Wayne loses his family, so as an adult, we see him building a new family around himself. Alfred,
Jim Gordon, Robin, Batgirl, Leslie Thompkins, even Superman, they all form that support network around him. And,
as Ive said so, so many times before, the great thing about Batman is that as a child, he decides to end crime, and as
an adult, he does it. Crime has to evolve to keep up with him, to become something else, something that produces
people like the Joker, and so for those scales to be balanced, those two ideas have to come into contact. If Crime can
become something that requires Batman to battle against it, then it needs to be capable of affecting him in that
same way.
Its something that keeps Batman vulnerable and human, and, as an added bonus, it sets the stage for Actual Best
Robin Tim Drake. But, you know, its still comics, which means that death is only a matter of time.
Sidenote, but thats actually one of the things that I really liked about the stuff that happened in the immediate
aftermath of Damian Waynes death, with Batman going to Lazarus Pits and trying to figure out how Frankenstein
works, because this time, he didnt want to give up on bringing his son back. Its what a smart person who lives in
his world would do, and it was pretty interesting.
With Jason, though, I actually do like the way that he comes back. Co-opting the Red Hood identity is a really neat
way for him to give a big eff-you to the Joker and to Batman at the same time, and the idea that hes so frustrated
and angry with Batman and his methods that hes going to try to kill criminals with guns, no less, the ultimate
rejection of Batmans philosophy is really interesting, too. It plays into the narrative that was set up going
into Death in the Family, that Jason never understood why Batman doesnt kill and was never going to devote his
life to following that goal. I might not have liked the answer that Judd Winick and Eric Battle had Batman give, but
I do like that Jason is asking the question.
The thing is, once that happens and once the Red Hood tries to kill Dick and Damian with a call-in poll in one of
the more hilarious moments of Grant Morrisons tenure on the Batman titles I feel like theres not really much
you can do with him. Hes certainly a villain at that point, but his history and the knowledge that he has mean that
you cant treat him like the others. Jason Todd cant go to Arkham Asylum, but Batman cant let someone
that he trained, and that he thought of as a son, run around shooting people with guns, either. As long as hes out
there, he pretty much has to be Batmans #1 priority.
From a character standpoint, that puts him in a weird position of not being able to go away and come back without
doing some pretty huge storytelling gymnastics to get around it. And if he does come back, then the impact of the
debate between the characters about their opposing philosophies is already gone. We know how they both feel
about it, but theres not really a satisfying ending there.
Morrison and Burnham tried to get their way around this in Batman Incorporated, where, in true prodigal son
fashion, Jason is welcomed back into the fold:

On paper, I really should like this, since it turns Batmans greatest defeat into his greatest victory and plays into the
same idea that I love so much about Arkham, that in his heart, Batman wants people to be better, and wants to help
them get there. But in practice, it rings a little hollow. The philosophical differences are too big to be waved away
so easily, and the characters have never been able to hash it out in a way thats satisfying.
In the meantime, Jason Todd as the Red Hood is a successful enough idea that its persisted and become a big part
of his character, and, because this is comics and things need to be readily identifiable from simple visuals, hes
doing it with a big red bat on his chest, and it doesnt seem quite right.
But maybe I just need another 20 years to get used to it.

Read More: Ask Chris #252: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Jason Todd? | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-252-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-jason-todd/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #251: President Lex

by Chris Sims July 31, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: Can you explain how Lex Luthor was elected President? Donald Trump might need some pointers.
@ASaltzberg
A: President Lex! Now theres a story that I havent thought about in a while and just for context, Im someone
who thinks about Harold, the hunchbacked mechanic that Batman used to keep in his basement to fix up the
Batmobile, at least once a week. Looking back, it seems like a very weird story, an ultimately forgettable new
direction for a villain that never really went anywhere, but at the time, it definitely felt like it was a big deal.
Part of that, Im sure, is because I was still a teenager caught up in the fun of reading a Superman title every week
in what was, for better or worse, a pretty notable time in the characters history, but theres a little more to it than
that, too. The more I think about it, the more Im convinced that President Lex was probably the best idea to hit the
Superman books for at least five years in either direction.

The thing that really makes President Lex work is context and not just the context of 2000 being one of the most
heated election years in recent memory, although the fact that the story managed to hit in the middle of a tooclose-to-call presidential race was probably one of the most fortunate bits of timing DCs ever lucked into. Its about
the context of what was going on in the books at the time, and what had been going on in them over the previous
15 years.
More than any other character, the post-Crisis Superman was defined by capital-E Events. You could really say that
about a lot of characters in the 90s Batman certainly bounced around in his share from Knightfall to No Mans
Land, and at Marvel, characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men seemed to be in a perpetual state of crossovers for
the entire decade but with Superman, it was the defining characteristic of the entire franchise, where the stream
of big events was so constant that they became routine.

It wasnt that there were only stories geared around the Events. In all honesty, this might just be me looking back
on teenage years where I read a whole lot of Wizard magazines, but the Superman titles of the 90s seemed like they
were entirely built around getting to the next world-shaking event. And it makes sense, too.
The post-Crisis Superman does, after all, descend directly from, well, Crisis. Its the biggest event in DC history in
superhero history across the board, really and while there would eventually be new origins and new characters
across the entire universe, the biggest change that came directly out of that book was to Superman himself. Just
look at the comics: In January of 1987, you could head to the newsstand and buy Superman #1, and thats
something people hadnt been able to do since 1940.

Maybe its because he was born out of that huge event, or maybe its just that the creators behind the books were
attempting to recapture the feel of the Silver Age, where every issue of Superman and Action Comics were bizarre
events unto themselves, but it eventually became the pattern that the book would fall into for the entire decade.
Thats not to say that the people who were actually working on those books werent doing their best to try to build
up Superman as a character and the world around him. Roger Stern, for example, worked on a lot of the stuff in
that era, and he might be the most underrated writer in superhero comics, and say what you will about Dan
Jurgens, but he was the primary architect of one of the decades best-selling DC stories.
Both of those creators did a pretty solid job of making everything work together with what had been set down in
the reboot, and when you get to the second-tier Superman Family creators like Louise Simonson, John
Bogdanove, Karl Kesel, and Tom Grummett, theres a whole lot of really strong stuff there. But still, it often feels
like its orbiting the next big event rather than being allowed to build organically.
Its an approach that was really cemented in 1994 with The Death of Superman, which was released to truly
massive commercial success, but even before that, the idea was there, going all the way back to John Byrne and the
Supergirl Saga, and the bearded exile into space. And after? Youve got the wedding, the Fall of Metropolis, the
Death of Clark Kent, the electric blue era, the Millennium Giants and thats on top of the books that tied into the
regular line-wide events that DC was putting out, like Final Night and DC One MIllion.
Even the run that would eventually bring us President Lex was treated as an event unto itself, a soft relaunch of all
four monthly titles in 1999 with all-new creative teams that was meant to mark the start of a new era. And
within that, there were even more events, from Y2K to Emperor Joker, all the way through to Lex 2000. The
Superman books just could not get away from those titanic, world-shaking stories.
And when you get right down to it, thats kind of the way it should be, right? I mean, hes Superman, the worlds
most powerful superhero. If the stories about him arent Events, then why even bother?
The problem is, when everythings an Event, well, nothing is, and as much as this might run contrary to how
superhero comics work, its kind of hard to top a story where a guy literally dies, especially if you spend the next
year on his funeral and four other dudes fighting each other to find out who the real successor is. Everything begins
to feel routine, which leads you to start looking at ways to really change things up and do something different
and to their credit, the teams on the Superman books in that era were very good at trying to tap into the zeitgeist to
make that happen.
Its how you get something like Y2K, where the idea that we were going into a new millennium that felt like the
future meant that Metropolis itself gets a futuristic upgrade to become a literal City Of Tomorrow, full of weird artdeco future tech and flying cars.
And its where you get President Lex.

In a lot of ways, its a story that makes perfect sense. I wrote about this not too long ago, but for Luthor, the 86
reboot was all about recontextualizing him to give him all the kinds of power that Superman didnt have.
Supermans a kind-hearted farmboy from a town so small that its name is Smallville, Luthors the ruthless
businessman from a city so overwhelming that its name is Metropolis. Superman has all the physical strength in
the world, but Luthor has an entirely different kind of strength, the kind that comes from money and a lack of any
conscience to keep you from using it to control everything around you.
But theres another aspect of that reboot, too, which is that Superman had been significantly depowered under
Byrne the indestructible costume was gone, for one thing, and this was a Superman who could get cuts and
bruises and bleed, which is how he got punched to death by a bone monster in the first place.

The thing is, the years following that had been marked by the pendulum swinging back in the other direction, with
Superman getting steadily more powerful on the page, something thats bound to happen when you, you
know, come back from the dead. It might seem like a silly distinction, and it is when you consider that fictional
protagonists all have the same super-power of Winning At The End, but there are a lot of stories from that era that
are all about Superman finally cutting loose and not holding back anymore! That one where he punches Darkseid
in the face so hard that Darkseid gets two black eyes that swell shut so he cant shoot out Omega Beams anymore is
probably the most egregious example, but its certainly not the only one.
Clearly, the people in charge wanted a more powerful Superman, and if youre going to have a more powerful
Superman, then you naturally need a more powerful Lex. And if Lex is already as powerful as you can be in the
private sector, then its time to join up with the government.

It even makes sense from an in-universe standpoint, because while we as readers know that Lex Luthor is a bad
guy who used to fly around in a green and purple battlesuit shooting Kryptonite rays, the people in the DC Universe
just think hes another rich guy. Thats one of the key elements of the reboot; that Lex had the appearance of
propriety, and that the crimes he so obviously committed in his campaign against Superman could never be made
to stick. So why not take advantage of that by having him do something that the previous universes Master
Criminal Lex could never do?
Unfortunately, theres a whole lot of ways where it doesnt make any damn sense, too, and chief among them is that
in order to make it work, you have to make Superman look like a gigantic idiot.

In order for the story to really work, Lex actually has to win the presidency. Thats the hook; that the most powerful
person on the planets greatest enemy is the Leader of the Free World, and to be honest, its got a lot of punch as a
surprise ending. Reading those books at the time, I certainly didnt expect Luthor to actually take power, but there
it is.
The problem, though, is that for that to happen, Superman has to not stop it from happening.
The storytelling gymnastics they do to accomplish this are mostly built around the idea of Superman Respecting
The American Public and Believing People Will Do The Right Thing, and while thats a decent idea in theory, there
are a couple of holes in that plot big enough to sail a battleship through. The idea comes up in a story published
after the election a Christmas issue, actually where Superman goes and talks to the rest of the Justice League
about what he should do about President Lex:

On the one hand, the idea that one political candidate is just the same as another and that were all deluding
ourselves into thinking things can change is a pretty common idea among the disaffected electorate, especially
coming out of the 90s. On the other hand, Lex Luthor is an actual supervillain. This story came out like two years
after Rock of Ages, a story where Lex reforms the Injustice Gang and uses an invisible skull-shaped space station
to murder hundreds of people with hard-light holograms. Admittedly, all those people were later wished back to
life by the Joker (long story), but still. You were there for that, Kyle, even if you were trapped in an alternate future
for most of it! Crook is kind of underselling things a little.
Even adjusting for superhero comics, where President Darkseid is a pretty legit possibility, saying that the next guy
might be just as bad as Lex Luthor is stretching things quite a bit. No matter what side of the political spectrum
youre on, I think we can all come together and agree that most if not all of our previous presidents have never built
invisible skull-shaped death satellites as part of an effort to kill Superman.
Not that they wouldnt, you understand. Just that they havent.
So while its certainly in character for Superman to believe the best in us, The American People can only really
make the right choice if they know what the right choice is. Its why we have things like debates, so you can see
what the candidates think about things. And, you know, if theres a skull-shaped death satellite where the Joker and
Mirror Master tried to do a bunch of murders, that should probably come up. And you know whos supposed to tell
us about that stuff? Reporters.
It is literally Supermans day job to let us know stuff like this.
But he doesnt, because from a storytelling standpoint, he cant. If Superman, the omnipotent but friendly space
alien who saves the world at least four times a month (five if theres an extra Wednesday), comes on TV and says
Hey, Lex Luthor is a straight up supervillain who once blew up Metropolis and then blamed it on a clone, yall
should probably not put him in charge of America, then logic dictates that people are probably going to listen.
Even if it wont hold up in court, whats Lex gonna do if Superman foils his plans? Devote the rest of his life to
trying to kill him with increasingly complicated schemes?
Instead, his reluctance to sway public opinion is couched as one of those Must There Be a Superman? moments
where he tries not to let his presence determine the course of human development, which is really the only thing
you can do if you want to tell that story.
But it doesnt ring true, because instead of it showing Superman letting us Find Our Own Way, it comes off as
Superman hiding the truth from people who really deserve to know it. Its the superheroic equivalent of letting
someone walk out into traffic because they didnt see a car was coming. Except that in this case, the car is a
sneering billionaire with a warehouse full of battle suits that run on radioactive space rocks.

See? Kyles right there.

Anyway, with all that said, I still maintain that its a good idea at heart, and supervillains are elastic enough as
characters that you couldve forgiven a lot of what they did to get him in office if theyd actually done something
while he was there. In the end, though, it was kind of a whole bunch of nothing.
Part of that comes from the same endless grinding of the Event gears that got him in there in the first place: Luthor
had barely been sworn in when Return to Krypton happened, and once we were through that, it was time for Our
Worlds At War, a line-wide crossover that might actually be DCs least remembered event. And it was that story,
only about a year later, that provided the seeds for Luthor to eventually be impeached, although it wouldnt
actually happen until the first arc of Superman/Batman saw Luthor return to the green-and-purple battlesuit and
supervillain his way right out of the White House.
Incidentally, if you go look at Wikipedia, the official reason for Luthor being impeached is listed as abuse of the
super-steroid Venom, which, while not quite as illegal as attempted murder via skull-shaped space station, is still a
pretty hilarious thing to imagine happening to the President of the United States.
In the end, the problem with President Lex wasnt that it happened, but that there wasnt a whole lot done with it.
Lex Luthor, Boss of America, should have been a huge line-wide deal, but the only thing we really got out of it was
a very good two-part crossover between Loeb and McGuinnesss Superman and Rucka and Turnbulls Detective
Comics about Lois and Batman teaming up to steal Luthors Kryptonite ring from the White House. Thats pretty
much it. Despite Lexs promise to make the entire Justice Leagues lives hell, the only thing he really accomplished
was framing Bruce Wayne for murder.
And really, that mightve been a matter of timing. As lucky as DC was to get the election story going in a race
marked by an even split between candidates and an electorate that seemed prime for an alternative (even one as
shady as Luthor), there were, for obvious reasons, very few people who were really into reading stories about
superheroes fighting the American government by the end of 2001.
Still, I honestly think its a pretty good idea, and one that might have actually been a few years ahead of its time.

Read More: Ask Chris #251: President Lex | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-251-presidentlex/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #250: Misinformation About Batman

by Chris Sims July 24, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: As a Batmanologist, what misinformation about Batman do you wish you could set everyone straight
on? @daveexmachina
A: Let me answer that question with a question of my own, friend: How much time do you have?
If theres one thing that ought to be apparent after 250 of these columns, its that I have some very clearly defined
ideas of how Batman works. At the end of the day, though, as firm as those opinions might be, were still talking
about a character whos appeared in thousands of stories by hundreds of creators, filtered through everything from
editors who demanded more gorillas on the covers to the restrictions of the Comics Code to fan reaction to TV
writers poking fun at the Very Serious Idea of superheroes, and then fans-turned-creators who are reacting to all of
that and picking out the pieces that they want to highlight, so theres a lot thats up for debate. Except, you know,
for the stuff thats not.

Take, for example, the old argument about whether Batman should kill his enemies, and how important that idea is
to the core of his character. I definitely know which side of that one I fall on, and its something that I feel pretty
definitive about, but even I have to admit that it really is an argument.
Theres textual support for both sides of it across all media, and as much as Id put it as one of the most important
things about the character, something thats existed as part of how he works since 1940 and ties into a whole lot of
different aspects of why he works so well, there are plenty of stories put out by Warner Bros. and DC Comics where
he blows up factories, shoots vampires, and uses crooks as a human shield against uzi fire.
I mean, yes, if your argument is that Batman should kill people (and not that he has killed people), then Im
probably just going to think youre wrong and theres nothing you can show me thats going to change that, but I
can never tell you that theres not evidence.
The thing is, a lot of those arguments come from a place of trying to apply a kind of realism to Batman, and thats
where youre going to run into a lot of problems. Ive always said that theres one definitive answer to why Batman
doesnt kill the Joker aside from the one about how he lives in a world where ghosts exist and literally no one
wants to deal with the Ghost Joker and its because people really like buying stories about him. If you kill the
Joker, you cant do more Joker stories, and thats a whole pile of money that I dont think any of us would leave just
sitting there on the table.
Admittedly, thats not a very satisfying answer, because it doesnt address the relationships between the characters
the thing that, in theory at least, has kept us all adding to that big ol pile of money over the past 75 years. But at
the same time, its an answer that actually underlines the central fact of the matter, which is that these are not
characters for whom realism is a central concern.
Batmans not just a fictional character, hes a fictional character whos built for a very specific genre with a very
specific set of rules. As a wiser person than me once said, its a genre where thousands of complicated,
interconnected stories are all built on the idea that nobody can see through a disguise that consists of a single pair
of glasses, and once you start tugging at the strings and trying to make them more realistic, the whole thing falls
apart.
That doesnt mean that you cant apply a certain kind of logic to it, or even that you cant figure out entertaining
ways to justify a few of the weirder genre conventions. Yet there are always going to be certain things that you
have to accept if youre going to read these stories, things that just dont work if you remove them from their
specific context. Its part of the price of reading the story if you want to read about a guy dressed as Dracula who
drives around in a rocket car getting into fistfights with people who rob banks with laughing gas and crossword
puzzles, youre just going to have to accept that youre reading about a world thats not quite real.
Which brings me to the one misconception about Batman that bugs me the most, because its simultaneously the
most persistent, the most ridiculous from a storytelling standpoint, and the easiest to disprove: The idea that Bruce
Wayne doesnt actually do anything to help Gotham City, and that Batman is just a rich man selfishly and violently
lashing out at the lower class.

Like I said, its a persistent idea, largely because it requires applying the absolute bare minimum of real-world logic
to a cartoon character for children. Its a criticism rooted in the idea that trying to end all crime by dressing up in a
cape and punching muggers would never work in the real world, which is something that everyone already knows.
Its like getting mad at Knight Rider because cars dont talk.
The argument that usually comes as a corollary is that if Batman really cared about ending crime, hed spend his
annual rocket car budget on social programs in order to attack the root causes of crime, and thats where we run
into this being a snooty dismissal that just doesnt work. The textual support on this one aint ambiguous in the
slightest: Batman does do all that stuff, and he has been fordecades.

The panels Im using to illustrate this point are all from a pretty narrow run of comics one that just happens to
be conveniently collected in DCs latest paperback release, Starlin, Collins, Aparo, Cockrum and Cowans Batman:
Second Chances but the idea of Bruce Wayne as a philanthropist has been a part of the character since very early
in his history. Bruce Wayne being primarily known in Gotham City for his charitable work specifically goes back to
at least 1964 and the origin of the Wayne Foundation (then known as the Alfred Foundation, its complicated), and
thats not the only charitable organization that hes been shown to be behind over the years.
Its actually only in the 80s that the idea of Bruce Wayne as an industrialist rather than strictly a philanthropist
comes to the forefront, and even then, the charitable work is always there and always pretty prominent. And it
keeps coming up because it works within the story if hes attacking crime at every level, right down to being one of
the guys who funds the mental hospital where he sends all his bad guys so that they can at least try to get better.
But then you get to the point in the argument about how he could do so much more if it wasnt for the billion-dollar
stealth jet shaped like his own logo, which is about the point where its clear that the argument is ignoring two very
important things, the most crucial of which is that none of it is real.
Listen, I will 100% agree with anyone who says that in the real world, a billionaire with concerns about crime
would be better served by putting their money back into the community rather than buying a stealth jet, but thats
because we live in a world with things like finite amounts of money. Batman, on the other hand, is not real, and is
therefore exempt from these concerns. The Wayne Fortune is a nebulous concept that exists as a plot contrivance
rather than being an actual number, so theres not a conflict between spending it on Batmobiles and grappling
hooks and spending it on, I dont know, candy to support the Gotham High School Marching Band.
If you sit down and total up the cost of all of Batmans equipment, vehicles, and other crime-fighting paraphernalia,
then just write the same number down for what he donates to charity every year. If that number seems too small,
double it. Keep doing that until you are satisfied, subtract it from Bruce Waynes net worth, and I promise you, he
will still have exactly as much money as Scrooge McDuck.

The other important thing here, though, is the most obvious thing in the world: Batman exists in a world where it
is necessary for Batman to exist.
I mean that on every level, too. Its a world thats specifically built around him because its his name on the cover of
the comic, and as a result, it presents us with a world where he has to exist. In the real world, yes, it is a terrible
idea to put on a cape and swing from buildings, but in Batmans world, its not only a completely logical course of
action, its an effective one. It works, and we know this because we are shown a world built around that idea.
And because its a world where Batman is necessary, then the problems that he faces are necessarily problems that
can only be solved by being Batman. Thats part of the buy when you sit down to read a story about Batman
about any superhero, really that there are things that can only be dealt with in a very specific way.
That, I think, is the pin that pops the balloon of the whole if he really cared he wouldnt be Batman idea: You can
donate the entire trillion-dollar Wayne Fortune to local schools, but thats not going to really help anything when
theres an evil clown poisoning the water supply right now, you know?
That said, theres a level where I do get where the complaints are coming from, and to be honest, its one of the
reasons that I vastly prefer stories where Batmans fighting supervillains to the ones that try to go with the gritty,
noir-inspired route of having him deal with more realistic criminals. Thats material that does lend itself to the
fascist one-percenter interpretation of Batman, even if everything around it is built to support a different idea.
Id even go as far as suggesting that its one of the reasons that Batman developed memorable supervillains quicker
than anyone else, because of how important it became to the character to battle against things that were larger
than life.
Really, though, the guys on the Justice League, and denying that and specifically building an argument around
the idea that you can apply real-world solutions to fantastical, superheroic problems is refusing to engage with
the premise on its own terms.
And for real, a comic about a rich guy sitting down and cutting checks for 20 pages is the worst idea ever.

Read More: Ask Chris #250: Misinformation About Batman | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-250misinformation-about-batman/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #248: The Zero Effect; Is Mister Freeze the Best Example of Villain Reinvention?
by Chris Sims July 10, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: Has there ever been a more notable or successful reinvention of a villain than the transition from Mr.
Zero to Mister Freeze? @spacetimeboss
A: Friend, you are not kidding about Mr. Freeze. As much as heroes and villains change over the years, and as much
as they have to change to stay relevant as hundreds of creators work on their ongoing stories, I honestly dont
know if theres any bad guy who made a change that dramatic, both in terms of theme and quality. He goes from
being a one-note crook with an ice gun to one of the most compelling and tragic figures in Batmans entire Rogues
Gallery. Id even go as far as saying that aside from Two-Face, hes the easiest of the major villains to sympathize
with and he probably works in a whole lot more stories besides.
But while Freeze is probably the most dramatic success, hes far from the only one. The major difference is that a
lot of the other villains I can think of were already pretty great they just got better.

Not that Dave Wood and Sheldon Moldoffs The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero is a bad story, you understand. Its actually
one of the better stories of the era, but its about as much of a generic, one-note gimmick crime story as you can get,
and a lot of what would eventually form the core of Mr. Freezes character is completely absent in his predecessor.
Theres no tragedy, no cryogenically frozen Nora, no loss of everything he cared about that pushed him into crime,
and in fact, when we find out his origin, hes already a crook who just happens to be working on building an ice gun
when the whole thing blows up in his face. He even gets cured at the end of the story by a steam bath, no less
bringing everything to a tidy and, if were being honest here, ultimately forgettable closure.
On the other hand, that story also gave us Batman and Robin chasing down an ice cream truck on jet skates, so, you
know.

Its probably in the top ten of all time.

As for the modern reinvention, well, it almost goes without saying at this point, but it definitely owes a lot
to Batman: The Animated Series, and not just in terms of the theme. That show was very good at presenting complex
villains and showing Batman himself as being sympathetic to them, and it obviously didnt hurt that millions of
people had that show as their first exposure to the character. Honestly, though? I think a lot of his success came
from how good Mike Mignolas redesign was.

Its streamlined and undeniably retro, but the mad scientist goggles and fishbowl helmet, which couldve easily
come off feeling goofy as heck, work beautifully in the context of a setting thats entirely built on 40s Art Deco. Its
stripped down to suit the animated style, but it works perfectly, and theres a reason why every other version of
the character seems bulky and awkward by comparison.
That said, as much as Zero-to-Freeze feels like an overnight change, and as much as it actually is, its roots go back
further than you might think. Even in Freezes first appearance on the TV show which I think might be the first
time they changed the name plays with the idea that hes been left cold both physically and emotionally, a
simple idea that became the core of his character. Obviously, the emotional core of it wasnt a part of that, yet
Nora Fries wouldnt show up until the Animated Series but hes one of the few villains that we see actually
murdering someone on the show. He freezes and shatters a cop in a scene thats downright chilling.
Listen, Im sorry but it was right there.
Anyway, thats enough of a shift in how Freeze was presented that it ended up being quite literally the first thing
that happens in the pages of Gotham Central:

Point being, as much as it feels like a reinvention that happened overnight and as much as you can trace it pretty
directly to Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Heart of Ice Mr. Zeros transition into becoming Mr. Freeze was a longer
and more gradual process than it might seem. And really, the same is true for a lot of villains who get notable
revamps.
The biggest and most notable is probably Catwoman. Shes vastly different in her first appearance than the modern
version who holds down her own title as less of a supervillain and more of a Robin Hood-style thief and occasional
romantic foil for Batman, but thats a process thats been going on forever. Shes teaming up with Batman as early
as the 50s, theres romantic tension in the 60s, and by the 70s, shes completely reformed and theyre married
on Earth-2, at least. There are themes there that are in place through multiple reboots and interpretations of the
character.
If you want to talk about a reinvention that happens all at once, though, theres one that sticks out as being what
might be the most drastic and successful reinvention of all time: Lex Luthor.

Theres something that sets Luthor apart from Mr. Freeze, though. While Mr. Zero was created as an ultimately
forgettable one-shot villain, Luthor was already Supermans arch-nemesis and he was already pretty great.
Ive written at length before about how the Silver Age Death of Superman is one of my all-time favorite stories,
and Luthors role in that as a villain who preys on Supermans faith in human nature only to betray and murder
him, then gleefully recount the experience to other adoring criminals makes for an amazing portrait of cruelty. But
at the same time, Luthor, the brilliant scientist who idolizes Einstein and Blackbeard in equal measure, is a
character whos meant for a very specific kind of comics.
I mean, really. He lives in a place called the Nefarium with an evil dog named Destructo that he gave super-powers
to in order to fight Supermans pets.

Thats a shade over the top.

But it works, because Superman as a character demands villains who are that far removed from everyone else.
That panel above, for instance, is from one of the greatest Superman stories ever printed, where Luthor hates
Superman so much that he brainwashes himself to be good, setting up a romance that will make him want to
change, just so that he can get close enough to Superman to kill him, and the consequence of having to live with the
knowledge that he willingly destroyed his only chance at ever being truly happy for a plain that failed like all the
others. Its in Action Comics #511-513, and if you dont already have it, you should probably go ahead and get that.
Terra Mans in it. Its great.

The point is, its debatable as to whether it was strictly necessary to reinvent Lex Luthor in the 80s, but its easy to
see why they did it. He, like Jimmy Olsen, was emblematic of the kind of story that DC was trying to get away from
except that unlike Jimmy, who was basically put in the warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant while Top Men
were working on a pitch, Luthor was a little too important to the story to be ditched outright.
So if youre going to keep him, it becomes a question of how to apply those same character traits to a more realistic
setting. What does an evil genius look like in the real world? If youre trying to get away from popped collars and
battlesuits, what kind of power can an ordinary human being have that would be a challenge for Superman? What
kind of person would be so ruthless, so amoral and so unstoppable that wed need the most powerful person in the
world to stand up to him for us?
When youre asking those questions, the answer that John Byrne, Marv Wolfman and George Perez came up with is
obvious: Hes a corporate CEO.

As easy as it is to make that connection in retrospect, and as much as Byrne was working on a Superman pitch at
least as early as 1984, its worth noting that it wasnt an idea that came out of nowhere. Its easy to see that theres
an influence there from the Kingpin in Daredevil, for instance, if only because theyre both ruthless, bald,
untouchable legitimate businessmen.
But it all works just as well as the older version Lex, because its all rooted in the same themes, just applied to a
world thats built for a slightly different approach. Superman was created as a champion of the oppressed, and

rebuilding his primary antagonist as a rich and powerful businessman that Metropolis depends on economically
means that hes functionally fighting the same battle against slumlords and gangsters that he was Action Comics #1,
just on a superheroic scale, and casting Lex as a ruthless genius and businessman means that you can still do all
those stories about green-and-purple battlesuits. The difference is that it also means that Lex can very easily get
out of ever being charged for those crimes, making him an enemy that, for all his strength, Superman cant just
punch.

Well, I guess he could punch him, but its not going to get him anywhere.
It worked well enough that, like Mr. Freeze, it became the characters default state, surviving multiple Superman
origin retcons more-or-less intact, and I suspect thats because of how adaptable it was to different stories.
When Grant Morrison and Howard Porter brought back the Injustice Gang for the 90s JLA book, for instance, Lex
was every bit as much of a charter member as he was when the Legion of Doom was hanging out in the swamp
on Super Friends, but conducted himself like a businessman. The dude was even President of the United States that

one time, and thats not really a story you can do with the Silver Age version, no matter how strongly I would
consider voting for any candidate who referred to his home as a Nefarium.
Obviously, Lex would eventually go back to the battlesuits and megalomaniacal plans for world domination, but the
elements of his character that started with the post-Crisis reboot have been present in every version since. It makes
sense, and it allows for you to do all the same stuff including all the stuff that might otherwise feel like its entirely
a product of the Silver Age while adding a new twist onto it that changes the context for everything. Its one of the
few attempts at adding realism to a Superman story that made it work just as good if not better than it already
was, and kept Supermans battles feeling relevant to the real world on more than just an over-the-top metaphorical
level.
I mean, its no Private Eye Riddler, but then, what is?

Read More: Ask Chris #248: The Zero Effect | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-248-mister-freeze-villainreinvention/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #246: Sympathy For The Joker

by Chris Sims June 26, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: I feel like The Joker is a very unsympathetic villain. Does he have any sympathetic qualities or
moments? @DonNohVarr
A: Huh. Well, Ive got some good news for you, Don: Im pretty sure that youre not supposed to find the Joker to be
a very sympathetic villain. I mean, hes literally an evil clown that murders people with knives and poison, and that
may actually be the least sympathetic sequence of words in the entire English language.
But that actually does raise a pretty interesting question: If theres really nothing sympathetic about the Joker, then
does that actually make him a better villain than characters that you do sympathize with? Unsurprisingly, Id argue
that it does, but lets see if we cant figure out why.

The best villains, after all the best characters are almost always the ones that have depth to their characters,
the ones that have a core of humanity that makes them three-dimensional and gives them a motivation beyond just
showing up to rob the Crossword Puzzle Factory or whatever.
Thats just a basic storytelling rule, and an obvious one at that, but if you need proof, you dont need to look any
further than the rest of Batmans Rogues Gallery. Its probably the best roster of villains in comics, and thats
entirely because its full of characters who do have that depth, who were built or evolved to reflect very specific
ideas about Batman himself in a way that makes them very interesting.
Im sure youve heard it all before, but its true: Mr. Freeze has the family tragedy that has left him both literally and
emotionally cold, save for the desire to try to fix things and put them back the way they were before. Two-Face is a
man who is trying and failing to reconcile two halves of his personality. Poison Ivy is trying to stop what she sees as
a crime that will cost a whole lot more lives than just muggers lurking in alleys. Catwoman is operating outside of a
system that failed her, making her own rules to better her life and the lives of the people she cares about. The
Penguin is funneling an Old Money reputation into an empire where hes in charge. Ras al-Ghul is literally trying to
save the world.
Its worth noting that most of those characterizations are relatively recent, starting to creep into the story in the
70s when the comics were making a concerted effort to get away from the gimmick crimes of the TV show, and
then being refined through the 80s and 90s, but even the villains who never quite got past those gimmicks tend to
have that depth added back in. I joke about the Riddler and the Crossword Museum a lot, but the idea of someone
who deals with his own insecurity by constantly trying to prove hes smarter than the Worlds Greatest Detective
is, while maybe not sympathetic, certainly a little relatable.
Which, really, is the core of what makes those villains work. With a few exceptions, you dont really want to see
them win Mr. Freeze being the obvious one where it probably wouldnt be so bad if he just figured out how to
thaw out his wife and stop living in an icebox but you do recognize that theyre People With Problems Who Have
Gone Way Too Far. You want them stopped, but you, like Batman, understand that they need help more than
anything else, which is why he always takes them back to a hospital, albeit one with terrible lighting and gargoyles
on every available surface. Theres a potential there to get better, and we can sympathize with that in the same way
that we can sympathize with Batman overcoming his own tragedy.
Except the Joker.

It goes without saying that there have been a whole lot of versions of the Joker over the past 75 years, but from
very early on, his motivation is pretty clear: He wants to hurt Batman. Maybe kill, maybe humiliate, maybe defeat
to show the inherent weakness of trying to impose order on a chaotic world, but always hurt. Thats what he wants
and its all he wants, its all he exists to do, and really, thats kind of all there is to him. Hes almost completely onedimensional, built around a single idea, acting against exactly one foe, because to him, no one else matters.
In theory, that should make him a pretty boring villain, and its even arguable that overexposure has done exactly
that. But at the same time, its pretty difficult to argue that hes not a great character and an amazing foil for
Batman. And he accomplishes that without actually needing that sympathetic hook, without ever needing to be
someone that the reader can relate to or sympathize with.
Except, of course, when he is. The elephant in the room here and the easy answer to your question is, as you
might have already guessed, Alan Moore and Brian Bollands The Killing Joke, a book thats entirely based around
the premise that the Joker does have a sympathetic backstory.

And it is the most sympathetic backstory, to an almost hilarious extreme. Hes not just a well-meaning shlub caught
in a wrong-place, wrong-time situation where hes forced into crime; hes also just doing it to provide a better life
for his wife and child, who because this is a superhero comic promptly die and render the entire thing
pointless and futile.

Its an origin story that does exactly what the other villains origins do it gives him a way to connect to and
reflect Batmans own origin, built thematically around how each of the characters react to one bad day. And thats
an interesting idea, and one that laid the groundwork for some very interesting stories. Im just not sure that its a
necessary one.
The Killing Joke was one of the cornerstones of the Batman mythos for a very long time, along with Year
One and The Dark Knight Returns, but recent years have seen a lot of critical re-examination of the story and its
impact on Batman in particular and the wider world of superhero comics in general.
A lot of that has definitely been rooted in the storys use of sexualized violence towards Barbara Gordon, something
thats still being dealt with in the comics themselves and in the larger climate after thirty years and one and a half
reboots, and thats absolutely the most important part of it.
But also, I think theres a small part of that backlash a backlash that includes Moore himself, who has seemed
very sick of talking about that comic for at least fifteen of those thirty years thats based on its attempt at
humanizing the Joker. Even shortly after it was published, it was quickly established that this was meant to be only
a possible origin for the Joker, even though everyone accepted it asdefinitive for a long while.
Weirdly enough, the same thing actually happened to the Phantom Stranger, of all characters. Theres an issue
of Secret Origins that presents four different possibilities for how he works, and it was Moore and Joe Orlandos
that ended up being treated as canon more often, up until the New 52. For the record, Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparos
was the best. Anyway.
The simple fact is that the Joker is a whole lot scarier when we dont know his origin. He represents the unknown,
and the more we know about him, the less scary he is. And, in an interesting sort of way, that becomes his
connection to Batman.

The thing is, from a character standpoint, Batmans the same way. I did an interview with former Detective
Comics and Gotham Central writer Greg Rucka not too long ago where he talked about how Batman and the Joker
are boring because you see so much of them, and how he prefers doing stories looking at them from the outside.
Being in Batmans head lessens his impact on us as this mysterious figure and after decades of four or five
stories about that dude every month, theres not a whole lot of mystery left and if its lessened for us, then its
harder for us to understand how he could have that kind of impact on the other characters in the comic.

But with Batman, thats kind of unavoidable, if only because hes the protagonist of most of those four-or-five
stories a month. Hes the character that were following, and frequently the character narrating the story. Even if
were seeing him through a different set of eyes this month, we still have years of knowledge about who that guy is,
how he works, who his friends are, why he does what he does, all that stuff. We even have detailed diagrams of his
headquarters and his equipment theres an entire book thats just about his car. There is nothing we dont know
about him.
But thats because were the readers. In the world of the comic, the crooks who encounter Batman shouldnt know
that stuff. To them, hes just a dude who comes out of the shadows in his weird jet car and starts beating up crooks
and de-poisoning the water supply.
And if you read those stories, thats exactly how it works the more the villains know about Batman, the less
scared they are. It could be something as small as having been around long enough to know that hes not going to
kill them, or it could be as big as Ras al-Ghul, the character who actually does know everything we know and as a
result isnt usually afraid of Batman at all, outside of his first appearance.
It even works with the Joker, too. Hes not afraid of Batman in the slightest, and theres been a longstanding subtext
subtext that became text in the most recent Joker story, Endgame that he knows Batman better than
anyone.
The Joker, then, is to us what Batman is to the other villains. Hes someone were familiar with, someone weve
seen a hundred times, but we dont know him. We dont know who he was or why hes doing what hes doing. We
know what he wants and we see how he does it, but everything else is a mystery.
Thats the idea thats rolled back around to prominence over the past decade or so, anyway. One of the things that
Christopher Nolans The Dark Knight did really well was presenting that same idea, in big and small ways. Its as
small as the Joker wearing clothing that doesnt have any labels to identify it, and its as big as the Joker giving
multiple origin stories for his scars, none of which may actually be true. All he does in that movie is lie, which is an
interesting and effective take on the character, because it makes him unpredictable and frightening even as hes
manipulating this big, methodically arranged pattern.
You can see it in the current version of the character, too. One of the things that I really like about Scott
Snyder, Greg Capullo, Danny Miki and FCO Plascencias Batman: Zero Year aside from the fact that its a Batman
origin story that goes so far from Year One that it literally became a story about Batman fighting a bone monster in
the middle of a hurricane is how it presents the Jokers origin. The Red Hood here isnt a mopey nobody whos
pressganged into becoming a criminal, although that element is still part of it in how the larger Red Hood
organization operates; hes already the Joker. Even before he goes into the chemicals, hes got that same attitude,
that same hate-love for Batman, and that same smile, the only thing we ever see of his face.

By the time we meet him, hes already what hell become in everything except the aesthetics. He was always the
Joker, he just didnt have the hair.
And even that isnt written in stone. Theres an epilogue in that first part of Zero Year about how the person that
they thought was the Red Hood was found dead, killed in such a way that its impossible to figure out when he was
replaced by the man who became the Joker if the guy who dropped into the vat at A.C.E. chemical
even did become the Joker. Its a safe bet to assume he did since thats, you know, how the Jokers origin story
works, but we dont actually know, which makes things pretty interesting.
And it all works, because its exactly what Batman does to everyone else. He presents this mysterious, singleminded, unstoppable face to the rest of the world, and the Joker presents that right back to him.
With all of that said, though, if you really want to see something thats sympathetic about the Joker, theres one
place that you could try looking: Harley Quinn.

Please do not get me wrong: Most Harley stories present the Joker as anything but sympathetic. To say that hes
abusive is putting it mildly, and I have a really hard time looking at their relationship as anything but a tragedy
operating on a superheroic scale where Harley herself is (and should be) the only one who deserves sympathy.
Hes monstrous to her.
As a result, the last thing I want to do is say anything that will romanticize their relationship. That said, giving the
Joker a sidekick even one that he most often uses only as a tool to get at Batman does change his dynamic a
little bit, and gives him bits of humanity, feigned or otherwise, that you wouldnt see under any other
circumstances, presenting it as a skewed version of romance. There are little bits of twisted affection that you see,
like the scene above in The Animated Series where he seems to be genuinely happy with her for trying to kill him
with a machine gun, a slapstick punchline that works a lot better without a lot of the context that would follow in
later years.
The last time I wrote about Harley, a reader named Tara emailed me about this same idea, the question of whether
the Joker has any actual affection for her or whether its completely one-sided, and one of the things she pointed
out was a passage in Batman #663.
You might remember that one as the issue with the weird prose story about the Joker by Grant Morrison, with the
equally weird CG art from John Van Fleet, but if you missed it (or didnt go back to read it in the past eight years),
its all about the Joker preparing for his rebirth with the new personality that will carry him through Batman RIP.
Harleys a big part of it, and theres a bit in there about how the Joker did love her, and wants to kill her in order to
kill the last remaining bit of humanity in himself before hes reborn.

If thats the case, if the Joker is capable of some form of love for anyone other than Batman, I mean then that
humanity is actually there, although Id argue that its a sort of humanity that makes him even less sympathetic, if
possible.
Looking at a larger context, villains, like heroes, dont always fit into the same mold. There are some that only really
become great once that extra dimension of empathy and recognition is added, the core conceit of books like Suicide
Squad or Superior Foes of Spider-Man. There are others for whom adding that extra dimension and motivation, only
makes them seem even more sinister, like Doctor Doom. And there are others, like Darkseid, the Joker, and
even Cobra Commander, who dont need that element at all because they work in opposition to something else.
So if you dont really find the Joker all that sympathetic, I wouldnt worry. He is, and I cannot stress this enough, an
evil clown who murders people with knives and poison.

Read More: Ask Chris #246: Sympathy For The Joker | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-246-sympathy-forthe-joker/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #245: Superman vs. Shazam

by Chris Sims June 19, 2015 10:00 AM

Q: Youve mentioned it a few times now; what makes the idea of Captain Marvel an even better idea
than Superman to you? @dispenserotruth
A: The thing about Superman and Captain Marvel or Shazam, as the kids are calling him these days is that you
cant really talk about one without talking about the other. I mean, you can, but the histories of those two
characters and how they evolved over the years are so tied up together, both on and off the page, that they couldnt
really have happened the way they did about without each other.
And right there at the start, Bill Parker, C.C. Beck and, later, Otto Binder took the blueprint that Jerry Siegel and Joe
Shuster laid down for Superman and figured out how to make it better. Which, when you get right down to it,
ended up being how we lost Captain Marvel and got a better version of Superman in the process.

Dont get me wrong: Superman wasnt a bad idea to begin with. If theres one thing that everybody reading
superhero comics should be able to agree on, its that Superman is, in fact, a pretty good idea. So good, in fact, that
he ended up launching an entirely new genre composed of hundreds of characters that, if youre not feeling
especially charitable, you could pretty accurately refer to as knock-offs.
Its one of those facts thats so obvious that we all end up taking it for granted, but it can never really be overstated
how massive that original superhero boom of the Golden Age was, and how much of it was based entirely on people
trying to replicate the massive amount of money that National was raking in thanks to the popularity of Action
Comics.
Before April of 1938, the superhero genre didnt exist, and five years later, there were hundreds of superhero
stories coming out every month, with virtually all of them taking their cues, directly or indirectly, from Superman.
You see it in everything from the costumes to the powers. Stardust the Super Wizard wouldnt have the ability to
do something as weird as shrinking a mans body into this head and throw it into space to be digested by a maneating torso if people werent trying to think of something bigger and weirder than a news reporter who could
jump over a skyscraper and swat bullets out of the air like flies, you know?
Thats actually kind of the fun of Golden Age comics. Read enough of them, and you can see people trying to figure
out what the rules of the genre are as theyre going along, trying to refine a formula when theyre not even sure
what that formula is yet.
More than anything else, its that idea of refinement that defines those Golden Age characters. Even Superman
himself borrowed a whole lot from his predecessors in the pulps (like, say, Clark Savage Jr. and his Fortress of
Solitude) before filtering them into something new. It doesnt even have to be picking up influences from outside,
either. Take Batman, for instance. He starts off as a pretty shameless take on the Shadow, but just look at how much

he changes over the course of that first year. In one year, his costume changes, he gets a new sidekick and starts to
move away from the mold of a pulp vigilante and closer to this brand-new idea called the superhero.
It was happening in the pages of Action Comics and Superman, too, in almost the exact same way, but the creators
who werent working on Superman had one key advantage over the ones who were: They could read Superman. Its
another one of those obvious truths, but trying to figure something out while youre doing it is a whole lot harder
than watching someone else do it and then trying to reverse-engineer it for yourself. Its one of the reasons that so
many of the elements that would come to be core pieces of Supermans ongoing story over the next 70 years got
their start as part of the radio show, like Jimmy Olsen and Kryptonite.
And its why Parker, Beck and Binder were able to build on that foundation to create Captain Marvel.
And make no mistake, thats exactly what they were doing. The entire Golden Age was full of characters who were
riffing on Superman in one way or another, but Billy Batson was his first direct descendant, and the folks behind
those comics werent exactly keen on hiding it, either. Just look at the covers of their first appearances: Action #1
has Superman hoisting a car over his head in a mind-boggling feat of strength, Whiz #2 which, despite the
numbering, was the comics first issue has Captain Marvel taking it one step further and throwing it straight into
a brick wall.

As to how the characters worked, the refinements that were made for Captain Marvel are pretty obvious. The
costume alone is clearly someone looking at what Superman wears and figuring out how to make that look even
better, but it goes a little deeper than that surface. Superman is undoubtedly an aspirational figure, a champion of
the oppressed, a person given unbelievable power who decided to use it exclusively to help others. And on top of
that, he puts on a tie and a pair of glasses and he could be any one of us. Hes a Kryptonian in strength, but at heart,
hes most definitely a human being.
Captain Marvel, on the other hand, is aspirational in a much more literal way. Same powers, same dedication to
doing good heck, Billy Batsons even got the same job as Clark Kent! but in his heart, hes a kid. At a time when
Superman was leading a massive boom in this new popular medium, when Action Comics had circulation in the
millions and kids were tying towels around their neck and pretending to be Superman themselves, Captain Marvel
gave them a hero who was one step closer to who they really were. All they needed was a magic word, which is a
much more pleasant fantasy than an exploding home planet.

Its the same principle behind Robin, to the point where I wouldnt doubt that Billy and his signature red-andyellow shirt had more than a little influence on Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson when they introduced him. If youre
a kid who loves Batman, then its pretty easy to identify with a kid who loves Batman, and even though they both
have that element of being orphaned, I honestly dont think theres any better outcome of your parents dying than
getting a new dad and its Batman. But I digress.
That simple idea of a story where a kid can turn into Superman is brilliant, and brilliantly executed. Its even more
of a wish-fulfillment story than Supermans role as a the champion of the common man, and it works, because its
directed at kids. Theres a universal feeling among children thats so frustrated with being children. Youre not the
one making the rules, and you have this idea that when youre grown up, youll be the one in charge with the power
to make decisions. Captain Marvel is based exactly on that idea, literally turning a kid into not just a grownup, but a
kids idea of what it means to be a grownup: All-powerful and responsible for taking care of everyone.
When youre a kid especially when youre a kid growing up in the depression, I imagine its easy to feel like
the everythings against you. Captain Marvel showed a good kid who had every tough break that he possibly could,
but who found enough power to take on the entire world.

Thats one of the greatest comic book covers of all time, by the way.
Which brings us to one of the other interesting tweaks about Captain Marvel: building it around magic, rather than
science. Siegel and Shuster introduced Superman with a page that was all about how scientifically possible his
powers were, talking about the amazing leaping ability of the grasshopper and the proportionate strength of an ant
like that idea will ever get anywhere which I think was meant to ground their story in a more realistic brand
of science fiction. With Captain Marvel, though, science is out the window from the first second that the magic train

shows up. Its a particularly nebulous kind of magic, too the strength, speed and stamina bits of the acronym are
pretty easy, but the power of Zeus is a pretty broad concept.
I dont know that Id necessarily call this better, but its worth noting that they also went full-on cartoony with it,
in the biggest and most fantastic way possible. They gave him adventures that suited how unbelievably powerful
he was, rather than attempting to reflect the world around them.
Superman, in his original incarnation, could withstand the power of an exploding artillery shell and primarily
fought gangsters and slum lords. Captain Marvel once survived the explosion of a billion tons of dynamite and
fought a sneering mad scientist who was also the King of Venus and that was one of his less bizarre villains. And
it was also a book that pretty frequently broke the fourth wall and acknowledged that it was, in fact, a comic book
theres that story where Captain Marvel Jr. tirelessly pursues a villain, only to have him escape, and then assures
readers that hell keep on following him into the pages of Master Comics.
While the world was reacting to Superman, though, Superman and his creators were also reacting to the world
around them. Supermans status as the original superhero and the rapid evolution of the genre meant dramatic
change, and for Superman, that meant a pretty steady increase in the bigger and wilder exploits. At the same time,
National was suing Fawcett, ending Captain Marvels comics at the height of their popularity.
The thing is, all this led to yet another example of the superhero genre being refined. After the Shazam comics
ended, National would eventually hire the primary writer of Captain Marvels adventures, Otto Binder, who would
end up essentially being the definitive writer for the Superman of the Silver Age a Superman whose adventures
were a whole lot more like Captain Marvels than they had been in the Golden Age.
Binder introduced virtually all of the concepts that defined that era, and a lot of it was riffing off stuff that hed
already done. Its hard not to draw a direct line from Mary Marvel to Supergirl, and as my pal Andrew Weiss
pointed out long before I realized it, Mr. Tawny and Jimmy Olsen arent just filling the same role in a lot of their
stories, theyre literally wearing the same clothes.
And that ended up being the problem with Captain Marvel when he made his return in the modern age. Hes got
that great core concept and that costume is one of the all-time greats, but Superman ended up evolving to fill his
role, and did so for a whole lot longer than Captain Marvels initial run. When Captain Marvel Adventures ended and
Binder started writing Superman stories, the two characters were effectively merged into one, which means that
its a whole lot harder to find a way to fit Shazam into a shared universe. Its one of the reasons that Shazam stories
always tend to be isolated from the rest of the line, even in something like the 90s Power of Shazam! series, which
was definitely set right smack in the center of the DC Universe.
And, I suspect, thats why the modern era of DC has spent the last fifteen years being way more interested in Black
Adam than Captain Marvel. On paper, at least, hes got all the inherent elements that you get from Shazam, but
hes eeeeeeevil, or possibly just misunderstood, which means that they dont have to worry about any of that stuff
about wish fulfillment, relating to kids, or over-the-top bizarre adventures. He can just show up, shove somebodys
eyes through the back of their head, and call it a day.
Its like Ive said before: You can be a great character, you can have great stories, you can be loved by every creator,
but unless your name is Batman, youre never going to be more important to DC Comics than Superman, and even
thats up for a pretty strong debate. At the end of the day, though, that core idea of Captain Marvel is still every bit
as brilliant as it was in 1940 an idea that was so good that they ended up turning Superman into it.

Read More: Ask Chris #245: Superman vs. Shazam | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-245-superman-vsshazam/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #243: Underused Characters

by Chris Sims June 5, 2015 2:00 PM

Q: What are some concepts in comics you feel were woefully underused? @daveexmachina
A: Considering that theres no pastime superhero comics love more than digging up pieces of old continuity that
you can polish off, change up and repurpose for a new story, there arent a whole lot of concepts that really stay
underused forever. If theres some forgotten concept that you find in a back issue that you want to see again, all
you really need to do is hang around long enough for someone to decide that the Justice League should spend four
issues fighting Quisp, the magical water sprite that used to hang out with Aquaman. I mean, that actually happened,
and once thats on the table, the cure for being underused is really just a matter of waiting it out.
But at the same time, there are definitely things out there that never quite got the attention that it seems like they
deserve. There are cool concepts that hit at the wrong time and tweaks to the status quo that were swept away in
favor of going back to basics, and theres one that I can think of pretty easily that seems like it shouldve been the
next big thing and got dropped like a hot potato instead. And believe it or not, Im not talking about Wild Dog.
I mean, dont get me wrong: If I was President of Comics, the two biggest books in the industry would be Wild
Dog and Damage Control, but those are also books where I can see perfectly logical reasons why theyre not around
all the time. In some cases, thats actually part of the their charm. As much as I love Wild Dog, part of the reason
that I love it so much is that its this weird thing that only ever existed for a brief window in the 80s, with DC
taking a stab at creating their own version of the Punisher and ending up with something that was a whole lot
weirder than I think anyone expected: A dude running around in a football jersey with a cartoon dog on it, blowing
away terrorists with an uzi, enticing readers to figure out which of four characters he really was, and fighting
against ultra-violent fundamentalist Christians who were burning down porn shops.
And for the record, some of that stuff happened in Action Comics. You know, the one with Superman in it? It
happened there.

Now obviously, Id be perfectly happy to read about that dude for 300 issues, but I also cant deny that theres part
of the appeal that comes from the fact that there are only about a dozen comics where he makes an appearance.
Hes not around to wear out his welcome, and that makes him feel like something thats not so much underused
as, well, experimental, I guess. Then again, its also been a solid 25 years since hes had a starring role, so maybe its
time to give it another shot.
In other cases, there are characters that were only around for a short time, but still feel like theres no real way to
do a whole lot more with them. It seems completely bizarre to me that there was once a comic co-written by Grant
Morrison and Mark Millar that spun out of JLA and somehow managed to get canceled within a year, but at
least Aztek got an ending, you know?

If you base a series on the idea that someones ultimate destiny is to die fighting Tezcatlipoca, and then that person
dies fighting Tezcatlipoca, well, thats pretty much that. There couldve been more that they couldve done than the
11 issues we got of the solo series, sure, but they also delivered on exactly what they promised, in one way or
another
But sometimes, you get a character or a concept that really is underused, one thats introduced, set up to be
something big, given an interesting hook that could change a dynamic in an interesting new way, and then is
promptly dropped out of sight without ever realizing any of its potential. And there is nothing that I can think of
that fits that description more than Nyssa Raatko, the second Ras al-Ghul.

Batman: Death and the Maidens was a pretty great comic for a lot of reasons. For one thing, in a mythos thats
always been preoccupied with Bruce Waynes relationship with his father a chain that starts in 1956 with The
First Batman and goes all the way to Grant Morrison, Tony Daniel and Dr. Hurt Greg Rucka and Klaus
Janson did one of the only stories about Batman and his mother. This is a story where Martha Wayne is literally
brought to life after a fashion to have a conversation with him about what hes done since her death, and its
great.
But the major contribution that Death and the Maidens set up was Nyssa, a character who made so much sense that
its amazing that it hadnt been tried before. See, the thing about Ras al-Ghul and Talia is that hes a 400 year-old

immortal who uses Lazarus Pits to stay alive, but she isnt. Its a function of the story, really: If the Lazarus Pits are
rendered inert when Ras uses them to keep himself young, then it makes sense that hed hoard them for himself,
leaving Talia as someone who was, for now at least, aging naturally.
But that raises the question of why, with a lifetime that spans centuries, Ras would wait until now or, you know,
28 years before whenever it is that youre reading these comics to have children, and thats the question Death
and the Maidens answers: He didnt. He has another daughter, Nyssa, who rejected him and his League of Assassins
because hes a terrible father who literally left her trapped in a Nazi concentration camp. She has been around for a
while, and she uses the Lazarus pits, and as is often the case with upgraded villains, she figured out a trick he never
did: She can keep using the same one over and over.
And thats the technique that she uses to brainwash Talia, killing her over and over again until shes so broken by
the experience that she becomes completely loyal to Nyssa, to the point of helping her kill Ras.

Ras al-Ghuls death is something that had been building in the comics for a while theres only so many times you
can talk about how people are destroying all the available Lazarus Pits without finally getting down to the last one,
after all but Nyssas arrival made that particular foregone conclusion interesting and personal. She was a
contrast to him, doing things that he never wouldve, for reasons that were very understandable.
Ras might have been a genocidal maniac, but he was always portrayed as having a certain kind of skewed idea of
honor and lines that he wouldnt cross. Hed kill millions, but justified it as a grand-scale plan for saving the planet,
speaking in honorifics and, most telling of all, tryingto recruit Batman himself as his heir, because he knows that if
he can just get over his weird thing about not wanting to murder billions of people, hed dedicate himself to what
Ras truly believes is The Right Thing To Do.
Nyssa, on the other hand, shows up, tortures her sister, kills her father, and takes the title of Ras al-Ghul for
herself, and you kind of cant blame her for doing it.
Point being, all the connections are there, but shes a character built differently. Shes deceptive and ruthless in a
completely different way than Ras was deceptive and ruthless, and her character in that initial appearance lends
itself to doing things that his character never would. Just the relationship with Talia is different, a false, conditioned
loyalty in place of a genuine one, and that opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for how she deals with
Batman.
And then nothing happened.
In a way, Nyssa felt doomed from the start. Death and the Maidens, which prominently featured a Ras al-Ghul who
was on the verge of death from being denied his Lazarus pits, was happening at exactly the same time as Hush, in
which Ras was healthy enough to have a shirtless swordfight with Batman in an homage to the climax of his first
story in Batman #244. Hush overshadowed pretty much everything else that was going on in Batman at the time,
and by the time Morrison and Andy Kubert showed up to bring Talia back for Batman & Son, another story that
did a whole lot of overshadowing, Nyssa was out of the picture and Talia was running the show herself.
By my count, Nyssa made one appearance after her introduction, in a Batgirl story where shes functionally
identical to Ras, but in an outfit that makes her look like a space pirate. The next time she showed up, she got killed
with a car bomb in Robin, and then Ras made his eventual return in a story called The Resurrection of Ras alGhul.
That in itself isnt really all that surprising coming back from the dead is pretty much Ras al-Ghuls deal, to the
point where it was even more inevitable than it usually is in comics but the way that Nyssa was taken off the
board was downright unbelievable. Reading that Robin story and seeing the car explode, I was convinced that she
was going to come back at the end of the arc. No one in their right mind would kill off a character that had, two
years before, been positioned as a major Batman villain in a book that didnt even have the word Batman on the
cover, right? And a car bomb? You dont even see a body! Of course shes going to come back! But she never did.
I actually like that run on Robin a lot, and Im convinced that Nyssas death was played that way so that itd be as
easy as possible to bring her back later, but it never happened. That was that, and thats how it remains to this day.
But like I said, with most of these things, its just a matter of waiting it out. As you might already know if you
watch Arrow or read our recaps here at CA Nyssa has shown up there as a recurring character, the daughter
of Ras al-Ghul with ties to the League of Assassins. And if she can make it to TV, then making a comeback in comics
shouldnt be that much of a stretch. Coming back from the dead is pretty much their whole deal.

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Ask Chris #242: The Worst Place In The World

by Chris Sims May 29, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: Which city in comics would be the worst to live in? In Gotham theres nutcases with random crimes, but
New York and Metropolis attract trouble on a your-city-will-be-killed-at-once scale. @rj_white
A: Thats the thing about living in a fictional universe, RJ: Generally speaking, it is an absolutely terrible idea. I
mean, our world may have its share of pretty awful troubles, but at least you can rest reasonably assured that you
wont have to deal with being poisoned into a smiley death by a murderous clown just because you wanted to go
check out the museums new exhibit on original folios of Shakespeares comedies, or got bonked on the head by a
dude in a lime green suit and suspended over a vat of boiling acid because you were really good at crossword
puzzles.
Those were my first thoughts at least, and as you can tell, Im already playing favorites. But the more I think about
it, the more I realize that as improbable as it might seem, there might actually be a worse place to live than Gotham
City.

A typical
Wednesday in Gotham City, by Kelley Jones
I mean, dont get me wrong: Gotham City is a nightmare hellhole. Theres that one issue of Aztek where the Joker
claims that Vanity is actually a worse place than Gotham City, and while its safe to assume that hed know better
than most people, theres also the undeniable facts that Gotham has been completely leveled by natural disasters
on more than one occasion and played host to what can only be described as plagues on a Biblical scale twice. The
more you read those comics the more you realize how improbable it is that anyone would actually live there. But
its really just a matter of making a list of pros and cons and seeing which of comics most famous cities come out
ahead.
Before we get into that, though, one quick qualifier: Getting thoroughly destroyed by a supervillain is pretty much
going to happen in every city thats worth mentioning. Were just going to have to take that as a given and only
mention the extreme circumstances that could result. Otherwise, were going to be here all day trying to figure out
if its worse to be blown up by a hijacked Rocket Red suit or turned into a giant engine because Green Lantern was
about to get a new creative team, and thats not gonna be fun for anybody.
So with that in mind, Ive picked out a few cities that we can compare and contrast. Lets start with Metropolis,
because even though it has a tendency to get destroyed en masse, it actually makes for a pretty good baseline:
Metropolis:

Pros:
An improbably high number of meteors.
Thriving economy thanks to the booming battlesuit-construction and space-rock analysis industries.
Interesting architecture, such as buildings with giant golden planets on top and an oppressive brutalist monolith
shaped like an L.
The last remaining urban center in America that features the convenience and privacy of public telephone booths.
Very well-maintained public parks.
You can literally walk, jump or fall off any skyscraper or helicopter within the city limits and end up being gently
carried to the ground by a very nice man who definitely smells like apple pie with just the right amount of
cinnamon.
Cons:
An improbably high number of meteors.
Local news media is basically useless unless you want to read stories about people who are actually employed by
local news media.
The most affordable rent is going to be in a place that is literally, officially called Suicide Slum, which you have to
think is pretty demoralizing for residents.
There is a problem with gang violence, but unlike most urban gangs, these are either people dressed like playing
cards who have seemingly endless access to super-strong androids or dudes being supplied with weapons by evil
space gods.
Any given Wednesday, theres like a 50% chance that some other evil space people are going to show up and start
knocking down buildings. Note that for comics, this is actually better than average.
Youre probably going to end up working for Lex Luthor, and even if you dont really have a moral problem with
that, opportunities for advancement are going to be limited unless you have the ability to potentially murder an
invulnerable farmer from space.

Not bad, not bad. Lets see how it stacks up against another popular destination, shall we?
The Juban District, Tokyo:

Pros:
Local schools and bus routes are close enough that you can run to them with toast in your mouth.
Nearby Shinto shrine is a popular hangout for local teens.
Frequent turnover of local businesses offers plenty of exciting opportunities for a variety of interests and
experience levels.
Thriving urban renewal thanks to investment from local millionaire/doll enthusiast Maxfield Stanton.
Incoming local government promises peaceful immortality for everyone, so thats nice.
Very fashionable.
Beautiful sunsets.
Housing is so cheap that even teenage orphans with no visible source of income can afford to live on their own.
Cons:
Local schools and bus routes are definitely run by actual monsters who want to kidnap children.
Nearby Shinto shrine run by tiny creepy weirdo.
Small businesses frequently close within a week, usually because their owners have been turned to dust by a
teenager throwing a hat at them.
Local government set to be replaced by hereditary monarchy from the moon.
High crime rate due to several robberies of jewelry stores and time-traveling children with pistols.
Pavement on sidewalks and streets is shoddy enough that roses can be thrown through them.
Shockingly large population of vicious feral cats.
Shockingly large population of bossy talking cats.
Literally everyone who lives here has been in a coma at least twice.
Troubling, but definitely still livable. Now heres where things get really terrible:
Gotham City

Pros:
You will probably meet Batman.
That is the only pro.
Cons:
Most housing is in the form of Art Deco buildings reimagined as a nightmare hellscape featuring gargoyles on every
available surface, including inside.
There are literally gargoyles inside a mental hospital, which does not create a very conducive environment for
improving ones mental health.
Also something like 90% of streets are either shadowy back alleys lit only by streetlights reflecting off knives or
massive boulevards currently occupied by jet-powered cars.
Local police force is incompetent, ill-equipped and/or corrupt enough that their major tactic for deterring crime is
shining a giant flashlight with a scary picture on it up into the sky.
The sky is red. Literally, actually blood red.
Thats super weird.
Local economy is in shambles owing to the fact that the three major career options available are a) henchman, b)
museum curator who makes terrible choices about which exhibits to bring to town, and c) designer/manufacturer
of non-lethal weaponry who does not ask any questions about where it goes.
If you go to any form of public entertainment movies, the circus, the opera, etc. you are 100% guaranteed to
see someone die.
The oppressive architecture is broken up by public parks and green spaces that, in all likelihood, will also come to
life and try to kill you.
Has been in a state best described as post-apocalyptic on at least two occasions.
Also this one time the city across the river was nuked so hard that it immediately became a radioactive Mad
Max wasteland, but also there were giant puppies running around with people riding on them and thats actually
pretty adorable, so Gotham is still worse.
That is a rough, rough place to live. And the thing is, its pretty consistently a miserable place to live across all
different versions. No Mans Land might not be in continuity anymore, but Zero Year is, and that thing was like No

Mans Land plus the Riddler making people fight lions in a gladiatorial arena, and while thats a pretty awesome
thing to read about, I imagine its kind of a bummer to live through.
But still, it does have that one redeeming quality of possibly meeting Batman, and even though thats tempered by
the fact that the two most likely ways to meet Batman are being held at gunpoint in an alley and getting your teeth
knocked out because youre helping the Calendar Man steal a sundial or whatever, its still something that keeps it
from being the worst place in the world.
So like I said, theres one that beats it:
Mega City One

Pros

Cons:
Is a totalitarian fascist police state where most if not all all civic power is held by a violent police force, which is
actually one of the citys better qualities.
Life in general is so overwhelming and miserable that being driven insane by your very existence Future Shock
is such a common problem that nobodys even really bothered about it anymore.
Has been steadily whittled down by a series of disasters over the past thirty years, including being briefly being
taken over by robots and the temporary reign of a dude named Judge Caligula. You can probably guess how that
went.
Was almost destroyed in a conflict called The Apocalypse War, which resulted in the death of around
400,000,000 citizens. This is, despite the name, not the worst thing to happen to the city.
Despite a shrinking population owing, most recently, to one of those Biblical Plagues we keep reading about
citizens are still crammed into housing blocks that each contain a population of around 50,000, which frequently
go to war with each other.
Basically everything is illegal except wearing those weird future jumpsuits that still have not come into style
despite us all being fifteen solid years into the 21st Century.
Also there are a bunch of immortal extradimensional beings who show up and murder people by the thousands
with alarming regularity.
Seriously, its like very year with those guys.
There is no other place to live. Your only choice other than this city is a nuclear wasteland where you will be
immediately killed by mutants who speak with what British writers think a Southern accent sounds like. Yall.
And that pretty much settles that. I mean, Gotham is terrible, but at least you can leave.

Read More: Ask Chris #242: The Worst Place In The World | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-242-the-worstplace-in-the-world/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #241: The Suicide Squad, Then And Now

by Chris Sims May 22, 2015 1:00 PM

Q: Your recent On the Cheap column got me thinking: What is it that made the Ostrander/Yale Suicide
Squad work and others not? @AmyZiegfeld
A: You know, the easy answer for this one is right there in your question: John Ostrander and Kim Yale, along
with Luke McDonnell, Geof Isherwood, Karl Kesel and other artists. They were creators who were absolutely at the
top of their game over the course of Squads 66-issue run, and you cant really get away from the fact that when
Ostrander came back for stuff like Raise the Flag and theBlackest Night one-shot, those books
were immediately right back in step with some of the best stories of the run. They were, hands down, one of the
best creative teams in the history of superhero comics.
But at the same time, I dont think thats the whole story.
When you get right down to it, Suicide Squad wasnt just a product of its time, it was the kind of comic that
could only really happen in 1987.

The core premise of Suicide Squad is all about ideas that have become disposable for some reason, and that idea
alone is one of the things that makes it one of my favorite comics.
As a reader, Ive always been attracted to those little bits and pieces of continuity that fall by the wayside over the
years. Its a natural consequence of superhero comics being built as these long-form sequential narratives that are
passed around from one creative team to another over the course of decades. People try different things, and not
everything sticks around and Suicide Squad is the ultimate example of someone looking at a whole pile of weird,

forgotten concepts and thinking, Hey, isnt anybody else going to use this stuff? Even the name Suicide Squad
(and the proper name for the team, Task Force X) was a throwback to a Silver Age concept that only really
appeared in six issues of Brave and the Bold.
But it wasnt just that Ostrander and McDonnell were digging through back issue bins looking for third-string
villains to kill off. It was that they were doing it at a time when they could. More than anything else, Suicide
Squad was a book based on opportunity.
Listen. I can assure you that Im as tired as everybody else of DC going on and on about Crisis on Infinite
Earths thirty years after it happened, but it really is arguably the most important story that company ever
published that didnt first appear in Action Comics #1. And its important not just for what it did, but how it did it.
Obviously, I was not working at DC Comics in 1987 I doubt they wouldve hired a five year-old, no matter how
many great ideas he had about Batman but I have to imagine that it was a pretty weird time in terms of figuring
out what exactly was on the table to write about. In retrospect, I think we all look back on Crisis as this hard
dividing line between two different eras, but it wasnt quite the clean break that it would later become. I mean, it
definitely was for certain characters Supergirl being the obvious example, and Wonder Woman too, to a slightly
lesser extent but a lot of the books that DC was publishing at the time just sort of continued on like nothing ever
happened.
Yes, we got new origins for Superman and Batman, and we even got a new Superman #1 out of the deal, but we also
got Action Comics #584, you know? There was an understanding that this was a new beginning that still allowed for
50 years of stuff that had come before to still count in some form or fashion.
Take the Flash, for example: After Crisis, Wally West is the Flash, but its still understood that hes Barry Allens
successor, and that Barry existed and fought crime and died in some huge world-shattering Crisis and, on top
of that, that Wally was in the Teen Titans alongside other heroes, meaning that the history that hes working with
extends into a much larger universe.
The end result of all this is that it wasnt really a clean break. Instead, there were fifty years of comics stories that
either happened until someone said they didnt, or didnt happen until someone said they did, depending on who
you asked, and that left a lot of stuff on out there to be picked up.
But even that is only half of the situation. Crisis (and Suicide Squad) come out of a time when superhero comics
were going through this rapid period of change in direction. A lot of people referred to it at the time as superhero
comics growing up usually with various combinations of BIFF! and POW! in their headlines but that
wasnt really accurate. The mid 80s were more like an adolescence, an era that had this seemingly boundless
creativity that was also mixed with a desire to get away from the childish past and try something that would feel
more adult.
It was happening on both sides of the street and in the independent Black & White Boom, which is a topic for
another time but at DC, there were specific stories that were shaping how the company would look for the next
couple of decades.
The short and reductive version is that people read Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns and basically decided that
they wanted more of that, and less robberies of hat museums and crossword puzzle factories. Going back to the
Flash, I think its one of the reasons that it took so long for the traditional Rogues to show up as prominent villains
again not only were they Barrys villains rather than Wallys, but they were artifacts of the Silver Age. Nobody
wanted to read about a dude named Captain Boomerang robbing banks anymore, they wanted stories about drugs.
I mean, yes, the stories about drugs in Flash also involved an immortal caveman fighting a dude who could run
faster than an airplane, but nobody ever said readers had to be consistent in what they wanted.
All of this resulted in an era where you had fifty years of villains that were designed to be gimmicky bank robbers,
and an audience (and creators) that were largely uninterested in doing stories about gimmicky bank robberies,
which left you with a lot of characters just floating around with nothing to do and saying a lot is kind of
understating things. Its a fact so obvious that nobody ever really talks about it, but the sequential nature of
superhero comics means that villains outnumber heroes by the dozens. Batman might have a pretty extended
family of sidekicks and heroes, but just think about how many bad guys there are that theyve fought over the
years. Just naming the major ones, youve got, what, twenty? Thirty? You could probably rattle off fifty and never
even get down to Crazy Quilt.
Put all that together, and youve got fifty years worth of villains that dont fit in with the current direction of a
company that would be perfectly happy to get rid of them. In other words, dozens maybe even hundreds of
characters that are completely disposable, all floating around with nothing to do. And thats where you get
the Suicide Squad.

The actual premise of the book isnt a wholly original concept. The idea of criminals being sent on suicide missions
in exchange for pardons is really just riffing on The Dirty Dozen, and if I had to guess, Id say that even the books
original gimmick of killing someone off in every single story arc might be a nod to the fact that the first thing that
happens in the Dirty Dozens mission is Jiminez just casually dying off-camera in an accident. But the way that they
went about putting it all together in a superhero comic that made it unique.
The death is a big part of it, obviously, but thats also something that marks it as unique to its era. 1987 was this
perfect time where death in comics wasnt exactly new Gwen Stacy had been swik/snapped a full fifteen years
before, after all but it wasnt quite as commonplace as it is now. We live in an era where somebodys going to get
killed at least every summer like clockwork, but back then it was a rarity. And considering how much effort
Ostrander, Yale, and McDonnell put into developing the Squad as characters, that gave the book a sense of danger
that I dont think anything else has really matched.

Again, its a function of the time. In 1988, DC had just permanently killed off Supergirl and the Flash. They might
not kill Superman or Batman, but is there any way that Captain Boomerang and Count Vertigo werent potentially
on the chopping block? Even Deadshot, unquestionably the breakout star of the comic, had a grand total
of two major appearances between 1950 and 1987 and was being written as a man with a death wish. That made
for a book where anything could go away at any time, and there hadnt been so many resurrections that coming
back was a given, either.
And while were on the subject of character work, it can never be understated how much that made Suicide
Squad work. Even though superhero comics are inherently reactive the villain commits a crime or puts a scheme
into action and then the hero has to go and solve it we end up spending more time with the good guys than we
ever get with the crooks. Thats just the nature of fiction, really; protagonists get more time in the spotlight, and
while the Joker might be an interesting and compelling villain in this story, Batmans the one whos still going to be
here next month having an ongoing narrative.
With Squad, they could take these characters who already had interesting visuals and hooks and spend time
fleshing them out by making them into protagonists. Like I said, Deadshot was in two stories, and while that
Englehart/Rogers issue where he finally comes back after 20 years is great, it only goes into his character in a very
small way. 66 issues of Suicide Squad (and a four-issue miniseries) wouldve done more for his character just by
sheer volume, even if he hadnt been the focus.

Same goes for Captain Boomerang, who got more character development out of Squad than he ever did out of Flash.
And on top of them and Nemesis, and Plastique, and Nightshade and all the other obscure characters who got a
second wind from being featured here you had the new characters that were holding it all together. Its no
understatement to say that Amanda Waller is one of the top ten DC characters of all time. Her character comes
through better in these 66 issues than anyone else I can think of, and it all comes through naturally without ever
feeling forced. A lot of characters can be written as hard, ruthless or uncompromising, but there are few that ever
get the chance to just straight spend a year in prison just to prove a point.

All of which points to the other big reason that Suicide Squad was a product of its time that really couldnt have
happened at any other point in the history of superheroes. It was a book that reads like it was designed to answer
the question that the comics industry as a whole in the late 80s: Can we do stories that deal with more relevant,

real-world issues while still using the stuff that comes from the more fantastic world of superhero comics, and if so,
are they still going to read like superhero comics, whatever that means?
Thats the question that you get in Watchmen and all of its grumpy descendants, and its certainly the question that
you get in Dark Knight Returns, where you get Frank Miller cramming the 1966 Batman show into the 80s of
Ronald Reagan and urban decay.
And in Suicide Squad more than anywhere else, that answer was yes. You would never mistake it for anything other
than a DC Superhero Comic Book I mean, they go to Apokolips and fight Darkseid, people fight each other with
flaming swords and teleport to shadow dimensions, its got the friggin Penguin in it but its also a book that
deals with international politics, with criminal psychology and questions about morality. Its a book where the very
premise is based on the idea that even in a world with Superman, there are some situations where morality is gray,
situations where people are going to die, and where there are people that have done things bad enough that maybe
they should be the ones that have to risk their lives.
And while the book is very much character driven and frequently very funny, it answers that question with a
brutality that didnt feel like anything else mainstream superheroes had done before.

All of that the premise, the opportunity, the changing direction of comics, the questions that were being asked
and answered in superhero stories made Suicide Squad a product of its time in a very definite and defining way.
Its a book that only couldve happened in that environment, that is tied almost inextricably to that five-year stretch

between 1987 and 1992. That doesnt mean that it doesnt hold up it does, especially because you can see its
influence in so many books that have come after but it does mean that if youre trying to recapture what made
that book special today, then youre not going to have the same results.
Instead, youre going to have a book thats reacting to the world that Suicide Squad helped to create.
Ive talked before about how theres a whole category of Great Comics That Ruined Everything, and as much
as Squad is one of my all-time favorite comics, period, theres definitely a case to be made that it belongs at the top
of that list. The emphasis on dealing with moral gray areas, the focus on villains as protagonists, the constant use of
death as a plot device, the emphasis on protagonists who kill to get the job done those are all things that are
great in Suicide Squad, but that can go very, very wrong with creators who arent as meticulous and talented as
Ostrander, Yale, McDonnell and Isherwood. Especially if youve got a superhero genre that Suicide Squad influenced
by doing all that stuff and making it work so beautifully.
Its one of the reasons that my initial reaction to the idea of a Suicide Squad movie set in the same universe as Man
of Steel was just wondering how they were going to try to make it work. Suicide Squad as a comic worked largely
because it stood in contrast to the rest of the universe. When youre working in a universe where even Superman
will kill when he has to, then whats going to make the villains stand apart? And just where the heck are all these
villains coming from? Without that history, you lose something, I think. Then again, keep in mind that I am a person
who has seen exactly two (2) pictures from the production of that movie, so who knows, maybe theyll figure it out.
The point is, Suicide Squad as a concept is very much tied to the era and environment that its standing in contrast
to, answering questions that were prevalent in that era. Were asking different questions now and were far
removed from the time when that book was the one doing the best job of providing the answers. Thats why it
doesnt really work today.
Except that it actually does.
With all due respect to their creative teams, books that have actually been called Suicide Squad after the
Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell/Isherwood era have been a bit of a mixed bag. Part of that, I think, is that as much as
that Dirty Dozen premise seems like it should be universal, theyre always going to be laboring in the shadow of a
creative team that defined a book for its entire run, particularly Ostrander. Thats always going to be an unenviable
task, even before you get to the part where Suicide Squad itself was so good and influential that it almost made
itself obsolete. But if you look beyond just the books that share its title, youll see that the approach that Suicide
Squad took to storytelling in a superhero universe is very much alive and well, and sits at the core of some really
great comics.

Checkmate and Secret Six are probably the most prominent examples at DC in recent years assuming that the
past decade can be considered recent. They were both pretty blatant spiritual successors to Suicide Squad,
with Checkmate taking the name of another related Ostrander project, the focus on espionage and international
intrigue, and Amanda Waller, and Six picking up the focus on supervillains forming a team for survival, suicide
missions from an authority figure, and Deadshot.
Both of those books had a focus on picking up forgotten or neglected pieces of continuity that had emerged over
the previous decades Checkmate has some really great stuff with Fire (of Justice League International fame) and
a modern version of Mademoiselle Marie that was incredible and using it in a way that no one else was. Rather
than just duplicating the premise of Suicide Squad, they took its approach, figuring out how to react to the
landscape of the universe around them. Thats actually one of the things that I liked about the launch of New Suicide
Squad a few months back, that it was a take on the concept that was reacting very specifically to its universe in an
interesting way.
And theyre not alone, either. Marvels done pretty much the same thing with the Thunderbolts concept over the
years. You could even argue that that initial setup of villains masquerading as heroes and then eventually deciding
to become heroes was spurred by the same kind of big shakeup as Suicide Squad was, although lets be real
here: Heroes Reborn was not exactly the world-changer that Crisiswas. But still, the best versions of that concept,
regardless of publisher, are the ones that take advantage of the opportunities that come with a shared universe.
Of course, on the other side of the coin entirely, youve got Copra, which somehow manages to work as a tribute
to Suicide Squad exactly as it was without being part of a shared universe at all. It does, however, draw upon a
common language that we have as comics readers and blends things together to form something that feels like it
comes from a shared universe, but beyond that, its just unbelievably well-made. Trust me, if I could figure out how
that thing works as beautifully as it does, I would tell you. Suffice to say that Michel Fiffe is on a whole other level.
To make a long story short (too late), what made Suicide Squad great went far beyond just the Dirty Dozen premise
of putting crooks in the spotlight and killing them off as the story warranted. It was an incredible product of a very
specific time, and while that cant ever be duplicated, its definitely something we can learn from and have a heck of
a good time reading.

Read More: Ask Chris #241: The Suicide Squad, Then And Now | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-suicidesquad-then-and-now/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #239: Can Darkseid Really Be The Ultimate Bad Guy Of The DC Universe?
by Chris Sims May 8, 2015 10:00 AM

Q: Do you think Darkseid deserves to be considered the ultimate bad guy of the DC Universe? What are his
achievements? @Lionel_Leal
A: I dont want to turn this into Ask Chris About Jack Kirbys Fourth World as opposed to my usual strategy of
spending an entire week talking about the moral significance of Batmans utility belt or whatever but over the
last few years, Darkseid has been a more prominent fixture of the DC Universe than any other time in his forty-year
history. I think it probably started with how he was treated onSuperman: The Animated Series and Justice League,
but just in the past three years weve seen him as the villain that launched the New 52, and the villain whos
probably going to show up in a movie about the Justice League at some point. So with all due respect, LL, its not
really a matter of Darkseid deserves.
Darkseid is.

That said, Ill admit that Darkseid occasionally has a hard time fitting in with the rest of the universe, which is
pretty weird when you consider that hes a Superman villain, at least in theory. Those two characters in particular
have had more than a few knock-down, drag-out fights over the years, but it very rarely works as well as it seems
like it should, and I think that has a lot to do with a fundamental disconnect between how he works as a character
and how superhero stories are usually built.
The thing about the Fourth World stuff and a lot of Kirby comics, when you really get right down to it is that
its simultaneously extremely metaphorical and ridiculously literal, and nobody embodies that more than Darkseid.
I mean, his name is Darkseid and he literally represents the dark side of humanity, all the selfishness and hatred
and willful ignorance that we all have inside us to overcome. He can never really be defeated because dealing with

that stuff is never something you finish. Its always in there, your own personal Darkseid, trying to get you to give
in. Theres not a lot of subtlety in that, Kirby says right in the name who he is and what he does, and thats before
you get to the part where hes an eight foot-tall rock monster from space in a sleeveless mini dress. At that point,
subtlety is out the window. Or at least, youd think it would be.
In practice, Darkseid is all about subtlety, exactly because hes drawing on those impulses that we all wish we didnt
have. Darkseid, for all his grand posturing, doesnt always arrive with the crashing thunder of a Boom Tube and an
army of parademons to conquer the planet; he sometimes shows up in your house, sitting in your favorite chair, a
calm and casual reminder that theres nowhere you can go to get away from the evil that he represents, because its
already inside you. Seriously, its kind of his signature move.

size

Click for full

And when he does send an army, its not always a race of alien conquerors from the far-off planet of Apokolips
showing up, toppling monuments and blowing things up. Sometimes its the Justifiers, ordinary human beings who
have allowed themselves to be taken over by their own base, petty hatreds and fears because theyve found
something that allows them to justify theres that lack of metaphor again what theyre doing. Despite its
name, the Anti-Life Equation, the McGuffin that hes been looking for since 1971, is not about killing anyone. Its
about taking away their ability to choose anything other than to listen to that dark side thats within us all, a choice
that, at one point or another, weve all made already.
Thats how Darkseid works, and thats what makes him so compelling and genuinely frightening because it feels
so real. Kirby was, after all, someone who had seen his share of evil in the real world, and with Darkseid, he figured
out how to take those ideas and condense them into a single person. Hes the tiger force, the part of us thats
horrifying because we know its in there somewhere.

On paper, that makes him the perfect foil for Superman. Ask anybody who loves him, and theyll tell you that
Supermans greatest power isnt flight or heat vision, its the ability to inspire good in others through his example.
Its why scenes like the message carved into the moon in The Last Days of Superman or the talk with Regan in its
modern-age equivalent are so emotionally resonant. Theyre about how Superman, and by extension how
superheroes as a whole, can inspire us to be better. We might not have the luxury of being fictional characters who
can always get it right, but theyre always there to lead by example. If Darkseids the worst of us, then Supermans
the best of us, and when you see them next to each other, it makes it easy to pick a side.
It doesnt have to stop with Superman, either. If Darkseid represents giving into your darker impulses, Batman is
about channeling them into doing something good and not giving up. If Darkseid is about how easy it is to fool
yourself into believing a lie, Wonder Womans about fighting for the truth even when its difficult. If Darkseids
about the evil thats within us all and how we always have to stay on guard against it, a constant struggle that in the
end is only rewarded by itself, then Aquaman is Well, hes still just Aquaman, I guess, but you get the idea.
Its all right there, a ready-made conflict that pits these two metaphorical ideals, the same metaphorical ideals that,
in its purest form, is at the heart of not just these particular characters, but superheroes as a genre. The only
problem is that just literally presenting two opposing ideologies together, even in the form of brightly colored
representatives, is kind of boring.
Ive written about this before and I dont know if its actually true, but I heard once that Kirbys original plan for
Darkseid was that at the climactic moment of the Fourth World saga, hed be in a battle against Superman or Orion
where, instead of the all-powerful evil force that we knew him as, hed be revealed to be weak, cowardly and, in the
most literal sense of the word, pathetic. I love the idea, especially in how it expands on the idea that comes through
in The Pact, the foundation of the Fourth World, that capital-G Good is always stronger than Capital-E Evil, but I
can also see why he ultimately opted against it.
Superhero comics are, after all, action-adventure stories, with heroes defined by challenges that they strive to
overcome. When you finally get to that challenge and it turns out that its not actually that challenging at all, well,
that can be a little disappointing for the reader.
With all due respect to Plato, a dialogue about opposing philosophies is kind of a snooze. When the people involved
can do stuff like shoot laser beams out of their eyes, you kind of want to see them do that instead of just talking out
their ideas.

And all of that leaves Darkseid in a very dfficult place as a character. Hes built to philosophically oppose the ideals
of the heroes, and he has the power to stand against them in combat, but the more directly he interacts with them,
the less effective he is as a metaphor. In other words, we want to see evil get punched, but Darkseid shouldnt be
the kind of villain that just goes away if you punch him hard enough. Hes more insidious than that the cosmic
level that he operates on doesnt just mean that hes a conqueror from space, it means that hes in everything.
But that doesnt mean that he cant be treated as the ultimate villain of the DC Universe. Just that you have to go
about it in a slightly different way.
When you have these extremely powerful villains, the trick is in working them into stories in ways that build them
without requiring direct conflict. I remember someone writing about Superman I want to say it was Roger Stern,
but it might have been Joe Kelly or Jeph Loeb talking about their run circa 1999 who said that everything that
went wrong in Metropolis, every problem that Superman had to solve or fight or protect people from, should

ultimately be traced back to Lex Luthor. Everything. That idea has fascinated me, largely because Ive seen it done
so well on a smaller scale in stories like Born Again, where Daredevils life goes haywire and he doesnt know why
until he realizes that its all the Kingpin.
I dont necessarily think thats the way Darkseid has to work, and I dont think that it ever really has to go to that
extreme, but I do think theres merit to the idea of having someone working behind the scenes, manipulating
events to suit their own sinister goals, long before they ever take the stage themselves.
Thats actually a role that Darkseid is uniquely well-suited for, because hes surrounded by henchmen and soldiers
that can take those more traditional confrontations in his place. You want someone to manipulate people? Glorious
Godfrey and Granny Goodness are there to shape impressionable minds. You want horrific violence inflicted in the
innocent? Desaad. You want efficient deaths that further sinister aims? Kantos right there in his goofy RenFaire
hat. Heck, if you need somebody for Superman to punch while debating philosophy, Im pretty sure Kalibaks not
busy. And thats just the characters that are directly tied to Darkseid Paul Cornells idea of linking Luthor and
Darkseid together from very early in Luthors career was a very interesting one, mainly because of how modular it
was. It could be ignored or referenced to suit however you wanted to write Luthor.
You get all of those in place, and once Darkseid shows up, he seems like the Big Deal that he is. Then you just have
to figure out how to have the final conflict without cheapening all of it.
Thats the real trouble, I think. Obviously, Darkseid has to lose, but you cant just have Superman (or the rest of the
Justice League) punch him until he goes away, because thats every bit as unsatisfying as the philosophical debate
maybe even moreso. You have to find a way to preserve the idea that, while Good can win, Darkseid and the evil he
represents are never going to be gone forever.
Which is why his appearances on Superman: The Animated Series are so good.

Apokolips Now! is maybe one of the best Darkseid stories ever, across all media, and the best thing about it is
that Rich Fogel and Bruce Timm figured out how to write the perfect ending for Darkseid. When it all comes down
to it, with Superman himself captured and powerless, the people of Metropolis rise up. Dan Turpin, leading the
mob (and looking suspiciously like Jack Kirby himself), gets vaporized and when Superman flips out, he beats the
living heck out of Darkseid. Its not even a challenge, he thrashes him and beats him down, and Darkseids only

reaction is to say, in that great rumbling Michael Ironside voice, that if he knew one death wouldve hurt Superman
this much, I would have killed a thousand.
In that moment, they give you the key to Darkseid: thats what hes after. Not conquest, not victory, but causing
pain to those around him. Thats his brand of Evil. Thats how he wins, even in defeat, and when hes sent packing
back to Apokolips, the things he did are still in place.
So yeah, I think that when it all clicks into place, Darkseid can be the perfect villain for the DC Universe. Even the
fact that he sometimes doesnt fit in can work in his favor, because the heroes themselves are fragmented from
being created at different times by different people and only brought together after the fact. Everything is a bit
unsteady, which is a place for great drama.

Read More: Is Darkseid the DC Universe's Ultimate Bad Guy? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-239-candarkseid-really-be-the-ultimate-bad-guy-of-the-dc-universe/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #238: Why You Should Probably Pick Up Walter Simonsons Orion
by Chris Sims May 1, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: How immediately should we should we all be buying the new Orion by Walt Simonson omnibus?
@atnorwood
A: Every now and then I like to take a swing at a softball question, but this one is just gently wafting over the plate,
taking a moment to stop offer me an engraved invitation. So heres the quick answer: Ideally, you should be buying
that Orion omnibus right now, if not sooner, maybe going as far as buying it in back issues too so you have
something to read while you wait for it to be delivered. As a general rule of thumb, pretty much anything with the
words WALT SIMONSON written on the cover is something thats going to be worth having on your bookshelf.
As for why, well, you could sum that up with those same two words, but it goes a little deeper than that. As much as
people might talk about Thor, Fantastic Four or even Manhunter, Orion is the one Simonson masterpiece that
always seems to get overlooked. And really, that in itself is surprising when you consider that it has one of the
single best fight scenes in comics and gave us the greatest Green Lantern of all time.

I think one of the reasons that its so frequently overlooked is because it comes out of a time when there were
just so many good comics coming out of DC. That period between 1997 and about 2002 was one of the best times
for the company, especially in terms of the second- and third-string characters.
The only time I can think of that was actually as good was the late 80s, when you had books like Suicide
Squad, Justice League International and Animal Man all hitting at the same time, but even then, the turn of the
century had an incredible lineup even once you got past the big names. Hitman, Chase, Aztek,
Hourman, Impulse, Starman, Power of Shazam, Chronos, Birds of Prey, Superboy,Nightwing when thats the lineup
of your B-List titles, then getting two years worth of Walt Simonson and John Workman doing a New Gods comic
doesnt really seem like something out of the ordinary. Its just another great book on the stands with the rest of
em.
In retrospect, though, it definitely is out of the ordinary mostly because its the best New Gods book that wasnt
written and drawn by Jack Kirby, and takes those characters in a direction that definitely feels like its continuing
the story in a way thats new and exciting, while still building on everything that came before. And not just what
came before with those characters at DC, either in a lot of ways, its building on what Simonson did on Thor, too.

Ive talked about this a little bit before, but when I was a kid, my dad told me about the New Gods as a bedtime
story. Not the actual story about Orion and Darkseid, but about Jack Kirby, and how when he left Thor (my dads
favorite comic going up) and went to DC, he kicked off his new book by killing off all the old gods and replacing
them with new ones in one of the greatest, most over-the-top examples of a creator distancing himself from his
past work and declaring as loudly as he could that he was doing his own thing now. He even went so far as to claim
that if you looked close enough, you could see Thors helmet peeking out of the rubble in New Gods #1 you cant,
although there is a suspiciously familiar guy swinging around what might be a hammer in the background but
either way, it was a pretty clear declaration that Thor was the past and Orion was, just as it said on the cover, an
epic for our times.
Simonson does the same thing. He even does it literally in #7, where Kalibak gets his hands on a Thunderbelt, a
relic of the Old Gods that doubles his strength and has a big ol T on the belt buckle, and sure does look a lot like the
strength-doubling belt that Thor used when things got rough:

Where it really works, though, both as a callback and a counterpoint, is philosophically.

Thor is, at its heart, a book about noble warriors fighting a noble war. The books defined by the slow burn of
Surturs attack on Asgard and Thor, Odin and Loki making their desperate last stand to save the nine worlds from
Ragnarok, and by characters like Beta Ray Bill, who gave up his humanity in order to better defend his people;
Balder, who became a pacifist when he saw the horrors of an immortal life of endless battle but was forced to take
up the sword again because he had no other choice; and Skurge, who stood alone at Gjallerbru with a pair of M-16s
and redeemd his misspent immortality. Theyre gods who fought a good fight for good reasons.
In theory, Orion should be the same way. Along with Mr. Miracle, hes the ultimate expression of Kirbys
philosophy, that Good and Evil arent equal and opposite, but that good is inherently stronger, even if it might be

the harder path to walk. Orion is the product of pure evil, the son of Darkseid, but being raised on New Genesis as
part of The Pact meant that he was shown a better way. The thing is, Orion is defined by a struggle against his
nature, the desire to be a better person constantly at odds with the instinct to wage war, to give yourself over to
anger and violence. Its what makes him such a compelling character, and what makes him so easy to relate to. Hes
the God of War in a pantheon where war isnt something to be worshipped or celebrated. And its exactly that
aspect of his character that Simosnon goes all out in exploring over the course of his 25 issues.
At its heart, Orion is an epic that asks whether the ends justify the means, and whether someone with the noblest of
intentions can use evil means to accomplish a greater good. Which, in this case, is represented by Orion not only
defeating and destroying Darkseid, but taking control of the Anti-Life Equation and using it with nothing but the
best intentions.

The short answer to that question, as you may have already guessed, is no. Its how Orion gets there, though, and
how much of it ends up being tied to one of Darkseids complicated, corrupt master plans that makes it great.
Beyond all that, though, its just a really great run of comics. Im especially fond of how Simonson puts the spotlight
on more female characters than you generally see in New Gods stories. If Kirbys work at DC had one major flaw, its
that the focus tends to be on the men most of the time, especially where the heroes are concerned. The women that
he does write in those issues, particularly Big Barda and Granny Goodness, are great Bardas in the running for
my favorite superheroine of all time, and I love the Female Furies as villains but aside from Barda, they dont get
a whole lot of the focus. In Simonsons run, he puts the spotlight on Tigra and Mortalla right from the start, making
them the catalysts for the story as much as Darkseid.
And then there are those two issues I mentioned above.

Orion #5 is one of the greatest single-issue fight comics of all time, and considering that its coming from Simonson,
thats saying something. I mean, Im not quite sure if its as great as Thor #380 you know, that all splash-page
issue where Thor hits the Midgard Serpent so hard that it breaks every single bone in his own body but still, it
somehow manages to live up to the hype. The battle to the death between Orion and Darkseid is one of those
Written In Prophecy sort of things that had been around since Kirby created the whole mythology in the early 70s,
so when youre actually planning to show it, theres a lot of pressure to live up.
It had been done to varying degrees of success before the best outside of Orion is probably the bit in the Legion
of Super-Heroes Great Darkness Saga, by Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen, which has the benefit of taking place a
thousand years in the future and having the buildup of throwing in Orion and about twenty-eight other
superheroes for a truly grand scale but when Simonson does it, it feelsmassive.

Most of it has to do with the fact that its almost all fighting. Aside from the first and last pages, theres no dialogue,
just all-out action and John Workmans massive polysyllabic sound effects. The layouts great, too each page is
bordered with a crowd shot of the assembled gods of Apokolips and New Genesis who have gathered to watch the
fight (and Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion, because of course theyre there to cover the story), and while it
seems like a neat little page border at first, you can see them reacting to whats going on as the issue progresses,
and theres even one page where they have to scatter when a portion of the arena gets destroyed. Its great.

Its not quite the fight to the finish that its billed as, of course. I mean, its still a superhero comic, and while
Darkseids dead at the end of the issue, hes back in the book without a whole lot of trouble before the end of the
year. But it is a fight with consequences that sees Orion fulfilling that prophecy and then setting off down the road
to taking control of both Apokolips and the Anti-Life Equation and trying to use them for good.
The other big thing that sticks out is Raker Quarrigat, the Green Lantern of Apokolips, AKA the best Green Lantern
ever.

Theres no great philosophical significance to this one, I just really love the idea of the last survivor of the
Guardians attempt at going to war with Apokolips, stuck on the planet for years with a ring that needs to be
charged every 24 hours, keeping it in a stasis bubble and only using it when things get desperate so that he can
stretch that 24-hour charge as long as he can before it becomes useless. Its a great little concept that ties Orion to
the larger DC Universe in a way that you dont usually see with the New Gods.

And to be honest, thats just scratching the surface of whats great about this book. Simonson and Workman are
clearly having fun with it theres a gag in #20 where Orion gets punched three times and then punches a guy
nine times in order to return your favors THREEFOLD! that is literally the best thing to come out of the Jokers
Last Laugh crossover and as usual, when theyre having fun, theyre making great comics. All in all, Id say its the
second-best Fourth World book that Simonson has ever done.
That eight-page Granny Goodness story in Secret Origins about how theres no Mercy on Apokolips, though? That
ones the best.

Read More: Ask Chris Why You Should Pick Up Walter Simonson's 'Orion' | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris238-why-you-should-probably-pick-up-walter-simonsons-orion/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #237: What The Heck Happened In Batman RIP?

by Chris Sims April 24, 2015 11:00 AM

Q: Batman RIP: Whats going on in this book? I like Morrison, but I do not follow the plot. @daingercomics
A: My friend, you have come to the right place. I generally think Grant Morrison gets a bad rap for writing
superhero stories that are too complex a complaint that you see about almost everything he writes going all the
way back to Rock of Ages in JLA, and probably back to Animal Man if you go looking for it but R.I.P. is a story
with a whole lot of moving parts that can be pretty hard to keep track of unless youre the kind of person who has
been obsessing over the details of 75 years of Batman comics for their entire life.
Fortunately for you, thats exactly what I am, which is one of the reasons that Batman R.I.P. is probably my favorite
Batman story of all time.
And really, it doesnt get that confusing until you start trying to figure out if the bad guy is just a man in a costume,
the actual devil, Bruce Waynes father, or a horrifying hyper-adapter sent back in time by the God of Evils
Omega Sanction that also once possessed the Riddler into trying his hand at black magic. But, yknow. Were
getting ahead of ourselves.

The first big point about Batman R.I.P. is that despite the title, Batman doesnt die in it. I remember this being a
pretty big bone of contention among readers back in 2008 who had been sold on this being a big Death of Batman
story. On the one hand, thats understandable. DC certainly billed it as such, and halfway through it, they solicited
that Neil Gaiman/Andy Kubert story that takes place at Batmans funeral. On the other hand, the very first
page of Batman #676, the issue that kicks this story off, has Batman yelling YOURE WRONG! BATMAN AND
ROBIN WILL NEVER DIE! a word ballon that Im like 90% sure Ill have tattooed on my body at some point
and Morrison is nothing if not a writer who plays fair with his audience. If he has Batman shouting about how hes
never going to die on the first page of a story, you should probably not dust off the black suit and armband quite
yet, even if youre allowing for the temporary nature of death in comics.

The second weird quirk about this story is that in a lot of ways, RIP is the culmination of everything Morrison, Andy
Kubert, J.H. Williams III, and Tony Daniel had done on the book up to that point. Morrison would, of course, stay on
Batman for the next few years with Batman and Robin and Batman Inc.,, but while everything that came before was
about putting pieces in place, this is where they all come together. As a result, theres actually two ways to read this
story, one that only looks at it as the climax of the run up to that point, and one that looks at it in the context of
everything that came after, a lot of which goes back and changes what certain elements of the story are to fit it into
a larger context.
So yeah. I can see how it might be confusing.
The third thing to keep in mind, and the element that probably goes further than anything else in making this one
of my favorite stories, is that Morrisons scripts are drawing from a completely different well of stories than most
other Batman stories of the time. Most other creators and readers, for that matter tend to focus only on the
version of Batman that showed up in the mid-70s under teams likeDenny ONeil and Neal Adams, or Steve
Englehart and Marshall Rogers. It makes sense that they would, too thats the version of Batman that is far and
away the most popular with readers, the darker superheroic crime drama that was doing its level best to get as far
away as they could from the sci-fi of the 50s and the camp of the 60s.
Morrison, on the other hand, goes right for those earlier stories to form the basis of what hes doing. Its a similar
approach to what he and Frank Quitely did on All Star Superman, with bits and pieces lifted from Silver Age stories
that were often overlooked. The thing is, those Silver Age Superman stories, as weird as they are, are often
considered to be a high point for the character. Silver Age Batman, on the other hand Well, its an acquired taste.
The point is, when everyone else is drawing on The Jokers Five-Way Revenge, or Strange Apparitions, or
even Year One for inspiration, and some dude rolls up building three or four years of comics around that time that
Batman went into an isolation chamber in order to help doctors working on space medicine and had a
hallucination about Robin being killed by aliens

its going to feel a little weird.

Ill admit that as much as I love that run looking back on it, it definitely took me a little while to warm up to it while
it was coming out. Batman & Son didnt click with me, and the story about the replacement Batmen also based
on a pretty obscure Silver Age story didnt land quite well either. And #663, that weird prose story issue with
the PlayStation-lookin computer art by John Van Fleet? That mightve been the most disappointed Id ever been in
a comic book up to that point, especially for being the first Joker story Morrison did in his run.
When it got to that Club of Heroes story, though which, again, was based on an extremely obscure Silver Age
story, although one that Id loved ever since I tracked it down when Morrison first referenced it during the
Ultramarines story in JLA that run had its hooks into me but good. I love that story, the murder mystery built
around a bunch of people who were inspired to try to become a new kind of man like Batman, but who couldnt

quite pull it off, until the junk went down and they all had to step up? Thats exactly the jazz I am into. I honestly
didnt think there was anything that could top it.
Which brings us, at last, back to Batman RIP.

When you get right down to it, the key to understanding Batman RIP is Robin Dies At Dawn. Morrison and Daniel
even recontextualize the line I must put away my Batman costume and retire from crimefighting forever, which
appears verbatim in the original, into one of the most sinister lines in RIP. Its a story full of amazing callbacks, but
at the same time, thats really frustrating. As great a story as it is and Id say its Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoffs
finest work by far, which is no small amount of praise the last time it had seen print before RIP came out was in
the Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told paperback that was released alongside Tim Burtons Batman movie in 1989.
Admittedly, that was probably one of the most widely distributed collections of Batman comics ever printed, and
you can find copies of it on comic shop shelves even today, but still, that was twenty years earlier. Its no wonder
that people, even dedicated readers, were a little hazy on the details.
Like I said before, the original story involves Batman spending ten days in an isolation chamber in order to benefit
space medicine. In Morrisons modern day version of the story, however, theres something else Batman wants
out of it. The entire thing is an experiment meant to help him understand how the Jokers mind works, because if
he can do that, then he can figure out his twisted clues and stop his crimes before people get hurt. The problem, of
course, is that trying to think like the Joker is a pretty bad idea. And while Batmans trying to do that, theres
someone on the outside of the experiment whos figuring out how Batmans mind works, and how to shut it off. In
the original story, hes the nameless space doctor, but in RIP, hes Dr. Hurt, the man behind the Black Glove.

Again, no surprise here, but I love the Black Glove. A criminal organization with almost limitless power and
resources, all of which is laid out neatly in one page. That they can not only cover up a murder of someone in their
employ on their doorstep, but know how to do it instantly and throw in disgracing both the victim and his next of
kin is terrifying.
The Black Glove exists solely to ruin good people for the amusement of the genuinely awful, who get their kicks
betting on how long its going to take to break someone not if, you understand, because thats an inevitability,
but just how long. Theyve been at it for a long time, too, to the point where the story even hints that theyre
responsible for building Gotham City into a machine that would eventually produce Batman, making them, at least
in part, the ones who were ultimately behind the Wayne murders. Their method is a pretty simple one, too: They
lie.
Thats one of the important things to remember going in. Virtually everything that Thomas Wayne says in this
story is a lie in one way or the other, and the entire plan to ruin Batman is built around creating a fiction. Morrison
has a tendency to go for a metatextual bent in his comics that dude has written more stories about writers than
Ive written columns about Batman so its not entirely surprising that the Black Gloves master plan for
destroying Batman is to write a story. Its one thats full of clichs, too, but it should be, since the whole game is to
trap him in his own familiar narrative and then change the ending right when hes about to triumph.
It starts by giving him a damsel in distress to save: Jezebel Jet, who makes a perfect romantic foil because they have
so much in common: Shes a fabulously wealthy orphan, but rather than spending her money on rocket cars and
utility belts, shes a philanthropist who uses her fortune for the benefit of her country. Not gonna lie, that parts
particularly brilliant, because it chips away at Batmans confidence by weaponizing the same criticism that people
have about his character in the real world:

The thing is, Batman lives in a world where dressing up as a Dracula and spending several million dollars on
grappling hooks and universal Bat-Antidote Pills is a perfectly logical thing to do. Either way, shes (unsurprisingly,
to be honest) in on it the whole time.
The second part of the fiction is that it needs a villain to menace the damsel, and to that end, the Black Glove
basically hires the Joker. Perfect, right? I mean, if youre writing your perfect Death-of-Batman story, who else is
going to be the villain, and they even set their little play in Arkham Asylum. The problem, of course, is that the
Joker does not work well with others, and when these swaggering one-percenters show up with their grand plan to
drag Batman down and destroy him, Joker sees them for exactly what they are: A bunch of amateurs who have no
idea who theyre messing with, and just how far out of their depth they are.

One of my favorite things about this story is the difference in how Batman and the Joker interact with their fans.
When the Club of Heroes starts up because there are people out there who admire Batman, Batman shows up for
the meeting and even helps to train a few of them. Joker, on the other hand, meets a bunch of international
criminals that he inspired, and seems to exist right at the intersection of apathy and hate. Theres a great scene
where Le Bossu gives a clearly rehearsed speech about how much he admires the Joker and how much the Joker
inspired him to indulge his horrifying desires, and the Jokers response is to yawn and then carve up his face with a
straight razor so that he can no longer hide behind a veneer of respectability.
This, incidentally, is what delays Le Bossu from lobotomizing NIghtwing, allowing Dick Grayson to escape and
contributing to the collapse of the Black Gloves plans, something thats fully intentional. When it comes to trying to
break Batman, those guys are amateurs. The Joker is a pro, and has zero time for these baby school frolics.

The last element of the fiction involves Thomas Wayne, the man behind the Glove, who claims to be Batmans
father, who faked his death to get away from the family he hated. Hes full of sordid details about the familys past,
but really, its just the finishing touches on destroying Batman: Destroying Bruce Wayne and tarnishing all the good
his family did in the process.
The other big part of their plan is where it gets a little complicated, if were not there already: Years worth of posthypnotic suggestions (which, in reality, only really start showing up a couple years earlier in Batman #655,
although that aint bad for some long-game planning) that, when activated will just turn off Batmans mind. The
thing is, Morrisons run alongside Andy Kubert kicks off right after the One Year Later event, which gave Batman
a solid twelve months of just going off into a cave in the desert to meditate and get the Ten-Eyed Man to cut all the
fear out of his body.
If that sounds complicated, well, it is, but the important thing here is that theres already a built-in explanation for
what Batman does in this story, one of the most bizarre concepts in superhero comics: Creating a backup
personality just in case anyone ever tried to turn off his regular one.

This is the best.

The trigger phrase is Zurr-En-Arrh, and while Morrison and Daniel build to a big reveal that its being a reference
to Thomas Waynes last words before the mugging The sad thing is that theyd probably throw someone
like Zorro in Arkham but its really a reference to Batman #113s Batman: The Superman of Planet X.

Rather than being a literal Superman with powers, though, Morrison and Daniels Batman of Zurr-En-Arrh is
a Super-Batman. Hes Batman without anything human the limitations, the humanity, the delays, theyre all gone,
leaving only knowledge and violence. Its Morrisons answer to the question of whether Bruce Wayne is just the

mask, showing you exactly what Batman would look like if he didnt have a human being under the cape and cowl
keeping things restrained. Its all bright colors designed to shock and terrify and cracking baseball bats (geddit?)
upside the heads of Gotham Citys criminal element and cobbling together a deus ex machina out of a busted radio
because he doesnt know that shouldnt be possible.

From there, everythings pretty self-explanatory. The Batman of Zurr-En-Arrh personality does its job, giving
Batmans mind time to reboot itself back into working condition, Joker bails on the losers and promises to kill
them later, and Batman digs his way out of a shallow grave to bring things down once and for all, revealing that he
knew Jezebel was in on it all along. Theres even a great bit at the end that we really shouldve seen coming, where
Thomas declares that the Black Glove always wins, just before Batman punches his way through the helicopter to
bring it down. Batman who wears black gloves.

The only real sticking point about the end is just who Thomas actually was. He claims that hes Thomas Wayne, of
course, a funhouse mirror version of Batmans father who secretly hated his family and wanted them murdered,
but he also claims to be the devil, so, you know, grain of salt. And then theres the idea that a few years later, hes
revealed to be possessed by the Hyper-Adapter sent back in time by Darkseid, which is a Whole Other Thing that,
from what I can gather, wasnt actually meant to be part of the story when it came out.
The thing is, it says who he is right there in the story.
What you have to remember is that Thomas always lies, and so when Batman tells Thomas that hes actually
Mangrove Pierce, an actor who was framed for murder years ago and joined up with the Black Glove, we have no
reason at all to not believe him. At every point of this story, Batman has been one step ahead of everyone else. He
knew Jezebel Jet was a traitor, he knew they were going to attack his mind, and at the end of the day, he knows
exactly who hes dealing with. The one thing this story hammers home time and time again is that Batman
is always right, because he has to be. If he says its Mangrove Pierce, then Im inclined to believe him.
The only hitch is that one issue where Batman gets jacked up on weapons grade crystal meth Morrisons most
Mark Millarest dialogue moment since 1998 and walks across the city with a homeless guy who shows up in the
first issue and may actually be a ghost who died after Batman gave him a bunch of money in the first part of the
story. For that one, youre on your own.

Read More: Ask Chris #237: What The Heck Happened In 'Batman RIP'? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris237-batman-rip/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #236: How I Learned To Love Archie

by Chris Sims March 13, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: Can you help an Archie skeptic understand why its so great? @SuperSentaiBros
A: Man, I hope so. After all, until a few years ago, Archie was arguably the most overlooked publisher in comics just
by sheer volume of what they were putting out, at least among die-hard superhero fans. And to be honest, they had
a good reason for it in a lot of ways, those comics had gotten stale, and they were in dire need of exactly the kind
of shot in the arm that they got from the big name projects that have made them so engaging today.
The thing is, at least in my case, it wasnt when Archie suddenly got weird that made me such a big fan. It was when
I realized that theyd been weird all along.

Im about as big a fan of Archie as youre likely to find, but oddly enough, its not because I ever really liked the
books when I was a kid. I mean, Im sure I read Archie books lord knows I begged my mom for comics every time
we went to the grocery store, and just from a statistical standpoint its impossible that a Double Digest didnt end
up in our cart at some point but I dont really remember them. Really, the only Archie books that I do remember
picking up were from when they were publishing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and those early Sonic the
Hedgehog comics that were built around Sonics weird obsession with chili dogs.
As a result, and I cant imagine this is typical, Im one of those weirdos who decided to get really into Archie Comics
when I was in my mid-20s.
But while I dont remember ever really reading them when i was a kid, I still knew who all those characters were.
Its one of those bits of pop culture that just seem to show up in your brain, like how even folks whove never
picked up a comic in their lives tend to have at least a vague idea of what Superman and Batmans deal is, if only
because theyve been around since before World War II started. If something sticks around long enough, people are
going to know about it, especially if that thing is vaguely responsible for an honest-to-God #1 hit song and if the
characters are stripped down to archetypes, then that makes them a lot easier to know about.
Which is exactly the case with Archie and the gang. Even if youre an Archie Skeptic, Im willing to bet that you can
describe the main cast pretty well: Archie is klutzy and girl-crazy, but kindhearted; Veronicas beautiful but rich;
Bettys sweet but poor; Reggie is five seconds away from getting punched in the mouth at any given time; and
Jughead is literally the fifth best comic book character of all time. You know, the stuff we can all agree on. They
work as these vague ideas with the occasional quirk as much as they work as defined characters, and I dont think

theres any better example of that than the fact that Archie plays sports. Not a sport, just sports. If theres ever a
story that requires him to be involved in athletics, hes there.
Because, you know, thats what teenagers are into: Sports.

Thats actually what made me want to read Archie books to begin with. At the time, I was starting to get serious
about figuring out how to write comics, and one of the things thats always fascinated me across all media is the
idea of tweaking a formula. How much can you really get out of a love story about an unlikely Lothario and the two
girls that compete over him? How many different combinations can you put these vague archetypes into before you
run out? Those were the questions I was really interested in.
So I did what anyone who was working at a comic book store and had a lot of free time would do, and I decided to
start reading literally every comic the company published, including those 200-page Double Digests. And that, my
friends, is a lot of Archie comics.
In retrospect, it mightve actually been the best time to jump on. To be honest, a lot of the stories were extremely
formulaic and, sadly, not that great, but there were a lot of gems in there, too. Even the ones that werent that great
still had this kind of interesting fumbling towards relevance that theyd finally get to a couple of years later, like
that time Jughead showed up in a t-shirt reading DONT TAZE ME BRO in a story that ran about a year after the
incident that made that a catchphrase.

The main thing I got from all those stories was getting a baseline of the characters, and figuring out how detailed
those archetypes really were, something that turned out to be mostly situational. But while I enjoyed reading a lot
of those comics, they werent really what made me a fan. What hooked me was the weird stuff.
At the same time as I was reading the current output, I was also digging through back issue bins for some of the
more obscure titles that werent getting reprinted, and the ones that always caught my eye were the truly bizarre
Christian comics put out by Spire (and drawn by born-again Archie artist Al Hartley), and the ultra-serious Life
With Archie books from the 70s, where Archie was dealing with stuff like Veronica being held at knifepoint or
crooks trying to bilk people out of money by renting a haunted mansion.

Please try to work the tape deck of Satan himself into as many conversations as you can. I promise it will be
rewarding.
Anyway, those stories are almost never reprinted although the one above showed up alongside a couple of
others in a recent paperback called Archies Favorite Comics From The Vault and its easy to see why. They break
the formula, and they do it in a way thats fascinating. At its worst, Riverdale isnt just a peaceful, idealized small
town, its placid and saccharine in equal measure, which I think is the version most people who havent read a lot of
those comics have in their head. In those stories, though, its every bit as violent and scary and full of flinthearted
con-men as everything else. Its what made those comics so appealing, that they took that well-established formula
and broke it into pieces.
The thing is, the more stories I read and honestly, a lot of credit for this has to go to whoever was in the office
picking out which classic stories went into the digests the more I realized that the formula was being shattered
all over the place, and had been since those comics started.
Dont get me wrong, the vast majority of Archie comics Ive read have been playing into the formula of putting
these archetypal characters into typical teenage situations, to the point where one of Archies taglines back in the
Golden Age was Americas Typical Teenager. This is, for the record, a pretty terrible tagline, but to be fair, its
better than the previous one, The Mirth of a Nation. Yikes.
But while the formula is prevalent, there are a ton of stories that only use it to make everything else seem weirder.
Not only are there stories where Betty and Veronica have a much sharper, more acid-tongued rivalry than the
friendship theyd eventually be cast in; there are stories where aliens and Christmas elves show up, or the Weird
Mysteries arc, where you find out Veronica is a destined vampire slayer, or the fact that everyone knows theres an
actual teenage witch who lives two towns over.
And then theres Cricket ODell.

Cricket ODell is my single favorite Archie character of all time.

If youre not familiar with her, Cricket has the uncanny ability to literally smell money, to the point where she can
determine exactly how much cash a person has on hand just by sniff, and can even identify foreign currency by its
distinct aroma. That is bananas, and even stranger is the fact that everyone just completely accepts this as
something thats weird, but not entirely unheard of. Like thats basically a mutant superpower, right? And yet,
Archie and Co. just refer to it as a slightly odd talent.
That she even exists in a world that is defined as being the home of typical teenagers is pretty great, but what
makes it even better is when she shows up in my all-time favorite Archie story, which involves my second-favorite
Archie character, the Elevenaire.
Again, if youre not spending all your free time reading Archie comics, this one mightve escaped you, but the
Elevenaire is a recurring character/plot device who has been authorized by his benefactor, the mysterious Gosford
P. Wobbledon, to present certain people with the sum of eleven dollars in cash, which naturally leads them into
hijinx. If that sounds weird, and it should, then keep in mind that its also a reference to a TV show called The
Millionaire that ran on CBS in the 50s, where the mysterious benefactor was named John Beresford Tipton, Jr. I
didnt even find that out until six months ago, and it only made me love that story more.
The two characters come together in Veronica #180 (which, incidentally, is available digitally), where Ronnie gets
the $11 and initially thinks its useless since she always uses a debit card, but then falls down a hole and only gets
out of it because Cricket can track her down using the exact scent of eleven dollars.
And that, to me, is Archie Comics. All the stuff you know, or at least the stuff that you think you know, is still there
in place. Its just happening on top of a world thats a whole lot stranger than you might expect, where that formula
gets hammered into as many bizarre shapes as you expect from 75 years of trying to do something new with it.

Read More: Ask Chris #236: How I Learned To Love 'Archie' | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-236archie/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #235: The Case Against A Shared Universe

by Chris Sims March 6, 2015 1:00 PM

Q: What are the arguments against a shared universe? Like, would Hawkman be tolerable if he wasnt
standing next to Superman? @Dan_Toland
A: I gotta say, I am probably the last person on the face of the planet that you should be coming to with this
question. Not only do I love the concept of a shared universe in general, but I love it specifically in how its evolved
to become a defining feature of superhero comics, to the point where its actually as much a part of what I think of
when I hear the word superhero as powers and costumes.
On the other hand, I am also a dude who has never passed up an opportunity to make fun of Hawkman, so allow me
to answer that part of your question first: No. Nothing will ever make Hawkman tolerable. Hawkman is the worst.

Shared universes, though, are great. I think its a pretty natural desire among fans of fiction to see how their
favorite characters would interact with each other and influence the world around each other. Its not a new idea,
either if you really want to go all Scott McCloud on this stuff, you can go back far enough to stuff like Hercules
signing up for a hitch in the Argonauts to hang out with Jason, Theseus and Orpheus, essentially forming the Justice
League of Greek Mythology.
Its not just about seeing characters meet up with each other, either, although thats obviously the biggest part of it.
The more stories you set in that universe, and the more conflicts and friendships and team-ups you throw into it,
the more you start to develop a world that has details beyond just those characters. You start to see themes and
structures, rules and quirks, and that can be something thats fun all on its own. And its also something that you
only really see in comics.
TV shows have done it, of course theres that entire weird network of spin-offs that spawned from Happy Days,
and the late Dwayne McDuffie was fond of pointing out the connections that meant most everything from Law &
Order to The Simpsons to The Andy Griffith Show were all taking place inside the snowglobe at the end of St.
Elsewhere but to be honest, its hard to look at those as shared universes. Theres never really that much
interaction between them, and in the case of that all-encompassing snowglobe, its more of a series of quirks than
anything else. In movies particularly superhero movies, which are taking their cues about building continuity
from comics youre starting to see something a little closer, but the most weve gotten there is, what, ten
interconnected stories with plans for ten more?
In superhero comics, there are thousands, with hundreds of creators working on them and building a cohesive
whole or, you know, close enough that allows for entirely different genres to coexist side-by-side, drawing
from and building the same structure. Villains created for one hero get to fight against another and bring out
entirely new contrasts, plot points from one characters history can show up to influence anothers future.
Its great. Even the comics that I love that arent necessarily superhero books are ones that tend to expand over
time into a fleshed-out world with multiple characters that can work in starring roles, like Hellboy.
Its especially interesting to think about in the context of the DC Universe, because, as Ive mentioned a couple of
times before, it wasnt originally intended to be a shared universe at all. When you look at DCs most prominent,
long-standing characters, theyre all the products of very individual stories, especially those Golden Age comics
that were made by people who had no idea that their creations would exist twenty years later, let alone that theyd
be teaming up in a book called Justice League. Its actually one of the most compelling arguments in favor of Crisis
On Infinite Earths, in that it gave DC an opportunity to rebuild and integrate everything as a shared universe from
the ground up. Which, as youve probably guessed by now, is something that I think is a really good idea.
But that doesnt mean there arent arguments against it.

For starters, with a large enough universe and an equally large roster of characters, it inherently makes an
individual character less special. This is the argument that I always go to with Hawkman to talk about why hes
terrible: Even if you boil him down to the bare (and bare-chested) essentials, hes a dude whose sole defining trait
is that he can fly. The DC Universe already has a dude who can fly, and he doesnt even need a set of wings and a
complicated backstory about being a reincarnated space pharaoh to do it. Thank you for bringing the mace and all,
but that position is filled.
Really, its the same thing that I was talking about with regards to the Martian Manhunter a couple weeks ago, in
that a lot of what he has to offer is stuff thats already provided by characters that are far more prominent and
well-developed than hell ever be. So the question, then, is whether these characters would be able to work in
higher profile roles if they werent in a position of being inherently overshadowed and crowded out by having to

coexist with more established characters. Of course, the counter-argument to that is that you just have to figure out
a new take on a character and make them fit into the gaps, and they can be just as entertaining as anything else,
even if theyre operating in the same circles.
The second problem with a larger shared universe is that as much fun as it is to have great characters team up and
hang out with each other, it raises a lot of questions about why things dont get done a different way. Its the
question of why Batman doesnt just call in Superman every time the Joker breaks out so that he can wrap things
up in like ten minutes and make it home before Alfreds dinner gets cold, or why the Avengers allow the Punisher
to just drive around shooting people literally all the time.
Its one of the reasons modern comics have characterized Batman as the grumpy, stay outta my city! type, when
the pragmatic answer to literally all of his problems would be keeping Green Lantern on speed dial, and, along the
same lines, the reason that writers from Mike Baron to Garth Ennis tend to write the Punisher in his own little
world of crooks in dire need of bulletholes. When hes in the core Marvel Universe, that becomes a question that
you almost have to address and answer. That doesnt mean that it cant be good, of course, but any time that you
have to do the necessary bookkeeping, youre not doing something else.
That ones not just limited to comics, either. Kim Newmans Anno Dracula, a big literary mashup that throws
everything from Darkseid to Columbo to Shaft into a world where Dracula wins at the end of the novel and takes
over England in 1888, is structured as a murder mystery, but with one conspicuous absence. Sherlock Holmes is
mentioned as being locked up in one of the prison camps Dracula built for enemies of his reign, and according to
Newmans own annotations, this was done solely because Holmes would be able to solve the mystery that the rest
of the characters are having so much trouble with by the end of the first chapter.
The third snag is that it also directs your focus, and can often direct it right away from the story youre trying to tell.

The inevitable consequence of having a universe is that youre eventually going to get a problem that threatens the
universe, which is as true in comic books as it is in astrophysics. And the inevitable consequence of that is that
everyone whos part of that universe should probably show up and do their part, if only to illustrate the scope of
whats going on, even if it doesnt make a whole lot of sense.

I mean, just look at the image above. Ill give you that maybe, maybe Hawkman thinks he could hit something with
a mace hard enough to stop the universe from imploding or whatever, but what the hell are you doing there,
Vigilante? You dont even have powers! And dont give me that, Well Batman doesnt have powers nonsense
either; you, me and Marv Wolfman all know that you aint Batman.
Uh anyway.
We see this a lot with modern comics and the way that they follow an event-driven model, where books are always
being dragged into whatever crossover is changing everything forever this month. And again, thats
not necessarily a bad thing, and you can usually get some really good stories out of it, but there is a level where it
can form an obstacle that people have to write around, and it makes planning out a long-game plot a lot more
difficult, since theres so much to take into account.
Those, I think, would be the major arguments, and you can find some pretty great examples to support the idea
that a more isolated approach might work better. I sure as heck like Batman: The Animated Series and its tight focus
more than I like Justice League Unlimited (and folks, I like JLU a lot), and while Im sure having the Ninja Turtles
show up early on didnt hurt sales, a book like Usagi Yojimbonever needed to branch out to end up with a setting
and a cast that felt rich, fully realized, and compelling.
Yet ultimately theres so much that you can get out of having a shared universe at least in the world of
mainstream superheroics that theyre more than worth the hangups and messiness that come along with em.
And really, theyre not whats holding Hawkman back.
Hawkman is whats holding Hawkman back.

Read More: The Case Against A Shared Superhero Universe | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-235-the-caseagainst-a-shared-universe/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #234: A Brief History Of Hypertime

by Chris Sims February 27, 2015 3:00 PM

Q: What the hell was hypertime? @T_Lawson

A: Oh man, Hypertime. That is something that I have not thought about in a while, although I suspect that
with Multiversity going on and Convergence about to hit in a few months, its something thats going to be getting a
little more attention than it has in the past fifteen years or so. And given that at least half of these columns are
about how much I love DC Comics from the 90s, it probably wont surprise you to find out that its a really
interesting concept.
As for what the hell it is, well, its one of those weird cases where the simplest and most sarcastic answer is also
kind of the most accurate: Hypertime is whatever you want it to be.

Okay, bear with me, because this is the part where I usually go through all the stuff about how the DC Universe was
stitched together over the course of 50 years of retcons and reboots into a unified whole and how up until the mid
80s, the entire line was still largely built around individual franchises rather than as a cohesive whole, and Im
pretty sure that Ive already covered that in other columns. With that in mind, Ill try to just keep it to this idea:
When DC actually decided to go through with rebuilding their multiverse into a universe after Crisis On Infinite
Earths, the solution that they settled on was actually one that was pretty elegant in how simple it was. All they did
was just put it all together in one single timeline.
It makes sense that theyd do it that way because really, it wasnt the infinite Earths that were ever really the
problem. It was really just Earth-1 and Earth-2. All the other stuff, like Captain Marvel or the Charlton characters,

was just stuff that they hadnt figured out how to integrate into the universe yet, and if Crisis did nothing else, it
gave the company a pretty easy opportunity to just drop it in alongside the rest of their properties and figure it out
as they went along.
No, the real problem, at least where the multiverse was concerned, was that you had different versions of your
flagship characters running around, and while that meant you could actually do stuff like having a story about
Batman and Catwoman finally getting married and make it count as much as anything else, it also meant that
when you talked about those stories, they all had to have a boatload of qualifiers.
Just dig through a back issue bin for an issue of Whos Who from the pre-Crisis days and youll see what Im talking
about, with this definitive guide to the DCU and its characters having to list two separate first appearances and
histories for two separate versions of Batman and Superman.
Whether or not this was actually as big a problem as they made it out to be (it wasnt), it was still a weird quirk of
storytelling. But since the difference was one of time, between the Batman (or Superman, or Green Lantern, or
Flash) of the 30s and the version that was refined later, then it just made sense to just lump them all into a single
timeline, since there was no real overlap to speak of.
That way you had your original Justice Society type characters as the elder statesmen who fought Nazis as
mystery men and your modern superheroes that were still vital and active, and you end up with a universe built
on heroic tradition and legacy that can stretch back as far (or as recent) as you want it to. Its not a perfect solution,
of course. Characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, who had been consistently published, didnt
quite fit into that legacy idea as neatly as the ones who had been rebooted, like Flash, Green Lantern or the Atom,
and there were a lot of storytelling gymnastics designed to fill in gaps and explain stuff like why those Golden Age
characters arent all dead.
To be honest, there were pieces of it that were as complicated as anything that had happened in the Earth-1/Earth2 days, to the point where we ended up with two Black Canaries and two Wonder Women, with Wonder Womans
mom, Wonder Woman, filling in for Black Canary in the history of the Justice Society and Black Canarys daughter,
Black Canary, filling in for Wonder Woman in the history of the Justice League. And if that sounds complicated, try
figuring out why all the other members of the JSA decided to wait til they were sixty to have kids. Spoiler warning,
but the answer involves a big rock made of magic that was put together by little blue spacemen.
For the most part, though, it worked pretty well, and the patches meant to cover up the weird blips in the timeline
were usually pretty interesting, and added a complexity the universe that made it feel like a single whole, rather
than just individual characters and settings that would occasionally drop in on each other before going back to
their distinct fiefdoms.
Theres just one big problem with that: All those stories they just swept off the table? They still exist.

Thats really the problem with retcons and reboots in general, isnt it? It goes back to something that I wrote about
a while back, the idea of having a personal continuity thats as important to you as the official list of what counts
and what doesnt, a concept that really only exists when youre talking about shared universes that are created by
such a large number of people working over the better part of a century. I mean, you can tell me that a particular
comic didnt happen in the official continuity, but Ive still read it. Its as real to me as anything else. And if thats
true for me, then its true for everyone, including the people creating the continuity and deciding which pieces are
the ones that matter.
Which brings us, at long last, back to Hypertime.
The short version, as I understand it, is that everything happened. All those stories exist, because all
those comics exist they were published with a DC logo on the cover, so theyre as real as anything else. You have

the central core of whats true about a character, the ideas that have remained consistent over the years, but
everything else is fluid, and whats more, every take on those ideas is equally valid. For example, Christopher
Reeves Superman and Adam Wests Batman are just as real as the versions showing up in the comics, who are in
turn just as real as all the other versions showing up in the comics. Theres no one true version of a character, and if
that causes a conflict in the continuity of the story, then its no big deal, because as Im so fond of saying, it aint a
documentary. Its a story.
When you get right down to it, this essentially just creates a multiverse of alternate timelines which again goes
back to the theme of time as the dividing factor, rather than physical dimensions or vibrational frequencies
which is how it was used in the pages of Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and Paul Pelletiers Flash.

Hypertime was more the focus in The Kingdom, but The Flash was where I first encountered the concept, and
where it made the most sense to me. Of course, its also worth noting that I was 17 and completely hooked on this
story that involved a new, darker Flash literally a dude in a darker costume who everyone was calling The Dark
Flash showing up to replace Wally West. In fact, Im pretty sure that this story was the reason for my first-ever
venture into the Comics Internet, going onto the DC Comics message boards to see if anyone had clues as to who
this guy could be. Was it Barry Allen? A grown-up Impulse? John Fox returning from the 853rd Century?!

Nope. It was Wally West. Just not our Wally West. See, the Dark Flash was Walter West, not Wallace, from a
timeline where he failed to save Linda Park from being killed by supervillains in Terminal Velocity, and when he
showed up, it was the natural consequence of Hypertime. There were other timelines around, with characters who
could potentially travel into the main timeline. And of course the Flash was the first one to really make a go of it,
since the Flashes had been the characters that bridged all the other universes since 1954. Its kind of their entire
deal.
For practical purposes, this basically brought back the DC Multiverse, but in a form that felt more like Marvels
multiverse, in that it could potentially contain whatever you wanted from whatever story you wanted, but that
people only really refer to as a multiverse when they need to, because its way easier to say Days of Future Past
than Earth-811, because nobody knows what that is. It opens the door and lets the people in charge of the books
determine what matters at each moment, bringing everything back onto the table in a way that doesnt really
negate the foundation of the DC Universe that theyd worked so hard to build. You get to have Golden Age
Superman and your universe built on legacy and heroic tradition at the same time, you just have to decide what
you want to do.
And really, I think thats why it never took off.
The biggest problem with Hypertime is also its biggest selling point: Its a structure for a fictional universe where
the most important thing, the premise that it admits right from the start, is that its fictional. None of its actually
real, which means that its all completely fluid. But while thats fine for some readers and creators, particularly
those whose names rhyme with Fant Forrison, it also pulls back the curtain in a way that makes it a little harder to
suspend your disbelief.
I mean, we all know that comics are fiction, but when you explicitly make acknowledging that the first step in
reading a story, you are putting up a barrier. I think thats why so many readers have such a hard time with
Forrison. Its not that his work is particularly complex, its that he requires you to accept that its all fake right up
front, and when youre dealing with an audience that traditionally has an obsession with codifying the rules of a
universe and demands a logical consistency and continuity that makes accepting all these flying people and psychic
gorillas a little easier which is something Im usually right there with em on myself then it results in a
conflict. If everything happened, then arranging it all in a way that makes sense isnt just difficult, its pointless, and
since continuity is, like it or not, the driving force of a shared universe, it can make the whole enterprise seem like a
lost cause if you look at it a certain way.
In a way, the mindset that wants those rules and structures is a lot more suited to Multiversitys complicated,
meticulously arranged mutliverse, where this story happened on this Earth, which is arranged on the map
opposite this Earth because of these reasons, than the simple approach of just saying it all happened, even if the
latter is much more reflective of how those stories are actually put together by the people making them.
Also, Hypertime sounds like a calculator watch that changes color due to body heat. That probably didnt help
matters either.

Read More: What is 'Hypertime'? | http://comicsalliance.com/hypertime/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #233: Making Sense of The Martian Manhunter

by Chris Sims February 20, 2015 2:00 PM

Q: What are the qualities that allow a character to sustain a solo book, and why doesnt Martian
Manhunter have any of them? @RichBurlew
A: I gotta tell you, Rich, this is a very interesting question, and I hope youll forgive me if I completely ignore the
first half so that I can talk about the second. I mean, lets be real with each other here, if I knew what qualities made
for a successful solo character, I would probably be writing that comic instead of this column, and between the two
of us, youre the one whos been doing a successful and beloved character-driven story for the past decade. If
anything, I should probably be asking you.
The Martian Manhunter, however, has always been a really interesting character to me, if only because in terms of
being a solo character, hes the definition of an also-ran. Hes been around forever, but hes never quite clicked, and
I think the simple reason for that is that theres nothing he does that isnt already done better by someone else.

Before I go any further, heres two standard caveats. First, as is usually the case in comics, just because the Martian
Manhunter hasnt ever really worked as a solo character doesnt mean that he cant, it just means that it hasnt
happened yet. If youd asked me five years ago, Id probably say the same stuff Im about to say about Hawkeye,
except for the part where I actually like the Martian Manhunter. All it really takes is the right team with the right
take to come along and make it work, and the great thing about superhero comics and the sheer number of people
who are working on creating these massive shared universes is that this happens pretty regularly.
Of course, that said, if John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake couldnt make it work, Ive got a hard time believing
anyone could.
Second, and the thing that makes things a little more complex, is that while I might not think hes ever really clicked
as a solo character, I actually really like the Martian Manhunter. I like almost everything about him, hes a key part
of some of my favorite stories, and there are even good, very good solo stories about him. There are takes on the
character and ideas that I think are absolutely fantastic. The problem is that almost all of those ideas are on display
in comics where hes part of a team, and theyre not quite enough to make him work outside of that context,
especially in a universe where the same teammates who work so well with him as a group are filling the roles hes
built for way better than he ever could.
And thats really the problem with Jonn Jonzz in a nutshell.

On paper, the Martian Manhunter should be the best DC character ever, if only because he combines everything
that we all like about DCs biggest hits. Hes got all of Supermans powers, and hes a detective! A detective who can
turn invisible, walk through walls and read minds, which ought to make him the single greatest crime-fighter in
history, albeit at the expense of removing any of the actual drama and fun of, you know, actually putting clues
together to solve a crime. We can go ahead and call that Problem #1.
But still, theres a whole lot there to work with. Combining a Superman-esque set of powers with a deductive mind
(and a pretty convenient weakness that can be used to turn them off as needed) seems like itd be a slam dunk in
terms of crafting engaging superhero stories, and on top of that, everything thats different about him is compelling
as all heck.
He and Superman might both be the last survivors of their home planets, but while Clark Kent grew up in Kansas
with two loving parents and thinks of himself as a human, Jonn Jonzz came to Earth as an adult, pulled against his
will through time and space after watching his entire race and his family die. It gives him a tragedy and a
distance from humanity that, again, seem like a slam dunk when it comes to hooking the readers.
I mean, how many years have they spent trying to hammer Superman into being a lonely outsider who stands apart
from humanity while still protecting it? Jonn Jonzz is already there, man! Thats like his whole deal!

But thats Problem #2, which is the much trickier one to get around: That position has already been filled. If you
want to read superheroic detective stories, well, theres one guy that theyve spent 75 years telling you is the
Worlds Greatest Detective, so why would you bother reading about this other guy? On that front, Martian
Manhunter cant carry an ongoing series for the same reason that were not celebrating a hundred issues of Jason
Bard. And as weve all seen from Shazam, having the same powers as Superman and maybe even being a more
inherently interesting character doesnt really do you a whole lot of favors when it comes to getting the
spotlight, even when those early Justice League stories used him as a stand-in. And really, theres no reason that it
should.
Like em or not, Superman and Batman are always going to be the characters that the DC Universe revolves around,
and its pretty difficult to argue that it shouldnt be that way. Theyre great characters, and while there are plenty of
new twists and takes to be found in superhero comics, trying to compete with those two on their own terms is
pretty difficult. I hate to be the one to break it to them, but if there are any aspiring superheroes from the DC
Universe out there who figured out how to read this, trust me: Work hard and take your vitamins and you might
end up being more important than Aquaman, but youre never going to be more important than Superman.
Which is weird, because a lot of my favorite aspects of the Martian Manhunter are built entirely on the idea that
hes every bit as important as Superman.

In a lot of ways, thats a fools errand. Its something that comes up in comics a lot, particularly when theyre
introducing new characters, and Im always really fond of how Darkhawk from the 90s (which is better than you
think) is full of scenes where some dudes from the future talk about how Chris Powell is going to become the
greatest hero of his age. Chris Powell. Darkhawk. Who lives at the same time as, you know, Spider-Man.
With Martian Manhunter, though, it rings a little more true, largely because he had a long career as a cornerstone
of the JLA to back it up, whereas Darkhawk had a three-week internship with the Power Pack or something.
There was a really cool idea that came about in the late 90s, around the Ostrander/Mandrake era, that outside of
America, Jonn was as well-known as Superman, and devoted his time to protecting the massive parts of the world
that, unlike Metropolis or Gotham, didnt have resident superheroes. Its a really interesting take, one that plays on
his status as a Justice Leaguer (and therefore a pretty Big Deal within the DC Universe), and explains why we,

reading comics that were mostly set in America, didnt know about all these other adventures, without detracting
from anything else. It brought Jonn up to Supermans level without trying to surpass him.
Similarly, there was also the idea that Jonn wasnt just John Jones, he had secret identities all across the world
including one named for Sailor Mars in what is unquestionably the single greatest moment of Mark Millars entire
career.
The best example of this might actually be in JLA: Earth 2, where Batman Batman! decides that if the League
is going to leave their home dimension to go on an adventure, then theyre going to leave two people in charge who
can handle anything that might come up: Aquaman and Martian Manhunter. Its an easy trick to have Yr Fave show
up and tell you, Hey this guys pretty cool, but in the context of that universe, it says a lot that theyre willing to
trust the fate of the entire world to the Martian Manhunter.
And Aquaman, I guess.
There was another cool idea in that era, too, something I believe was entirely the product of Ostrander and
Mandrake that played into how the DC Universe was built on the theme of legacy. Its a really simple idea for a
world where there were a bunch of superheroes around World War II that, for some reason, went away until
Superman showed up ten years ago and sparked a whole new heroic age, and the basic premise is that Jonn was
there for all of it.
Im fascinated by this idea, because it does things with the sliding scale timeline that are a little more interesting
than the usual practice of just figuring out which Golden Age Superman adventures were retconned into being
about Iron Munro instead. It starts with the idea that the Martian Manhunter was just using his powers to do good
in secret rather than expose his existence to a public that had been trained by sci-fi to hate little green men from
Mars.
And then you get to the Bronze Wraith, which is where things get really interesting.
The Bronze Wraith was a superheroic identity that Jonn used as part of a short-lived and intentionally terribly
named team called the Justice Experience, which ended disastrously and also featured a bat-themed superhero in
Gotham City before Bruce Wayne. What makes it so interesting is that it shows that he was trying to be a superhero
long before the world was ready for him, and that The Martian Manhunter is an identity that he only adopted
after Superman showed that the world could accept an alien superhero.
Its a great little piece of character history that not only shows how dedicated Jonn was and how much experience
he has with superheroics, but also how isolated he was from humanity, and how much Superman changed
everything.
The biggest problem with DCs post-Crisis universe, from a structural standpoint anyway, is figuring out how to
preserve Supermans status as the center of this new Heroic Age when there were already superheroes and
mystery men fighting crime back in the 40s. With a simple idea of Jonn trying and not succeeding, only to go on
and become a core member of the Justice League for years, the change brought about by Supermans arrival
becomes indisputable.
Quick side note: Out of everything that got changed for the New 52 reboot, that aspect of the Martain Manhunters
character was one that stayed, sort of. The Bronze Wraith and the Justice Experience (and presumably the AcroBat) were dropped, but one of their ideas was that hed been a part of Stormwatch for decades, protecting the
world in secret. Unfortunately, that ended up being pretty disastrous in and of itself, for entirely different reasons
that mostly centered on the story being Not Very Good. Anyway.
That stuffs all really interesting and compelling, but it also kind of tanks him as a solo character, too, because all of
those ideas tie him into being part of the Justice League. Its what defines him. Hes the team player in search of a
team, the person whos isolated from humanity whose only true identity is the superhero, not John Jones or Hino
Rei. Hes the one who saw a team of superheroes get destroyed partially due to their inexperience, and moved into
a role where he could be at the center of the team, mentoring young heroes and doing what he could to protect
them. Its why the fight with Despero in the Detroit era and the rematch in the JLI era are his defining moments as a
character, because hes fighting for his team just as much as hes fighting for the fate of the world. Even New
Frontier is about Martian Manhunter as part of a crowd.
But when the team is so much a part of his identity, it makes it difficult to see him without it. Superman works fine
without a team. Wonder Woman works fine without a team. Batman works fine without a team, unless you count
the massive crowd of sidekicks, hangers-on, surrogate fathers and domestic servants that hang around in his
basement.
WIth Manhunter, though, its part of his identity in a way thats far more inextricable, and while that might have
been something that developed because he just flat-out didnt work on his own when he first appeared, it ended up
forming the basis for a lot of really interesting stuff.

Read More: Making Sense of The Martian Manhunter | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-233-making-sense-ofthe-martian-manhunter/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #232: Big Barda And Mister Miracle Can Teach Us A Lot About Love
by Chris Sims February 13, 2015 3:30 PM

Q: Mister Miracle and Big Barda: great superhero romance or greatest superhero romance?
@ReverendMagnett
A: You know, Reverend, ComicsAlliance is having a poll right this very minute to determine what our readers think
is the greatest superhero romance, but as we all know, polls deal in opinion, while Ask Chris deals entirely in facts.
Sure, they might appear to just be opinions with a lot of exclamation points thrown in, but trust me, itll save us all
a lot of time if we just agree that theyre facts and move on.
Anyway, with Valentines Day right around the corner, its probably not a surprise that I got a lot of questions about
comic book relationships, and while a couple of people wanted to know who was the worst lover in comics history
(Lucy Lane), there were a few that specifically asked about Mister Miracle and Big Barda. So with that in mind, Ill
just go ahead and confirm it: They are, in fact, the greatest romance in comics history, even beating out Lois Lane
and Satan mainly because they compare their relationship to beating a shark to death from the inside.
Seriously. Its one of my favorite single panels ever:

It probably says a lot about me that this is what strikes me as one of the most genuinely romantic moments in
comics, but the idea of finding someone in a world full of terrible things who will not only stand beside you, but
charge right in and destroy everything in their path so that you can go back to living a happy life together? If thats
not love, then folks, I dont know what is.
Of course, its also kind of the perfect summary of how love works not only in Jack Kirbys (Fourth) world, but how
it works for Barda specifically. She is, after all, built as a character whos very straightforward. She doesnt let any
obstacles stand in her way, and thats one of the things that makes her go so well with Mister Miracle. Hes the
ultimate escape artist, the person who can slip out of any situation no mater how dire, relying on trickery and
sleight of hand to get around things. But Barda? Barda doesnt get around things. She goes through them.

In the immortal words of Prince, Big Barda is not here 2 funk around.
Theres a very basic level where that kind of contrast makes them a really fun couple to read about, especially since
Barda is so ridiculously, hilariously aggressive about smashing everything that stands between her and what she
wants. But really, that level of aggression makes a lot of sense. Barda is not, after all, one of the peaceful gods of
New Genesis. Shes from Apokolips, and not only that, but she was trained to be the most aggressive, brutal and
utterly ruthless warrior on a planet that was built on brutality and ruthlessness a planet, as Kirby himself says
in one of his typically amazing next-issue blurbs, where holocaust is a household word!
Ive written before about the morality of the New Gods and how much I love the simplicity of it, the simple idea that
Good and Evil are opposing forces, but not equal ones. Its the idea at the heart of The Pact, the story that forms
the core for everything else that goes on around it. If youre not familiar with it, the gist is that Darkseid and
Highfather exchange their children to ensure a fragile peace between their two planets.
Orion, the son of Darkseid, the living embodiment of evil, goes to New Genesis, and even though hes in the difficult
position of being the God of War on a world where war is anything but godly, he grows up good and honorable.
Scott Free, on the other hand, is the son of Highfather, the ultimate force of good, and even though hes subjected to
every bit of evil that Darkseid can throw at him, it doesnt corrupt him. Good wins out on both sides, and shows just
how weak Darkseid really is. Theres plenty of self-interest, greed and hatred for him to manipulate and use for his
own awful purposes, but in Kirbys cosmology, evil can never hope to compete with good on its own terms.
Which is exactly why Barda and Scott fall in love.

Scotts story may be about resisting corruption and embracing freedom and self-determination, but Bardas is
about actively fighting against it because youve found something better. She loves Scott, and shes not going to let a
little thing like an entire planet built on a foundation of suffering that has done its level best to forge her into an
unthinking weapon stop her from reuniting with the person she loves and making a new life with him. And the
thing that really makes it work is that for her, its not easy.
Scotts escape from Apokolips is pretty justifiably regarded as one of the high points of Jack Kirbys fifty-year
career in comics, but when you really look at it, there was no way that it wasnt going to happen. Even before he
becomes Mister Miracle and starts making an actual living as an escape artist, Scotts defined by his ability to get
out of things, his devotion to freedom even in the heart of oppression. Escaping from Granny Goodnesss
orphanage and making his way to Earth might not have been easy, but it was always what he was going to do.
But like I said, Bardas not an escape artist. Shes a fighter.

For Barda to walk away from Apokolips is a much bigger sacrifice than Scotts. Hes leaving a situation thats
oppressive and horrible, but shes leaving a situation that, while still pretty oppressive and horrible, is also one that
plays to her strengths. Shes been built for it, and shes good at it. So good, in fact, that shes the highest ranked

soldier in an army of warriors who have been trained for battle for their entire lives, the leader of the elite Female
Furies. Shes exceptionally good at what she does, and leaving it represents a much bigger sacrifice.
But thats exactly what she does, because theres something she wants out there that makes her want to fight
against everything shes ever been taught, and since shes a blunt, straightforward fighter, she goes straight for it
and pretty much obliterates everything in her path. And what she wants and what Scott wants, although looking
back at those Kirby issues, it sure does take him a lot longer to admit it is to love and be loved.
Which is exactly what happens, and another reason that theyre one of the best romances in comics is that its
remained that way ever since. Scott and Barda are almost universally shown to be completely in love with each
other, and while I love seeing Barda in action, Ive always had a soft spot for seeing her in the sort of SitcomHousewife role that she had in the 80s. Its one of those weird character shifts that follows logically from what the
character wants especially since shes always willing to go back into action to defend that idyllic life of love.

Put them together and you have an incredible pair of characters that arent just great, but that are driven by their
love for each other in a way that very few superheroes are, so devoted to each other that theyre willing to be
devoured by a shark and beat it to death from the inside, metaphorically and literally.
And that, my friends, is what love is all about.

Read More: Big Barda And Mister Miracle Can Teach Us A Lot About Love | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris232-big-barda-and-mister-miracle-can-teach-us-a-lot-about-love/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #230: Beware The Gray Ghost

by Chris Sims January 30, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: Since youre knee-deep in rewatching Batman 66, why is Beware the Gray Ghost such a brilliant
episode of Batman: The Animated Series? @Gavin4L
A: With Simon Trents surprise return in this weeks issue of Gotham Academy, it seems like everyones been
thinking about the Gray Ghost. Or at least, Ive been thinking about him a lot, and I can assure you that Ive been
thinking about him enough for all of us.
Im going to go out on a limb here and say that Im probably involved in more conversations about Batman: The
Animated Series than your average person, but in my experience, at least, Beware the Gray Ghost isnt one of the
ones that gets talked about all that much. And that in itself is actually pretty weird, because it gives the world
of The Animated Series something that it never really got from any other episode: It built a story around fandom.

When you get right down to it, BTAS did a much better job than most other incarnations of Batman in making
Bruce Wayne seem like a character you could actually relate to, particularly in the first few seasons when he was
rocking that mustard-yellow suit. I actually love that version of Bruce Wayne hes every bit as serious as every
other incarnation of the character when its time to get down to the crime-fighting, but hes also a guy who will
occasionally grab lunch with Harvey Dent because theyre friends or swap a few quips with Alfred. Its something
that I think the series lost when the redesigns hit for The New Batman Adventures and Bruce became, at least
visually, a much more severe character.
I mean, if nothing else, that original design made for a much better cover for his secret identity. If theres one thing
Bruce Wayne should never be, its a grumpy dude dressed in a black suit, you know?
Either way, the core of the character was one thats more aspirational than relatable. Batman is a character that
you want to be, but even watching the show at ten years old, I knew I was never going to be Batman, if only
because I wasnt a billionaire with a photographic memory. Batmans attributes distance him from readers every
bit as much as any other characters super-powers, and as a result, as well-built as those characters were, they
were missing something that fans could really latch onto, that crucial element of seeing yourself in a character.
In other words, they were missing Tim Drake.
Dont get me wrong, theyd been using his costume since the pilot and theyd eventually use his name, but the
costume was on Dick Grayson and the character who had his name was, in every other respect, pretty much just
Jason Todd. The actual character was missing, which is a real shame.
Im pretty sure Ive been over this before, but Tim Drake is, without question, the best Robin, for the simple reason
that hes the one who wants to be there. Theres no motivating tragedy in his origin, theres just a kid who really
loves Batman and Robin, and realizes that Batman without Robin just isnt as good and sets out to solve that. Its
the same reason Barbara Gordons such a great character asBatgirl, in that theyre choosing this life because they
know its the right thing to do rather than because theyre driven to it by hardships. Theyre fans, which makes
them the easiest viewpoint characters for the fans watching at home to identify with.
BTAS never really had that with Tim Drake, and since they wouldnt get around to doing it with Barbara Gordon for
another 40 episodes, they did something even more interesting. They make Batman himself the fan.

I mean, really, they went a little further into making him a huge friggin nerd, but, you know, its basically the same
thing.
The trick about what writers Dennis OFlaherty, Tom Ruegger and Garin Wolf and director Boyd Kirkand are doing
in this episode is that they build everything around the idea of fandom, on every possible level. The most obvious
aspect, getting Adam West for the voice of Simon Trent, the actor who helped inspire Bruce Waynes crime-fighting
career, is probably the most brilliant, because it makes Batmans Batman Batman.
For the record, West is fantastic in this episode. I doubt it really required a lot of method acting for him to get into
the role of an actor who had been typecast for years because he played a superhero on TV, but theres so much
emotion in his performance that it felt real, even when I was watching right before an hour of Batman 66 on the
same channel. Theres even a visual nod to Wests era as Batman in the Batcave, when they look for fingerprints
using something that looks an awful lot like a BTAS version of 66s Hyper-Spectrographic Analyzer:

If they wouldve thrown in a clip of Simon Trent showing up at Memphis Wrestling to promote a boat show with
Jerry Lawler, itd be perfect.
It doesnt stop there, though. For starters, theres the other guest star in this episode, the Mad Bomber himself,
whos voiced by Bruce Timm.

Even beyond the idea that the hero and villain of this episode are both obsessive fans, Timm showing up as the bad
guy (which is great) points to the idea that the people making it are obsessive fans, too. Visually, the Gray Ghost is a
pretty obvious analogue for the Shadow, the character that pretty directly inspired Batmans creation and provided
the template for his Golden Age adventures. The Gray Ghost show that we see Little Bruce Wayne watching, though,
is based on the Max Fleishcer Superman cartoons. The way its shot, the music, and even the narrated introduction
(also pretty similar to the Shadows weed of crime) all echo the 40s Superman and it makes sense that they
would be. The creators of BTAS were, after all, huge fans of the Fleischer films, to the point where their dark, Art
Deco Gotham City is directly inspired by them.
Every single thing in the episode orbits around the idea of fandom, from the plot and cast all the way down to the
visuals and score, and it all works on a level that Batman stories very rarely do, because its all about how hes one
of us. Hes a dude who has a special secret room in the Batcave which is an almost exact replica of the Gray
Ghosts lair, a hilarious aside that makes me imagine just how much eye-rolling Alfred was doing during that bit of
construction that he keeps all of his Gray Ghost memorabilia in.
Watching this as a kid, the idea that Batman had a TV show that he loved as much as I loved Batman blew my mind,
because it meant that we had something in common. Seeing Little Bruce Wayne sitting in front of his TV in a goofy
hat with a towel tied around his neck made me, sitting in front of my TV with a pair of green dishwashing gloves
and a Robin shirt, feel like my hero and I had something in common, and it can never be overstated how much it
means to identify with your hero on a level like that.
Admittedly, that last line of the episode probably couldve used another take, but Im willing to forgive it. After all,
Im a pretty big fan.

Read More: Ask Chris #230: 'Beware The Gray Ghost' | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-230-beware-thegray-ghost/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #227: Does Justice League International Have A Legacy?

by Chris Sims January 9, 2015 12:00 PM

Q: What is the lasting impact of Justice League International? Does it have one? @dagsly
A: Does Justice League International have a lasting impact?! Well let me ask you a question, Dags: Does Batman
have pointy ears? Does Clark Kent wear glasses? Does Aquaman have pruney fingers and breath that smells like
krill? Just so were all on the same page here, the answer to all of these questions is yes, especially in the case
of JLI having a lasting impact. Its not just that it was a good book, but that it formed a foundation and a blueprint
for the way pretty much every team book would work thirty years later.
I mean, I dont want to exaggerate any more than I usually do or anything, but after Lee and Kirbys Fantastic
Four and Claremont, Byrne and Cockrums X-Men, Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis and Kevin Maguires Justice League is
arguably the most important team book in comics history.

See, heres the thing about JLI, and if youll excuse me, Im going to go into full-on cranky old comics reader mode
for a bit here: Everyone always thinks of it as the funny Justice League book. Thats how its always referred to, with
the emphasis on the bwa-ha-has, the One punch! scenes, and Beetle and Boosters wacky schemes, but thats not
really accurate. All that stuff is in there, sure. Its a huge part of the book, something that distinguished it from its
predecessors, and its certainly what the emphasis was on when the creative team reunited in later years for books
like Formerly Known as the Justice League, and even across the street with that one run of Defenders that nobody
read.
No, the other run of Defenders that nobody read. No, the other other run of you know what? Lets just move on.
The point is, while JLI was a book with a lot of very funny, very memorable parts, comedy was never really the
main focus of the series. Or at least, it wasnt the focus at the expense of anything else. See, the thing that
marked JLI more than being a funny book was that it was a balanced one. It had all the superheroic action, drama
and melodrama that marked every other great superhero comic of the era, it just also wasnt afraid to be funny
while it was at it. And in the mid-80s, when comics were being increasingly defined by darker storylines, when DC
had just redefined their universe with a series where Superman was crying in anguish on the cover while holding

the dead body of his cousin something that set a pretty tiresome precedent that theyd go back to again and
again over the next couple decades that made JLI stick out even more.
I think it bugs me so much because the characterization of JLI as the Bwa-Ha-Ha League and nothing more has
always felt so dismissive. To me, it seems like its a product of the 90s backlash, the same kind of bitter grumbling
that caused superhero fans to spend so long burying the 60s Batman show because they thought it was making fun
of them. I mean, they were at least partially right on that one a friend of mine recently dug up an article
about Batman writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. from 1983 where he had some extremely unkind words for people like,
uh, me but its also a symptom of the mindset that anything that isnt entirely super-serious is flawed. The
conclusion that gets to is that if Justice League International is funny, then it cant be anything else.
Thats a huge disservice to the work that was actually done in that book, and one of the most brilliant things about
it. The funny parts are so genuinely funny that when the switch flips and that book hits you with the action, it hits
like a wrecking ball. There are a lot of great examples of that throughout the run, but the best comes from Justice
League America #38 and 39, the issues that Adam Hughesdrew.

If youve never read that Despero story, it is more than worth your time to track it down, if only to see how fast it
gets rid of the illusions of the JLI era being rooted solely in comedy. Its one of the most thrilling, action-packed
superhero battles of all time. Its actually a sequel to a story in the previous iteration of the Justice League, the
infamous Detroit Era, which was probably the single best story of thatrun, and its brutal. Despero returns to Earth
to get revenge, and just tears through the JLA.
Despite a few gags about Hughess gratuitous cheesecake, theres not really a whole lot of laughs to be had in the
whole thing. I mean, Mr. Miracle dies in that comic!

Well. Sort of. See, the Mr. Miracle that gets killed in that comic is actually a robot duplicate, a fact that gets played
for laughs, and a lot of the tension and drama in the issue comes from the fact that we know its not the real deal,
but the other characters dont. They think they just witnessed the death of a teammate at the hands of one of their
deadliest villains, and their reactions to it feel real.
But thats the whole trick of the series in a nutshell. The groundwork is laid through comedy and character work,
so that when the action starts, it hits harder. Youre lulled into thinking that this is just going to be a sitcom about
bickering teammates and Guy Gardners mouth writing checks that his glass jaw cant cash, and when its time to
flip it around and blindside you with all the serious stuff that comes from a superhero comic, it subverts your
expectations and feels a whole lot more serious than it actually is.
In a lot of ways, its similar to what was going on at the same time with Suicide Squad, another book that ended up
being a whole heck of a lot more influential on modern comics than I think anyone expected. There, it was John
Ostrander, Kim Yale and Luke McDonnell (among others) using flashes of comedy to break the tension of a book
based on the premise where someone would inevitably die on a mission in every single story arc. It was frequently
hilarious, but the humor served to contrast with the violence and helped to humanize the characters.
Juggling those kind of tone shifts is one of the most difficult tricks for a comic to pull off, and the amazing thing
about JLI (and Squad, for that matter) is that they made it seem effortless. Theres never a moment where the
reader gets snapped by the whiplash of the book deciding to be serious, it all works.
And it works because they spent so much time and effort building those characters.

I mentioned above that the book wasnt just about comedy, and it wasnt just a sitcom built around Blue Beetle and
Booster Golds buddy-comedy friendship, and it wasnt just about the characters bickering with each other, but
youd be hard pressed to say that those werent the elements that laid the foundation for what made that book so
effective. When Despero shows up, or when the team has to duke it out with their Soviet counterparts, or when the
horrific results of the Bialyan superhero experiments show up, you care because youve seen these characters as
real people.

To be entirely fair, this wasnt really a new concept in the world of superhero comics. The Fantastic Four had been
bickering at each other to build character since 1961, and the X-Men certainly had their share of in-depth soap
operatic characterization, but JLI took a different tack. When you get right down to it, I think its a matter of stylistic
differences. The FF were full of that Lee/Kirby bombast, and they had the familial relationship forming the
structure that their superhero team was built around. The X-Men were a little closer to what the JLI would be, but
they were also largely a product of Chris Claremont, and while I love the heck out of those comics, if you know
anyone who actually talks like a Chris Claremont character, then let me know, because I need to experience a
conversation like that at least once in my life, sugah.
Giffen and DeMatteiss scripts were different, if only because they had an ear for dialogue that made them seem
slightly more real. Extremely quippy and caught up in bizarre situations, sure, but real in the way that characters in
sitcoms and movies (you know, people who arent superheroes) sound real. They were vain, petty, grumpy, and
most of all, they were extremely sarcastic. It gave them a level of relatable authenticity that nobody had ever really
had in superhero comics before that.

And as much credit as you can give to Giffen and DeMatteis on that score, its impossible to overstate how much
Kevin Maguire did to contribute to that authenticity. His art is easily some of the most expressive in comics, and
while Hughes did an amazing job on his stories, nobody can touch the faces that Maguire drew to sell moments in
that book.

And that, I think, set the tone for how superhero teams would work into the 21st century. There was certainly a
reaction that swung in the opposite direction immediately after the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire era had ended
lookin at you here, Extreme Justice but over time, their blueprint of superheroes as quippy, sarcastic coworkers
became the standard, the product of Lee, Kirby, Claremont and Byrne filtered through the rest of pop culture, and it
worked so well that you can see its fingerprints on everything else.
Without Justice League International, I dont think you get Geoff Johnss bickering Justice League or Brian Michael
Bendiss chatty Avengers, and I definitely dont think you get Joss Whedons chatty Avengers or the quippy, bigscreen Guardians of the Galaxy. They all follow that mold, balancing out those small, affable, engaging character
moments with the big action that works because it feels like the bad guys are going after your friends instead of
your heroes.
Thats JLIs lasting legacy, and its something that goes beyond the jokes that its remembered for and the two or
three sequences that always get passed around. Go back and give it a read sometime. Its a whole lot more than just
this:

Although lets be real here: That is pretty great.

Read More: Does 'Justice League International' Have A Legacy? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-227-doesjustice-league-international-have-a-legacy/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #85: Which Superhero Could Replace Santa Claus?

by Chris Sims December 25, 2014 3:00 PM

Q: What superhero has the loveable jolliness/elf-oppressing fist of iron necessary to take over for Santa?
@FrankMcCormick
A: A replacement for Santa Claus, eh, Frank? Well, that shouldnt be too hard to figure out. It really just comes down
to wait. A replacement for Santa Claus?! Why do we need a replacement?! Did something happen to Santa?!
Oh God. Oh God. Okay. Dont freak out. Weve still got two weeks. Theres time to fix this before Christmas Eve.
Cmon, Frank. Weve got work to do.

As much as I hate to say it, I dont think any of my usual favorites are going to be a whole lot of help this time. I
mean, my first choice in virtually any other situation would be Batman, but Im not sure the Caped Crusader is up
for the task. At first glance, he seems like a pretty good fit. Hes got almost limitless resources Im pretty sure
that he owns at least one toy factory, if only because an abandoned toy factory in Gotham City is just asking for
trouble he owns a rocket, and hes already used to operating unseen at night. He even has experience dealing
with a network of operatives in red and green clothes with funny boots.
But while he might do well in a pinch, I cant really see Batman taking over the Kringle job full-time. I mean, hes
great at gathering information on whos been naughty, but its a little less he sees you when youre sleeping and
knows when youre awake and a little more he dangles you off of a building and threatens to break your legs.
Plus, while hes pretty well-known for giving gifts to children, they tend to be along the lines of karate lessons and a
promise to hang up your uniform if and when youre beaten to death by a murderous clown. All things considered,
I think most kids would be happier with coal. For a large-scale operation like that, Batmans definitely out of the
running.
As for my other favorite character, well

The Punisher brings a whole different set of problems to the table. You put that dude in a room with a list of whos
been bad, and hes going to be putting something slightly more explosive than lumps of coal into their stockings on
Christmas morning. Hed have the workshop converted into a full-on arms manufacturing plant within a week, and
I dont think the elves would be all that keen on rigging up a Battle Sleigh.
And those eight tiny reindeer?

Its just not going to work out. On the other hand, I can pretty much guarantee that if the Punisher was the new
Santa Claus, parents across the world would be seeing a pretty sharp drop in pouting and crying.
Beyond those, the obvious choice for New Santa would be Superman:

Again, he seems like a solid choice: Hes kind and generous, hes got the speed to fly around the world even without
a sleigh or reindeer, and hes got telescopic x-ray vision and super-hearing to make keeping track of the good
children pretty easy. Heck, Superman already has a house at the North Pole!
Santa Claus himself even turns to him in times of trouble, which is a pretty great endorsement:

But if were looking for someone to take over full time, Supermans just as problematic as anyone else. Well, maybe
not as problematic as the Punisher, but still: Superman gains his powers from Earths yellow sun, and at Christmas,
the North Pole is in the middle of six months of darkness. Hed be at his weakest on the one day when hed need his
powers the most, and while that might not seem like all that big a deal, you try explaining it to your kid if hes the
one who doesnt get a present this year that Santa was too weak from flying around in the dark to survive a dose of
Lex Luthors deadly Green Kryptonog. The next thing you know, kids all over start losing their faith in Santa Claus,
people stop shopping at Gimbels, and you know what were left with? Complete economic collapse!

You might think that itd be a simple matter of just moving the operation to the South Pole,
but that is, of course, the dread domain of Santa Clauss evil half-brother, Atnas the Anti-Santa, who steals
presents from children and destroys them in a workshop staffed by surly giants. Seriously, its a whole thing with
those two, and Atnas is never going to move out just so the new guy can get a tan in December.
If Superman cant do it, I guess the next logical suggestion would be the Martian Manhunter, who has all of
Suermans powers plus the extremely Santa-friendly ability of walking through walls, turning invisible and reading
your mind eliminating the need for both shopping mall lap-sitting and chimney-shimmying plus hes pretty
well-known for his love of milk and cookies. But come on, lets be honest here: We both know that theres no way
the Martian Manhunter can support a solo holiday. Theyd cancel Christmas in six issues, tops, and were right back
where we started.
But with all of those guys out of the running, I cant think of anyone else who could do the job. Im sorry, Frank,
but. I guess we just wont be having a Christmas this year.
Thats all we have for this week, but if youve got a question youd like to see Chris tackle in a future column, just send
it to @theisb on Twitter with the hashtag #AskChris, or send an email to
WAIT A SECOND! There might just be one person who could do the job! I know you wanted a super-hero to be the
new Santa, but lights please Christmas isnt just about what youve done in the past, Frank. Its also
about forgiveness. And mostly about who can do the best job of delivering presents.
And thats why my pick for the new Santa Claus would be Dr. Victor Von Doom.

Okay, look: I know there might be a few slight problems with Doctor Doom becoming the new Santa, mainly that
there is a non-zero chance that a few kids are going to end up getting their houses rocketed into space. Also, Im not
gonna lie, you guys: Hes gonna try to kill Reed Richards every single Christmas from here on out.
But think about it: Hes already been in charge of a country, so he knows how to keep the elves in line if nothing
else, Doombots can be easily reprogrammed to make toys. He wants to be adored by the population, and is smart
enough to understand that cultivating loyal minions from a young age is a pretty good way to go about that. He
filled in for Santa once before in a Scott Lobdell / John Byrne story thats definitely among the best of their careers
and did a bang-up job. He even already has magical sorcery powers.
But there are two things in particular that make him a great choice:
First, Doctor Doom built a time machine. Admittedly, he originally did it so that he could steal pirate treasure,
but being able to travel through time makes getting presents to all the good boys and girls a pretty simple matter.
Second, Doctor Doom built a time machine. You know how you always see those pictures of Santas workshop
and all the elves are always making wooden toy trains, even though we have video games now? Thats because
Santa Claus was always too kind to tell them that no one has liked actually liked wooden toy trains in at least fifty
years. With Doom, that will not be a problem. Hell be passing on the sort of knowledge you need to build a time
machine by yourself to the toymakers, and the result will be the most awesome Christmas presents of all time.
So with Dr. Doom recruited, the holiday has once again been rescued. Its a Christmas Miracle!

Read More: Ask Chris #85: Which Superhero Could Replace Santa Claus? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris85-the-replacement-santa/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #223: Prepare For Trouble, And Make It Double

by Chris Sims December 5, 2014 9:00 AM

Q: Why arent there more heroic duos or tag teams? @awa64

A: Friend, I dont usually like to start off these columns by specifically denying the premise of the question, but
there are a lot of heroic duos in the world of superhero comics. I mean, even if were just limiting ourselves to the
most famous superheroes out there, the top of that list is going to include both the Worlds Finest and the Dynamic
Duo, and you dont have to look much harder to find other pairings further down the list.
Unless, of course, youre specifically asking why there arent more actual pro wrestling tag teams that have taken
up crime-fighting when theyre not busy in the ring, in which case I have no idea, but rest assured that is something
I want to see.

That said, I think there might be a few good reasons why it might seem like there arent a whole lot of two-person
teams. For starters, most of the most famous characters in comics are either dedicated loners (like Batman and
Wolverine) or members of teams with much larger rosters than a simple partnership (like Batman and Wolverine).
On top of that, when you think about the most prominent pairings in comics crime-fighting pairings, that is
the ones that tend to come to mind arent usually partnerships between equals, theyre a hero and a sidekick.
Batman and Robin are the prime example to the point where theyve become a pop cultural shorthand for the
sidekick as a concept, but theyre just the tip of the iceberg, especially when it comes to the Golden Age. Captain
America and Bucky, the Human Torch and Toro, the Crimson Avenger and Wing, the Sandman and Sandy the
Golden Boy, the Vigilante and Stuff the Chinatown Kid, they were all part of that same tradition a tradition that
resulted in increasingly improbable names as the 40s wore on. Theyre all duos, but they dont really feel
like partnerships. Theres always one character whos in charge by virtue of being older, creating a dynamic that
feels more like a father and son in every way that matters. Thats even pretty explicit in some cases, like how Billy
Batson and Freddy Freeman were the same age, but turned into heroes named Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel

Jr. You dont get a whole lot more definitive about whos in charge in that relationship, even if Mary Marvel
technically made them a trio.
Of course, you also had the Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy, who flipped that formula around so that the sidekick
was the adult, but they didnt really last very long, mainly being notable for the time that one of them was
murdered and the other became a robot.
Its worth noting that out of all of those characters, Robin was the one who really stuck around long enough to
evolve into something that more closely resembled a partner, which has a lot to do with Dick Grayson being
allowed to grow up, albeit at an admittedly glacial pace. Dont get me wrong, Batman is always going to be the front
half of that particular partnership, but the idea of Robin as a legacy role helps to shape things a little differently.
You see it primarily with Dick (hee) breaking out of the partnership to become his own man, and while hes almost
immediately replaced with a wide-eyed young successor, it creates a shift in those roles. It starts to be a little less
father and son and a little more mentor and student, and while youre always going to be a son, the relationship
with a teacher is a little more flexible. Assuming you stick around long enough, youll eventually be on equal terms.
Thats an idea that comes through really well with Tim Drake in the 90s. Hes definitely a subordinate, but, when
he first appears at least, he doesnt really need a father figure in the way that Batmans other collection of
miscellaneous orphans did. As a result, hes the one who feels more like a partner than a son. Its something that
bled into Batman: The Animated Series in more ways than just the costume. The Dick Grayson of B:TAS comes out of
the oven a little older than his comic book counterpart, a college student whos on more of an equal footing with
the younger Bruce Wayne hes partnered with. And then, comics being what they are, Damian Wayne came along
and we were right back to a literal father and son relationship and then almost as quickly flipped around so that
it was Dick in the role of a mentor.
Bucky makes a pretty interesting case study, too.

Not because he wasnt just a kid sidekick Simon and Kirbys original version was definitely that but because
we had forty years without him to reassess his role. In that time, he was recast as a motivating tragedy whose death
gave Cap a personal beef with Baron Zemo, a legacy character that allowed Rick Jones to fill another square on the
Bingo Card of sidekicking for the entire Marvel Universe, and, eventually, a full-fledged partner who was secretly
gunning down Ratzis while Cap was in the spotlight. Im particularly fond of the movies version of the relationship
between the two characters, where they came up together and Bucky was the one who had to save Steve Rogers
from the bullies before he got the super-powered body to match his heart.

Anyway, long story short, kid sidekicks largely fell out of favor, especially once the 60s rolled around and SpiderMan showed everybody that you didnt need the adventure hero and the kid readers could identify with if you just
went ahead and made them the same person. And it wasnt too long after that that you start to get the kind of
partnerships that I think youre asking about.
Comics have always skewed towards ensemble casts and larger teams over duos, but in the 70s and 80s, you start
to see the idea of the Buddy Comedy creeping into comics. It makes sense, too a character changes a lot simply
by changing who theyre talking to, and while that can occasionally get unwieldy in an ensemble book or break
down into pairings, like how Fantastic Four almost always breaks down to Reed and Sue/Johnny and Ben
putting a mismatched pair together gives you a lot of possibilities for fun character interaction, especially when
they have complimentary superpowers. Which brings us the single greatest crime-fighting duo of all time: Power
Man & Iron Fist.

I love these dudes so much. I love that theyre both trend-hopping 70s characters who overstayed their welcome
and then became way more successful when they were lumped together. I love that they are referred to on covers
as Luke and the Fist. I love that their powers are that one guy can punch through anything and the other guy cant
be punched through by anything. I love that they met when one of them punched the other through a building and
then they became best friends forever. Because the real Iron Fist is friendship.
Anyway, theyre the leading edge of a whole bunch of superheroic tag teams that come along in the modern era:
Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, Quantum and Woody, Hawkeye and Hawkeye. You even get a couple on the
villainous side of things, like Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy although really, that ones easier to categorize as a
romance than a partnership.
Incidentally, if you were looking for an actual crime-fighting pro-wrestling tag team, I did manage to scrounge up
something pretty close. When I mentioned the idea of superheroic tag teams to Benito Cereno, he told me
about Nightmare and Sleepy, your new favorite superheroes:

Oh man, these two are amazing. They originally appeared in 1942s Clue Comics, alongside characters like Micro
Face, who had a normal sized face so I dont even know whats goin gon there, and the Boy King and his Giant, who
were responsible for the greatest cover blurb of all time WE WARN YOU! THE BOOY KING WILL KILL
CRIME! They have since fallen into the public domain, and if youre curious, you can check them out over at
the Digital Comic Museum. For our purposes, though, this is what matters: Bob White is a pro wrestler who

wrestles in a tuxedo, wandering from town to town with his manager, who is a child named Terry. Whenever they
see crime breaking out, though, Bob dresses up as a god damned glowing skeleton so that he can beat the living hell
out of crooks before going to on to the next territory and demolishing their local champion.
So if youre wondering why there arent more comics about duos, maybe its because they did the best possible
superhero tag team all the way back in 1942.

Read More: Ask Chris #223: Heroic Duos In Comic Books | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-223-prepare-fortrouble-and-make-it-double/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #222: This City Hates You

by Chris Sims November 28, 2014 3:03 PM

Q: Can a setting, location, or place actually be a character, as people often say about Gotham City or
Bioshocks Rapture, and if so, what exactly does that mean? @Jon_Ore
A: Technically, no. No matter how well-developed or intriguing a setting is, no matter how many good stories have
been set there or how characters and creators have talked about it, its still just that: A setting. The action and
development, even if theyre a reaction to the setting or have effects on the setting, are all things that happen to
characters. The setting just provides the backdrop.
Practically, though, they can be close enough that for all intents and purposes, they might as well be characters,
with everything that comes with it.

As for what that means, well, the simple version is that the setting is defined so well that the reader can get a
familiarity with it thats on par with their understanding of the characters, and like with the characters, its not just
about knowing fictional street names and neighborhoods, any more than understanding Batman comes from just
memorizing those charts of what he carries around in his utility belt although it will not surprise you to learn
that Ive spent a pretty significant amount of time doing both of those. Instead, it comes from an understanding of
how that setting works, what kind of challenges its going to present, and how its going to react as a collective unit
to the events of the story. And it starts with making the city feel as distinct and realized as a character does.
So lets take a look at Gotham City, because really, if theres any location in comics thats a character, its that one,
and it starts with how distinctive it is. To be honest, Gotham City didnt really become Gotham City as we know it,
the terrifying urban nightmare so thoroughly dominated by crime that it takes a billionaire dressed like Dracula
just to keep things down to a manageable level of constant anarchy, until the 70s. Really, it was just a slightly
exaggerated caricature of New York, right down to the TV show claiming that it was right across the river from
New Guernsey. But even before that, the seeds were there for Gotham to have a character all on its own.
When you get right down to it, it goes all the way back to the Golden Age and those Dick Sprang skylines full of
billboards made of oversized props that could be converted into rooftop deathtraps or turn the city skyline into a
dynamic obstacle course.

Sprangs skylines were so distinct, in fact, that they became synonymous not just with Batman, but with Golden and
Silver Age comics as a whole, this visual imagery of a world so weird that advertising companies would build 30foot robots on top of buildings and installing massive, fully functional typewriters around every corner. But really,
it was something unique to Gotham City itself, and as a result, it set the tone from the very early days that while
Gotham mightve been a stand-in for New York, it was a stand-in that was a whole lot bigger and weirder.
And that became the prevailing idea as the stories evolved. Denny ONeil, who was largely responsible for Gothams
evolution as both a writer and along-time editor, famously referred to Batmans hometown as Manhattan below
Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November, and Year Ones gritty,
thoroughly corrupt Gotham was certianly Miller and Mazzucchellis vision of New York in the midst of the 80s
crime wave. Even the recent Zero Years Gotham is NYC through a comic book lens, written by New York native
Scott Snyder as being a city that actively presents people with challenges to overcome and opportunities to make
yourself into the person you want to be.
But at the same time, theres the idea underneath it all that theres something actively antagonistic about Gotham,
something that flows naturally from Batmans origin story, where the richest and nicest people in the world are
shot dead in the middle of a nice neighborhood by a killer who fades back into the night with a smoking pistol and
half a string of pearls, leaving their kid to go become a science ninja in order to try to make things right. Thats the
turning point, the moment that Park Row becomes Crime Alley, and the moment that Gotham City wakes up and
starts throwing things at this person that its created, shaping him into this unstoppable crimefighter. At the heart
of it, theres the feeling that no real city could create someone like Batman let alone the seemingly endless roster
of villains that rise up from acid tanks or cryogenics labs to fight him because no real city has produced those
people. You start to get the idea that it has to be something within the city itself thats doing it.
And that creates a circle that shapes both the character and the setting. Batman becomes a product of fears about
life in the city and all the crime and danger that goes with it, and Gotham City then becomes a product of being a

setting built for Batman stories. It all keeps snowballing down that particular hill until youve got those Anton Furst
designs that fill every available surface with gargoyles, or the long shadows of Bruce Timm and Eric Radomskis
animated Gotham, where the brightest the sky ever gets is a deep blood red.
And seriously? I love that Gotham City, particularly those red skies. I just want to see people talking about the
weather in that town. Hey, whats it like outside today? Red.
Anyway, the flipside to that is that it only really works if theres a mutual flow between setting and character that
can shape both, something within the nature of how each one works that allows for them to be defined as well as
they are, and thats not always there, even when youre dealing with a really great character.
Just look at Metropolis.

In a lot of ways, its pretty fitting that Supermans hometown has the most generic possible name for a city, because
theres just not a whole lot of character there. Dont get me wrong, theres plenty of character in the cast
Between Clark Kent and his immediate supporting cast, theres four of the most interesting characters in the
history of superhero comics and one of the top five dogs but the city iself is a whole lot of nothin. Everything I
said about Gotham City is dependent on Batman being there, sure, but when it comes to Metropolis, is there
anything you can say about it other than Superman lives there?
Even the old contrast between the two, the Frank Miller line about how Metropolis is New York during the day and
Gotham is New York at night favors Gotham the night is inherently more mysterious and dramatic, especially
when youre reinforcing themes of crime and the fear thereof. The only thing you really get out of the daytime
aspect is that you can see how tall those buildings are, which I imagine makes leaping them in a single bound
significantly more impressive.
There have been a few attempts to give Metropolis its own distinct identity, and oddly enough, both of the ones
that immediately spring to mind have been built on the idea of reflecting Superman as The Man of Tomorrow by
giving him a futuristic city. Neither one has worked, which, lets be real here, is probably because The Man of
Tomorrow is probably the fifth or sixth nickname that comes to mind when you think of Superman, somewhere
after Action Ace.
The first was from around 2000, where fears about the Y2K bug went through the bizarre game of telephone that is
a comic book plotting session and ended up coming through as a story where a computer-rendered version of

Brainiac came back from the future wearing bike shorts and upgraded the city to have a ton of future technology,
like flying cars and a giant monorail that would make Lyle Lanley proud.

Its a neat idea, and I really respect the attempt to give Metropolis some character, but it required a bunch of weird
gymnastics to work with right from the start, explaining why this far-future technology only worked within
Metropolis city limits as students of political science may recall, bringing B13 technology to the rest of the world
was one of President Lex Luthors many unfulfilled campaign promises. On top of that, theres the obvious problem
of trying to figure out what far-future technology looks like in a universe where Amazo, Cyborg, nanobots and the
Justice Leagues teleporters already exist. Its hard enough trying to figure out how to do Legion of SuperHeroes without making it seem retro; lumping Metropolis into the mix too is just complicating things.
Similarly, the Kurt Busiek/Carlos Pacheco run during the One Year Later era took an interesting stab at a
variation of the same idea, marking off a section of Metropolis as the Avenue of Tomorrow, essentially a
miniature Silicon Valley where a bunch of present-day scientists were working on creating the cutting-edge tech of
the present-day DC Universe. Again, its a nice idea and plays off of S.T.A.R. Labs being a Metropolis-based
enterprise but there wasnt much done with it. By its nature, technology in Metropolis is always going to be in
the shadow of Lex Luthor.
There is, however, one really interesting take on Metropolis that I like an awful lot, and it comes from Geoff Johns
and Gary Franks Superman: Secret Origin. Its far and away my favorite thing those two have done together and
while that might sound like faint praise if youre a regular reader, it really is good and a key part of that is how
they treat Metropolis. In a lot of ways, it hearkens back to Millers daytime/nighttime comparison, but theres one
addition twist that presents it in an entirely new way: Basically, Metropolis used to suck real, real bad.
I really like that idea, that Metropolis before Superman was just this grimy city full of grumpy, cynical citizens who
were lorded over by Lex Luthor as an evil Willy Wonka, but Superman showed up and changed all
that. Superman is the reason that its daytime in Metropolis, and Superman is the reason that people look up in the

sky. Its a really great idea that gives an underlying purpose to Metropoliss (relatively generic) cheer, but it ends
up saying more about Superman than about the city.
Incidentally, there are two other cities in the DC Universe that I think do the City-As-Character job as well as
Gotham does: Starmans Opal City and Azteks Vanity, both of which were the product of concerted efforts to invest
the setting with a unique character and a lot of history to play off of. It probably works better in Starman, given
that Robinson, Harris and Snejbjerg had 80 issues and a heroic legacy stretching back to the Golden Age that they
could work with and draw from, but they ran with it. They perfectly captured the idea of a city that was
inextricably tied to the past in both artichetcture and attitude, right down to having the streets haunted by a p-p-ppirate ghost!
Vanity, by contrast, suffers by only ever having eleven issues to work with, but Morrison, Millar, Harris and
Champagne do a pretty stellar job of carving a city that felt like it had been part of the DC Universe all along out of
whole cloth. The trick, I think, is that they werent subtle about it they named the place after one of the deadlier
sins but that sense of danger and corruption running right below the surface was a tangible element of the book
right from the beginning.
Of course, they cheat more than a little too by having the Joker show up and declare that its actually a worse place
than Gotham City, but if you cant throw a few celebrity endorsements in to get your book off the ground, then
whats even the point?

Read More: Ask Chris #222: This City Hates You | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-222-this-city-hatesyou/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #220: Catwoman And The Villainous Love Interest

by Chris Sims November 14, 2014 11:00 AM

Q: What are your thoughts on Catwoman and how her role has evolved over time? Its unique, isnt it?
@spudsfan
A: Heres a warning that youre about to read way too many words on what looks like a simple question: Yes and
no.
Its not going to surprise anyone when i say that I love Catwoman as a character, and a lot of that comes from how
adaptable she is. In her long history, shes been one of the few characters whos been able to transition from villain
to hero and back again, and she has a relationship with Batman that has allowed for both characters to grow in
ways that no other character has, or even could. But at the same time, shes probably the single most successful
example of a clich that bugs me to no end: The Villainous Love Interest.

To be fair, theres nothing wrong with the Villainous Love Interest in and of itself, and its certainly worked out
pretty well for Catwoman over the course of the past 74 years. I mean, as much as I like unrepentant,
unambiguously evil villains in comics, I also like bad guys with different layers. Sympathetic villains, noble
characters who have been damned to walk a self-destructive path, people who do bad things for what they think
are the right reasons; theyre all great characters, and the Villainous Love Interest offers up some of the most
interesting and engaging story possibilities. Mixing up love and hate, duty and romance, dedication and desire,
thats a combination thats almost impossible for a creator to resist, because it instantly creates drama. But thats
the problem.
Because its such a reliable formula, its been used time and time again, and the result is that you have male heroes
where the roster of villains is made up of villains with every motivation and character hook under the sun, and
then one or two women who are bad, but are just one smooch away from being Good Girls. Oh, if only these women
would stop their evil ways and give in to their natural feminine desires, then all of their existing character
motivations would vanish in a puff of hearts and flowers.
The tension doesnt come from the conflict between the characters as they exist now, but whether or not the Good
Guy is going to be able to seduce the Bad Girl to giving up her evil ways, and thats an idea that robs the Villainous
Love Interest of at least some small piece of her agency as a character. It makes her a prize in the War On Crime in a
way that you almost never see with male characters, but that happens all the time with women.
The closest male analogue I can think of that has that kind of long-running intensity is probably Thor and Loki and
how a good chunk of their relationship is based on how Thor just wants his brother back, but beyond those two, I
cant really think of anything that comes close. Maybe the dynamic between Superman and Lex Luthor in the
stories where they were friends as kids?
The only thing thats more rare than finding two male characters with a similar dynamic is finding a female
character who doesnt have it. Unrepentant Evil is pretty hard to come by in your arch-villainesses, it seems.

Thats actually one of the reasons that I really like the Baroness from G.I. Joe, my own preference for haughty,
bespectacled brunettes notwithstanding. Shes evil for a defined reason that has shaped her life, and even when she
finds out that her initial motivation for revenge against the Joes wasnt what she thought it was, she doesnt
immediately switch sides. She stays true to her character motivations, and remains an antagonist on her own
terms. And by the same token, thats why I dislike the movie version from The Rise of Cobra, who ended up being
Dukes girlfriend who was only evil because of mind-control and ended the movie tearfully promising to wait for
him in prison.
Of course, Comics Baroness was seduced away from Cobra by Destro, but at least she got to keep being evil. See
what I mean?
Catwomans far from being alone in this shes not even alone in Batmans rogues gallery since Talia tends to fall
more often than not into a similar role but she fills that clichd role to an extreme that very few characters ever
get to. There have been stories of alternate futures where she ends up being Mrs. Bruce Wayne for decades, and its
even been part of her canonical character arc for most of the modern era. And again, Im not saying it doesnt work.
Far from it, in fact shes one of the best possible love interests for Batman, because their relationship has been
specifically geared to challenge their roles. But still, if you want to try to work around that element of the character,
it can be pretty difficult, if only because its been there since day one, in Catwomans first appearance.
That story, incidentally, is bananas. The first half of it is essentially a Robin solo story, as Batman sends his youthful
ward to handle some Cruise Ship Crimes on his own with a promise to catch up later, and when Batman does show
up, he decides, out loud, to take this opportunity to provide a lesson for all the children who are reading his comic
book.

After the fight scene, he turns to address the reader and tells them he hopes they learned something. Its so weird,
and I wish it happened all the time.
More importantly, at least for our purposes today, is the end of the story, where the Cat is finally unmasked and
immediately confesses her love for Batman and her desire to seduce him into a life of crime, which is met with a
confirmation from Batman:

Its pretty perfunctory, as is the case with most Golden Age comics, but its important to note that Batman doesnt
reject her outright, something thats especially surprising given that its 1940 and Batman is still transitioning out
of that grumpy Shadow ripoff that he started off as. Hes clearly lovestruck, and Bill Finger seems to be having a lot
of fun with it in the dialogue after the Cat jumps overboard to escape, Batman cheerfully refers to her as a lovely
girl! and says he hopes to run into her again! Not quite the dedication to crime-fighting that weve come to
expect.
But either way, whether Finger and Bob Kane were just riffing on ideas theyd picked up from Flash Gordons
Princess Aura or trying to create the kind of love triangle that was doing so well over in Superman, it sets up how
the characters would relate to each other. There always has been, and theres always going to be, that romantic
tension at the heart of how they react to each other. As a result, shes often cast into that Villainous Love Interest
clich, where all the interesting parts of their relationship become standard-issue swoons and longing.
That said, there are two great examples where people actually did get around the clich, without having to toss out
all the good stuff along with it, and the first that comes to mind is Julie Newmars performance in Batman 66.

With Newmar, the attraction is still there (obviously), but the reductive nature of the shows treatment of good, evil
and comedic effect meant that there was never any question of whether or not she was going to reform and join up
with Batman. She never even really considers it. Ive mentioned this before, but my all-time favorite moment on the
show is when she actually suggests that they just give up crime and crimefighting and run off together, and when
Batman asks what theyll do with Robin, she just shrugs and says theyll kill him. Shes hardwired for evil, and even
the seductive allure of Adam West isnt going to change that.
The other example is my favorite take on Catwoman, the 2002 relaunch by Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke, Javier
Pulido and others:

Catwoman-as-Hero is always an interesting proposition, and more often than not, it doesnt work as well as they
seem to want it to but this version did pretty much everything right. It gave Catwoman a motivation that was
both similar to and ultimately independent of Batman, and while the romantic tension was always there, the book
was built around two characters with a long history with each other acknowledging that it wasnt going to happen,
at least not here and now. Batmans first love is justice, after all.
The book even went as far as giving Catwoman a new love interest of her own in the form of Slam Bradley, which
started in the fantastic Selinas Big Score and did a lot to distance her from the romantic entanglements that would
overshadow what she was doing on her own. Of course, that all came to a crashing end when (at least in the way I
saw things), Batman confessed his love for Catwoman out of nowhere in the pages of the abysmal and
ruinous Hush, but at least we got a pretty swell Batman/Slam Bradley fistfight out of it.
In the end, thats whats unique about Catwoman and how shes developed over the years. As much as shes marked
by a long career as the standard-issue (and even archetypical) Villainous Love Interest, the potential is there for
her to be something else, to get out from under that shadow and do her own thing even if shes not the
unrepentant, un-seduce-able arch-crook that I sometimes wish she was.

Read More: Ask Chris #220: Catwoman And The Villainous Love Interest | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris220-catwoman-and-the-villainous-love-interest/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #219: If You Havent Read Jack Staff What Are You Even Doing With Your Life?
by Chris Sims November 7, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Whats the best modern comics run that not enough people have read or talk about? @talestoenrage
A: Its a sad fact of the comics industry, but there are a ton of great stories out there that never really get the
recognition that they deserve, to the point where every time something new and exciting comes out, I always end
up thinking something along the lines of they better not Thor: The Mighty Avenger this one up. But while there are
comics that get canceled too soon and long-running epics likeUsagi Yojimbo that never seem to hog the spotlight,
theres only one that really comes to mind when I start thinking about the truly buried treasures.
If you want to talk about the absolute best of the best of the under-appreciated comics, then you want to talk
about Paul Grists Jack Staff.

I wrote a little bit about this one about four years ago here at ComicsAlliance, but in case you missed it then, heres
the short version of what I said then: Jack Staff is my favorite comic book, and its not even close. There might
be characters that I like more and there might be stories that have had a bigger impact on me as a reader Im
pretty sure Ive spent more time thinking about Batman: Year One than I have on literally any other single action in
my life, up to and including breathing but there is nothing Ive ever read thats as close to being perfect, that
nails everything, as well as as Jack Staff. Its the kind of comic where reading it makes you happy and angry at the
same time, because youre seeing ideas that you wish everyone was using to make their stuff better.

I mean, did you know Jack Staff is the only comic that has Tom Tom The Robot Man in it? Whats everyone else
even doing? Besides not putting Tom Tom The Robot Man in their comics, I mean.
And yet, nobody ever really talks about it. Or at least, I dont see anyone discussing it when its time to list off the
all-time greats. In a just world, itd at least be up there with, say, Sin City, and wed have a terrible movie adaptation
where Channing Tatum tried to do a British accent, but as it stands, it remains pretty firmly under most folks
radar. And thats a shame because well, you get the idea. Its pretty great.
And the thing is, its great on every level. The storys engaging, the art is fantastic, the twists are clever, the jokes
are funny, the action is thrilling, and on top of that, its a technical masterpiece that oughtta be taught in schools.
And just to make it even more impressive, he was doing it at the same time that he was
producing another underrated classic, Kane, a crime comic about a detective returning to duty after killing his
partner, and the cloud of suspicion that hangs over him even after that partners corruption was brought to light.
My preference skews towards Jack, but Kane uses a lot of the same narrative tricks, and for any other creator, it
would probably stand out as the best thing theyd done. But for Grist, its just the warm-up. But Im getting ahead of
myself.
Lets talk about Jack Staff.

Heres the high concept: As Grists tagline sums up so neatly, twenty years ago, Jack Staff was Britains Greatest
Hero, with a crime-fighting career that started in World War II. Then he vanished, and everyone just forgot about
him. Now, after two decades living as a civilian with the imaginative name of John Smith and a career as a
construction worker, hes brought out of retirement by a series of strange events, all of which have some kind of
connection to his past and the people around him.
But right from the start, Jack himself is only part of the story. The real brilliance of what Grist does in this comic is
that he brings Jack back into a world thats fully fleshed out, teeming with heroes and villains and other assorted
weirdness.
The series as a whole is actually pretty short the original twelve-issue miniseries that started in 2000, 20 issues
at Image that are available at Comixology, and a six-issue spin-off but in that time, Grist throws out an incredible
number of comics that make it feel like this is a world where anything can happen, and everyone gets the spotlight.
Theres Helen Morgan and the Agents of Q, who investigate the Question Mark Crimes; theres the corrupt
Detective Inspector Maveryk and optimistic partner, Zipper Nolan; the Freedom Fighters, Jacks old team from
the war that hides a terrifying secret; Bramble and Son: Vampire Hunters; Tom Tom; and, most importantly, Becky
Burdock, Girl Reporter. No spoilers, but by the time the second arc starts, shes Becky Burdock, Vampire Reporter
instead.
And thats just the characters that show up in the first arc.

While everything revolves around Jack and his return, all of those characters have their own distinct arcs,
relationships, motivations and mysteries, and they all interweave with each other in a way thats jaw-dropping
when you stop to think about how complex it is, and how neatly its all pulled off. There are single issues where the
focus will shift five or six times, rotating between everyone as their stories converge and break off,
where every panel advances both the larger plot and the individual storylines, and its breathtaking.
Ive sat down with these things and tried to reverse engineer them to figure out just how it is that Grist manages to
pull it off, but it never works its all done so neatly that I just end up reading the whole thing again and coming
away thinking that he had to have had the entire story in his head, planned out in detail for a cast of a couple dozen
characters, before he made the first line on paper.
Speaking of lines on paper, thats where the book really shines. Nobody in comics uses the page as well as Grist
does in so many different ways. For starters, theres a lot of it that just comes down to solid layouts and a grasp of
visual storytelling thats almost unmatched. Theres an arc were one of Jacks old enemies, a master thief who goes
by the suitably dramatic name of Alias The Spider, recruits him to clear his name after someone starts committing
copycat crimes, and the layouts Grist uses even for the simplest scenes are just ridiculously engaging.
This sequence in particular jumped out at me:

Its just two characters talking to each other, getting the necessities of the team-up out of the way. Grist even puts
the motivation for his main character right there in the dialogue, bluntly and smugly stated by the villain. But the
way its done Jack turning away in distrust, the close-up on the single arched eyebrow, the way he pulls the
reader in and out of the scene and ties it all together with the spider-web motif in the background before ending
the page on a full-body shot of Jack, trapped in the web of his own morality and the fact that it is the right thing to
do. Its masterful visual storytelling.
I posted that one on Twitter last night, complete with a cussword about how good it is, and someone pointed out
that earlier in that same issue, when Jack arrives at the Spiders home, Grist sets them on an empty page where the
objects in the room define the space without actually drawing any walls:

Its a simple trick, but the contrast of the openness of that first hallway to the Spiders basement lair, where
everythings pitch black and hemmed in by spider-webs, gives the entire issue a sense of place that outdoes any
background Grist couldve drawn.
And thats just the tip of the iceberg. Grist has a knack for visual trickery thats completely off the charts, and it
comes through best in how he presents words and pictures together. Theres an arc about a series of murders that
mirrors the events of a popular novel that changes how it presents the story on almost every page, going back and
forth from comics to excerpts from the novel to transcripts of a police interview to a living collection of words with
legible caption boxes hovering in the physical space. And then you get stuff like this:

Theres a fluency to it, not just with language although theres proof of Grists incredible talent there, too, like
when a psychic visually based on Alan More shows up and has a conversation with Becky where his dialogue is
always one panel ahead of hers but with the unique visual language that you get with comics, putting words and
pictures and sound effects together and laying them out in different ways to change what they mean to the reader.
In a lot of ways it becomes a comic about all of the things you can do with comics, like having a full-color character
burst through the pages of your black-and-white book and start admonishing the readers for turning the pages:

But at the same time, it never stops being a story in its own right. All the visual trickery and weird meta structural
gags never detract from the core concept of clever superhero action. Its a fantastic superhero story thats told in
the best way possible, and if you havent read it, you need to.

Read More: Ask Chris #219: If You Haven't Read 'Jack Staff', Do it Now | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-219if-you-havent-read-jack-staff-what-are-you-even-doing-with-your-life/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #218: The Scariest Comic Of All Time Is A Garfield Story From 1989
by Chris Sims October 31, 2014 9:00 AM

Q: Is Garfield: Alone the best horror story in comics? @discord_inc

A: Even though I usually try to do an entire month of spooky questions every October, this is, I believe, the first
time an installment of Ask Chris has ever been posted on Halloween, and it wasnt surprising that a lot of readers
asked me about stories that scared me, or what I thought was the single most frightening comic of all time. To be
honest, its not a difficult question to answer, either. The comics I love are full of scary stuff, from the grotesque
horror of Alan Moore and Rick Veitchs swamp thing to the horrific imagery that youd get in manga like The
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
But if you want to see something really scary? No question. There are six days of Garfield from 1989 thatll turn
your hair white.

A couple of pieces of background before we move on: First, when I was a little kid, I loved Garfield. Absolutely
loved it. I have a vivid memory of taking a pair of Garfield scissors and using them to cut out every days strips in
the local newspaper and keeping them in a manilla folder so that I could re-read them at my leisure, which only
ranks behind ironing my copies of those Pizza Hut X-Men comics so that theyd stay flat as one of the weirdest
things Ive ever done to preserve my comics.
Im cant say for certain what made me such a big fan back then, but if I had to guess, Id say it was
probably Garfields Halloween Adventure, the 1985 animated special. Its up on Hulu if youve never seen it, but it
used to air every year, and its actually really fun. It starts off with Garfield taking Odie trick-or-treating so that he
can get twice as much candy as he would get by himself, and then takes a sudden left turn straight into spookums
and haints when p-p-p-pirate ghosts! show up to reclaim their lost treasure. At the very least, I know I had the
storybook adaptation of the special.
Either way, I was a fan, and cutting out the strips every day was just the tip of a very strange iceberg: Im pretty
sure that the first time I ever really understood the concept of death was when I realized that Jim Davis would die
one day and there wouldnt be any more Garfield strips, which caused me to literally burst into tears.
None of this is a joke.
All of which leads into the second point: Before I grew into the ego-driven know-it-all that you so justifiably love
today, I was what you might call a sensitive child, and my biggest fear in the world was being left alone. I think
thats why I gravitated towards Batman so much the central tragedy of his origin, of being orphaned and left
alone in an instant, completely at random, was something that terrifiedme. I could relate to it, and I could
understand why it would make him go to the extremes that he did.
So with all of that in place, imagine me at the age of 7 years old, opening up the newspaper in 1989 and finding the
story were about to talk about. I dont think it actually has an official name, but pretty much everyone who knows
about it just calls it Garfield: Alone thats what we called it when Matt Wilson and I discussed it on a recent
episode of War Rocket Ajax, trying to fit it into our Every story Ever List.
Just for the record, heres the strip that ran the day before this whole thing starts, another one that I can remember
with crystal clarity:

Incidentally, these strips are all available online in full color if you want to experience the ultimate in cat-based
terror for yourself before we get into the nitpicking.
So right. Sunday, October 22, funny bird call sound effects.
On Monday, October 23, the descent begins.

Right away, there is something very off with this strip, if only because it was, to my knowledge, the first time Davis
had used that to be continued interstitial, and probably the first time there hadnt even been an attempt at a joke.
That, of course, would emerge as the regular pattern for Garfield as the strips went on, but for now, things were
starting off pretty ominous.
On Tuesday, October 24, things got worse.

Its not often that you hear folks in comics even in newspaper strips talk about Jim Davis as a craftsman, but
the simple act of throwing a Dutch angle into that first panel is remarkably unsettling. Keep in mind
that Garfield had been at large (ha ha!) for over a decade at this point, with ten solid years of the same kind of
straightforward, level panels. Everything was built around Jons curiously chest-high counter/table thing
seriously, does that dude live in Gears of War? and with the exception of the occasional strip in front of the living
room window, those tight shots are Garfields entire world. Something as simple as skewing the panel makes
everything feel off, especially when youre encountering it on a page full of those rigid, three-panel strips, Garfield
scissors in hand, ready to cut it out and add it to the manilla folder.
Its that last panel that does it, though. As heavy-handed as the narration might be another first for the strip, I
think that shot of Garfield staring endlessly at the reader witih the simple thought IM ALONE is chilling. What
got me about it at seven was that it was Garfield staring at me while expressing my worst fear, but looking back on
it now, what sticks out is that theres no punctuation. No period. No exclamation point. A blunt statement of fact
with no emotion, but carrying a heavy implication: Im Alone
On Wednesday, October 25, panic sets in.

At this point, I remember not wanting to cut this one out, but even back then I had the completist streak that you
get from a lot of people who end up obsessing over comic books.
Once again, we can see that Davis is experimenting with angles in the first panel, but what grabs me about this is
the color. Whoever did the coloring for the digital version did a pretty great job and that sickly olive green sky in
the last panel is a pretty great touch, but in 1989, the strip ran in black and white. The silhouettes ands shadows in
the first two panels, the walls closing in on Garfield and the darkness falling across his outstretched hands are
appropriately haunting touches.
Again, though, its panel three that does it the house isnt just abandoned, its dilapidated. Its boarded up like
there are zombies roaming around, and even the For Sale sign jutting up from the overgrown lawn a lawn also
producing a skeletal tree stretching up into that bile-colored sky has been there long enough that its starting to
rot away. Garfield isnt just alone, hes alone in a place thats been abandoned for a long, long time.
On Thursday, October 26, Garfield suspects he may be dead.

Honestly, the weakest of the bunch, but at this point thats kind of a relief. Its a little too overdramatic, even if
Garfields realization that he is at best in a place that is Wrong and at worst actually dead is a pretty weird thing to
see right under the Junior Jumble. The best thing about it is the opening sentence, My home has been abandoned,
which tells an entire story in five simple words.
On Friday, October 27, false hope is destroyed.

Like I said, Im not a huge fan of Davis as a storyteller, but you have to hand it to the man: He knows how to mess
with his audience. If you were in the habit of reading the newspaper on a weekday like, say, if you picked it up
on the way to work but didnt get it at home on the weekends then you might expect Fridays strip to be where it
all wrapped up. It doesnt. Instead, theres a false ending, a brief glimpse of happiness thats revealed to be a
hallucination, leaving Garfield alone in the kitchen, arms outstretched for a bowl thats never coming.
Two things worth noting here: First, Jons robotic Hello, Garfield. Have some food is similarly un-punctuated, like
Garfields Im Alone, which feels like a callback to the disturbing feel of the second strip, setting up the knife twist
of the third panel. Second, Davis is leveling a pretty harsh criticism at his own creation Garfields reaching
for food, not companionship, something thats going to come back in the final act. The moment he touches it, hes
pulled out of the hallucination and into a rotting world with a mocking, un-punctuated caption. He has chosen
material goods over people, and is damned because of it.
On Saturday, October 28, Garfield gave in to madness.

This messed me up.

As much as that last caption might point to a Dickensian moral about how the previous week of strips was
what may be and not what will be, its the earlier strip that changes everything about the strip. The last resort of

the sweaty, spiraling eye in the first panel, buckling under the weight of the realization that the progress of time is
inevitable and will wear down all that you love and hate, that everything you know is ultimately insignificant, isnt
friendship or companionship or even love, that nebulous force that people always turn to when they get
desperate.
Its denial.
Garfield, already hallucinating, refuses to accept what he is seeing. He rejects it, this sudden twisted reality that
hes found himself in, and in that denial, he gets his family back, and then settles right back into his old ways as
though nothing has happened. Theres no change, no Ebeneezer Scrooge moment of treating Odie better or being
nicer to Jon, no matter what that final panel might indicate. He just keeps going, acting as though everything is the
same as it always was.
But its not. Garfield has seen we have seen another version of his reality, one where hes alone in a longabandoned house, where Jon and Odie and bright colors and food are just fading visions, hallucinations that fade at
the slightest lapse in concentration, a reality that is only replaced by the act of forcing yourself to deny that its the
truth. That is what we have been shown, and while the strip goes on, youre left with all the questions that Garfield
has refused to answer. What is real? Is it the world of comfort and safety that we want to believe in, or is believing
in it an act of denial for ourselves? Has the world around us become so wretched that we retreat into the safety of
our minds? Are we am I alone and abandoned, isolated in a world that creeps in around the edges of what I
know unless I force myself not to see it?
These are not questions I was prepared to answer at seven years old. All I know is that this was the last strip I cut
out, and I later sold those scissors at a yard sale to a woman in a Garfield sweatshirt and Garfield sweatpants who
tried to talk me down from 50 cents to a quarter.

Read More: The Scariest Comic Of All Time Is A 1989 'Garfield' Story | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-218the-scariest-comic-of-all-time-is-a-garfield-story-from-1989/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #216: When Do Horror Stories Become Superhero Stories?

by Chris Sims October 17, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: What major superhero can be most effectively dropped into a horror plot without causing it to stop
being horror? @KaosExMachina
A: Yknow, I dont wanna make any of the other 215 people who have Asked Chris feel bad or anything, but this is
easily one of my favorite questions that Ive ever gotten. Its probably obvious by now, but I have a lot of fun
thinking about different genre conventions and how they work, and this is the sort of thing that you can play
around with forever, and that you can ask your friends and get all sorts of different answers and justifications,
something that I actually did while I was getting ready to write this article. But its also a really difficult one to
answer.
Its like you said: When you add superheroes to horror stories, they tend to stop being horror stories.

Part of that comes from the simple idea that superheroes particularly the major superheroes, your Justice
League and Avengers types arent just protagonists, theyre protagonists that are meant to go on pretty much
indefinitely. Like, if you see some dudes name on the cover of a comic, then its already difficult to believe that
theyre in any real danger, and when you know that that same name is on the cover of a book thats going to be
coming out next month (and the month after that, and so on), and that itll be accompanied by four or
five other comics that also have that name, then you start to get pretty confident that that dude is probably going to
be okay in the end.
And really, thats not a bad thing. Superhero comics have dealt with that for around 75 years, and theyve gotten
pretty good at creating stories where the emphasis isnt on whether the good guys are going to win as much as its
on how theyre going to win, and what the consequences of those victories are going to be. Its one of the reasons
that death tends to be a pretty temporary condition, because when you get right down to it, thats really just
another bad guy that has to be defeated, usually in some roundabout way. I dont even think they let you into the
Xavier school anymore unless youve got at least three credit hours of being dead.
But that also makes it almost impossible to put them into a real horror story.
Horror stories or at least, horror stories as I understand them, and keep in mind all of this is coming from
someone whos too scared to ever actually watch a slasher flick are based entirely around creating that feeling
of danger, that creeping knowledge that for most if not all of the people involved, nothing is going to be okay in the
end. As a result, it tends to be pretty incompatible with superheroics. Just look at Hellboy.
Dont get me wrong, Hellboy is a great comic, and its moody and atmospheric and involves some genuinely scary
imagery, but it never really works for me as horror, simply because its structured like a superhero comic. Hellboy
in particular is, as Mignola reveals in the dedication to Seeds of Destruction, a Jack Kirby character living in an HP
Lovecraft world, he approaches all those dark, forgotten chapels and sinister sepulchres like a superhero would: By
punching something in the face until everything works out okay. And thats great, because it flips those genre
conventions of folklore ghost stories around, and lulls you into thinking that Hellboys got everything sorted out
right up unti theres a drastic change in the focus of those stories that changes the structure, throws in a whole
bunch of BPRD agents who arent quite as indestructible, and adds all that horror right back in.
So weve got superheroes, who are built on figuring out clever solutions to weird problems well, clever solutions
to weird problems that cant be solved by punching them in the face or throwing them into the sun, which is like

1% of the problems superheroes face and a genre thats all about creating danger and then delivering on it with
horrific consequences due to the failings of its protagonists. So if you want to put a superhero into that story, the
trick is going to be finding a hero whos defined by failures and limitations.
Fortunately, weve got one of those right there on the A-list.

Ive written about this before, but from day one, Spider-Man is built like a horror character. His first appearance
in Amazing Fantasy #15 reads like an issue of Tales From the Crypt, right down to the ironic twist of it being his
fault that Uncle Ben died. It sheds a little bit of that as it goes on, obviously especially when John Romita Sr.
shows up to drag Steve Ditkos spindly teenager through puberty to turn it into a romance comic with punching.
But still, Spider-Man never quite loses that horror-infused edge.
Hes a character whos defined by his failures as much as his successes, failures that specifically find the people
closest to him dying despite his best efforts. Uncle Ben, Captain Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Jean DeWolff, and Harry Osborn
(who eventually got better) all died in ways that Peter Parker feels very personally responsible for, something that
gives him a vulnerability that you dont get from other characters. I mean, you cant stand next to Batman for five
seconds without at least having someone flip a coin to decide whether theyre going to kill you, but thats never
really played up as being Batmans fault, even if he feels bad about it. For Spider-Man, its almost always the result
of his mistake, to the point where hes directly involved in a couple of those.
So yeah: You put that guy in a horror story, you can still be reasonably certain that hes going to live, but
everyone around him is going to be fair game. Which, I believe, tends to be how those stories work anyway. He just
fits that genre in a way that other heroes dont, and if you ever want to see that in action, you dont need to look
any further than Kravens Last Hunt, which is as close to a straight up horror story as superhero comics have ever
gotten. I mean, Spider-Man gets hunted down and buried alive in that book and thats not even in the top three
creepiest things that happen. Heck, depending on how you feel about Kraven the Hunter getting bare-ass naked in
the middle of a code-approved comic, it might not even be in the top five.
Either way, it doesnt hold a candle to the scene where Kraven is literally DROWNING IN SPIDERS.

guhhhhh
Thats the other thing about Spider-Man: It doesnt hurt that hes naturally creepy as all heck, either. As much as I
like that fluid web-slinging movement that you see in the movies (which is perfectly appropriate for swinging
around Manhattan), Ive always really liked the idea that when Spider-Man is on the ground, he doesnt so much
walk as skitter, hopping from the floor to the wall to the ceiling and moving faster than any person should be able to
move. It doesnt just emphasize the origin of his powers, it also makes him weird and unsettling in a really
interesting way.
Of course, at the end of the day, hes still a dude who can lift a car, jump thirty feet in the air, and sense danger right
before it happens something else thats pretty fun to play with in the context of a horror story, like giving him a
bout of Spider-Sense that never stops because hes always in danger. Hes still going to be a superhero, but hes a
superhero whos very familiar with dire, murderous consequences to his actions, and who has always had to
operate within defined limits. In a superhero story, those limits are designed to be overcome, but in a horror story?
They could box him in for the ultimate in radioactive spider terror.
With all of that said, though, theres another way to look at this question, one that I didnt even realize until I was
talking to Kyle Starks about it. I went in assuming that this was about making a superhero the protagonist of a
horror story, but Kyle thought it meant using the superheroes as the villains, and I have to admit thats a pretty
interesting take. If you look at it through a pair of Halloween lenses, or even if you just try to imagine them through
the eyes of their enemies, then almost every superhero is just half a twist away from being a horror villain.
The alien who looks human but isnt, hiding among us and keeping its unstoppable power secret until it deigns to
use it, that no weapon on Earth can stop. The statue from a mysterious island that comes to life so that it can tie
you down and confront you with the secrets youre trying to keep. The reclusive billionaire with a crypt below his
family mansion where he dreams up new ways to terrorize a significant portion of the population. The man with a
radioactive heart who wears a tank to get his revenge. Its pretty fun stuff.
Kyles suggestion was the Hulk, which is pretty spot-on (if a little on the nose), what with the fact that hes a normal
person who literally turns into a giant rampaging monster and all, but it probably goes without saying that my
suggestion would be Batman.

Just imagine being a criminal in Gotham City. Youre already in this weird art deco-meets-gothic environment
where literally every street is an alley and the sky is bright red at all hours of the night, probably working for a
terrifying clown whos super into poison and knives, and suddenly that thing drops out of the sky (which, again,
is red) and the next thing you know youre waking up with a broken jaw in a cell next to an actual talking
scarecrow. Thats not a good place for anyone to be.
Pretty awesome to read about though.

Read More: Ask Chris: When Do Horror Stories Become Superhero Stories? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris216-when-do-horror-stories-become-superhero-stories/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #215: Klarion The Witch Boy And The Kirby Approach To Horror
by Chris Sims October 10, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: The new Klarion series started this week, and aside from Seven Soldiers and Batman: the Animated
Series, I know little about him. Whats his deal? @T_Lawson
A: Huh. Well this one oughtta be pretty easy, T: Hes a Witch Boy. Hes a Boy who is also a Witch. Thats pretty much
all there is to it; Kirby wasnt really all that into subtlety. Now who wants to go get lunch?
[Editor's Note: Chris, we've talked about this.]
Okay, fine. There actually is a little more to it than that, but to be honest, Klarion is less interesting to me on his
own than he is in the context of Kirbys other work. Hes a Witch Boy, a strange and sinister creature rooted
completely in horror, happily existing in a world built for superheroes, and thats actually pretty cool.

Of all the genres that Kirby worked in over his considerable career, which included inventing romance comics
with Joe Simon, reinventing superheroes with Stan Lee, and dabbling in sci-fi, crime, and even autobiographical
stuff, horror comics always felt to me like they were the weirdest fit for him. The traditional horror comic elements
that all filtered down through the EC formula the ironic twists, the gruesome violence and the cynical
inevitability of it all werent things that Kirbys work was particularly known for. I mean, yes, Kirby was pretty
great at drawing violence, but OMAC punching out seven men with one punch is on a level thats pretty far
removed from someone holding up a severed head and a bloody axe, the infamous cover that got Bill Gaines called
up to testify before the actual United States Senate.
That said, its not like Kirby couldnt do scary stuff. Hes actually responsible for my pick for one of the most
genuinely frightening and disturbing moments in superhero comic history: Happyland, Darkseids torturous
amusement park from Forever People #4:

size

Click for full

The idea is about as simple as you can get: A massive torture chamber disguised as an amusement park, with the
victims hidden behind a cheerfully Plasticine facade. The genius is in the little tweaks that are added in, like the
idea that the people being imprisoned and tortured can see the smiling faces of the other amusement park patrons
as they drift by, or that Darkseid allows children, who are being brought along by adults for whats meant to be a
happy day out, to see exactly whats going on there for no other reason than his own amusement.
Still, while thats creepy as all get-out, Id never go as far as calling Forever People a horror book, even for one issue,
simply because of the context of whats going on. Its like the problem with Hellboy that I mentioned last week in
the Top Five videos: As good as Mike Mignola is at creating a moody, terrifying atmosphere, its really difficult to
actually be scared for Hellboy himself, because so many of those stories are built around the (literal) punchline of
Hellboy socking whatever youre afraid of in the mouth and being done with it. Whats amazing is that he (and the
team behind BPRD) are actually able to pull it off, and in case you missed the dedication in the first volume, thats
kind of a trick Mignola learned from Kirby.
Not to dive into even more hero-worship of Jack Kirby than I usually do, but I think what it comes down to is that
Kirby wasnt scared by monsters. I remember reading a line in something Mark Evanier, I believe, wrote about
Kirby that mentioned that for his entire life he had two recurring nightmares, one about being back in the war, and
the other about being in poverty and being unable to provide for his family.
When you read his comics, that makes perfect sense. When Kirby went to fight in Germany, he told his superiors he
could draw, and so they sent him to the front lines with a pencil so he could draw maps. I imagine thats an
experience that changes ones priorities considerably. This isnt a dude whos afraid of getting slashed up by
Freddy or Jason, this is a dude whos afraid of the horrors of war, of the idea that people could give into the dark
sides of their personality and stop caring about what happened to the people around them, and he was writing and
drawing two comics every month to talk about it. And while that makes for a grand, operatic superhero story, it
doesnt really lend itself to the usual horror comic.
Until it did. Which brings us, at long last, to The Demon.

I love The Demon. Its one of my favorite Kirby books, because of how strange he got with it and considering the
other comics that Kirby was producing in the 70s, thats saying something. But still, it doesnt quite fit into horror
so much as weird adventures. When you get right down to it, its really just a superhero book dressed up with a
little mysticism.
Dont get me wrong, theres some great, terrifying imagery thrown in there

but its also a book where a monster in a cape fights dudes with names like Baron Von Evilstein. I wasnt
kidding when I said that subtlety wasnt really Kirbys thing. Its like Castlevania in a way: Theres plenty of stuff
thats certainly themed around horror and meant to be frightening, but youre never actually scared.
But that sort of changes when Klarion shows up. Right from the start, hes creepy, and its largely because Kirby
tells us nothing about him other than that hes a Witch Boy and that he has a cat. Everything else where he came
from, what his true motivations are, even how he knows Jason Blood and Etrigan is left a complete mystery. And
the weird thing is that hes treated like a villain andseems like a villain even though the first thing he does is
help our hero out, and the second thing he does is call him for help when hes in danger of being killed by a bad guy.
Everything about the setup is written like hes a new ally, but theres just something off.
The idea of the Creepy Kid is a pretty old one, and thats exactly what Klarion is. The thing is, theres no twist to it,
nothing that sets him apart or retrofits him into a superhero universe. Hes just this creepy thing that looks like a
child but has powers that no child should have, hanging out and looking vaguely sinister while the superheroes are
growing increasingly uncomfortable about dealing with this character whos clearly from another genre.

At the end of that story, after Klarion proves that he can control the Demon, and mentions getting his help to take
out some vague group of elders, Etrigan takes exactly half a page to exile him to Somewhere Else, vanishing him
in a puff of smoke to a safe and distant place where Klarion can do no harm; something that seems more and
more ominous every time I read it. And it only gets even moreominous when Klarion shows up two issues later, all
smiles, waking Jason Blood up from a nightmare and casually mentioning that in that distant place, he
found Others who taught him how to come back.
And then he promptly starts raising the dead.

As you can probably imagine, Klarion feels a lot more villainous in his second appearance, which makes sense
given that he now has a personal vendetta against the Demon. Its here that hes really fully formed, and we learn a
little more about Teekl too, when she turns from a cat into something thats almost but not quite human. Its never
stated, but we start to get the sense that, while he has this level of power that makes it clear that hes not really a
child, he has all the worst parts of a childs personality. Hes capricious and self-interested, and willing to destroy
anything in his way without thinking twice, because it doesnt even occur to him that its a bad idea. What starts off
as a sort of innocent cruelty has been honed into active malice, paired with the power to do anything.
Like, say, turn you into a tree on a whim.

Thats where hes remained ever since, at least as a villain: This odd little being with unfathomable power and a
pronounced mean streak, whose only motivations are entirely his own. Hes a slightly more sinister version of Mr.
Mxyzptlk in that regard. There was a while there where his (Witch) Boy status saw him relegated to dealing with
the junior heroes of the DC Universe, like that Young Justicecrossover, Sins of Youth, where he flipped the ages of
the JLA and their sidekicks, and insisted that his name be accompanied with a musical sting because Peter
David thinks stuff like that is hilarious.
Obviously hes tweaked a little as a protagonist, but as a villain, thats how I think he works best: Something weird
and strange and unsettling that just doesnt belong in a superhero universe, something that gets rejected outright
because it just shouldnt be here, and then keeps coming back to show you how right those instincts were.

Read More: Ask Chris #215: Klarion The Witch Boy And Kirby Horror | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-215klarion-the-witch-boy-and-the-kirby-approach-to-horror/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #213: A Brief History Of The Wrath Of God

by Chris Sims September 26, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Just re-read Gotham Central and it got me wondering, whats the deal with the Spectre? @BatIssues
A: The deal? Son, the deal is that he was on what is quite possibly the single most metal comic book cover of all
time.

Good God almighty, just look at that thing. An entire city is in flames and the flames are rising up over the
skyscrapers and forming dinosaurs, and the Spectre, whose legs are also made of fire, is riding the dinosaurs and
staring at the reader like hes daring you to just try reading that comic to see if there is any possible way that could
actually happen in the story which, incidentally, it doesnt. Still, that cover I seriously just showed that thing to
a baby and by the time I got back from putting it away in my long boxes, that baby was playing drums for Slayer.
True story.
I would honestly be willing to say that that piece by Joe DeVito, who provided painted covers for most of John
Ostrander and Tom Mandrakes The Spectre run from 1992 to 1998, is quite literally the high point of the Spectres

74-year existence. Once you get past that, though, hes still a pretty interesting character, althoguh its less because
of anything thats actually happened in the comics than because of how much he doesnt really work, and the
question of whether a character can actually be too big for superhero comics.
The Spectre was originally created in 1940 by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily, but its worth noting that some
sources including legendary editor Roy Thomas, whos about as big a fan of DCs Golden Age titles as youre
likely to find give Siegel full credit for the whole concept, and thats the first interesting point. After all, Siegel is,
as you may have heard, the co-creator of arguably the most enduring and significant character in comics history,
whos known for his incredible physical strength: Slam Bradley.
Oh, and also Superman, I guess.
So right away, we have a contrast. Whats really interesting to me is that while Superman would eventually grow
into a character whod be defined by his almost limitless power in the 50s and 60s a time when Siegel was still
very much a part of telling those stories he definitely wasnt on that level in 1940. He could leap a tall building,
but he couldnt fly over it; he could lift a car, but not a planet; he was bulletproof but an artillery shell would knock
him out. Dont get me wrong, it was all functionally the same and created a character who was unquestionably the
most powerful person in the world, but there were limits, even if they didnt last.
The Spectre never really had those limits. In his first appearance, we get a pretty simple origin story: Jim Corrigan
is a cop who gets murdered, but finds himself charged by God Himself with a mission to fight crime until there is no
more crime.

I realize that the never-ending battle against crime is a pretty standard part of most superhero origins, but Siegel
and Baily make it seem like a terrifying punishment, especially since they show Corrigan pleading for eternal peace
before being cast back down to a fallen world to battle the worst that humanity has to offer forever. If you look at it
with any kind of realism and I admittedly hate doing that in most if not all cases then thats terrible. Batman
might be fighting crime for his entire life, but thats what, sixty years? And if he manages to clean up a single city,
then he can rest easy with a job well done. The Spectre has a mandate from the Almighty to stay on Earth fighting
crime until all vestiges of it are gone. We have had crime for the entirety of human history, and I dont want to
bum anybody out here, but its looking pretty likely that were going to have it for a while yet. Thats the reality that
Jim Corrigan is faced with eight pages into his existence, and the first thing that happens once he gets back to Earth
is that he sees his own dead body and realizes that this is actually happening. Thats harrowing.
It does, however, provide us with one of my favorite single panels of all time:

That Abruptly interstitial is what cracks me up every time.

Point being, right from the start, theres an idea of horror thats sitting at the heart of the Spectre. Its literally a
ghost story, but its a ghost story thats filtered through this lens of the brand new genre of superheroes that Siegel
had just helped to create, and it makes for a weird marriage of ideas. The end result is something that, for good or
ill, could not be more of a Golden Age Superhero: A big dude in trunks and a cape and no other clothing with
powers that are ill-defined at best.
What happens next, at least as I see it, is that the Spectre becomes an unintentional casualty of the Comics Code. Its
always worth noting that the Code was never a governmental instution meant to actually regulate the content of
comics, but a weird little bit of self-policing that was mostly geared at tanking ECs wildly popular horror comics
and allowing superheroes to flourish. And since ECs big trick was the gruesome, ironic punishment that had also
been the Spectres stock in trade since day one

he was kind of left by the wayside. By that point, though, it was almost a moot point. The dust of that original rush
to capitalize on the brand new medium of American comic books had long since settled, and Superman, Batman
and Wonder Woman were pretty much cemented at the top of the heap.
Because of that, nothing really happens with the Spectre for a long, long time. He shows up alongside the Justice
Society in the annual team-ups, but its a weird fit for a dead man on a holy crusade who has the power to shrivel
people into skeletons and turn them into pencils that get shoved into giant sharpeners to be sititng there next to a
guy who runs fast and some dork with wings. Its only in solo stories that he really starts to come back as his own
distinct character, when you get those beautiful Jim Aparo stories.

By that time, its 1974, and while the Comics Code would keep their stamp on the covers for the next thirty years,
their stranglehold on comics publishing was already starting to wither into irrelevance, at least where the
supernatural was concerned. You had your Tomb of Dracula and your Werewolf By Night over at Marvel, and since
DCs nominal horror titles had managed to survive on the strength of covers where things that were not usually
skeletons were revealed to actually be skeletons, I imagine that bringing back the Spectre to mete out some
horrifically violent punishments seemed like a pretty good idea.

And they were violent, especially by the standards of the time. In Fleisher and Aparos run in Adventure Comics, the
Spectre would turn crooks to glass and shatter them or melt them like giant candles:

There are great visuals in that run probably why it became one of the famous Baxter Paper Reprints a decade
later but it only lasts about a year, and I dont really know why. My guess would be that it was just the nature of
the beast for Adventure, which had rotated through a cast of different characters like Black Orchid and Supergirl
ever since the Legion of Super-Heroes had been carted off to their own mag, but Id also believe that a pale ghost
showing up to complain about how he was being denied the glory of heaven while chopping people in half with
giant scissors may have been a little grim for a comic that would replace The Spectre with a comic where Aquaman
rode around on a dolphin and fought a villain named The Fisherman.
So once again, he bounces around, making a very notable appearance in Crisis on Infinite Earths in a form that puts
the focus on his unfathomable power. This is the story where hes physically separating two different Earths annd
reachig back to grab the entire universe with a single hand powers that are in scale with what was going on in
that comic. And from that extremely memorable appearance, you get a few other shots at stories, including those
Baxter reprints of the Aparo stuff, but its not until 1992 that he lands an ongoing, and this this is where
things get interesting.
The team assigned to bring you the updated Spectre was John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, who had previously
collaborated for DC on Firestorm, and they ended up staying on the book for six years of pretty awesome stories.

Theyre the ones who made the biggest mark on the Spectre, and they did it by keeping the viciously brutal ironic
punishments of the Fleisher/Aparo stories, but taking the nature of the character to its logical extreme.
Under Ostrander and Mandrake, the idea of the Spectre as a punishment, as a curse that would keep you out of
Heaven, was made a driving force. Their version of Jim Corrigan was a corrupt cop who was sentenced to be the
host of the Spectre, who was himself sentenced to the role of meting out Gods wrath for his part in Lucifers
rebellion. The punishments for murderers had the same horrific irony, like when he took out a bunch of drug
dealers by turning them into his fingers and injecting fire into his arm like heroin

but they were taken to a new scale that showed the Spectres powers to be limitless. Theres an infamous issue
where he intervenes in a civil war by destroying an entire country and killing everyone in it except for the two
people leading the opposing factions, leaving them to fight over a ruined landscape littered with corpses.
What really surprises me about all this is that the book never took the path that Swamp Thing, Animal
Man and Sandman did to become a Vertigo book. It remains firmly rooted in the DC Universe, to the point where
that country that gets destroyed is Vlatava, the home of Count Vertigo. Ostrander had already proven with Suicide
Squad, featuring Count Veritgo, that he was capable of blending in disparate parts of a fractured universe into a
cohesive whole. But keeping the Spectre in the core DC Universe with powers on that scale raises a lot of questions
about what hes doing and what hes not doing. Why doesnt he just show up and turn Lex Luthor into a piece of
Kryptonite and shatter it into a million pieces? How come the Joker, who I am pretty sure has a bigger body count
than Count Vertigo, was never found turned into a balloon and then popped in his cell at Arkham Asylum? And for
that matter, how come Superman never tried to put the Spectre in jail for literally killing an entire country?
The answer is, of course, that its comics and the Spectre cant just pop in and vaporize someone elses villains
because thats not a good story, but thats the fact that we all ignore because thats the only way superhero comics
work. Having a character like the Spectre just makes that a whole lot harder to do.
There is a whole lot of neat stuff added into the mythos of the character, though. Im particualrly fond of the bit
where you find out that the Spectre was imprisoned in Limbo between 1 AD and 33 AD, because vengeance and
forgiveness cant walk the Earth at the same time.
Ostrander and Mandrakes run on The Spectre ends after 62 issues in early 1998 which is a huge bummer,
because six months later we wouldve gotten a tie-in to DC 1,000,000 that wouldve been all about the Wrath of God
tearing up the 853rd Century, which would have been amazing and they leave the book by finally giving
Corrigan his peace and separating him from the Spectre. But that, of course, leaves the embodiment of divine
vengance without its human host.
And so they bolt it onto Hal Jordan.

This is I mean, this is not a great idea. I talked at length about the problematic treatment of Hal Jordan as a
character once he was shuffled out of the role of Green Lantern, and making him the Spectre is a huge part of that.
There are ideas in play that I understand Hal working off his murders of the Green Lantern Corps in order to
redeem his character, something that was ultimately done in a much more hamfisted way by attributing it to a
giant yellow space-bug and there are bits of it that I like in theory a character defined by his indomitable
willpower being tasked with wrangling the actual Wrath of God but it was never going to work. Anything that
Hal became was always going to be overshadowed by his identity at Green Lantern, something that wasnt really
helped by the design that was basically just Hals Green Lantern uniform with a hood. Even in a universe that was
still trying to define itself by legacy, this was transitional at best, and generally just showed that we were never
really going to move on from Hal Jordan, a character who had never really left.

Weird as it is for me to say it as a huge fan of both Gotham Central and Final Crisis, Cris Allens time as the Spectre is
actually the least memorable of the bunch, but I attribute that less to what actually happened in the stories than to
it just not lasting very long before everything got chucked out for the New 52.
In the end, though, I imagine that without some retooling, youd just run into the same problems. Everyone knows
about the frequent complaints about characters like Superman or Dr. Strange, that theyre just too powerful to be
interesting, and in those cases, I dont think you have a leg to stand on. With the Spectre, though, youre dealing
with something that goes beyond just casting spells, you haveactual omnipotence and a mandate to end all crime,
and thats pretty difficult to write your way around. Its addressing the small-scale morality of comic books by
projecting it onto the largest scale possible. Its like cutting a birthday cake with a shotgun. It might make for a fun
party, but its kind of a lousy dessert.

Read More: Ask Chris #213: A Brief History Of The Wrath Of God | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-213-abrief-history-of-the-wrath-of-god/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #212: The Many Loves Of Batman

by Chris Sims September 19, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Whats the deal with Batmans non-Catwoman, non-justice love interests? Vicki Vale, Zatanna, Wonder
Woman, etc? @superseth64
A: Just a few days ago, I was talking to Greg Rucka and he mentioned Denny ONeils rule about Batman not
sleeping with anyone, because if he does, then he sleeps with everyone. Its an interesting way to put that, and Im
inclined to agree with ONeil on that point, but you cant deny that over the past 75 years, the Caped Crusader has
had plenty of romantic entanglements, almost all of which, as you might expect, have ended in a spectacularly
awful fashion.
But the thing is, as much as they dont work from a romantic perspective, which is the nature of dramatic tension,
they dont really work from a storytelling perspective, either.

See, the thing about American superheroes is that virtually everything about them filters down from Superman in
one way or another, especially in the Golden Age. Regardless of how the formula was tweaked and regardless of
Bob Kanes easily debunked claims about solely creating Batman in 1935 that appeared in that insulting work of
ghostwritten fiction that he called an autobiography the Golden Age was a mad rush to match the sales that
National was racking up with Action Comics, and a lot of that just came down to the formula. What worked for
Superman should work for somebody else, right? I mean, Captain Marvel Adventures was selling in the millions, and
that dude was close enough to Superman that they even had him tossing around a car on the cover of his first
appearance.
So in theory, if Superman has Lois Lane, then a character like Batman should probably have a girlfriend (or Girl
Friend, as they were prone to putting it) of his own, right? Somebody at National certainly thought so, and thats
how you end up getting characters like Julie Madison and Vicki Vale in the Golden Age. Unfortunately, Julie didnt
have much of a character to speak of she was little more than a damsel in distress most of the time and Vickis
a particularly shameless knockoff. Seriously, shes a photojournalist whos always trying to prove Bruce Wayne is
secretly Batman so that they can get married, and she generally makes a nuisance of herself in the process.

But thats the problem.

As much as the superheroic tradition comes down from Superman, and as much as it might make sense to try to lift
successful elements to graft them onto another hero, those two characters are just different enough that it doesnt
work that it cant work. I think part of it is that even though Superman sets the tone, the characters are still
drawing on different sources and working towards different aims.
Siegel and Shuster were clearly fans of Dr. Clark Doc Savage (and one Ask Chris reader noted that his famous
code against killing was likely lifted from the Lone Ranger) while Bill Finger and that other guy started out doing a
pretty direct riff on The Shadow. But its when they start to evolve and become characters in their own right that
the changes really hit.
Lois Lane is great for Superman. I mean, shes great in general, but her role in Supermans story
is amazingly important, and is the easiest way to show how he actually works. The core idea at the heart of
Superman is humanity hes an alien with unfathomable power, but at heart, hes one of us. Hes going to use his
powers exclusively to help people, not because he considers himself superior, not because he looks at us as pets,
but because thats what people who can help others should do. Hes human, and so he has the most human emotion
of all: Hes in love. Thats one of the reasons it can only ever be Lois her humanity is what reflects his humanity,
and when you lose that, you lose the biggest piece of the character.
Batman, on the other hand, is built differently. Theres that panel that gets passed around a lot of all the Justice
League standing around thinking about their wives and girlfriends and Batmans thinking about Robin, ha ha ha,
but really, thats pretty accurate. The core idea of Batman is all about family hes motivated by the loss of one as
a child, and as an adult, he starts building a new one. And thats something that starts very early. As much as people
like to think of Batman as a grim loner fighting a one-man war on crime, its really important to remember that hes
created in 1939, and Robin shows up in 1940.

So right away, you have Superman and Batman fitting into different roles with how they relate to their supporting
cast. Superman becomes the romantic with Lois, and Batman becomes the father with Robin, and they very rarely
get out of those roles. It works both ways, too: Supermans not really good with sidekicks. As much as I love Silver
Age Supergirl and 90s Superboy as a characters, they dont really work that well when theyre with Superman,
taking orders and playing second fiddle. They work fine on their own, and they work best when you can see
Superman treating them as equals the same way he treats Lois. Its one of the reasons I really like Steel; hes a
guy thats clearly following Supermans legacy, but doing it in his own way, with his own skills, and being treated as
a partner rather than a sidekick.
With Batman, my theory on this basically just breaks down to you dont really want to think too hard about your
father figure having sex.

Its worth noting that the characters I think of as Batmans two most successful romances (in storytelling
terms), Catwoman and Talia, are romance that can never really happen. The compelling drama in both of those
comes from the idea that theyre on opposite sides of the law. Catwoman is the more enduring, but its exactly the
kind of star-crossed love thats doomed to fail in the most entertaining way possible. At her worst, Catwomans an
arch-criminal, but at her best, shes still Robin Hood, and Batmans firmly on the side of the law. The friction is what
makes it fun. Er, so to speak.
But that never stopped anyone from trying to make it work over the years, and you get some interesting stuff out of
it. The original Batwoman, Kathy Kane, brings a pretty interesting ideas to the table since shes also operating as a
vigilante, but those stories are often skew towards some really regressive Oh, that silly woman, trying to fight
crime! I told you to stop this, Kathy! storytelling thats not exactly romantic. For my money, the first really
compelling love interest (aside from Catwoman) to come into Batmans life is Silver St. Cloud.

Originally created by Steve Englehart and Mike Gold, Silver was really fleshed out once Marshall Rogers took over
art duties for the rest of Engleharts run, and shes basically exactly what movies want Batmans girlfriend to be.
Shes smart and inquisitive enough to discover Batmans identity on her own by following the clues and seeing the
Dark Knight in action, and like Catwoman and Talia, she ends up being exactly the sort of relationship that cant
ever happen.
The difference is, shes the one who makes that call. Shes the one who realizes that Bruce Wayne is never going to
give up crimefighting; that hes always going to dedicate his life to this higher calling. She understands this, and as a
result, she dumps him. Its really fun stuff, and it gives her an interesting distinction on the rare occasions that she
makes a return appearance, like Englehart and Rogers own Dark Detective. Unfortunately, shes also in the worst
Batman comic ever printed, but, yknow, thats gonna happen sometimes.

Batmans relationship with Zatanna is, I believe, entirely the invention of Paul Dini for Batman: The Animated
Series, and while hed later bring it into the core continuity of the comics, it never really worked as well as it did on
the show. The simple idea of having her represent a love from his training, a time when he couldve walked away
from becoming Batman and actually been happy but chose not to, who then comes back to remind him of
everything hes given up, works really well in the context of the show. Applied to a larger DC Universe (even the
one seen in Justice League Unlimited), I dont think it works quite as well. Bringing her into the superhero
community changes the dynamic, and you run into all the same problems.

The romance with Wonder Woman is one of those ideas that sounds great in theory. It makes perfect sense, right?
Theyre teammates on the Justice League, theyre both equally dedicated to the neverending battle against evil, and
if thats the case, theyre both people who can very easily understand the drive and motivations of the other. They
should compliment each other, right?
In practice, its generally pretty terrible. The obvious problem is that when you tangle those two characters up
romantically, the sheer practical nature of the characters popularity means that Wonder Womans going to
become the back half of Batman And. Youre always going to end up subordinating Wonder Woman to Batman
a love interest is almost always a supporting character and if theres anyone who shouldnt be a supporting
character, its Wonder Woman. She should be cultivating a supporting cast in her own right. Plus, platonic
friendships between men and women are rare enough in media that taking away a friendship that actually works a
heck of a lot better isnt worth it.
So those are, I believe, the major relationships all accounted for. There are a few others, of course, like Jezebel Jet
(Silver St. Cloud but eeeeevil), Vesper Fairchild (unsurprisingly murdered) and Shondra Kinsolving (used her
psychic powers to heal Batmans broken back and ended up being institutionalized with the mind of a five yearold as a result, yeesh), but its like I said. They always tend to end in spectacular failures.
Which is why the only Lady in Batmans life is Lady Justice.

Read More: Ask Chris #212: The Many Loves Of Batman | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-212-the-manyloves-of-batman/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #211: Imagine The Words The Enforcers With A Big Heart Drawn Around Them
by Chris Sims September 12, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: We know your favorite anti-heroes, sidekicks, and villains, but whos your favorite minor villain, and
why? @fizzbang
A: Yknow, the way you phrase that question makes it sound like Ive written about everything except who my
favorite superhero is, and that doesnt sound right. Im a little too lazy to go and look, but it feels like surely at
some point in the last 210 columns, I probably wouldve mentioned that. Oh well, Im sure Ill probably get to
talking about Batman at some point.
Anyway, back to the question. Favorite minor villains? OH MY GOD, ITS THE ENFORCERS I LOVE THE ENFORCERS
SO MUCH LETS TALK ABOUT FANCY DAN FOR THE NEXT THREE HOURS OH MY GOD.

Sorry. I I get a little excited sometimes. But, I mean, Fancy Dan, yall. He fights Spider-Man and Daredevil with
karate while dressed like a gangster from the 40s and his name is Fancy Dan. So great. So, so great.
Now, I like a lot of villains that are, by all reasonable standards, pretty terrible. Heck, if you missed it, you can hear
me on the ComicsAlliance Top Ten last week extolling the virtues of Johnny Karaoke, and that dude appeared and
died in two issues where he wasnt even the main villain. Clearly, I tend to be drawn to the villains who never quite
made it, and a lot of that is because Im fascinated by whatdidnt work about them, and how there are characters
that have interesting hooks that just didnt catch on, whether its because they just hit at the wrong time or were
overshadowed by bigger stars.n
But theres a difference between that kind of character and the minor villain, the ones who may not be the worldshaking threats or the big names, but have hung in there for years, occasionally popping up to cause only marginal
amounts of trouble. And if thats the definition were working on here (and assuming that you charitably bump
my other favorite, Arcade, up to the major leagues) then nobody embodies that idea more than the Enforcers.

The Enforcers are most commonly identified as Spider-Man villains they first appear all the way back in Stan
Lee and Steve Ditkos Amazing Spider-Man #10 from 1964 and have popped up in more Spider-Man stories than
anywhere else by far but Ive never really thought of them that way for one simple reason.
See, I first encountered the the pages of Daredevil #356, during Karl Kesel and Cary Nords run on the title. Ive said
it before, but that run is easily one of the most underrated comics of the 90s. It had the kind of slightly brighter,
swashbuckling adventure that would serve Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, Marcos Martin and Chris Samnees run so
well in their justifiably beloved tenure, but it had the misfortune of being sandwiched between the floundering and
forgettable darkness of the Post-Miller, Post-Nocenti years, and the Kevin Smith relaunch that would eventually
lead to the depressing grind that was Matt Murdocks life hitting a critical mass of Funky Winkerbeanean despair.
For about a year, though, Kesel and Nord were able to do that more lighthearted Daredevil, and part of their
mission statement was skewing away form the standard roster of villains like Kingpin, Bullseye and Elektra and

instead throwing the focus onto stories with a roster of relatively minor villains like Mr. Hyde, the Eel and, of
course, The Enforcers.
To be honest, the actual story about the Enforcers isnt really anything special. Its a solid superhero comic, you
understand, and its got the line Lets see how he likes the kung fu footwork of Fancy Dan! shouted by a man doing
a jump-kick and thats pretty great, but Its not going to change the world or anything. It did, however, impress
upon me that the Enforcers werent necessarily tied to a single hero, and I love villains like that.

Thats one of the things that the Marvel Universe has in abundance that DC never really developed. I think it comes
form DC being an inherently more fragmented universe; since the heroes werent necessarily developed with the
idea that they would eventually coexist, they ended up having rogues galleries that were built entirely around one
specific hero, meant to reinforce very specific themes.
Thats not really a bad thing, either. I dont think anyone could say that DC doesnt have some pretty great villains,
but it means that they dont work that well outside of a particular context. They always want it to be a big deal
when the Joker shows up to fight Superman, but it never really works the way they want it to. There are a couple of
groups that feel like they should fill this role if I had my way, the Royal Flush Gang would be everywhere at all
times but there arent many.
The Marvel Universe, on the other hand, is a lot more utilitarian. Theres a level of cohesiveness that comes from
being created by a much smaller group of creators particularly Lee, Kirby and Ditko but at the end of the day,
theres a lot of stuff thats just in there to make their jobs easier. The idea of mutants alone, which would grow to

form the most successful corner of the universe, was famously introduced so that the creators wouldnt have to
spend so much time thinking about origin stories.
There are still plenty of arch-nemeses that revolve around a single hero, but when you approach building a
universe the way Marvel did, you end up with a lot of stuff that you can switch around; bits and pieces like AIM, or
even major villains that feel like they could show up to fight anyone.
Which brings us back to the Enforcers. Who, incidentally, had to be the easiest creations those dudes ever cooked
up. Its one of the things I actually find really appealing about them: Theyre such a dumb, thoroughly generic idea.
There is a strong guy named Ox (because he is as strong as an ox, you see), a little tiny dude who knows kung fu,
which as we all know is a very fancy way of fighting, and a frigging cowboy. It is so beautifully generic that it
almost had to happen, a completely standard gang of thugs, but they have just enough personality, and they make
just enough of a weird combination, that they end up standing out.
Maybe the best thing about these dudes is that they feel like guys who are just doing their crappy jobs. Okay, no,
the best thing is still that one of them is named Fancy Dan and hes a kung fu master in a pinstripe suit with a
terrible moustache, but after that, its the job thing. Ive got a real soft spot for occupational supervillains who are
pretty much just in it for the check, and the Enforcers are exactly that. Its right there in the name: theyre not the
boss, just the professional henchmen.
Its been like that since the beginning, too. They first appear as lackeys of the Big Man, and then show up again four
issues later working for the Green Goblin, who uses them in an astonishingly complex plot involving staging an
entire fake film production:

For the record, this is not the first time in the early 60s that a Marvel supervillain would attempt to kill someone
by faking a movie. They really ought to bring that back.
But it all just reinforces that idea of the Enforcers as working stiffs. You kind of get the idea that if it wasnt for the
fact that they were constantly dealing with people who can throw cars or have radioactive ninja senses, theyd
probably be complete badasses.
Seriously, Montana is a guy who tries to fight superheroes by throwing a rope at them. Not even a trick rope or a
magic rope, things that actually exist in his universe. Just a rope. Surely he wouldnt do that if he wasnt so good at
lassoing regular people that he actually thinks he can accomplish something with a rope. But here they are, in a
world where their main antagonist shoots super-awesome science ropes out of his wrists, and they still have to do
their job.
In a way, its admirable. If they werent all trying to kill people all the time, I mean.
Either way, the Enforcers endure as my favorite gang of miscreants in comics, this great combination of a dumb
idea done perfectly (which applies to a heck of a lot of stuff from the early days of Marvel, now that I think of it),
bad guys who are just showing up to do their job, and being just weird enough to endure. Which, I suppose, is why
theyre around even today, in what is unquestionably the greatest Spider-Man saga of our time:

Read More: Ask Chris #211: Chris Loves The Enforcers | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-211-imagine-thewords-the-enforcers-with-a-big-heart-drawn-around-them/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #210: The Dark Teenage Rave That Is Batman Beyond
by Chris Sims September 5, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Given all that could have gone wrong, what about the concept and execution makes Batman
Beyond work so well? @caseyjustice
A: Something must be going around these days, because Ive seen a lot of conversations about Warner Bros.
Animations 1990s hit Batman Beyond popping up recently. I even got into a little discussion with
Jordans Gibson and Witt about a few places where at least in my opinion the flaws in the show, which I
otherwise love, became too big to ignore. Thats actually one of the things that made me want to answer this
question for this weeks column. The other was how you phrased it.
See, Ive never considered the premise of Batman Beyond to be something that couldve easily gone wrong, but
youre absolutely right in classifying it as such. To me, its always been more about how they built that show by
taking the two best ideas in superhero comics and putting them together.
The thing is, that shouldve been a pretty difficult marriage and most of those flaws that I was talking about show
up for that exact reason.

The big trick about Batman Beyond is that its a very simple mash-up. Its What If Batman Was Spider-Man, and
theyre not exactly subtle about showing that influence at every chance they get. Its really easy to draw the
comparison to Spider-Man for virtually any teenage superhero, since Spidey provides the template that almost all
of them are built on, but Batman Beyond goes, well, beyond just building on the standard idea. And really, thats not
a complaint. Like I said, those are the two best ideas in comics history, and the episodes I tend to like best like
the amazingly titled Terrys Friend Dates A Robot and Eggbaby, for example are the ones that tend to skew
pretty hard into that teenage superhero formula.
Thats the first thing that really makes it work, and its the same thing that really works about Robin solo stories
when theyre good, and what made Nightwing one of the better Batman family titles in the 90s, an era when the
books about Batman himself were getting mired in these increasingly dour crossovers. They take what works
about those stories, particularly the setting and the themes, and provide an entirely different, younger perspective.

There area a lot of things you can do just by altering that, and one of the most important is that it changes how
dialogue is written. Readers (or viewers, in this case) might not want Batman to be particularly quippy and since
that guys only in love with one woman (Justice) he doesnt lend himself particularly well to love triangles. Put
some high-schooler with super-arched eyebrows in the role, though, and you get to have all that stuff and still keep
it in an oppressively gothic city full of criminally murderous clowns and disgruntled cryogenic scientists. In the
future.
But getting back to that Spider-Man influence for a moment, it is blatant. Even if you just look at the villains who
show up to cause trouble in Neo New Gotham 2099, they tend to line up pretty well with their counterparts from
the House of Ideas. Stalker is a stand-in for Kraven the Hunter, Shriek for the Shocker (though, oddly enough, not
for Shriek), and Blight is about as close as you can get to the Green Goblin without paying royalties. While they
arent quite one-for-one analogues, Inque draws pretty heavily from Venoms character design, and Ten from the
Royal Flush Gang owes a lot to the Black Cat, too. Heck, they even have the Fantastic Four show up under a veil so
thin that its barely even there.
But when you get right down to it, thats one of the things that actually does make the show work really well. Even
if theyre drawing from an established pool to create their villains, the end result is something that doesnt feel like
theyre treading over familiar ground, for one simple reason. With the exceptions of a few episodes, like the one
where Talia returns and Bruce gets all grumpy about being too feeble to change a flat tire (and one other major
project that Ill get to in a minute), the show generally stayed away from the one place that youd expect theyd go
to at every opportunity: Batman villains.
Its pretty hard to argue that Batman doesnt have the single best roster of well-developed and engaging enemies in
comics, and theyve certainly proven that theyre marketable, so I have to imagine that the temptation was there to
do Riddler in the future! or Two-Face in the future! every week. That they managed to resist doing it as much
as they did is a testament to how committed they were to making Terry into his own character and not just a weird
offshoot of Bruce. Even more, it meant that when they did do stories about the old villains, like the fake-out with
Bane in The Winning Edge or Mr. Freezes appearance in Meltdown, it felt like a big deal.

There was a balance to it that the show hit in a truly beautiful way. They skewed away from the villains (and I dont
think we ever get to see a weird Blade Runner version of Arkham Asylum on the show), but they still left enough of
Batmans legacy laying around that it still feels like a Batman story. Barbara Gordon showing up as the
Commissioner of the NNGC2099PD is a really great touch that feels like a logical extension of the world that was
set up in Batman: The Animated Series, but t the more prominent example is probably the one that shows up in the
very first episode: The Jokerz.
And, for me at least, thats also the start of the problems.

It goes without saying that Batman Beyond is dark. That is, after all, one of the primary selling points of the show
that it spins off from, but Batman Beyond has a different kind of darkness thats ingrained into the premise, and
once you notice it, theres no amount of teenage future hijinx that can really take it out of the story: Batman
Beyond is, by its very nature, set in a world where Batman fails.
Again, I want to point out that I really like Batman Beyond, and to their credit, Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and Curt
Geda do a really good job of mitigating this point in the first episode. I actually love how they set up the premise by
showing us exactly what it would take for Batman to quit. He doesnt quit just because he gets old, he makes
the choice to quit because he can no longer be Batman while living up to his principles.

Thats a really cool idea, and theres a point that comes a little later thats often overlooked, when Bruce shuts
down the Batcave, and we see how much the trophy room has expanded:

The implication there is that even though Batman has to quit due to his own failings rather than retiring in
triumph, hes at least managed to outlast most, if not all, of his major foes. That Gotham Citys even standing 20
years later is a testament to that, but theres obviously still crime to be fought (because there always is), and when
we rejoin the story with Terry, Gothams still kind of terrible. Theres all that stuff thats rattled off in that truly
hilarious title sequence, like APATHY and GREED and CORRUPTION, but theres also just straight up supervillains.
Terrys own father gets murdered, and thats the one crime that Batmans stated mission is to eliminate. And, most
telling, are the Jokerz.
This is an obvious point, but at the start of Batman Beyond, theres no Batman, which means theres no Batman
Legacy for twenty years. And yet, there are dozens of face-painted hoodlums making trouble and referring to
themselves as the Jokerz.
In the world of Batman Beyond, Jokers legacy outlasts Batmans. How depressing is that?
Now, the argument could be made that this is all just necessary table setting to get us to the point where we do get
a Batman legacy, and that Terrys heroics prove that the idea of Batman can outlast and hopefully continue this
neverending fight, and if all there was was the show, Id agree. Id still think that theres a lot of darkness under the
surface, but it would hang together thematically pretty well. But then theres Return of the Joker.

If youve ever wondered how dark a Batman story has to get before its right off the rails, then look no further than
this one. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that they had to do the opposite of what made Batman
Beyond work in the first place, but at the same time, this is a story that they couldnt not do. The Joker almost had to
be involved in this story, and it was going to be the biggest possible event that it could, with the biggest possible
implications for not just the characters, but the entire idea of the legacy that Batman Beyond was based on.
Looking at it that way, it makes a lot of sense that theyd end up doing the kind of story that they did, but man, you
want to talk about depressing stories of Batman failing, there is no failure more complete than the one at the heart
of this story, and it just doesnt work. Terry McGinnis is built on that Spider-Man template, and tragedy and loss are
certainly at the heart of that, but having thirteen year-old Tim Drake tortured for days on end and then murdering
the Joker and bursting into tears kind of takes the fun out of things.
Which, I imagine, was the point. Its intentionally horrific and its meant to be shocking and disturbing (to the point
where pieces were edited out of the original release), and its certainly effective. Its not even done poorly its
been a while since Ive seen it, but I remember it being a really good piece of the story in how its structured and
presented. At the same time, as good as it might be, it also gets pretty ruinous for the premise. Its tearing
something down to build up its replacement rather than standing on its shoulders to build the legacy, and while
that can certainly be every bit as effective as a storytelling technique, it breaks too much here and makes heroism
seem a little too futile.
Its one of the things that I dont count, along with that weird coda on Justice League Unlimited about how Terry is
half-cloned from Batmans DNA and his parents almost got killed by the Phantasm. That could not feel more like
fanfic if all the characters involved had the Hedgehog added to the ends of their names.

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Ask Chris #209: The Strange Saga Of Batgirl Cassandra Cain

by Chris Sims August 29, 2014 3:00 PM

Q: Cassandra Cain: WTF happened? @IamMedellin

A: Heres the least shocking thing youre going to read this week: I love Cassandra Cain. That probably goes without
saying, given that shes a relatively obscure member of the Batman family that made her debut when I was a
teenager, but really, it goes deeper than that. She came out of the gate with a compelling edge, some phenomenally
solid storytelling, and a hook for drama that put her in contrast to the rest of Gothams assorted heroes and
hangers-on, while still feeling like a natural compliment to the other characters. And then, less than a decade later,
shed gone from being a new character with an incredible amount of potential to an also-ran who only really shows
up to fill space in crossovers something that almost never happens to characters in the Batman family, especially
when theyve got 70+ solo issues under their utility belts.
So what happened? Man, I cant even tell you, I just read the darn things. But folks, it got really weird there at the
end.

Ive mentioned before that the soft relaunch of the Batman titles in 2000 after the conclusion of the year-long No
Mans Land story arc was something of a renaissance for the Batman titles, and Batgirl was actually a pretty big
part of that. The idea of a new Batgirl had been floated very early on in No Mans Land, but when the eventual
reveal came that it was actually the Huntress running around in a striking new costume while Bruce Wayne was off
ignoring the massive earthquake that had leveled his hometown for three months, there was a lot of speculation
from fans me included about whether DC was actually going to go ahead and really introduce a new Batgirl,
an identity that had, at the time, been vacant for eleven years.
Enter Cassandra Cain, courtesy of Kelly Puckett and Daimon Scott, in the pages of Batman #567:

I feel like I should note here that Cassandra Cain was saddled with what may actually be the worst name in comics
history. I mean, really, I love an ominous biblical reference as much as the next person, but comics maybe shouldve
knocked off the whole Cain thing once Marvel introduced an evil clone of Spider-Man who could melt your face
with his spider-powers and had to spell it KAINE just to get through. Along the same lines, Cassandra is a great
name, but there are roughly two hundred Cassandras in comics, and the only one who even comes close to giving
that name any significance is Judge Anderson. It could not have been more generic if her name was Secrette I.
Dentity.
Other than that, though, shes a really great character, and a lot of the reason why comes from the origin story
thats laid out in this issue. Shes the daughter of a high-priced assassin who raised her to be a living weapon, and
then deployed her to kill someone, which she does, at an age when she doesnt understand what death is until shes
inflicted it on another person.
There are a couple of really great things about that, and the first is that it gives her character arc an element of
atonement thats completely absent in the other characters in the Batman Family, while still retaining an element
of innocence. As much as theres a subset of creators who like to have Lil Bruce Wayne basically drag his parents
down Park Row and shove them in front of a mugger with an itchy trigger finger, hes clearly the victim, 100%
innocent of the actual crime. With Cassandra Cain, theres a level where shes every bit as innocent, where she had
no possible chance of understanding her actions and what she was being trained to do. The real murderer is very
clearly David Cain, but Cassandras the one who actually does the killing. She is, quite literally, the one with blood
on her hands:

And that gives her a really unique perspective. As you may have heard, not killing is kind of A Thing with Batman,
but while he is defined by being someone who (in most versions) will never take a life, Cassandra is defined as
someone who has, who knows exactly what its like, and never, ever wants to do so again, even though its what
shes been made to do.
The other thing it does is a little more general, but just as important for creating a character: It gives her a really
awesome set of powers. The idea here was that Cains experiments raising her in isolation meant that her brain
was rewired, with the language centers becoming devoted entirely to combat and movement. That, at least, is the
official line, but its really just a fancy way of saying that for her, fighting is as easy as talking, and reading her
opponents and reacting to their moves is just that its as easy as reading a book. And thats a really clever way of
creating a contrast to the rest of the Batman family.
Batman himself is an imposing physical powerhouse who tends to solve all of his problems by punching them into
unconsciousness, but hes also at least nominally a detective, and his sidekicks tend to be the brainy sort too,
especially at the time. With his origin as an acrobat, Dick Grayson is probably the character in the group whos
defined most by physicality, but Tim Drake is the neighbor kid whos super into computers. Even more notable was
the original Batgirl, Barbara Gordon even before she became Oracle and took to specializing in information, she
was a librarian who relied on her wits and daring. Theyre a pretty brainy crowd.
Cassandra, on the other hand, was purely physical, something that was underscored by the idea that while she
could fight as easily as we can talk, she couldnt talk or read herself, making her the odd one out in the group and
providing a pretty great relationship dynamic when she started palling around with Barbara. More importantly,
they showed from the start that she wanted to learn to read and speak, that she wanted to be more than just a
weapon, even a weapon thats being used in a good fight.
Basically, shes Snake-Eyes from G.I. Joe as a teenage girl, which is one of the better concepts comics have ever put
into an ongoing series.

So Cassandra becomes the new Batgirl and gets launched into a new ongoing series, and its worth noting that its
actually really good. Kelly Puckett, who writes the bulk of those first few years alongside artist Damion Scott, is

easily one of the most underrated Batman writers of all time, with a run on The Batman Adventures alongside Mike
Parobeck that produced what were unquestionably the best Batman comics of the 90s. He takes a similar path
here, with a lot of simple, single-issue stories that do a lot to flesh out the character. The second issue, which puts
the focus onto Batgirls illiteracy and her commitment to learning is still one of my favorite single issues.
Eventually, though, the series runs its course, and while that happens in comics a 73 issue run is nothing to
sneeze at, even if I still think its weird that they didnt let it go two more months to get to the milestone of 75
Cassandra as a character has never really been the same since, and a lot of it has to do with what happened right
after.
See, after six years of a series that was explicitly about refusing to kill, rejecting the very idea because she had
personal knowledge of what it meant, Cassandra shows up in Robin leading the League of Assassins and talking
about how its time to kill people.

As you might expect, this did not sit very well with fans.
It happened during Adam Beechen and Freddie E. Williams IIs run, and they were pretty much immediately
reviled for it, and not without reason. It was a huge shift that went against everything that had been established,
and even worse (at least in my opinion), they took a very interesting character who had only been introduced a
short time before, Nyssa al-Ghul, and killed her with a car-bomb off-panel and only mentioned it in an offhand
piece of dialogue. At the time, I expected Nyssa to come back and to at least get into a feud with Cassandra over
control of the League, because how in the hell are you going to kill off the new head of the League of Assassins and
not even show it, but it never happened. It continues to cheese me off to this very day.
But yeah, most people were bugged by that whole thing where she decided to go on a killing spree. Ill be honest,
though: This is one of those things in comics thats commonly regarded as being irredeemably terrible that I
actually think is kind of a pretty good idea. If you really look at Cassandra Cain as a character, especially as a
teenager, then theres a certain logic to it. For her entire life, shed gravitated towards authority figures, first with
Cain, and then directly from him to Batman, who, while trying to do the right thing, certainly kept her at arms
length and used her for his war on crime. And this whole time, shes a teenager, and its very easy to see this
development as the ultimate act of teenage rebellion.
She does, after all, know what its like to kill someone, something that none of the other members of the Batman
family know, and working alongside them in Gotham City particularly the Gotham of the 1999 to 2006, which is
just endless misery and death in the form of stories like War Games its pretty easy to come to the conclusion
that not killing the Joker isnt doing anybody any favors. So why not take control of the League of Assassins and
turn them into a force for the greater good, doing what Batman cant or wont do?
Again, its not the way I wouldve taken the character and Im pretty firmly on the side of thinking that it shouldnt
have happened, but its also the kind of story that had the same kind of morality play elements that youd get later
from Under The Hood and Batman And Son. But here, it just didnt work. I mean, to be fair, it didnt really work
in Under the Hood either, but it really didnt work here, and I think its because the change was too big. Unlike
Jason Todd, who had a long history of booting scumbags off buildings, or Damian Wayne, who was a bratty little
decapitator who had the gradual and ultimately tragic arc, Cassandra had been introduced as a penitent saint, and
having her just decide to throw away the past six years of character development while perfectly fitting with a
superheroic teenage breakdown tanked both the character and the storyline as hard as it could. The best you
could say about it was that it had some potential for some interesting growth that never paid off.
It ended up all being retconned as Cassandra getting dosed with mind-control serum by Deathstroke (ugh), which
is about as sloppy a reset button as you could ask for, and actually ended up making the whole thing seem worse,
even if it made it very easy to gloss over and forget. But still, the damage had been done. That is, and Im very sad to
say this as a big fan of the character, the last time she was even close to relevant. When Batgirl relaunched with
Stephanie Brown in the lead role, Batgirl literally handed her a costume and walked off, stage right, pretty much
vanishing for a year.
Eventually she showed back up with a slightly different costume and a new codename thats almost as terrible as
her real name, Black Bat (I was kind of hoping shed take advantage of Dick Graysons tenure as Batman to claim
dibs on Nightwing, which I suppose she could do now that hes off being a super-spy), but shes been pretty firmly
in the background ever since.

And really, thats a shame. As excited as I am to see Barbara Gordon as the Batgirl of Burnside, Cassandra Cain has a
lot going for her as a character whos unique, with a lot of really good character stuff going for her and if
anything, the relaunch of the New 52 universe provides the perfect opportunity to set her back on the right path
without all the baggage of what came before. If nothing else, they could finally get her a proper costume. That
stitched-up mouth on the original lost its symbolism somewhere around 2002.

Read More: Ask Chris #210: The Strange Saga Of Batgirl Cassandra Cain | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris210-batgirl-cassandra-cain/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #208: Worlds Will Live, Worlds Will Die, And Crisis On Infinite Earths Is Basically A Mess
by Chris Sims August 22, 2014 1:00 PM

Q: I was reading your column about New Teen Titans where you said Crisis on Infinite Earths was a mess,
but a topic for another time. Care to explain now? @jeremyliveshere
A: The one thing you cant say about Crisis on Infinite Earths is that it didnt deliver on its promise. In a time when
event comics were still in their infancy, Crisis came out of the gate promising to be the biggest thing that had ever
or would ever hit comics, and looking back on it from almost thirty years later, its hard not to admit that even with
a comic rolling out every six months like clockwork that promises to change everything forever, its still the one
that actually did it. Worlds did live, worlds did die, and nothing actually was the same again.
It just also happens to be a story thats a complete friggin mess.

The first big problem with Crisis, from a storytelling standpoint at least, is that its inherently reactive. Ive written
about this before, but the motivation for the entire project seems to be rooted in the idea of DCs desire to compete
with Marvel on Marvels terms. While the official line is that DCs multiverse had become needlessly complex and
was in dire need of streamlining, the real motivation at least the way I see it was that the multiverse tied DC
to its past in a way that felt old-fashioned, conjuring up images of imaginary stories and characters that DC
acquired when they bought out Golden Age competitors and shuttled off to their own universes. Marvel, on the
other hand, felt contemporary, even though it had been around for over 20 years by that point, and when you stack
them up against each other, theres one difference that sticks out above anything else: Marvel feels unified.
Obviously, that has a lot less to do with the idea of a multiverse, something that Marvel was, despite popular
opinion, steadily building up themselves in the pages of What If and laying the groundwork for plenty of alternate
universe stories about vampire Storm and Spider-Girl in the years to come. Heck, at the time, one of their most
creatively and critically successful stories ever, Days of Future Past, which propelled the X-Men to massive heights,
is the prime example of an alternate universe story that just wont go away. Think about how many times youve
seen Wolverine with grey temples show up in various places, and tell me the House of Ideas doesnt have a
Multiverse.
The real reason for that feeling of unity was, of course, that about 75% of that universe was created by a single
creative team, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and that a good chunk of that other 25% had Lee involved as writer, cocreator, editor or all of the above. DC had been assembled out of the mad rush of the Golden Age, patched together
by editors wrangling kids who had no idea what they were doing (especially when it came to signing contracts),
and even once it was all put together on Earth-1, it was still fragmented, with the heroes all existing in their own
little parallel universes that just happened to be called Gotham City or Metropolis.
So already, from before the first moment of Crisis, its trying to play catch-up. Its this weird admission that the DC
Universe sucks, which presents kind of a problem when the major selling point is the fate of the DC Universe, which
means their target audience was a bunch of people who actually cared about the DC Universe. Seriously, if youre
going to be emotionally affected by Crisis, then its probably because youve put the time in somehow figuring out
how to care about Barry Allen.

And given the Flash stories that came out right before Crisis, that takes a heck of a lot of effort.
The thing is, thats also Crisiss greatest strength. Since they were scrapping the entire universe, its the first time in
comics history that EVERYTHING was in danger. I mean, they killed the Flash! They killed Supergirl! I mean,
depending on how metaphorical you want to get with your definitions, they even killed Superman, Batman and
Wonder Woman! The ones we get after Crisis especially Superman certainly arent the ones we had before,
and Wonder Woman doesnt even have her own comic for like two years after. They destroyed their entire
universe, and these were changes that were actually intended to be permanent! My pal Scott, whos been quoted
several times in those Heres The Thing videos, was fond of saying that theres nowhere to go after that, because
nothing can ever have stakes that high again. According to him, the only way to top Crisis would be to actually put
the readers themselves in danger, and the technologys just not there.
Yet.

One of the amazing things about that is that they did it with the main line DC characters. The Superman in Crisis is
the real Superman, who fights for his own existence and, if you really want to get down to it, loses. Crisis has a
nominally happy ending, but nothing is the same after. Those characters and the world they live in are gone.
Compare that to DCs most recent attempt at chucking the baby and the bathwater through the nearest available
window, Flashpoint. Nothing in that comic really feels like its at risk, because its all happening to these weird
alternate universe characters that ultimately dont matter. Theyre just a bunch of grotesque caricatures meant to
serve some purpose that I still dont understand three years later, and theres no connection. To them. Oh no,
alternate universe Aquaman and alternate universe Wonder Woman dont like each other! I sure hope this doesnt
cause any hilariously gore-splattered violence that will change the fate of a universe that in six months will only
exist in the form of heavily discounted toys marketed to tiny little babies!
Crisis, because of why it was created, puts everything on the table and delivers on its threats. But because of that,
because it was done to serve that purpose, it ends up being built really awkwardly as a story.
The short version is that its housekeeping disguised as a story, and that what story there is story plays a distant
second fiddle all the gymnastics that its doing trying to rebuild continuity. Crisis was the book that codified that
complex continuity was what was keeping out readers while reveling in it at the same time, ending up producing a
story that doesnt actually make a whole lot of sense. If you go back and read it and pay attention to the actual
events of the main story rather than getting distracted by the massive amounts of continuity restructuring and
cameo appearances going on around it that tend to steal the focus, its bananas.
Seriously, remember how the first half of that story is all about building giant tuning forks?

Now, thats not to say that its all bad or anything. I might not be a big fan of New Teen Titans, but its hard to argue
that Marv Wolfman and George Perez werent at the top of their game when they were doing this book, and its a
testament to just how good they were that this story isnt more of a mess than it ended up being. Theyre juggling a
massive story arguably the biggest in the history of superhero comics, just by sheer volume of how many
characters have key roles in the events, and that they came out at the end of twelve issues with something that was
even readable is a pretty amazing feat. And its frequently way better than that.
There are great touches that distract you from all the weird bookkeeping by making it all feel energetic and
entertaining, and even innovative in a lot of parts. That bit in #10, where worlds are being destroyed in what
basically amounts to a black-and-white backup story that runs along the bottom of every page? Thats amazing, and
a narrative trick that I havent really seen duplicated in other comics although there are shades of it in the way
that Tom Scioli introduced Two-Tank Omen in American Barbarian. Theres great stuff in here just in terms of the
action, too the Flash combining his super-speed and the Psycho-Pirates emotional manipulation to create an
instant rebellion against the Anti-Monitor? Thats one of the most genuinely clever bits of superhero action, ever.
And the big fights, when they finally happen (about four issues after anyone mentions those giant tuning forks),
actually feel like a big deal:

Part of that is because by that point, the stakes feel real, because theyve been shown to be as real as they get, but
part of it is just in how well its presented. Nobody needs me to tell them that George Perez can lay out a heck of a
page, but theyre so good and scripted so compellingly that you almost forget that The Anti-Monitor is literally
the dumbest supervillain name of all time. Think it over. You know Im right.
At the end of the day, though, its a textbook definition of style over substance. Its flashy, well-constructed and has
a bunch of characters, but everything that happens in it is ultimately futile, with an overarching plot that doesnt
really make sense, with characters that are introduced as pre-fab heroes and villains (like the Anti-Monitor and
Harbinger) that are about as exciting as dry toast. Its been a while since Ive read it cover to cover, but Ive never
been that clear on what the Anti-Monitor wants out of all this, and what it has to do with a renegade Green Lantern
going back to the big bang to fight the wrath of God, and what all that has to do with a dude who literally floats
around crying for twelve issues. Like I said: its a mess.
And it has what might be the weakest trash-talk that Batman ever offered.

Read More: Ask Chris #208: Crisis On Infinite Earths Is Basically A Mess | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris208-crisis-infinite-earth/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #207: Rebuilding The Legion Of Super-Heroes

by Chris Sims August 15, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: If you had to create an iconic but stripped-down version of the Legion of Super-Heroes, like for a TV
show, which eight to ten characters would be on it? @benito_cereno
A: One of the weirdest things about the DC Universe right now which is full of exactly as much weirdness as
youd expect from a 75 year-old superhero universe thats less than three years into a baby-and-bathwater reboot
is that the Legion of Super-Heroes isnt a part of it. I mean, no, they were never the biggest franchise DC had to
offer, but they were a pretty constant presence from 1958 to just a little while ago, and theres a good reason for
that. I mean, theyre teenagers from the future. Thats quite literally a concept that never gets old.
That said, its only a matter of time before they get rebooted, so lets while away some time figuring out just who Id
put on the new team.

The Legion of
Super-Heroes, circa 1996 (Phil Jimenez)
First off, I want to point out that Im a huge fan of the Legion, and the weird thing is that it has this reputation for
being a franchise thats notoriously difficult to get into and thats mired in its own bizarre continuity, but thats
actually one of the things that I really like about it. As much as I love the sheer goofiness of stories that are bizarre
even by Silver Age standards theres one set up as a mystery about a traitor where it turns out that theyre
actually being spied on by a tiny little man who lives in Sun Boys ankle bone, where he was put by an evil doctor
with fourth-dimensional forceps that may actually be the single weirdest story in comics history theres a lot
to love there about how far ahead of its time those stories seem.
The trick about the Silver Age is that on one level, every story was designed to preserve a status quo, but on
another level, they were also adding things all the time to change just what that status quo was. Thanks to creators
like Otto Binder on the Superman books, theres actually some pretty aggressive expansion in that time, with a lot
of enduring concepts like Kandor, Supergirl, and even the Legion itself. And when you combine that with just how
the Legion was built, you get a pretty interesting blueprint for how superhero stories would be told for the next
fifty years.
See, the Legion was an offshoot of an offshoot a Superboy tie-in that had no other connection to a universe that
was already marked by being pretty segmented. I mean, the Justice League was definitely a team of heroes that all
hung out on occasion, but they were still rooted in their own little pockets, and since the Legion was set a thousand
years in the future of an alternate version of a character set in his past, it was about as isolated as you could get. As
a result, if you go back and read those stories, it seems like they had a mandate to do anything but keep the status
quo. As early as the early 60s, youve got a book thats got relationship drama, people leaving the team, people
dying and coming back and losing arms, and in the case of Lightning Lad, sometimes all three and its all
happening against the background of those weird-ass stories about Bizarro Computo and space whales.
Yeah: this is where DCs whole thing with the arms starts, although I think their current fascination with it has its
roots in The Dark Knight Returns.

Moby-Dick of Outer Space

The Super

The biggest changes, though, came from the lineup. The Legion was adding new characters constantly, and the
result of that is that if youre going to rebuild a team lineup, theres a lot of great characters to choose from. The
problem, of course, is that it can get pretty difficult to narrow things down, but theres another little snag there too,
in that the majority of those great characters were created in the 50s and 60s. If youre a fan of the Silver Age
Legion, like I am, then when you start listing off your favorites and thinking about a new team, you end up with a
lot of intergalactic white dudes, and that doesnt really set the trend of the forward-thinking future that you need
for that comic.

The Legion of
Super-Heroes, circa 1968
The Legion has a reputation for being rebooted a lot which is often exaggerated by people who arent reading
the book but, lets be honest here, isnt entirely undeserved either but in addition to making things a little
complicated, theres one really great thing that came out of it. The reboots have always skewed towards making the
team more diverse, whether it was the 94 reboots addition of more visually distinct aliens (like Projectra and
Monstress) or the Threeboot and its racial diversity among the human cast.
Of course, theres also the Deboot, where all the characters from the 70s came back because Brad Meltzer is why
we cant have nice things, but, yknow, thats for another time.
So with all that in mind, heres who Id pick. My first three are pretty obvious: Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy and
Lightning Lass.

Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass

Saturn Girl,

As the first three characters who appeared all the way back in Adventure Comics #247, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and
Lightning Lad are considered to be the founders of the Legion, so they sort of have to be there. The thing is, when
you start with those three, youre already tipping the balance in favor of the dudes, and the easiest way to do that is
to just swap out Lightning Lad for his twin sister.
Theres another added benefit to this, too: The Legion has historically been pretty good at including women (well,
Girls and Lasses, mostly) on the roster, but they tend to have powers that are pretty passive. Phantom Girl phases
through things, Dream Girl had prophetic visions, Saturn Girl spent most of the 60s reading minds (and
occasionally mind-controlling her teammates into voting her into a leadership role for nefarious but ultimately
noble purposes), and even Lightning Lass spent several years as Light Lass, with the awe-inspiring power of
making things weigh less. Putting her front and center with the most destructive, combat-oriented powers for the
founders makes for a nice change.
As for the looks, I never actually watched the Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon that was on a few years ago, but I did
like that they tried to make Saturn Girl look a little more alien than her original appearance, even if its just highangled eyebrows and a widows peak, and while Ill buy that Braal was colonized by mutants with magnetic powers
(who were actually seeded there by Element Lad, dont ask) theres no real reason for him to look like a 20thcentury Caucasian dude, either. If were setting a story a thousand years in the future, then people are probably
going to look a little different.
Next up, youve got another bunch of standards: Brainiac 5, Ultra Boy and Karate Kid:

Brainiac 5,
Ultra Boy, Karate Kid
Brainys another one who almost has to be there; aside from the three founders, hes the character most strongly
identified with the Legion, to the point where reprints of their first appearance are usually recolored to give some

random kid in the last panel green skin and yellow hair. Hes also one of the teams only real ties to the larger DC
Universe, but I love the idea of this team of the 31st century having a technological mastermind who gives them
stuff thats futuristic even for them.
Ultra Boy, on the other hand, is just one of the most brilliant concepts in the history of superhero comics. Seriously:
He has all of Superboys powers, which he got by being swallowed by yet another space whale, but he can only use
one at a time, and that is just the best. If you dont think thats one of the greatest ideas for superhero storytelling,
then I dont know what to tell you. Youre just wrong.
Karate Kid is self-explanatory: He is so good at kicking people in the head that everyone was like Yes, we agree
that this is a super-power, like heat vision or telepathy. That is how good at kicking people in the head he is. In the
future.
Finally, to round out my eight, Shadow Lass and Shrinking Violet:

and Shrinking Violet

Shadow Lass

I thought a lot about throwing in Triad or XS into the team, but in the end, I settled on these two for two reasons.
First, and most simply, is that youve got visually interesting powers. If Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go have taught
us anything, its that you can do a lot with shadows that ends up looking really great, and, in addition to having one
of the all-time greatest pun names in comics, Shrinking Violets got that size-changing ability thats always really
fun to see, especially when you throw it into sci-fi. The second reason is that it adds a nice layer of romantic tension
to the team. Violet has often been hinted at being paired off with Lightning Lass, something that I think its high
time to pull the trigger on.
There are a lot of other great characters in the Legion that Id throw in as guests, rotating out those other two slots,
and with the caveat that this was meant to be for an imaginary TV show, I stayed away from the non-humanoid
characters that I really like. Still, I think thats a pretty solid bunch to form new team although again, if I was in
charge Id definitely want to redesign more than a few of them to make things a little more diverse.
After all, a book thats set in the 31st century should at least look a little more like 2014.

Read More: Ask Chris #207: Rebuilding The Legion Of Super-Heroes | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-207rebuilding-the-legion-of-super-heroes/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #206: Spider-Man And The Rise Of The Teenage Superhero
by Chris Sims August 8, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Just watched the latest Heres The Thing. Id love to hear you expound on some of the attempts at recreating Spider-Man. @stophatinisbad
A: In case you missed it, this weeks episode of Heres The Thing was focused on the idea of legacy and how it
shaped the Green Lantern franchise and how it ultimately failed to really take hold in the way that it did in
books like Flash and but one of the things I mentioned was that Kyle Rayner was one of many attempts to create
a character in the mold of Spider-Man. It happens like clockwork, not just at DC and Marvel but across the board,
and its one of the most important aspects of how superhero comics developed.
So really, Im glad you asked, because the reason behind this gives me a chance to dive into some of my favorite
subjects, like the socioeconomic impact of the rise of the teenager as a social construct, and how that led directly to
the creation of Darkhawk.

Before we really get into this, there are a couple of things that we have to establish up front, and the first is that
outside of Superman, who launched the superhero genre and either invented or codified most of the conventions
we associate with it, Spider-Man is unquestionably the most influential superhero of all time. Even Batman, whos
been pretty enduringly popular both on the page and in mass media for 75 years now hasnt had the kind of impact
in shaping how superheroes work in the way that Spider-Man has, and when you look just specifically at the
Marvel Universe? Its not even close. Fantastic Four may have been the book that started things off and formed the
core of Stan Lee and Jack Kirbys collaborations that would grow to become that universe, but Spider-Man was the
book where all those formulas were refined and sent out to hook a truly massive audience.
So the question, then, is why, and I think it has everything to do with not just what happened in those comics,
but when they were created.
Its a pretty obvious thing to say, but all superheroes are a product of their time. As universal as he mightve
become, the Superman that we have is a Superman that could only have been created in the 30s this power
fantasy that springs out of the Great Depression and the rise of Nazi Germany and asks what the world would be
like if the most powerful person in the world was fighting for the common man. Or just look at Batman, a character
whose most enduring attribute is how adaptable he is, and how he moved from the pulp-inspired 40s to the sci-fi
50s to the Pop Art 60s and beyond, adapting to reflect the era that hes in. Its the same with Spider-Man, but the
core difference is that hes created in a time when the Teenager was reaching its peak as a social and economic
force.

Now, Im definitely not a sociologist or a historian I am, in fact, pretty much just a dude who reads a lot of comics
and listens to a lot of pop music so take all this with a grain of salt. That said, it seems to me that before the
middle of the 20th century, Teenagers didnt really exist, at least not in the form that we know them today. You
were either a child or an adult, which is kind of a side effect of most people dying in their thirties for the majority of
human history.
After World War II, however, theres a huge cultural shift that comes entirely from classifying adolescents as a
distinct group. There are a ton of factors that lead to this, but the most important is unquestionably how a bunch of
people came back from fighting a war and decided that they basically just wanted to bone down and have as many
children as they possibly could. Sheer numbers tip the scales in favor of creating this new social construct, and
there are a ton of effects that feed off of and into it, from the rise of American suburbia to just the way music
changed. I mean, if you want to get technical about it, the appeal to #teens starts with the crooners in the 40s, but
it wasnt adults that made the Beatles a worldwide phenomenon, you know?
The interesting thing about all this is that you can actually see it all happening in comics as it happens. Even though
they burst onto the scene as a popular medium that spanned demographics, it wasnt long before comics
especially superhero comics started being directed towards kids. Even before Wertham and the Comics Code,
superhero publishers had already decided that kids were where the money was, and thats the audience they were
trying to serve. Even books that skewed older, like the famously lurid EC horror titles, probably had a lot of appeal
to kids, in the same way that I knew kids in fifth grade who were obsessed with hyperviolent horror movies.

Believe it or not, Archie is actually a really interesting comic to look at to see how rapid pop culture is changing
back then. Archie is clearly a teenager from the beginning, but the stories themselves are directed at kids, and use a
bunch of awkward phrasing (like the above panel that calls him Americas newest boy friend) to get that idea
across. Even once they get the term and start referring to him as Americas Typical Teenager which, lets be
real here, is possibly the worst tagline of all time the stories are very clearly for kids.
By the time you get to the 60s, though, teenagers are too economically and socially powerful for pop culture to
ignore, and thats where Spider-Man hits. Thats the environment that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko who were way
past their own teenage years, which makes their creation that much more remarkable are in when they create
him, and thats what makes all the difference.
Now, just to cover the bases, heres another obvious point: Spider-Man wasnt the first teenage character in
superhero comics. There are kid sidekicks almost from the start that certainly fit the bill, and while its easy to
argue that the distinction was that Spider-Man was a lead character in his own right, which is certainly a big factor
in what sets him apart, Robin was headlining solo stories in the Golden Age. The difference wasnt just that they
were sidekicks, its that they were kid sidekicks. They were children even Superboy was, well, a boy that existed
in contrast to the (Super)man that hed grow up to be, once again hitting that child-adult dichotomy.
Speaking of Superboy, its worth noting that DC almost managed to get there first in 1958, when Otto Binder and Al
Plastino introduce the Legion of Super-Heroes. Its an entire team of teenage characters that, because of their

isolation from the rest of the DC Universe, would eventually evolve into something that feels fittingly ahead of its
time in terms of crafting those soap operatic relationships and adventures that youd get from later, post-Marvel
books. At the time, though, it was just a little too early to really capture it, and the Legion starts off reading pretty
clearly as children rather than teens. Which, to be fair, is actually what I like about them a team of
superheroes who are complete jerks because they operate on the completely accurate logic of children who have
formed a club to exclude others.

This is something Ive written about before, but the genius of those early Marvel comics, or at least one of the
things that was truly brilliant about them, was that they skewed slightly older than the other superhero comics of
the time. They were still accessible to kids and featured the bright colors and high adventure of the superhero
genre, but the themes that they dealt with that informed the stories were built for that massive, brand-new

economic powerhouse that was the Teenager. It started in Fantastic Four, which mixed monster comics and love
triangles into the superhero formula, but it hadnt quite been refined yet.
So in 1962, Spider-Man comes along, and theres an immediate tectonic shift in comics. I mentioned before that
part of it is because Spider-Man wasnt a sidekick, but the other part of it, the bigger part of it, is right there in the
name: Spider-Man. Peter Parkers a high school student who lives with his aunt, hes still a kid, but when it comes
time to suit up and go fight crooks and take selfies, hes not Spider-Boy or Spider-Lad. He refers to himself as an
adult and that, in a single decision of what to call their new young hero, is exactly what being a teenager is like.
Once they hit their stride, that entire initial run of Amazing Spider-Man is one amazing metaphor for being a
teenager and all of the emotions that go along with it after another. Lee and Ditko front-load Spider-Mans
adventures with self-doubt, angst and isolation, full of adults you cant trust and friendships that go sour. And when
John Romita Sr. comes on to replace Ditko shortly after he and Lee produce The Final Chapter, still the single
greatest Marvel comic ever printed the change in art styles is basically Peter Parker going through puberty
between issues. And it works perfectly.
Spider-Man becomes a massive, massive hit FF may have been the one that started everything, but Spider-Mans
the guy they put on their checks. And its so successful, both creatively and commercially, that it forms a template
thats recycled and built on over and over again for the next fifty years.
I joked that Marvel themselves try to reinvent Spider-Man every ten years with varying degrees of success, and
theres a reason for that. Spider-Man himself has already been through those stories and come out the other side
no matter how many marriages you sell to Mephisto, youre never quite going to get Peter Parker back to that point
where you can explore the same themes again. So they tweak the formula and try it again, and maybe this time its
in space, maybe this time we leave out a little bit of the angst, maybe this time he has weird alien armor and a
magic amulet and a weird face that grosses everyone out if you take off his helmet.
And that is how the rise of the teenager as a socioeconomic force led to the creation of Darkhawk.
There are a few other things to consider here, and the first is that Spider-Man is by no means unique in inspiring
other takes on the same core formula. Supermans the obvious candidate, of course, but it happens
with everything thats successful. There was a recent interview with Rob Liefeld where he was talking about the
creation of Cable, and he said that since Marvels most popular characters in 1990 were a guy who used a bunch of
guns and a guy who had six knives for hands, he created a character who carried even bigger guns and always had
more than six knives. That, my friends, is amazing, but its also the way superhero comics work in one 90s
nutshell. The thing is, Spider-Man is one of the most successful comics of all time, working with themes so universal
that the template can be used and updated an almost infinite number of times.
The second is that for the post-Crisis DC Universe, the Spider-Man template was mixed into the foundations right
from the start, particularly with how it led to the relaunch of Flash and Green Lantern, but thats not the limit of its
impact. You can see bits and pieces of Spider-Man and the themes of super-powers as a metaphor for adolescence
showing up everywhere. Invincible, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman Beyond, none of those would exist without
Spider-Man laying down the trail that theyd use to build their own stories.
All things considered, its not bad for some nerd from Queens.

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Ask Chris #205: The Worst Story From The Best Writer
by Chris Sims August 1, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Hey Chris, whats the worst story from the best writer? @starr226
A: Ive gotten this question a few times over the past few weeks, and its one thats really interesting to me for a few
reasons, the most important of which being that nobody in the history of comics has a perfect record. Once you put
out more than, say, four comics, everyone from Jack Kirby on down has stunk up the room at least once in their
career, and it can be really fun looking at something to try to figure out exactly why something doesnt work, when
everything else fratom that particular creator works so well.
For me, though, as easy as it would be to hit a soft target like Alan Moore and Scott Clarks Spawn/WildC.A.T.S: Devil
Day, the biggest and most surprising drop will always be Larry Hama and Scott McDaniels surprisingly terrible run
on Batman.

Lets get this out of the way right up front: Larry Hama is a G.O.A.T. Hall of Fame creator if there ever was one. Even
if youre just looking at what he did as a writer, going beyond the influence he had as an editor and mentor at
Marvel in the 80s, even if youre just focusing on the 153 issues of G.I. Joe that he wrote (the entire run except that
one issue about Clutch by Steven Grant and the penultimate issue) thats a track record thats pretty bulletproof.
Theres no reason at all for that book, which, if you want to put it in the most cynical possible terms, existed
entirely to sell a toy line to impressionable youngsters and was supported by a half-hour cartoon that aired every
weekday, to be that good, and yet, it is.
With Joe alone, Hama racked up a run that was over three times longer than what Walter Simonson did on Thor
pretty much my standard unit of measurement for long runs at Marvel in the 80s and while it may not have ever
gotten to the heights of that run, it was in incredible cornerstone for the company, both in terms of sales and
creativity. Ive been re-reading it over the past few weeks, and even when Hama and artists like Rod Wigham
and M.D. Bright were tasked with spending time in almost every issue during the books heyday introducing an
ever-expanding roster of collectible figures and detailing the action features of V.A.M.P.s, F.A.N.G.s, C.L.A.W.s and
A.W.E Strikers, he still manages to tell a compelling, character-driven adventure story that blends action and
comedy and even a little bit of philosophy in a way that very few other creators can match. Even the constant
updating of the cast to reflect the new line of toys was a positive thing, as it resulted in one of the most progressive
and diverse casts in the history of mainstream comics, even if it suffered from the action movie tropes of its time.
And then, you know, theres Silent Interlude, where he wrote and drew the layouts for one of the top three singleissue stories of all time.

Cant really get around that one. And incidentally, if you havent read it lately, go back and take a good look at just
how well-crafted it is, and how much information hes able to get through thats purely visual, and how influential
that book has been, particularly on stuff like the also-amazing Sixth Gun #21, which was done in tribute to Hamas
original. Then think about how that issue was produced on a tighter schedule than normal because the book was
over deadline.
What Im getting at with all this is that just from that one book, you can see how much of an understanding Hama
has of comics and how they work, and thats not even factoring in his experience as an editor. Theres a
craftsmanship there thats impossible to deny and equally impossible not to respect. And yet, he managed to
produce a strong contender for the worst Batman run of the 21st century so far.

Whats really weird about it is that when Hama arrives on Batman, fresh from a short stint on Wolverine thats
about as memorable as every other late 90s run on Wolverines solo title, its in the middle of a creative
renaissance for that entire corner of the DC Universe.
Since Knightfall, the Batman books had spent most of the 90s bouncing around from one long, convoluted
crossover to another, eventually dragging themselves through Contagion and Legacy, the stories whose primary
purpose was to make readers question why literally anyone would set foot in Gotham City. The idea of linking the
Bat-books together into one single meta-story had pretty much come to its logical end with No Mans Land. NML,
which was actualliy the start of bringing a lot of fresh talent into the Batman books and letting them play with the
weird, fun, completely nonsensical idea of Postapocalyptic Batman, told a single story 52-part story that was out
every single week for an entire year, plus a dozen additional tie-ins and specials. You really cant get any bigger or
more interconnected than a story that would occasionally include maps of Gotham City shaded to represent the
different turf wars that were raging among Gothams gangs.
So when that all ended in the year 2000, the books went through a soft relaunch that divided them back up and
allowed them to refocus. They were still pretty tightly interlinked, and it wasnt long before they went back to the
crossovers (Officer Down would hit about two years later, followed by Bruce Wayne: Murderer? and Fugitive), but
right at the start of 2000, each one was devoted to a different aspect of Batman. Detective Comics, arguably the
greatest success, brought in Greg Rucka and artists like Rick Burchett and Shawn Martinborough to focus on crime
stories well, crime stories in the sense that they were still Batman comics and the crimes were often committed
by 500 year-old immortal superterrorists Legends of the Dark Knight was reverted back to being a rotating
creator showcase for stories set in the Year One era, and a new title called Gotham Knights was introduced to
replace the canceled Shadow of the Bat, with newcomer Devin Grayson coming on as writer with a mandate to
focus on Batmans relationship with his extended family of fellow heroes and sidekicks.
Batman was, of course, meant to fill the role of its traditional contrast with Detective if Tec is about crime
stories, then Batman is a full-on superhero adventure, and if thats what youre going for, Larry Hama makes
perfect sense. If you want your book to have high-energy, compelling action that highlights Batmans status as a

badass adventure hero, then the dude who wrote the Snake-Eyes Trilogyshould probably be the first guy you call,
right?
And yet, what we actually got was a series of lackluster adventures that were most notable for introducing Orca the
Whale-Woman, quite possibly the least of Batmans lesser foes.

Actually, now that Im looking back at these issues, Orca wasnt the worst villain in that run. That honor goes to The
Banner, an ultra-nationalist dude with no shirt wearing cargo pants and an American Flag as a cape. He only lasted
one issue, though Grace Balin, aka Orca, made it a full three.
To be fair to Hama, its not just him thats making these issues so rough. Scott McDaniel did his fair share of terrible,
terrible work in these comics too, as evidenced by this splash page of Batman doing Kegels down on the Gotham
waterfront, looking like a sticker that someone slapped on the page without quite managing to make it look like he
was standing on any part of the background:

But again, on paper, McDaniel seems like a perfectly logical choice. His run on Nightwing with Chuck Dixon was
arguably the most consistently enjoyable Bat-title of the 90s, with lots of dynamic action set against imaginative
set pieces. Its exactly the kind of thing that youd want from an action-heavy Batman title, but whatever worked
with Dick Grayson most notably the lack of a cape and the idea of acrobatics at the core of Dicks character that
let McDaniel focus on the body and how it moved through the page just completely failed to click with Batman.
Its worth noting that he did some pretty striking covers that still look great 14 years later, but the actual pages are
full of muddled storytelling and figures that verge on the grotesque.
By the same token, its not all McDaniels fault either. Just take a look at this dialogue.

Oof.
Hamas run also drew the inevitable comparisons to G.I. Joe which is to be expected, since Hama worked on that
book for 12 years and in a lot of ways, it defined his career but in the worst way possible. The Orca story in
particular featured Batman sporting a new Underwater Action costume, and the whole thing honestly felt like
product placement for a toy that didnt exist.
It just didnt work. The stakes dont feel like theyre there, the characters feel flat, the action is boring and it all fails
to come together at every turn, and theres not even a single thing you can point to as for why. Theres just nothing
good in it, and to make matters worse, it suffers by comparison not only to Hamas other work, but to what else
was going on around it. Rucka and Burchetts Detective was a high point that launched one of my favorite writers,
and while Hamas run on Batman was mercifully short he lasted seven issues he was replaced by Ed
Brubaker, whose run was fantastic, and who would go on to write the best Bat-Family title ever and team up with
Rucka to create one of the best Batman comics of all time.
As a side note, Brubaker would later mention in an interview that while he was brought on to replace one of the
worst-reviewed Batman writers of all time and was met with immediate praise from fans and critics, sales didnt
change at all.

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Ask Chris #204: Hitman, Batman, And Gotham Citys Worst Neighborhood
by Chris Sims July 18, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Im interested in Hitman as a character in the larger DCU, and the area of Gotham so bad that Batman
doesnt go there, because Batman is a dude that has paid multiple visits to a planet literally called
Apokolips. @kingimpulse
A: For those of you who havent been following the War Rocket Ajax podcast, Matt and I have been spending the
entirety of 2014 ranking every single comic book story ever on a master list from the best (Amazing SpiderMan #33) to the worst (Identity Crisis). Last week, we finally got around to Hitman, and while it eventually fell
between The Dark Knight Returns and Impulse #3, the conversation that we had about it involved me mentioning
that Tommy Monaghan lived in a section of Gotham called the Cauldron, which was so thoroughly lawless that
they didnt even really notice when No Mans Land swept through.
Theres a pretty obvious reason why it went down that way, of course, but the more I thought about your question,
the more I realized that its the core of Hitmans complicated relationship with the universe where its set, which is
one of the best things about that comic.

The easy answer is, of course, that its a lot easier to sell a comic book published by DC if it has at least some slight
connection to Batman. Thats pretty much just a truism of comics sales for as much as superhero comics are
built on doing something new and all the thrills that you get from fresh, exciting ideas, readers tend to only really
want more of what theyre already familiar with.
For proof of that, you dont need to look any further than the reactions that a certain segment of fandom had to
recent announcements like Batgirls new costume or the shake-ups in Thor and Captain America, but to be honest,
Im as guilty of that as anyone. Im pretty narrowly focused on superheroes and perfectly happy to not stray too far
away from them, and as much as I try to be open to new takes within that genre, my favorite stuff is probably
always going to be the stuff I grew up with and spent a lot of time reading.
Of course, I have perfectly valid and well thought-out reasons for that, but, you know. Some other people might just
be tied to the nostalgia of what they liked when they were kids.
Ahem.
Anyway, because of that, it seems natural that youd want to have some connection to a character like Batman, who
has fans thatll pick up literally any book with even a tenuous connection and a token appearance in the first arc
which is exactly what Hitman was in that first arc. The thing is, that already sets up a really bizarre dynamic for
where that book fits into the DC Universe.
See, Hitman is technically a spin-off title, its just not a spinoff of a Batman book. Tommy Monaghan (and his shortlived bright red Kamen Rider scarf) first showed up in the pages of Garth Ennis and John McCreas run on The
Demon, during the 1993 Bloodlines crossover.
If you dont recall that one, it ran through all the Annuals that year, and the premise was that aliens invaded and
injected parasites into a bunch of people that gave them super-powers. Why exactly aliens thought that
creating more super-powered humans would be a good idea and not a surefire recipe for destruction, Im not sure,
but the basic idea was that each annual would introduce a new character who would then go on to bigger and
better things.

As you may have noticed from the fact that were not celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Razorsharp and the
Psyba-Rats this year, it didnt actually work out so well. Out of 23 new characters introduced in the pages
of Bloodlines, Hitman was the only real success and he didnt even get his own series until three years later.
Really, the only other notable character to come out of that mess was Gunfire, who had the most 1993 possible
super-power, the ability to turn anything into a gun, and even his series didnt last long. The others just sort of
faded away.
But while Ennis and McCreas Demon was a pretty solid comic theres a fantastic three-part Haunted Tank story
in there that features Nazi zombies being slaughtered by the dozen, and its the closest thing to concentrated Garth
Ennis that I can think of it was obviously nowhere near as popular as Batman. And in fact, if I had to guess, Id
say that the launch of Hitman in 96 had a lot less to do with what Ennis and McCrea had done on The Demon and
almost everything to do with something else that happened between 1993 and 1996: Preacher.
See, while Demon might not have been an overwhelming success, Preacher came out of the gate as hot as anything
could, making Ennis and Steve Dillon one of the hottest teams in comics. And since Ennis and McCrea already
worked well together and already had a character theyd created who was nominally a superhero, Hitman became
a natural vehicle.
Incidentally, while I dont want to overshadow what Dillon and McCrea did on those books, its a testament to
Garth Enniss skill in particular that Hitman, which I hold as his best work, overlaps with
both Preacher and Punisher, which were done one right after the other. Thats a pretty amazing resum for anyone,
but to have been doing two of those books at the same time? Thats monumental.
Anyway, while the idea was clearly to capitalize on the success of Preacher, it seems to me that DC also wanted to
shoot for an audience slightly larger than the folks picking up Preacher, or even The Demon, which was a book
occupying a niche so bizarre that you could actually do a Haunted Tank story in the mid-90s and get away with it.
So if I had to guess and I do, since thats kind of the point of the column Id say thats why they went with
setting Hitman in Gotham Citys most terrible neighborhood.
And right from the start, thats actually a really weird choice. I mean, Hitman is a book about, well, a hitman.
Tommy Monaghan kills people for money. Hes a criminal, and even though he has enough of a moral code to make
him a viable and likeable protagonist, that puts him in a weird position when you consider that he exists in a very
specific setting thats defined by a dude who does nothing but punch out criminals and haul them to jail, and has
done this at least twice a month for the past 75 years.

To their credit, Ennis and McCrea actually do address this and find a pretty viable workaround. For one thing,
Batman shows up and is treated every bit as utterly, overwhelmingly capable of disposing of Tommy Monaghan as
Batman fans would expect, to the point of literally uppercutting him out of the panel after Tommy, in one of those
moments Wizard always loved so much, pukes on his shoes.
The problem is that Batman takes Tommy to the cops, and since Gothams police force is legendarily and
cartoonishly corrupt, they just drop Tommy off back at the bar so that he can go about his business. The thing is,
while this seems like a one-note gag designed to close a loophole in the books premise, it actually comes
back years later, setting up an amazing moment in the JLA/Hitmancrossover that Ennis and McCrea did as a sort of
epilogue to the series. Thats something that really speaks to one of the real strengths of the book, which is

that everything matters. And it starts right there in the first issue with a dude barfing and then getting punched in
the face. Thats kind of Ennis and McCrea in a nutshell, really.

The other justification, and the one that I think is a beautiful little Occams razor applied to superheroes, is that
Batman has an awful lot of other stuff to worry about. I wasnt kidding about the issues set during No Mans
Land where things dont actually change too much. While the rest of Gotham City was dealing with lawless anarchy
in the wake of a massive earthquake, life just continued as normal in the Cauldron, with the exception of all the
vampires showing up and causing trouble.
And really, despite Tommy and his cadre of friends being some of the most ruthless and efficient killers in the
world, theyre not quite the Joker, and the book sells that premise pretty well without ever making it look like there
are criminals beneath Batmans notice.
Green Lantern, on the other hand, does not fare quite so well, but you have to expect that from a writer who did an
interview saying that if you ever saw him writing Green Lantern, you know hed gone broke because thats the only
way hed be desperate enough to take on a character that stupid, while he was writing a book for DC Comics.
Thus, Local Heroes, the story thats like six issues all about how much Green Lantern sucks.
The end result of all this is that you have Tommy Monaghan as a character whos separated from the larger
superhero universe just enough so that the stories arent quite shackled by being a part of the ongoing saga of
whats happening in the Batman books although there are definitely really great tie-ins to larger stories
like NML and Final Night but at the same time rooted just enough in a superhero universe, and specifically in
the DC Universe, that it doesnt feel wrong when superhuman characters show up. Like, say, when Tommy and Nat
have to get out of Gotham for a while and end up dealing with a pair of super-powered mercenaries while working
as private soldiers.
Or in #34, where Ennis and McCrea tell the single best Superman story of the 1990s.

Its in that rare place where it certainly feels like it takes place in Gotham City, but doesnt feel like its getting in the
way of a Batman story. Theres just enough there to make it work and to be ignored when it doesnt, and its a
testament to how great these creators are at building characters and settings that it works as well as it does. Its
also notable that, since they left the book, no one else has even attempted to bring the Cauldron back into Gotham
City.

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Ask Chris #203: The Complicated Continuity Of G.I. Joe

by Chris Sims July 11, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: G.I. Joe: Where do I even begin with their myriad continuities? @Eric_R_Wilson
A: Ive spent the past few weeks catching up on recent G.I. Joe comics with a stack of paperbacks that I picked up at
HeroesCon, and while Ive been really interested in seeing all the changes and new characters that set the IDW
books apart from the original Marvel series, Im still pretty surprised by this question. I mean, yes, theres a lot
of G.I. Joe out there and a lot of different takes on that core idea, but when you get right down to it, its no more
complicated than your average superhero comic.
Which is to say that its actually very complicated. Especially when the ninjas start getting involved.
Generally speaking, all the stuff that holds true about comics continuity still holds true for a book like G.I. Joe.
Theres multiple animated series that each exist in their own continuity, but thats no different from Batman: The
Animated Series and Batman: The Brave and the Bold being ther own thing although Brave and the Bold is, of
course, entirely in continuity with Batman 66, which is a whole other discussion. If youve got that straight, then
youve got a basic handle on how G.I. Joe as a whole works. The comics are separate from the cartoons are separate
from the movies are separate from my fan-fiction about Destros best friend Christro, and so on.
That said, there are a couple of problems that complicate things just a little bit, and theyre pretty unique to G.I. Joe,
and the first comes from trying to figure out what the primary source material is.
With most superhero comics, this is relatively easy because, well, its the comics. The stories in the medium where
those characters originated are always going to be what counts the most, and even when theres a shift in
continuity, like DC has been doing with universe-shattering regularity over the past 30 years, theres still going to
be someone telling you what does and doesnt matter, and for what era usually because they love giving you that
new origin story that sets everything up right after they change things.

To use Batman as an example, because why wouldnt I, weve got Zero Year now giving us Batmans official origin,
replacing Year One, which itself replaced all the stuff that was in Untold Legend of the Batman, which cleaned up
and smoothed things out from the previous 30 years of Batman continuity, all the way back to Detective Comics #33
and the original origin of Batman. All of those stories count at various times, and theyve all provided imagery
thats going to stick with the character forever, and even though theyre from different continuities, theyre all
considered to be primary source material. Batmans origin in Batman Begins wasnt really compared to the origin
that was seen in Batman 89 although to be honest, I did see one poor misguided soul who was positively irate
that Batmans parents were murdered by some insignificant thug rather than by the Joker it was compared to
the comics. How faithful was it? How much imagery did it use from Year One? How well did it get across that
information compared to what you get from the comics? All that comes from the idea that those comics are the
primary source material.
G.I. Joe, on the other hand, has a lot of stuff that could be considered source material and a lot of it has its origins
in completely different media.
Its a pretty well-known piece of trivia that the original concept for G.I. Joe was a pitch that Larry Hama came up
with while working as an editor at Marvel, built around the idea of reintroducing the Howling Commandos as
S.H.I.E.L.D.s daring, highly-trained Special Missions Force, battling the forces of HYDRA. When Hasbro was looking
to revive G.I. Joe with a new series of figures, Hamas original idea was used as the template. The Commandos
became the Joes, HYDRA became COBRA, and Marvel and Hasbro entered into a happy partnership that would last
for the next 13 years.
Given all of that, itd be easy to pin down Hamas run on the comics of the original 155-issue run, Hama wrote
154, with the odd man out being a solo adventure for Clutch penned by Steven Grant as the definitive source
material, and youd be right to do so. Unfortunately, theres a problem with that.
See, as much as G.I. Joe was a success in the world of comics and it was a massive success, to the point where a
recent document was posted on Twitter indicating that it had more subscriptions than Amazing Spider-Man by
about two hundred thousand and as much as Hama has a pretty unassailable position as the definitive voice of
the franchise, you cant really call the comics the primary driving force. For all the comics, cartoons and movies, G.I.
Joe will always be first and foremost a toy property, which means that you kind of have to look to those for the
direction of the franchise. And in G.I. Joes case, actually makes things pretty interesting, since each figure came
with a file card that provided details for each character, most of which were written by, you guessed it, Larry Hama.

card, via hisstank.com

Destro file

And that complicates things. Not only does it add another layer of potentially separate continuity (Filecard
Continuity?), it also forms a complicated relationship between how the different parts of the franchise affected
each other. If the sales of the toys were driven by the cartoon, but the information that came with the toys was
provided by the person behind the comics, then which takes precedent? And what happens when you get toys with
filecards that werent written by Larry Hama, based on characters that come from comics that arent in continuity
with the Marvel run, like the Wraith? Is his filecard, which assures you that he only cares for two things chaos
and destruction! as valid as the others? And, while were on the subject of stuff that comes with the toys, what
about those Comic Pack issues that were written by Hama and set between issues of the Marvel run, but came out
20 years later? Are those in continuity? And if so, which continuity?
Even thats just a small piece of how the toys can affect the comics. A few months back on an episode of Heres The
Thing, Chad Bowers and I talked about one of the stranger artifacts of the franchise, a figure named Chameleon that
was included in a two-pack with Cobra Commander and was really just a repaint of the Baroness with a filecard
that assured you she was actually the Baronesss identical half-sister. For years, that was the only form in which
that character, if you can even call her a character with that little information to go on, existed, until she was
brought into the comics in the pages of Mike Costa and Antonio Fusos Cobra Files as a pretty major part of the
book.
That conflict of what constitutes the core source material is a bit of a headache if you really start digging into it, but
as far as the comics go, thats only one of the things thats causing complications. The other is that G.I. Joe is a
licensed comic. That might seem like a pretty obvious statement, but it means that the license can be taken away
from one publisher and given to another, meaning that youre not just dealing with different creative teams, but
with entirely different companies, potentially adding an entirely different level of conflicting ideas about what
these comics should be. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what happened with G.I. Joe. And, to be fair, also
with Transformers, and to a lesser but stranger extent, also with ROM: Spaceknight, a series where everything about
the book except for the main character was all created at Marvel, where it stays to this day, occasionally getting
used as best it can without its star.
What Im getting at with all of this is that when you realy start looking at it, the continuity of G.I. Joe actually is a
pretty complicated web. But if youre just going to look at the comics, its not as bad as it sounds.

So lets start at the beginning or at least the beginning of the comics everybody cares about. At the start of
things, youve got G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, the Larry Hama run, and with the exception of Chris Lattas
amazing shrieking as Cobra Commander, pretty much everything you already love about G.I. Joe comes from here.
The Silent Issue where Snake-Eyes infiltrates Destros castle to rescue Scarlett and reveals his connection with
Storm Shadow, the return of General Joe Colton as the inspiration for the team, the Dreadnoks as a vicious gang of
chainsaw-wielding bikers whose only vices are grape soda and chocolate donuts, Cobra Commander kicking
puppies, Snake-Eyes killing basically everyone, all that originates here.
Now, that run lasts for 155 issues plus the G.I. Joe Yearbooks, Special Missions and a couple of other specials
running from 1982 to 1995, and even during that time, things get a little complicated. See, in Europe, G.I.
Joe wasnt G.I. Joe at all, it was Action Force. They even had a weird version of the theme song that replaced a real
Am-er-ican he-ro! with In-ter-na-tional he-ro! and I assure you that it pains me to think that there is some
Englishman out there who thinks Roadblock was from, I dont know, Leeds or something. Point being, there
were Action Force comics that, while they included reprints of the American stuff, also dealt with other characters,
including a new set of villains that wasnt Cobra. These stories, while they do feature the same characters and were
eventually printed in America as G.I. Joe: European Missions, are not in continuity with ARAH.

Also, theres one two-pager where Quick Kick talks about how awesome Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu is that
was written by Grant Morrison. Seriously.
So ARAH ends in 1995, but dont worry, were not done with it just yet. In the meantime, since it was 1995, the Joes
got a couple of grim and gritty reboots, including one at Dark Horse with Frank Miller covers and the truly amazing
tagline Extreme times call for extreme heroes. There is no better summary of an entire decade of comics
publishing in six words than that one sentence, but to be honest, the less said about those comics, the better.
Then, in 2001, the G.I. Joe comics license was acquired by an upstart company called Devils Due, who ended up
hanging onto it for a pretty long time. Under Josh Blaylock and Tim Seeley, they relaunch A Real American Hero,
picking up where the original series left off and basically continuing the Marvel continuity. They also dabble in a
couple of different continuities, including a short-lived offshoot called G.I. Joe Reloaded (remember those heady
days when everyone still liked The Matrix and we were all trying to reload as many things as possible?) that
functioned as a sort of Ultimate version of G.I. Joe. I actually liked some of the ideas in that series a lot
particularly the idea that everyone was freaking right the hell out because Cobra Commander had a portable laser
weapon, a great tribute to the cartoon but the main focus was always on the series that continued the
original. This, incidentally, is where Wraith and his love of chaos and destruction come from.
Eventually, ARAH v.2 turned into Americas Elite, and when Devils Due lost the license, they capped it off with a
giant war where Hawk, whose legs had been paralyzed, blasted out of his wheelchair with a jetpack and tackled
Cobra Commander while every G.I. Joe and Cobra vehicle slugged it out in the background. Its about as awesome as
it sounds, which is very.
Now heres where it gets tricky. In 2008, the license was acquired by IDW, and they kicked things off by
launching two separate continuities. One was a continuation of the original Hama run, actually written by Larry
Hama, that picked up the numbering of the original with #156. The thing is, while that creates a single unified
continuity based around Hama, it also overwrites the previous attempt at continuing that original run, firmly
booting the Devils Due stuff right out of any continuity. The other IDW book was a relaunch designed as an update,
kicking off whats commonly referred to as The IDW Continuity.
In addition to the core series, that continuity also included books like Mike Costa and Antonio
Fusos Cobra and Cobra Files, which are genuinely fantastic and culminated in a storyline where one of the Joes
literally went to Reddit, became a Mens Rights Activist who wondered why Chameleon didnt immediately fall in
love with him when he was nice to her, and then compromised the team and got a ton of people killed.

It is amazing.
But whats interesting is that in the IDW Continuity, G.I. Joe was relaunched again under Fred Van Lente and Steve
Kurth, focused on Duke leading a team of well-known Joes on very public missions against Cobra, something that
broke away from the IDW Continuitys original focus on the Joes as a top-secret counterterrorist organization.
What makes it so fascinating to a fan of the franchise, though, is that Van Lente and Kurth made their run a
synthesis of every single piece of G.I. Joe that had come before. Theres the obvious connection to the comics, but
they also bring back the G.I. Joe Adventure Team, the line of 12 action figures from the 70s that gave the world the
famous Kung Fu Grip, into continuity as an early forerunner of the modern G.I. Joe team. Thats something Hama
had played with when he introduced General Joseph G.I. Joe Colton during his run, but Van Lente expanded it to
include the entire line, including an actual superhero called Bulletman.
They didnt stop there, either. Sgt. Savage the star of one of those grimmed up 90s books was brought back as
the star of a military-themed reality show, the Sigma-6 cartoon and line of armored action figures were brought in
as a video game developed by the military as a training exercise, and theres even a joke about how Dukes strike
team in the first arc is picked to be as telegenically diverse as possible. While the Devils Due run kicked off by
mocking the Ninja Force and Star Brigade eras as reasons that the G.I. Joe program was canceled (which, lets be
honest here, is kind of accurate), Van Lente celebrated all that weird stuff over the course of his issues.]
Also, its worth noting that if any of this has been at all interesting, Van Lente and frequent collaborator Ryan
Dunlavey (the team that brought you Action Philosophers and Comic Book Comics) did a short series of strips called
The Real History Of G.I. Joe that were collected as a backup story in G.I. Joe: Homefront, which also happens to
contain one of the best Joe stories of all time.
And that brings you up to the present. So really, theres only a few separate continuities that you need to worry
about: The Larry Hama continuity, which covers Marvels G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #1 155, and
IDWs ARAH #156 on up, and the IDW Continuity, which covers almost everything else that IDWs published. If you

really want to worry about it, you can throw the Devils Due stuff in there too as an offshoot after ARAH #155. Just
imagine that diagram from Back to the Future when Marty left his sports book back in 1955, except that instead of
Evil Biff running Hill Valley, youve got a bunch of Serpentors and jetpacks.\
Oh, and also the new G.I. Joe vs. Transformers ongoing by Tom Scioli and John Barber, which, while informed by
both the classic run of Joe and Transformers, is entirely self-contained and separate from anything else. Youre
probably going to want to be aware of that one too, because its going to be on everyones Best of the Year list come
December.

All things considered, three and a half continuities actually isnt that much to keep straight, and the tradeoff is that
you get to read a lot about ninjas being awesome.
Then again, you could probably avoid all that by just watching the cartoon. There arent as many ninjas, but
you definitely find out all about that Cthulhu monster that Destro keeps in his basement, and really, that gives it the
edge over every single other version.

Read More: Ask Chris #203: The Complicated Continuity Of G.I. Joe | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-203the-complicated-continuity-of-g-i-joe/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #202: Scrooge McDuck Is America

by Chris Sims July 4, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Aside from Superman and Captain America what hero is the most fitting representation of The United
States? @white_dolomite
A: You know, just before I sat down to write this, I was reading some Judge Dredd comics and thinking about how
fascinating the idea of Dredd as this distinctly, explicitly American icon, covered in eagles and flags and badges and
guns and riding on a motorcycle that is also covered in eagles, flags, badges and guns is when you consider that hes
a view of America created by people who arent Americans. Theres a lot that goes along with that, and its fun to
think about when youre reading through those stories and figuring out what defines them.
But when you get down to it, that doesnt mean that hes the best representation of the good ol USA. Assuming you
mean hero as in protagonist and not just as in masked crimefighter, then the answers easy. The
quintessentially American comic book character is Scrooge McDuck.

Ive touched on Scrooges status as the embodiment of the American dream before, way back in the early days of
Ask Chris, but its interesting to look at Scrooge in the context of Captain America and Superman in this pantheon
of American icons, because theres a single narrative through line that goes through all three characters, and
unsurprisingly given our national mythology, its about opportunity and transformation.
Caps the easy one, because the way that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby set up that origin story makes everything literal
a trend that would continue through both of their careers for the next forty or fifty years. Steve Rogers is a kid
who wants so badly to defend his country that the American government decides to shoot him up with SuperSoldier Serum and blast him with AMERICA RAYS (I know, I know, theyre Vita-Rays, but I really just imagine
Professor Erskine blasting him with red, white and blue lasers that make the sounds of a bald eagle screaming) to
power him up, stick an A on his forehead, and give him a shield so that he can go do exactly that. As much as its a
simple superhero origin story, its also built on a metaphor at the heart of American culture, that if you want
something bad enough and youre willing to work for it, you can get an opportunity to become the person that you
want to be.
Superman has a similar idea working at the core of his character, and again, its a very simple, very obvious
metaphor for immigration hes literally sent to Earth for an opportunity at a better life. Which, in his case, is, you
know, having any life instead of being exploded into space dust with the rest of his planet. Theres a lot in there,
about how he can literally never go back to where he came from, and how he grows up in the literal center of
America, leaving his past behind and using it to to help people in his new home. Thats the whole Garth
Ennis interpretation that comes through so well when Superman shows up in Hitman #34, pretty bluntly stated
by Tommy Monaghan, who himself is the son of an immigrant that, like so many of Enniss characters, can never
really escape the shadows of what happened back in the old country but does his best to try.
Theres a couple of things that are worth noting about this idea, though, which add a couple of twists to that idea.
The first came from Paul Cornell, who once said in an interview that while Americans always think of Superman
and Captain America as counterparts from their respective universes, he never made that connection when he was
growing up reading about them in England. For him, Supermans counterpart was always Spider-Man, and that
makes a lot of sense. If Spider-Mans core idea is that say it with me now with great power comes great
responsibility, then you can see how that ideal is reflected across the street. Theres nobody with greater power

than Superman, and theres nobody who uses it more responsibility, exclusively to help others. It raises the
question of how integral that piece of American mythology really is to Supermans character, and not just in a Red
Son but what if he was a commie! sort of way. Obviously, there are some pretty universal themes involved in that
guy.

At the same time, both Superman and Captain America are products of the time and place in which they were
created, and its impossible to ever really divorce them from that. Each was created by two Jews in a time when the
Nazis were on the rise and both are built on subverting Nazi ideals and turning them into something
better. Siegel and Shuster literally take the term superman and change its meaning forever, replacing ideas of
dominance with the idea of someone who helps those who cant hep themselves, leveling the playing field and
taking on the corrupt and powerful as a champion of the oppressed. Simon and Kirby give the world this strapping
Aryan super-soldier, 64, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and then have him punching Hitler in the face a year before
America enters the war, dedicating him to freedom and defending those who need it.
Scrooge McDuck, on the other hand or Uncle $crooge, if you want to get technical about it has a similar
narrative, but it manifests itself in a different way.

Scrooge is created in 1947, and while thats less than a decade after Superman, hes born into a completely
different environment just by virtue of being a post-war character. At the same time, as he develops under Carl
Barks (and later under Don Rosa, who created the essential and indispensible Life and Times of Scrooge
McDuck based on Barkss work), he comes to represent American ideals every bit as much as the other two
characters. The difference is, for a talking duck with a net worth of 5.9 multipllujillion dollars, hes actually a pretty
incredible blend of American mythology and American reality.
The first key point is that, like Superman, Scrooge is an immigrant but a slightly different sort of immigrant. Hes
from a formerly well-off Scottish family that has fallen on hard times in recent generations, which means that he
grew up poor. As a result, he understands the value of money and, perhaps even more importantly, the
transformative power of social mobility that it gives you. He, more than any other members of the McDuck family,
understands that he can break away from being locked into the social strata that he was born into, that he can
actually reverse the decline but he has to find an opportunity to do so.
The second, and the thing that makes Scrooge such a great character, is that hes a self-made man er, duck. He
quite literally starts with nothing, and every dollar in the money bin was earned through his own effort starting
with the famous Number One Dime. One of the touches that I really love about Life and Times, which is full of
amazing touches, is that Scrooges first dime is given to him as a con, a worthless American coin that hes paid for
his work while hes still in Scotland to teach him a lesson about the sharpies out there looking for a free ride.
Whats great about it is that its what provides him with an inspiration to seek his fortune in America to go to the
place where this worthless object is worth something, however little that may be. And yet, he never spends it.
That idea, that Scrooge grew up poor and earned his money himself, is key, both to his status as an American icon
and just in making him a sympathetic character. I mean, he aint that worthless little plutocrat Richie Rich, who was
born privileged and has so little understanding of the value of his fortune that he built a lemonade stand out of gold
bricks. I hate that kid. Hell be first against the wall when the Revolution comes. But, uh, thats for another time.
So thats the American Dream, right? A better life, a new opportunity, and hard work thats met with an equal
reward. But then theres the American reality, which is that Scrooge becomes a viciously dedicated capitalist, an
industrial titan who exploits his workers and values his money over everything.
Thats actually how his story begins when he first shows up in 1947:

Even as Scrooge evolves under Barks from a one-shot plot point to a main character in his own right, shifting into
the spry, kind-but-cheap adventurer that makes him one of the top ten characters in comics history, a lot of those
elements and themes stay in place. Its a running gag in the strips that he only pays Donald Duck a truly abysmal
wage (thirty cents an hour, I believe), even as hes forcing him to keep his three cubic acres of cold hard cash
polished and shiny. As much as Scrooge is motivated by as sense of adventure to journey to exotic locations and
find new (and valuable) objects, his main concern is losing his wealth. Whether hes motivated by greed or by the
memories attached to his money, he hoards it, and because of that, he spends a large part of his life as a pretty
terrible person. Another great trick that Rosa pulls in Life & Times is that each chapter is accompanied by a portrait,
and you can see Scrooges transformation from the wide-eyed optimistic youngster looking for an opportunity to
the bitter, sneering billionaire, and then to the sad, lonely and broken old man that he is at his first appearance.
Of course, theres a little hope there, pushing things back into the ideal of America, and again, it has to do with
opportunity. Scrooge doesnt stay bitter and greedy, he changes, and in the end, its adventure and freedom that
win out. Thats what makes him an easy favorite for a character that represents the good ol US of A.
In second place, however, is this guy.

I dont think I need to explain that one.

Read More: Ask Chris #202: Scrooge McDuck Is America | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-202-scroogemcduck-america-usa/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #201: Conan Comic Books That Are Best In Life
by Chris Sims June 27, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Chris, what Conan comic is best in life? @chudleycannons

A: Folks, I am going to be 100% real with you for a second here: I love Conan the Barbarian. Its in my blood long
before I was born, Conan was my parents favorite comic, and while I wouldnt really call my mom and dad geeks
in the traditional sense, they were definitely people who were really stoked about buying Marvel Magazines
with Frank Frazetta art on the cover so they could read about dudes in loincloths chopping each other up with
broadswords. These were, I remind you, the people who raised me, which probably explains a lot.
But while I mightve been hardwired into loving the character, I didnt really get into reading it myself until I was
an adult, and I can tell you that as far as Im concerned, there is a clear, no-contest winner as far as the best Conan
story. Its not even close. Its the one where Conan gets into a fistfight with a gorilla that thinks its a wizard.

I dont really get the chance to talk about it too much here at ComicsAlliance since my focus tends to be on
superheroes, but I have a real soft spot for the Sword and Sorcery genre, if only because stories involving powermad gorillas are really only slightly less common than they are in superhero comics. I love that stuff, whether its
Robert E. Howards Conan stories, Fritz Liebers Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser in which the first thing the heroes
do is literally steal an entire house or even straight up licensed fantasy novels. Im not even going to pretend that
I havent spent a lot of time learning a lot of things about Drizzt DoUrden, the noblest of all dark elves, and his
purple eyes and his magical ghost panther.
Ill even admit that I have a love for The Eye Of Argon, a Conan knockoff by a 16 year-old that was published in a
fanzine and was so legendarily bad that people would hold competitions at conventions to see who could read it
aloud the longest without bursting into laughter, thats only slightly ironic. Theres just something about mighty

thews and flashing steel that just appeals to me on a visceral level, and since people are always running up against
mysterious elephant gods and deathtrapped tombs and gorilla wizards (gorizards) in those things, they tend to
dovetail with my other interests pretty nicely.
In the end, though, I always come back to Conan, probably because hes had such a prominent presence in comics.
And that makes sense, since its the version where he works best.

That might be a controversial opinion among purists, but dont get me wrong. I like Howards stories a lot, and he
had an amazing talent for evocative language that really makes those stories work beautifully especially when
you consider that the dude never got out of about thirty square miles of Texas but theres something about the
way Conan works that just lends itself to illustrations. Ive read through most of Howards stories, but the images

that I remember from them are well, theyre images. Theyre the covers to the paperbacks and the Savage
Sword magazines, or, more often than not, theyre the comics.
Obviously, theres a big part of that that comes from comics being my preferred medium, and just as much of it
comes from creators like Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Barry Windsor-Smith being pretty excellent at their jobs.
But at the same time, I cant shake the idea that theres something inherent to Conan that makes him work really
well in comics. After all, I dont have the connection that I do with Conan to other fantasy heroes that have crossed
over from prose to four colors, even other Robert E. Howard creations.
As a result, Ive read through multiple versions of different Conan stories by different teams in different media, and
like I said, its not even close. If you wanted to read one single story to find out everything that was great about
Conan everything that was great about the entire genre youve got to pick up Rogues In The House.

Its been adapted a few times, notably by Thomas and Windsor-Smith in the pages of Conan the Barbarian #11, but
my favorite version by far, even edging out Howards fantastic original story, comes from Tim Truman and Cary
Nord in Dark Horses Conan #44.
To be honest, I love pretty much everything about the Dark Horse Conan its my favorite version of most of the
stories that it adapts, and while it was running, it was easily one of the best-produced comics on the stands. Just the
way the lettering was done to acknowledge Howard narrating the stories from his clacking typewriter and the
addition of Jim and Ruth Keegans Two Gun Bob strips at the end gave so much character to what they were doing
that went beyond just a strict adaptation of what was on the page in the originals. And, of course, it didnt hurt that
Cary Nord, artist one of one of the most underrated superhero comics of all time with his run
on Daredevil alongside Karl Kesel, was doing some career-best work on the book.
I mean, he and Kurt Busiek launched this thing by having the very first thing you see being Conan just straight
cutting a rapist in half with a sword.

A few pages later, he chops three dudes in half at once. Its pretty great. By the time the series gets around to
Rogues in the House, its already had some fantastic stuff and a few problematic stories that set off a debate in
the letter column that quite literally lasted for years but Truman and Nord (and Howard, of course) somehow
manage to top them all, setting a high water mark for the entire franchise.
Its a classic setup: As you may have heard, Conan has been many things in his considerably long career of
barbarism yknow, thief, reaver, that sort of thing and on this particular occasion, hes taken a job as an

assassin and set out to kill Nabonidus the Red Priest. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with this sort of thing,
starting with deathtraps in the sewers

and ending with the realization that Nabonidus has a pet gorilla named Thak whose intelligence has led him to
attempt to kill Nabonidus himself so that he can take over as the master of the house, meaning that he is A
GORILLA IN A CAPE THAT CAN ONLY BE STOPPED WITH THE AID OF A HOUSE FULL OF DEATHTRAPS.

That is literally everything I want in a story. Like, for real, if it wasnt for Batman, Id be pretty comfortable in
saying that we couldve just gone ahead and shut down the entire concept of fiction in 1934. Sometimes I like to
imagine a world where we did just that, and then spent the next 80 years making movies that were just adaptations
of this story with varying degrees of faithfulness. Seriously, try it out next time you go to the movies and see how
well your favorite films rate as stories about gorilla capes and deathtraps.
Spoiler warning: very few of them will do well on that scale.
The great thing about Conan as a character is that, even when faced with a situation like this, his default method of
dealing with every problem he encounters is to punch, stab, or f**k it, and since the latter doesnt really seem to be
an option in this case, hes left with just walking right up to a gorilla that thinks its a person and trying to beat it to
death with his bare hands. And he does.

Nords version of this fight scene is unbelievably good, full of kinetic, weighty action and this brutal, beautifully
staged grappling where every piece of the fight scene leads to the next, and its just a joy to get through for how
well its all set up and executed. But, believe it or not, the simple act of Conan fighting a gorilla (in a cape) isnt what
makes this story so good.
The best part here, the thing that exists across all the adaptations because its at the heart of the original story, is
that Conans battle against Thak is a battle against two beings that are on equal terms. Conan says at the end of the
fight that Ive slain a man tonight, not a beast, and thats something that really resonates in that moment. So many
of these stories are about how much Conan despises the soft city people and how, for all his barbaric tendencies, he
has the freedom that they lack to be what he truly is because hes not shackled by the constraints and rules of
society. Hes pure id in a loincloth, but, because he dreams larger than the other hillmen of Cimmeria, because he
ventures out into the world to see what there is beyond those dim and unforgiving hills, because hes endlessly
encountering things like frost giants and elephant gods that force him to widen his perception of what the world
actually is, that freedom is slowly and steadily chipped away. Conans story is, at its heart, a tragedy this pure
embodiment of freedom that ventures into this strange land called civilization, and ends up being confined by it as
much as anything. Conan becoming the King of Aquilonia as an adult isnt a happy ending, its the Cimmerian
equivalent of selling your guitar and getting a real job. The height of his life is the time spent as the thief and the
assassin, the adventurer and the pirate, but the end of it is that hes forced to conform, ending his days ruling over a
country and drinking way too much, not just because hes seen so much serious stuff and done so many horrible
things, but because his dreams came true and, in a lot of ways, that was the worst thing that couldve happened to
him.
In order for Conan to succeed in the society that he lives in, he cant be a Barbarian or a Destroyer or an Avenger.
He has to become a King. He has to become part of that world and exist inside it rather than as an outsider. But at
his heart, hes always going to be that Barbarian that would punch a monster in the face or stab a priest for a
handful of gold. Thats always going to be at his core, even if he has to cage it up.
In other words, Conan is himself essentially a gorilla who puts on a fancy cape and tries to be a man.
Even in his younger days, Conan recognizes that when he stabs Thak, and Truman and Nord do an incredible job of
illustrating the understanding that passes between them. Its what makes this story great, what pushes it past
something that was already a fun, action-packed idea, cutting to the core of Howards philosophy that underscored
Conans restlessness and desire for adventure. Its why this is the best Conan story, and the best version of the best
Conan story, and why its not even a close competition for which ones #1.
Second place, of course, goes to that one issue of What If where Conan gets stranded in the 80s and starts dressing
like Tony Montana and walking around with a pet jaguar.

Read More: Ask Chris #201: Conan Comic Books That Are Best In Life | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-201conan-comic-books-that-are-best-in-life/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #200: The Best Issue #200 In Comics History

by Chris Sims June 20, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Since this is Ask Chris #200, whats the best 200th issue in comics? @therealdealkern
A: You know, Kern, Im glad you asked. 200 is a really weird number, especially in comics. It should be a pretty huge
deal as alert reader Charlotte pointed out in her own question this week, once a comic racks up 200 issues, its
pretty much going to be around forever but it doesnt quite have the ring of #100, and even hitting that third
century mark seems way more important than breezing through the two. Maybe its that it feels like a foregone
conclusion, that once youve passed that first milestone, the second feels like more of an inevitability than an
achievement. But at the same time, theres definitely one issue that sticks out as being everything you want out of
an anniversary comic, and thats the subject of this weeks column.
I mean, come on. You didnt really think I was going to answer 100 questions again, did you?

Before we actually get to the one that Im thinking of, I thought it might be worth it to round up a few of the usual
suspects so that we could get an idea of what kind of competition there is for the odd and very specific title of the
Best 200th Issue Of All Time, and folks, it is a weird crop of comics. The list of comics to actually hit that number is,
of course, a pretty short one, and the biggest ones that youd expect to be milestones for characters like Superman
and Batman came at a time when issue numbers werent as big a deal as they would come to be in the mind of the
fans. Action Comics, Superman and Detective Comics #200 all pass without even a mention, and Action has the
dubious distinction of marking its second century with a best-left-forgotten story about Superman palling around
with a bunch of Native American stereotypes and helping them pass the Tests of a Warrior. Even Fantastic
Four #200, which shouldve been a huge deal with Dr. Doom being unmasked and driven mad and losing control of
Latveria, is almost always forgotten due to being in that shadowy period just before John Byrne arrived on the
book.
The earliest one to really make a big show of it is 1968s Batman #200, which makes sense when you consider that
it came out right in middle of the Caped Crusaders pop culture popularity, thanks to the Adam West TV show.
Really, though, the showiness of it is mainly confined to the cover. The actual story, The Man Who Radiated Fear
by Mike Friedrich and Chic Stone, is a great little Silver Age scarecrow story, but the only real acknowledgements of
the anniversary in the story itself comes from Batman and Robin taking a moment to recap their origins before
segueing right into shirtless gymnastics:

The issue also includes a reproduction of the first page from Detective Comics #27, a conversation in the place of a
letters page between Friedrich and Biljo White, the publisher of the Batmania fanzine who had a pretty solid lock
on being the Silver Age Chris Sims, and a reprint of one of my favorite pieces of ephemera, a half-page PSA from
Batman about how much he hates crime that originally ran in 1940:

I think Robin and I made it pretty clear that WE HATE CRIME AND CRIMINALS. Yes, Batman. Yes, you have.
Its a decent bunch of stuff and its got cameos from Killer Moth and the Joker thrown in for good measure,
which probably made it feel like a huge story when set against its contemporaries but it doesnt really scream
anniversary. Origin recaps and boxing in tiny pants were not, after all, very rare plot elements in the Silver Age.0
Amazing Spider-Man #200, on the other hand, is the first one to really make a shot at being the best, if only for the
scene where Spider-Man decides that he has had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH out of that one table lamp:

Oddly enough, this one is also a product of Marv Wolfman and Keith Pollard the team behind FF #200 but
its way more memorable and engaging for the way that it goes back to the very first Spider-Man story and,
consequently, the very first Spider-Man villain. See, this is the one where Spidey finally gets his hands on the
burglar who shot Uncle Ben.
Its a dodgy idea, but the team pulls it off phenomenally well, and in doing so, they give Spider-Man the superheroic
victory that completes the cycle started by his horror-structure origin story. Its the reason I always talk about the
first 200 issues of Amazing Spider-Man as a single story, because this one goes back to wrap it up and shows just
how much Peter Parker has changed over the course of his years. And to be honest, theres no other superhero
comic I can think of that was that good for that long.
But as far as single issues go, theres one 200th thats better than just about anything else.

Heres a fun fact about me: I have bought Justice League of America #200 six times. Its not because I like the
comic that much which I do but because there was a string of conventions where Id see this thing in dollar
boxes at every show, and that cover looks so awesome that whenever I saw it, I would be completely seized with
the need to own this comic, and Id forget I already had a growing stack of them at home. Thats 100% true, and
while it sounds like something Id make up, just consider that Im also the person who bought two complete runs
of Punisher 2099 for the exact same reason.
The thing is, I dont really regret buying it that much, because its amazing every single time I read it. Anniversary
issues are tricky, because theyre often trapped between this desire to celebrate the past while also taking the
opportunity to move forward into the future, and thats a delicate balance to maintain. Its one of the things
that Spider-Man #200 (and X-Men #200, now that I think of it) really has going for it, in that it hits that balance
perfectly. Justice League of America #200 does the same thing, but it does it in a way thats just bigger.
And I mean that in every sense of the word. This comic is huge it clocks in at 72 story pages, featuring 15 Justice
Leaguers and an army of alien invaders. Like ASM #200, its a sequel to the first Justice League story, but it also
follows the classic team book tradition of breaking out into one-on-one battles and then culminating in an all-out
war against the actual villains. Its essentially a modern-day event done in one comic, with an amazing roster of
artists handling each battle between the JLA of the past and the present Jim Aparo, Brian Bolland, Joe Kubert,
Carmine Infantino, Dick Giordano, Gil Kane and more, all wrapped up in a framing sequence drawn by George
Perez, who also handles the climax.
But more importantly, its also a comic where Batman goes to the Carolinas.

Ill admit that Batman kicking ass in a Carolina swamp is probably only pertinent to my extremely specific
interests, but if yall cant appreciate that Brian Bolland splash page, were never going to understand each other
and probably shouldnt even try.
The whole thing is written by Gerry Conway, and lets take a moment here to talk about that dude. Conway is easily
one of the all-time greats, and if you need proof of that, consider that he is the only comic book writer who ever got
to write an episode of Baywatch Nights. Its the one with a mummy.
Seriously, though, hes also the dude that Stan Lee handed Spider-Man to after staying on it longer than hed
actually written any other Marvel comic, who then gave DC its first viable attempt at a Spider-Man type character
of their own with Firestorm, and who then wrote some of the greatest Justice League stories ever printed. Crisis
on New Genesis, the JLA/JSA/New Gods team-up story that ran inJLA #183-185 and introduced George Prez to
the stage that hed pretty much dominate for the next decade? That thing is astonishingly good. And in a way, what
hes doing here puts it all to shame.
Again, its the scope of it thats really breathtaking about this story. The idea is that the seven original Justice
Leaguers Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter all
get brainwashed into recovering the Appellaxian meteors that led to their first adventure, and the
eight current Justice Leaguers Firestorm, the Atom, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Zatanna, Elongated
Man and Red Tornado, which is the mtleyest dang cre Ive ever heard of have to stop them while also figuring
out why their teammates have no memory of the time since the League was formed.
They all end up splitting up to take them on one-on-one well, two-on-one in the case of Canary, Arrow and
Batman with each one getting its own gigantic splash page:

And just to make things a little better, a) Aquaman and Red Tornado fight each other first so that theyre easy to
just skip over so you can get to the characters you care about, and b) Hawkman gets literally punched into space by
Superman. I told yall before: Hawkman sucks real bad. He does talk about how when youre fighting robots, theyre
probably prepared for high-tech weapons so you should really just hit them with a mace or stab them, which
is pretty great, though.
In the end, of course, the two teams reunite, and in one of the really cool moments of the story, something that
actually fealls earned and exciting, you get to see the Justice Leagues of the past and present fighting alongside each
other against a magnified, multiplied version of that original threat that brought the team together. Its the same
sort of idea that makes Avengers #400 such a great comic, but done as the culmination of this massive adventure
that went everywhere from North Carolina to Outer Space. Its a tribute to the past, a celebration of the future and a
showcase of everything that had made those characters and that team great for the past eighteen years, all while
still being a compelling adventure in its own right. Its probably the perfect anniversary issue.
I mean, Batman goes to the swamp and Hawkman gets punched into space.

After 200 installments of this column, can you think of anything Id possibly like more?

Read More: Ask Chris #200: The Best #200 Issues In Comics History | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-200issue-200/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #199: Heroes In A Half Shell, Turtle Power

by Chris Sims June 13, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Why do you think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has survived and thrived for 30 years? @ballsmonkey
A: I have a whole lot of affection for the TMNT, and I dont think thats just because I was the perfect age to drag my
parents to Pizza Hut so that I could get (and subsequently wear out) a VHS tape of the one where they fought the
giant robot rats. Dont get me wrong, the nostalgias a huge part of it, but its not something thats unique to my age
group. The fact is, if youve been a kid at any time in the past three decades, youve more than likely grown up
loving those characters just as much as I did. And that in itself, the staying power that this strange franchise
created by two dudes in a kitchen, is interesting.
The thing is, even though I tend to think of TMNT as the archetypical unlikely success, the more I think about it the
less I think that it actually was all that unlikely.

Whenever the Turtles come up, its always worth saying that the original series was quite literally one of the single
most important comic books of all time. Its influence was incredible not just in the larger world of pop culture,
where it became this huge, unstoppable, unavoidable force, but specifically in the world of comics. Its the bridge
between these two separate boom periods, and it linked two distinct eras and aesthetics, reacting to one and
simultaneously playing a huge part in creating what came next.
This is one of my big Connections Theories about the history of comics, and its one that Ive touched on before
in the larger context of the 90s, but the short version is that I think you can trace the rise of creator-owned comics
as the force they are today pretty directly right back to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird making fun of Marvel
Comics over a pizza. See, while its often overshadowed by the excesses, speculation and monstrous sales of the
early 90s boom, the Black & White Boom of the 80s represents a massive cultural shift in North American comics.
After decades of being dominated by a small number of publishers that were pushing a single genre, a change in the
market (and growing concerns over creator rights) caused the 80s to suddenly explode with a massive number of
new independent comics, cheaply printed in black and white.
There was a lot of amazing stuff that came out of that era (and some of it in color), from Matt Wagners Mage to
Stan Sakais Usagi Yojimbo probably the single greatest comic that nobody ever talks about because its hard to
find new things to say about a comic thats pretty much been perfect every issue for thirty years but the one that
stuck out, the one that succeeded beyond anyones wildest dreams, was TMNT.

TMNT wasnt just a successful comic, although getting massive sales and long-running series from what started as a
one-shot debuting at a con in New Hampshire with a print run of less than four-thousand copies certainly made it
that. It was a massive pop cultural phenomenon, one thats only slowed down a couple of times in the years since.
But one of the interesting things to note is that it wasnt exactly alone in its field.
There was, of course, an entire litany of imitations and knockoffs that followed in the wake of TMNTs success, but
even in the early days of Eastman and Lairds success, the Black & White Boom embraced having anthropomorphic
animals as lead characters in a way that mainstream superhero comics had pretty much abandoned by then, and I
often find myself wondering why it was TMNT, and not, say, Usagi Yojimbo that took off, or even something
like Boris the Bear? I mean, no disrespect to TMNT at all, but Usagi is clearly the better comic from a craftsmanship
standpoint, and youd be hard-pressed to argue that it wasnt better in well, in almost every other way, too. Its
worth noting that those comics both debuted after TMNT Usagi a few months later in 84, then into his own
series in 87, and Boris even has a reference to TMNTs popularity on the cover but I dont think it comes down
to just TMNT being first.
Its tempting to lay it at the feet of the marketing and credit shrewd businessmen (and Eastman and Lairds own
shrewdness in pursuing the marketing of the property early and pushing for it as often as they could), and that was
certainly a factor in making it as massive a merchandising phenomenon as it was

pillowcase that I actually had

A TMNT

but I dont think that was entirely what it was either.

See, Im a big fan of a lot of things that have been hugely popular in the era shortly before and after TMNT (like,
say, G.I. Joe) that had similar marketing and presentation to pop culture, but it didnt really get to the heights
of TMNT. Ive said it before when Ive talked about the franchise, but I dont think its an exaggeration to say that,
for a few solid years there in the late 80s and early 90s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the most popular
thing in the world. It was massive as a cross-media franchise, with what seemed like universal appeal.
They were big in America, obviously, but they was also popular in Europe, where they were Heroes instead of
Ninjas and couldnt have nunchuks, and they were even big in Japan, where they super-mutated
into tokusatsu heroes who fought giant monsters with an angel-themed space mech.
No, really.

It was massive, and while its slowed down since, its never really gone away. Theres a TMNT show on TV right
now, a movie coming out soon, and multiple comics on the stands as I write this. Its still around, and its still a
pretty big deal.
All of which, several hours later, brings us back to that initial question of why. What was it that clicked? Was it all
there at the beginning, or was it added in by the marketing folks to package it as a saccharine, kid-friendly cartoon
about breakdancing and saying no to drugs?
To be honest, I think part of it was just the title. I cannot imagine hearing the words Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
and immediately wanting to know more about whats going on. Its just so mind-bogglingly over-the-top and silly
that you cant ignore it, and that interest is the first big advantage that they have. But it also hints at something
thats far more important.
I said earlier that when you actually look at TMNT, its success isnt surprising, and what I meant by that was this: It
never occurred to me when I was first experiencing the series as a wide-eyed youngster in the 80s because I hadnt
read the comics Eastman and Laird were riffing on, so it blew my mind when I found out as a teen that they were
consciously creating a parody of the two most popular things in comics in 1984. The entire concept that kicked off
thirty years and billions of dollars is just a simple gag about the Teenage Mutants of the X-Men, and the Ninjas of
Frank Millers Daredevil. Thats it. Thats the hook. The Turtle bit was, to my knowledge, just added because it was
the single most ridiculous thing they could throw in.

Even Shredder was originally called Grate-Man in the early designs, hinting that the original concept was way
more comedic than it ended up being. And that, I think, is really the secret.
Like all great jokes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was played completely straight.
I had a reprint of that original story when I was a kid because really, who didnt? and coming at it as a fan of
the cartoon and the Archie comics, I remember being kind of shocked and completely thrilled by how dark and
violent that original story was. In the comics, aside from those Archie ones where they traveled through time in a
giant cow head, thats been the aesthetic thats stuck, too, and while I wouldnt go as far as saying that its all part of
a big joke on the part of the creators now, I have to assume that it was created as part of the gag.
You just have to look at that first comic to see how strong the Frank Miller influence is, but with the tortured,
morally challenged hero replaced by a six-foot talking turtle.

Thats hilarious. But within the story, its never treated as a gag, and as a result, it ends up working both as a joke
and as the core of a story thats actually interesting on its own terms. There are multiple levels at work.
And both levels are based on the things that people reading comics and consuming pop culture already loved.
Thats the key to it. TMNT blended things that were already popular, but did them in a new and inherently
interesting way that was impossible to avoid and ignore. It succeeded on its own merits while also riffing on things
that had paved the way for it, and as a result, those gritty comics work as well as the kid-friendly cartoons. Its an
inherently adaptable franchise, and that gives it a phenomenal, almost universal appeal. Looking at it in the context
of everything else that surrounded it in pop culture, both creating the environment where it could happen and then
reacting to a world where it took Bulbasaur and 150 of his friends to finally dethrone it as The Most Popular Thing
In The World, its hard to imagine how it wouldnt have succeeded.
Well, until you add Michael Bay into the equation. That might be enough to kill it stone dead.

Read More: Ask Chris 199: The Longevity of Teenage Mutant NInja Turtles | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris199-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-eastman-laird/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #198: The Mass Media Influence On Comics Canon

by Chris Sims June 6, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Is it ever worth it to change comics canon to match the canon from other media? @firehawk32
A: This is a really interesting question for me, because I always think of myself as someone who doesnt really get
excited about superheroes showing up in movies or TV. I mean, obviously, thats not actually true I mean, I
cowrote what was essentially a full-length novel about The Dark Knight, Batman: The Animated Series ranks
alongside oxygen and pizza as my favorite thngs in the universe, I could not have been more stoked about seeing
Arnim Zola The Bio Fanatic in two major Hollywood films, and there will never be a time when Im not still mad
about Man of Steel. But at the same time, and at the risk of sounding like even more of a hipster elitist than usual,
those arent the real versions of those charactesr to me. I like TV and movies just fine, but when it comes to the
superhero genre, Im in it for the comics. Everything else is just a bonus.
That said, whats considered canon in comics changes literally all the time, and often for a lot worse reasons than
because theres something out there thats resonating with a mass audience.

Superhero comics have always had a weird relationship with with other mass media, and it starts right at the
beginning. Its sort of easy to forget about when were looking back from his triumphant 76th year as the flagship
character for a publisher, but as much success as Superman had in comics back in the early days, kicking off the
Golden Age with a huge boom and a thousand imitators that formed the foundation of a brand new medium, there
was a huge part of that early success that wasnt from comics at all. It was from radio, the dominant medium of the
time, and it started changing how the comics worked almost immediately.
Its worth noting that The Adventures of Superman, the radio show, debuted 1940, only two years after Action
Comics #1. At the time, there was still a lot of what we think of as being a core part of the character that had yet to
be really solidified, from his powers to his supporting cast. The thing is, there are a lot of those elements that
originated on the airwaves rather than the page. Kryptonite, something thats such a huge part of his character that
its actually entered into the language in the same way as Achilles heel has? That was from the radio. So was
Perry White. So was Jimmy Olsen. All of those elements were brought into the comics later, because theyd worked
so well in telling stories on the radio. Even beyond just what was in the comics, the very idea that Superman could
be an inspirational force for good in the real world? Youd be hard pressed to find a better example than the story
of how Stetson Kennedy used the show as a platform to bring down the Ku Klux Klan.
Obviously, thats a special case. Being around at the dawn of both the character and the medium and genre itself
gave the radio show a pretty important place in the early development of that specific character. But at the same
time, that idea, that comics could be shaped by how their characters and ideas were presented to other media. If
anything, it became even more prominent after the introduction of the comics code, when the entire medium was
relegated to being made for a very specific audience, dominated by a very specific genre.
Ive mentioned before that this is one of the most fascinating things about the development of American superhero
comics how they were sort of set aside and allowed (or forced, depending on your point of view) to develop in
isolation, producing genre conventions and a visual language thats completely unique to the form. And part of that,
a big part, was how they thrived by building these interconnected universes, these massive tapestries of a longform sequential narrative that influence and reflect each other. Thats the canon that youre talking about, and its
something that, purely on the basis of its scale, is unique to superhero comics.
But at the same time, the influence of mass media was never really gone. It may not have been quite where it is
now, when Batman has been a prominent character in TV shows and movies for 25 solid years without ever really
being absent, and when a movie with Hawkeye in it made a billion dollars at the box office and allowed you to buy

Marvel Comics Brand Merchandise at every retail establishment in the country, but there was never really a time
when superheroes were completely absent from mass media either. Even when it was just on the fringes, with only
the most popular characters managing to break out of comics onto television, theyre always in there somewhere.
And with that presence, theres always going to be an influence, even if its small.

Up until the last few years, one of the requirements that seemed to be in place for mass media treatments of
superheroes was that they had to cut through the complicated continuity of the comics and boil the characters and
stories down to the most essential elements.
The best example of this came, of course, with Batman: The Animated Series, where it was done really well, and
ended up producing what a lot of people whether they were long-time comic book readers or just people who
were becoming fans through the show and the movies considered to be the single best take on the character,
ever.
Its easy to see why, too. By paring everything down to what was essential, people like Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Alan
Burnett, Eric Radomski and Mitch Brian were able to pick out what worked from the character and what they
wanted to present to their audience, and since those dudes had a really great understanding of Batman, they made
some great choices. And those choices, in turn, influenced the comics that the show was originally based on.
It took a few years to get to it, but that 2000 post-No Mans Land New Gotham era was pretty tightly based on
what had worked about B:TAS. The aesthetics, the renewed emphasis on shorter stories after devoting so much
time to lengthy mega-series like NML and Contagion, even bringing over breakout characters like Harley Quinn
and, to a lesser extent, Lock-Up, all of that was either based around connecting to fans of the show or spearheaded
by creators who had seen how good things were.

More recently, however, things have shifted again as a direct result of the success of the Avengers movies. Chad
Bowers brought it up when we saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the way he put it was pretty blunt:
Continuity won.
Those movies may individually be built around the same idea of stripping things down and getting to the core of a
character without being burdened by decades of stories by dozens of creators that are occasionally at odds with
each other, but taken as a whole? Taken as a franchise? Those movies arent just succeeding because one of them
was good, theyre succeeding because theyre an attempt at replicating what comics have been doing since the 40s:
Theyre buildling a shared universe. Avengers, as far as moviegoers are concerned, isnt just one movie. Its nine.
Thats unquestionably an influence from the comics, but the influence that theyre giving back comes in terms of
which characters were seeing, and how often were seeing them. I mean, were living in a time when were about to
have Guardians of the Galaxy, Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon series going at the same time, something that I dont
think anyone wouldve predicted five years ago. But here we are, with one of the largest media companies in the
world banking its summer box office success on those characters, and that confidence filtering down into the
comics.
Back in 2006, when Civil War and Annihilation were both happening at the same time, the cosmic side of the Marvel
Universe was completely overshadowed by the ham-handed political metaphor of involving a couple of Avengers (I
refer of course to Civil War). In 2014, in movie theaters, theyre on par with each other at least for one summer.
All of this is to say that the influence on comic book canon from other media is a very real thing thats been around
since the beginning of comics. And more often than not, its not a case of if its ever worth it to to change comics to
reflect whats going on elsewhere, its a question of whether its ever worth it not to.
As much as I love comics and I think Ive made it pretty clear in 200 installments of this column that they are in
fact my favorite medium they do exist as this weird little niche market in a lot of ways. Theres a TV in every
house and a movie theater in every town, but there arent always comics around, and while I genuinely believe that
if you could go back in time and rig things up so that comics had that type of mass media penetration, everyone
really would love them as much as I do. Sadly, thats not the case.
And yet, there are versions of those characters that people do love, that people are connecting with through other
media, reaching millions rather than thousands. If you can do that with those characters characters that, for as
much as I love them, are still commodities owned by megacorporations then why wouldnt you change the
primary sources to reflect what the largest number of people liked? Thats democracy, son!
When DC reboted back in 2011, I honestly wondered why they didnt take that approach with it. Not for the entire
universe, maybe, but at least for their more prominent characters, why didnt they just build them to be more like
they are in mass media? Why not have a Superman based more closely on Smallville, a Batman more in line with
the Nolan movies, and a JLA that was more like Justice League Unlimited? If those are the versions of the characters
that are connecting with millions of fans, and youre in a medium thats losing its mind with joy if it manages to pull
in 200,000, why not takes your cues from them?

Now, obviously, I dont actually want that DC Universe although I think its worth asking if it would actually be
any stranger than the DCU that we actually ended up with from the New 52 but at the same time, I think Id be
perfectly happy if Batman was more like he is on B:TAS or if the Aquaman of the comics was the same one who
popped up in Brave and the Bold. Or, you know, if everything was like it is in Brave and the Bold. Which, I believe,
introduced the idea of Batman using Nth Metal Batarangs to fight ghosts, something that actually did somehow
make it to the New 52 through the pages of Batman Eternal.

I was more than happy to accept that particular influence back into comics, just like Id roll my eyes if Superman
started mentioning how he ran around for a friggin decade as the Red Blue Blur, and just how I actually do roll
my eyes at anyone who draws Captain Americas mask with a chinstrap.
It all just comes down to whether you, individually, connect with whats being presented to you in mass media. In
theory, everything youre seeing in movies or on TV has its roots in something that was there in the comics,
whether its a direct lift or just a characterization that flows logically from how those characters were built or at
least from how the people involved in mass media thought it flowed from how the characters were built by people
whose intentions may have been completely different. The only real rule is that you should use whatever works,
but what works for you (Superman in a doofy jacket) might be completely different from what works for me
(Batman having a jetpack and a laser sword in his belt).

Read More: Ask Chris #198: The Mass Media Influence On Comics Canon | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris198-mass-media-comic-books-canon-continuity/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #1,000,000: DCs Greatest Crossover

by Chris Sims May 30, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Why is DC One Million the best crossover ever? @SerialWordsmith

A: Whenever Im asked about my favorite DC crossover, the one that I always go with is Invasion!, and I think
theres a pretty good argument you can make. Its done in three oversized issues, so its quick but still feels like an
epic story since theyre all 80-page giants, it has a great use of some often-neglected parts of DCs cosmic side, and
there are pretty fantastic tie-ins from creators doing career-best work on books like Suicide Squad and Animal Man,
and it really did add something interesting to the DC Universe.
Then someone mentions DC One Million and I realize that yeah, Im wr Im mista Im misremembering things,
because its definitely the best. I mean, its not just the best DC crossover, but its probably the single best crossover
in all of superhero comics.

I think the reason that I always forget about it is that, in my head, I dont think of it as a crossover as much as just
being part of the great late 90s JLA run by Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Howard Porter and, in the case of One
Million, Val Semeiks. It definitely ties into that run, and since Morrison was the architect behind it and it tied into
his overarching story more than anything else, that makes sense, right? Except that its definitely a crossover. I
mean, it ran through every single DC Comic that month, unifying them in both storyline and in how the comics
actually looked, with a unifying trade dress and everything. Thats kind of the textbook definition of what a
crossover is.
If youre not familiar with it, One Million was basically a cross-time team-up in the vein of the old Justice
League/Justice Society Crisis stories. The difference was that instead of our League teaming up with heroes
from the past (which Morrison would eventually get around to doing in Crisis Times Five, where they teamed up
to battle a threat from the Fifth Dimension) the JLA of 1998 was the team from the past, teaming up with their
counterparts from the far, far future.
Specifically, they were from the year 85,271 AD, arriving to invite the first Justice League to the future for a crosstime celebration of the original Supermans return after thousands of years from his Fortress of Solitude in the sun.

Those of you who are good at math may have already figured this out, but the gimmick here is that the year 85,271
is exactly one million months after the debut of Action Comics #1 in 1938, and every DC Comic that came out that
month was meant to be the one millionth issue of that comic, which just happened to be crossing over with all
these old characters from 1998 in a tribute to their past.
Admittedly, that stretches credibility when you consider that this was a future where, for instance, a Martian
Manhunter solo series ran for one million issues, but hey. A lot of things can change in 830 centuries. Maybe he held
down a weekly for a while sometime in the distant future. Who knows.
Either way, I love gimmicks like that, whether its the zero issues that retold the origins, or Marvels -1 Flashback
issues that were meant to tell stories from before the origins, or whatever. Its a great concept, playing with the
forms of the medium, and even though the futuristic covers of the #1,000,000 issues could not look more like
they came from 1998 if they were being handed to you by the Spice Girls on rollerblades.

This, by the way, is something I have always wanted to happen to me. Yknow, just in case you were wondering.
Anyway, I remember hearing and Im sure that Ive said this before when talking about the crossover that one
of the reasons it all worked so well was that Morrison had actually plotted every single issue, but in retrospect, that
sounds well, it sounds physically impossible, especially given that theres no way anyone but Garth Ennis couldve
come up with the plot of Hitman #1,000,000, which is basically 22 pages built around the line Oh my God, I turned
my ass into a hand grenade! But at the same time, the books really work well as this unified look at this extremely
distant future where entire cultures are built around superheroes. So, I did something that 16 year-old Chris would
faint if he knew was a thing that was possible for our future. I just asked Mark Waid about it.

According to Waid, the notion that Morrison plotted every issue is an overstatement. As I recall, he did a huge
document that explained/suggested what he needed in each of the crossovers, but thats kinda S.O.P. with these
things. That makes a lot more sense the themes are there, and stuff like Starman 1,000,000, where the idea of
legacy and whether its possible to reject a heroic identity that youre born into rather than one that you chose, is
central to both the plot of the crossover and to the ongoing plot of Starman as a whole. I imagine there was way
more collusion between Morrison and James Robinson and Peter Snejbjerg when it came to that one. Gunfire One
Million and his explosive hindquarters, probably not so much.
That said, the core series, the four issues that came out weekly that focused on the main storyline? Those things
have Morrisons fingerprints all over them in the best way possible. Mainly, it comes down to the idea that One
Million is a shockingly optimistic story which is weird since it opens with Montevideo, Uruguay getting blown up
by a weaponized Rocket Red suit, killing over a million people:

Incidentally, heres how bad I am at real-world geography: Until someone wrote into JLA a few months later from
Uruguay to talk about how freaked out they were to find that their hometown had been nuked in a DC Comic, I
thought Montevideo was fictional, like Gotham or Metropolis. I mean, Montevideo? Video Mountain? Tell me that
doesnt sound like something Jack Kirby came up with in Forever People or whatever. But no, its very real. It is in
fact the capital of a country. Meanwhile, I have a map of Gotham City from a DC Universe RPG supplement pretty
much memorized. Clearly, my knowledge is what you might call extremely specialized.
But yeah, this is a story that opens up with this extremely violent act of wholesale slaughter, and not only that, but
its wholesale slaughter perpetrated by taking something from the previous era that was lighthearted and fun in

this case, the Rocket Red suits that were seen in Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguires Justice League International and
turning them into something hugely ultraviolent in order to give a catastrophic weight to the story. Its exactly the
kind of thing that was the foundation of the grittier comics of the time, and, to be honest, that DC is basing a huge
chunk of their current marketing strategy on even today. It seems phenomenally cynical, but like most things that
Morrison does, theres a level that only really comes together as the story goes on.
Its worth noting that one of the primary villains of One Million, along with Solaris the Tyrant Sun, is Vandal Savage.
Hes the one that sends the Rocket Reds, stuffed with the bodies of the (Teen) Titans, out in a superheroic nuclear
strike.

Thats very important, for the simple reason that Vandal Savage is an actual caveman. He is, for all intents and
purposes, the past, personified, and hes the one causing all this brutal destruction, bragging about destroying the
world by using the children of superheroes as his chosen weapon. You know, just in case it wasnt obvious that this
was a story about the past and the future colliding and what that meant for superheroes.
But heres the thing: While it opens with grim death and destruction, it ends with a celebration if you want to get
specific about it, it quite literally ends with a doomed planet returning to life and true love conquering even eight
hundred and thirty centuries to save the day. And theres a beautiful message there.

The stuff about Montevideo being blown up, the wholesale destruction and cynical references to a sillier past, all
that stuff is happening now, in the present, whether that present is 1998 or 2014. But in the future? In the future,
things might still be bad, but theyre going to celebrate the past instead of being ashamed of it. Its something that
comes up again and again over the course of the four issues, and, like most of Morrisons superhero comics, its not
particularly subtle:

And just to put the exclamation point on it, the problems in this story are solved in the most superheroic ways
possible. Its not just Martian Manhunter tearing through a gigantic Nazi supertank, and its not just the ultimate

twist to the time travel stuff that comes on the final page, either. Its not even that this comic involves building a
giant computer sun and then punching it.
Its one of my all-time favorite moments in superhero history, when Superman One Million quite literally fights his
way back to the future by punching a hole in time with his bare hands.

Thats awesome. And it all ties into the overarching theme, that the grim cynicism of the present is just another
barrier that we have to get through, by trusting ourselves and doing something new, something that celebrates the
past even as its forging ahead. We, as readers and creators and people who believe in what these characters are
saying, have to punch through to a better future. Thats how we save the present: By turning it into the better world
we all want it to be.
Thats a recurring theme in Morrisons JLA Im awfully fond of talking about the climax to World War III, his last
story, where everyone on the planet gets super-powers and all unanimously choose to do the right thing because of
the example set by Superman but its not quite the end of the story. One of the most interesting things about One
Million which, again, came out in 1998 is how much groundwork is laid for Morrison and Frank Quitelys All
Star Superman, which would come out almost a decade later.
Some of the stuff is obvious Solaris shows up, for instance, and Superman 1M makes an appearance in there too
but there are so many connections there that its impossible not to realize how tightly Morrison was playing a
long game with his Superman stories.
Like, say, the off-hand remark about how commonplace these cross-time team-ups are

and how that exact story takes place in the pages of All Star Superman #6.

The 853rd Centurys Superman Prime himself shows up at the end of that one as a little cameo for long-time fans,
too, but the best connection comes at the end of both stories. All Star, as you probably recall, ends with Superman
telling Lois that he loves her until the end of time, and flying off to save the world by fixing the sun, a process that
involves him living within it, bathed in golden light:

DC One Million, which, again, came out eight years before All Star, ends with a golden Superman emerging from the
sun after hundreds of centuries, and finally reuniting with Lois, recreated and brought through time, eighty three
thousand years after they parted.

Until the end of time, yall.

The whole thing is a masterpiece of superheroic storytelling, that kind of epic, sweeping adventure across time and
space, where optimism and love triumph over cynicism and hatred, that you can only really do in superhero
comics. Im always surprised that its not more well-regarded than it is, and I say that as someone who always
forgets to talk about how much he loves it. But its great in every sense, and lays out the mission statement at the
heart of superheroes better than almost anything else.

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Ask Chris #197: Judge Dredd And The Fashion Of The Future
by Chris Sims May 23, 2014 1:00 PM

Q: You said something a few days ago about the genius of Judge Dredds designcan you talk more about
this? @lifeinsuper8
A: Can I! Regular readers of Ask Chris might recalll that it was only a couple of weeks ago that I, along with artist
Erica Henderson, got into a discussion of what makes a great iconic superhero costume. You can flip back through
that one if youd like, but the short version is that the best costumes in comics tend to be simple and well-defined,
getting across a lot of information with a very streamlined look. Generally speaking, the more unnecessary
gimmicks you add to a suit, the more distracting it gets, and the less it says about the character, and I think that
holds true across the board when it comes to superheroes.
But then you get to Judge Dredd, and all those rules go flying straight into the Iso-Cubes, where theyre locked up
and never, ever let out.

Seriously, look at that suit. Its nothing but unnecessary gimmicks. Theres nothing streamlined about it at all its
bulky, and covered with details that you cant really skip over because, again, the entire costume is all about those
details. And yet, its top five costumes in comics history, easily. Seriously. I love Judge Dredds costume so much,
and when you get right down to it, what it really comes down to is context.
Judge Dredd exists in the world of Thrillpower, the far-off future year of 2099 AD, in a society where every single
thing has become monstrously overwhelming. Just the very idea of Mega City One, this towering post-nuclear
metropolis thats built on overcrowding and stuffing as many people into the only tiny space that can actually
support life? Thats the core idea of Judge Dredd, and when Pat Mills, John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra created
him, they made sure to weave that into the fabric of those stories. Theres a good reason that one of the first ideas
that comes up in a Judge Dredd story, once theyve established this massive, teeming, crushing society where the

fascists are the good guys, is the futsies, people suffering from future shock who just snap under the pressure of
living there. Life in the future is just too much for people. Which brings us back to the idea of the costume.
When I talked about the iconic suits and the value of simplicity, the thing that I kept coming back to the idea of
getting the most information across as quickly and efficiently as you can. You take one look at Superman, and you
can guess what his deal is. Big, strong, flying guy dressed like a combination of a circus strongman and a police
officer with a big badge right there on his chest. Batman, youve got the bat-winged cape and the ears that look like
devil horns, done up in all the colors of the night, but almost always posed like a stalwart hero. Spider-Man well,
Spider-Man has a picture of a spider right there on his chest. That ones pretty simple. Theres more to the
characters, obviously, but those basic ideas are things you can get across with a glance.
So take a glance at Judge Dredd.

The one thing you can get just by looking at that dude? He has a lot going on. The costume is blindingly ornate,
almost overwhelming in just how much there is to it you cant really take it in all at once, and when you throw in
the fact that hes riding on a motorcycle with five headlights, four exhaust pipes, two machine guns and a Crash
Bomber stuck to it, its ridiculous. Theres just too much.
Which is, at a single glance, the perfect representation of Dredd and his world.
Thats one of the things that makes it so brilliant, but the rest of it just comes from how well designed all those
elements are. Each element of it is just extrapolated to this wildly over-the-top conclusion based on something that
exists. My single favorite part of it are the epaulets on Dredds shoulders instead of a shoulder patch with an
eagle embroidered on it like you might see on a cop today, Dredds design just takes that simple element and makes
it bigger and bigger and bigger until hes literally wearing a statue of an eagle on his shoulder, which itself becomes
treated super-seriously by the characters as a mark of his rank. And since the Eagle takes so much room, well, he
doesnt have the American flag patch that you see on policemen and soldiers, so that migrates down to his belt,
where its incorporated into yet another gigantic eagle. And while were on the subject of the belt, since crime in
Mega City one is so out of control, he has to have a belt thats overstuffed with crime-fighting equipment, putting
even the bulkiest real world policemans utility belt to shame. Its got so much going on that he doesnt even have
room for his gun. He has to keep that down in his boots.
And then theres the badge, which is just a thing of beauty.
From an iconographic standpoint, Dredds badge is right up there with the Bat-Signal and the Superman shield, but
like everything else, its five steps further over the top. Its the third eagle on the costume (Judge Dredd is set in
America, I dont know if youve picked up on that), and rather than a single letter or a symbol, it just straight up
says DREDD. Full name. Right on it. Amazing.
And then theres the chain that connects it to the zipper, which is always pulled up. And then theres the glove
pouches. And the kneepads. And the knuckledusters. And the helmet. It doesnt stop. And whats really bananas
about it is that its a uniform. Multiple characters wear this same outfit, sometimes a dozen at once in a single
panel, which I have to imagine is why British comic book artists are driven to drink. They have to draw every single
part of this costume over and over again, and you cant really skimp on it because its perfect.
Back at Emerald City, I picked up a copy of Complete Case Files v.5, which is the book Mega City Two writer Douglas
Wolk suggested as a good entry point for new readers. On a whim, I thought it would be fun to pass it around to
people like it was a yearbook, and I got a bunch of folks to sign it, and a few even decided to try drawing Dredd
himself.

The thing I learned from that experience was that Dredds so complicated that you cant even do a quick head
sketch without taking some time to figure out how all the details on that weird helmet of his works. If you try, you
just sort of end up with Magneto.
Heres the thing about Dredds uniform, though: Because its a uniform, it doesnt really define Dredd himself. That
job has to be done by the one thing that isnt covered by the uniform:

His signature scowl.

That grumpy little line set on that chin is the real trademark for Dredd, the thing that pulls it all together and finally
tells you pretty much everything about the person youre dealing with. He is in this overwhelming future, and he is
not happy about it.
The other great thing about Dredds uniform is that, even with as complicated as it is, its the baseline. Its
the standard model, and Dredds world is full of modifications on that basic theme, whether its the Judges of other
cities or just different specialists from his own Department of Justice. And those only work because theyre playing
off of Dredds. It has, strangely enough, proven to be one of the most adaptable costumes in comics, even if the
adaptation is just dropping an even more gigantic golden eagle on it for the Chief Judge.
The best example of this feature comes, of course, from the Dark Judges:

Click to
mega-size
Theyre all just variations on the same thing, but twisted around (and set on fire) to form Halloween costume
reflections of the standard suit, and theyre all fantastic. Judge Fears suit is a favorite, with the ominous belt of
traps, shrunken heads and locks connected to the chain on his badge, but Judge Death is a point-by-point, noteperfect counterpoint to Dredds.

Like Dredds, its one of those costumes where theres just more to it the longer you look, from the Eagle being
replaced by some bat-winged horror, which also frames the skull on his belt, the stitching taking the place of the
zipper and chain, the bones on his shoulder pad, the claws on his elbows, the cemetery-gate portcullis on his
helmet Its awesome. And its all just built as a response to that original costume. It holds up to modification even
when you make it more complicated than it already was.
Even stranger is that it works in the opposite direction, too. When it comes to superhero movies, Im often bugged
beyond any rational reason by the changes that are made to costumes to make them look more realistic, but
in Dredds case, it worked really well:

Its worth noting that the 1995 Judge Dredd movie, while basically terrible, was almost 100% faithful when it came
to costume design. The only thing they really changed was the addition of an oversized metal codpiece, and really,
once you see the rest of the costume, why not?
The Karl Urban film, however, which is fantastic, was clearly shooting for a more realistic take by darkening the
colors and converting the excessive details into more functional body armor. Under normal circumstances, thats a

recipe for disaster (see also: Daredevil), but for Dredd, it worked, because they kept all the elements intact. The
Eagle is still there and still massive, but its on a piece of armor now. The badge is still massive and still has his
name in huge letters, and while it lacks the chain up to the zipper, they kept the belt buckle, of all things, 100%
accurate. That bonkers helmet is completely there, too, and Urban never takes it off. He lets that scowl do the
talking.
Like the original suit, it reflects and emphasizes the underlying theme of the movies Mega City One: Its still overthe-top, but its also highly militarized. If those gloves and boots had been green, they wouldve been perfect.
And thats what makes it work. The complexity is, oddly enough, what makes it simple. All the ornamentation, all
the over-the-top design, it just serves to get the basic idea across. Its monumentally over the top, complicated and
detailed, but when youre living in a world where this can happen on page one

well how the hell else are you going to dress?

Read More: Ask Chris #197: Judge Dredd And The Fashion Of The Future | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris197-judge-dredd-and-the-fashion-of-the-future/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #196: He Stood Alone At Gjallerbru

by Chris Sims May 16, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: What is the best redemption scene or storyline in comics? @yellfeat

A: Its funny, I was just talking about why there arent a whole lot of stories where villains become heroes in the
latest episode of Heres The Thing, and how they almost never work out the way you want them to. That mightve
been my pessimism creeping in, because there are certainly examples of it working really well one viewer on
Twitter mentioned the Pied Piper from Flash but I blame the wording. A face turn and a redemption arent quite
the same thing, and if youre looking for the single best example of the latter, theres not even a question about
which one it is.
Skurge stood alone at Gjallerbru, man. And that was enough.

I realize that I talk about the Walter Simonson run on Thor in this column almost as much as I talk about Batman,
which is sort of like saying that I talk about it almost as much as I breathe oxygen, but you can never really
overstate just how good that comic is. Its seriously the single best run of superhero comics of all time, and part of
what makes it great is how thoroughly character-focused it is.
The sweeping, mythological adventures and cosmic stakes are great, but what makes it all work is the character
interaction and the way that Simonson rounds out every single character in the story to make them someone you
care about. The best example aside from Beta Ray Bill, who I think we can all agree went over a heck of a lot
better than anyone expected for a space horse who beat Thor up and then became his best bro is probably
Balder, who got one of the most harrowing reveals in comics history, a love interest in Karnilla the Norn Queen,
and a pretty amazing miniseries out of the deal, but hes not alone. Everyone in that run is fleshed out and relatable.
Odin, Sif, the Warriors Three, the kid that Volstagg sits on for three issues in order to stop him from trying to kill
Balder.Everyone. Even the villains.
Again, theres an obvious character to talk about when you bring up the villains of Thor and how fantastic they are,
and thats Loki, but the thing about Loki is that he outright rejects any sort of redemption. Even when he throws his
lot in with the heroes of the story rather than manipulating them even after he straight up ruins Balders
life again, which is a pretty cruel thing to do to a dude that you have already murdered once hes only doing it
for his own gain.

Ive mentioned this before in the context of the Avengers movie, but thats one of the things thats really compelling
about the Thor of the comics, and particularly Simonsons run. Hes a god, with incredible power, literally
worshipped by mere mortals and held up even in the modern day as one of Midgards* Mightiest Heroes, but the
only thing that he really wants is just to have his brother back. And its something that hell never, ever get, because
theyre doomed by their natures to constantly battle against each other, and the best he can hope for is that maybe
this time, the lesson hes trying to teach him by cracking him upside his ornately horned head will stick and keep
him from trying to destroy everyone. Its this incredible central tragedy thats at the heart of their relationship, and
it works beautifully.
Which, you know, it should, since those personal tragedies are the gasoline that the Marvel Universe runs on. But
then, so are redemption stories. Theyre the defining element of so many characters that theyre coded into the
fabric that holds the entire line together. Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Wolverine theyre all characters that are
based on atoning for past sins in one way or another, whether its a small-scale thing like the death of Uncle Ben or
as large as being a living WMD who loses control and levels towns across the Southwest. Even the Fantastic Four
have that element of Reeds guilt over getting his best friend turned into a rock monster.
Which brings us back to Skurge, the Executioner.

In case you cant tell by the axe on his chest, the hairstyle that I like to call The Road Warrior Hawk, and the fact
that his name is Skurge the Executioner, Skurge was originally an adversary for Thor, although never a
particularly successful one. The real brains of the operation was the Enchantress, with whom Skurge was
hopelessly in love (which, as her name implies, was the Enchantresss whole deal), which led him to be
manipulated into scheme after scheme, with the Enchantress pitting him against Thor.
The problem was that while Skurge wasnt particularly bright, he was smart enough to realize that he was getting a
raw deal. He was fully aware that the fearsome Executioner of Asgard had become a joke after countless defeats
defeats that, even if theyd been victories, would never have really gotten him what he wanted. He knew hed been
used and cast aside as part of a scheme from someone who didnt really care for him the way that he cared for her,
and it was that realization, and the shame of having allowed himself to be manipulated and used as a pawn, that
was both utterly, crushingly depressing for him and, ultimately, the catalyst for his redemption.
Like I said, it all comes back to those tragedies.

Id be hard pressed to think of anything a villain in comics has said thats more affecting and heart-wrenching than
Skurges acceptance of what hed come to. Just the simple, blunt punch to the gut of one of Asgards strongest
warriors admitting something like Whenever they laugh, I hurt inside, the pain of this monstrous warrior who
only ever wanted to be love. Its brutal. And it tells you everything you need to know about why he chooses to do
what he does in Thor #362.
The basic setup for the story is that it takes place immediately after the big battle against Surtur, when Thor leads a
charge of warriors into Hel to rescue mortal souls that Hela captured unfairly. Its presented as something of a
suicide mission, which is a pretty bold statement considering that they just fought (and won) the actual battle of
Ragnarok, but Simonson has a knack for keeping the stakes as high as they could be.
Incidentally, its worth noting that this all takes place after the Asgardians have gotten all chummy with the regular
human military, meaning that theyre not only armed with magic axes and hammers and longswords, theyre also
strapped with a ton of M-16s.

Honestly, if you still havent read this run even after knowing that there are several issues in which Viking gods
armed with machine guns raid Hell, then what do you even want out of comic books? If its not this, we will never
understand each other.
Needless to say, the good guys triumph, although Thor himself is wounded and severely weakened, with the scars
that would lead him to rock a full beard for the remainder of the run, and even once they get past Hela, the
Asgardians and their charges still have to fight through the damned souls of every single warrior that theyve ever
slain in battle. Eventually, they fight their way to Gjallerbru, the bridge that separates the land of the dead from the
land of the living, a choke point that can be held by a single warrior, allowing the others to escape. And thats where
the suicide mission comes in: Theres no way a single warrior, even a god, even Thor or Balder, could hold that
bridge and survive.
Obviously, thats not going to stop Thor from trying. Hes a hero, after all. Its who he is, and heroes are always
willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. But just like Skurge is smart enough to realize that his own lot
in life has been a pretty raw deal, he also knows that the world needs a hero far more than it needs an executioner.

What happens next is, well, exactly the kind of redemption that sticks with you. I dont think Im spoiling anything
about this thirty year-old story when I say that he doesnt make it out, but the actual page where it all happens is so
beautifully elegant that even though Im certain Ive put it up here at CA before, Im reluctant to post it for anyone
who hasnt read the entire run that hasnt seen its impact. Skurge alone at Gjallerbru, much like Balder taking up
the sword, is something best read for yourself.
What matters, and what really makes his redemption stand out, is that its done on its own terms. Skurge, brutally
heartbroken by a life of being led around by others, doesnt just charge into battle behind Thor, he makes his own
decision to stand as his own man rather than a slave to his nature. He does it as a person whos finally standing up
for the right thing for the right reasons, making the choice to change his life in the most permanent way possible,
for the benefit of others rather than himself, asking only that they share a drink in his memory. Its as old school as
heroism gets, but its an incredible example of Simonsons skill in how moving it is even as its being told in the
action movie terms of one man blasting at an army of the undead with a machine gun in each hand.
He stood alone, and thats enough.
*: Earth

Read More: Ask Chris #196: He Stood Alone At Gjallerbru | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-196-he-stoodalone-at-gjallerbru/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #195: Making Connections In Comics History

by Chris Sims May 9, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: This Connections Theory of Comics is like *literally* all you talk about on Twitter. Can you please just
explain it? @bigredrobot
A: Hey man, I think youre exaggerating just a little. I mean, anyone who actually reads my Twitter account knows
that the whole Connections thing comes in at a distant third to commentary on whatever Power Rangers shows Im
watching that week and arguments about the definition of the word barbecue. That said, Ill admit that its
something I have been talking about a lot lately. Connections is, after all, my favorite television show of all time.
Well, except or The Prisoner, and that one episode of Brave and the Bold where Batman becomes a Dracula and
fights the JLI, but I dont think those have affected the ways that I think about comics like Connections has.

For those of you who arent familiar with it, Connections was a series three series, actually, starting in 1978
that was created by James Burke, a British science historian with an extremely interesting way of looking at how
different elements came together to form the strange path of history. Rather than just following the direct causes of
big events, Burkes work looks at a larger picture, showing how a problem in the distant past was solved with an
invention that then influenced something else, forming this massive web throughout history where nothing exists
in a vacuum, and everything can and is influenced in the most unexpected ways by the smallest innovations,
whether theyre scientific, cultural, or both. One of the early episodes, for instance, explains how modern
telecommunication technology is, if you go back far enough, the direct result of how Norman horsemen used
stirrups to keep from getting knocked off their horses during battle.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of Burkes historical connections go through the British colonization of India, which of
course led to the development of quinine to combat malaria, and thus the invention of the gin and tonic, where gin
was used to mask the awful taste of quinine on its own. And every time this comes up, which is like every third
episode, Burke mixes and drinks a G&T on screen. Every time.
He is my hero.
Its fascinating stuff, and if youve never seen an episode or read one of Burkes books, you really ought to, if only to
experience the unbelievable amount of charming dad jokes hell base entire chapters on. Its one of the reasons Im
as big a (casual) fan of history as I am, and its the sort of thing thatll change the way you look at history. And when
all you do all day is think about the history of the comics industry, itll change the way you think about those, too.
My knowledge of comics history isnt entirely all-encompassing, even for as narrow a field as just looking at
superhero comics. I havent read much that wasnt Marvel or DC from the 60s or 70s, I only know the high points
of the black and white boom of the 80s, and theres a ton of Golden Age stuff thats just hard to get access to, even
with the Internet and a lot of that stuff entering the public domain. Even today, I have a hard time keeping up with
everything, and its my actual job to read as many comics as I possibly can. Even if I was as well-read as Id like to

be, I still wouldnt be as good at building those knowledge webs as Burke is. But that said, I have read enough that
I feel like I can at least try to step back and see about figuring out where things come from.
My biggest attempt was definitely my look back at Marvel and DCs rivalry from 1940 to today, but it works on the
small scale too. With the amount of information we have available to us, whether its the comics themselves, books
like Sean Howes Marvel Comics: The Untold Story and Gerard Jones Men of Tomorrow, or even just being able to
interact with the people who have been working on these things for decades, its really easy (and fun, for me) to try
piecing motivations and influences together like puzzle peices to figure out how they work especially in
superhero comics, which have never exactly been subtle about their influences. Look, Im not saying Superman
wasnt a great idea all on his own, Im just saying that Clark Savage and his Fortress of Solitude may have factored
in to how that character developed, you know?
The reason Ive been mentioning it so much lately is that Ive been working on a couple of pet theories in comics
that have to do with how they came out the way they did, and why they were such a huge influence on everything
that came after, and the first is this: As much credit as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko get for refining the
superhero genre, the original Marvel books werent just a take on superheroes themselves they were all based
on the genres those creators were working in at Atlas in the days before Fantastic Four #1 showed up and changed
everything.
Ive mentioned this briefly before, mainly in that article above, but you can line those original books up with their
pre-Marvel titles and see exactly how they worked. The first piece comes from Spider-Man. The origin story that
ran in Amazing Fantasy #15, for example, is a straight up horror comic that follows the classic EC formula:

Boy gets strange, creepy powers, uses them for personal gain, and suffers as a result of his own hubris. You can
hear the Cryptkeeper cackling as Peter Parker walks off in tears in the costume he used to make money on TV. If
there had never been a second Spider-Man story, if that was all there was, you wouldnt think of him as a superhero. Youd think of him as a weird one-shot horror character, and it wouldnt be a tough leap to make
the other stories in Amazing Fantasy #15 are all from that mold, with titles like MAN IN THE MUMMY CASE! and
THERE ARE MARTIANS AMONG US.
Which, by the way, has one of the greatest splash pages ever.

Quite a problem indeed.

Fantastic Four is an easy one to line up, too, because up until 1961, Kirby had been spending a lot of time drawing
comics about giant monsters with names like GROTTU menacing the population, which is exactly what Fantastic
Four #1 is. The only difference is that both the title of the book and the story itself, eventually, shift the focus from
the monster to the people being menaced one of whom just happens to be a monster with a weird name himself.
Even the following issues stick with the Monster Comic formula, with the invading aliens who have the twist
ending of being hypnotized into becoming cows. Even when Dr. Doom shows up and firmly solidifies the book by
providing them with a genuine supervillain (sorry, Mole Man), theres still a throwback to a prototype monster that
Kirby had drawn in Tales of Suspense.

Those two, along with Hulk, are the big ones, but as those new comics went on, they filtered and synthesized them
into a new kind of superhero story, piecing together elements from the other genres theyd been exploring while

the competition over at National was dominating the strictly superheroic adventure comic. With Ditkos departure
and John Romitas arrival, Amazing Spider-Man combined the pyrrhic victories of the horror comics with the
operatic emotions and catastrophic moping of teen romance stories. X-Men had the edge of a dystopian sci-fi comic
(especially once those purple robots who tried to kill the sun showed up), Thor had its roots in visiting classic
mythology, something Kirby had done at least twice before in his career, and so on. They were all invested with the
same kind of pacing and storytelling of the non-superhero genres.
The difference, the thing that Marvel lifted from the world of superheroes (and westerns, of course) was that the
main characters continued.
Comics from the non-superhero genres tended to be pretty binary in their conclusions. Romance comics either
ended in bliss or heartbreak, horror comics in a gruesome death or an ironic escape, and so on. They were neatly
packaged and formulaic, just like the superhero comics of the time, which always ended right back where they
started. The Marvel twist was to just keep those going. What happens to the kid who gets his uncle killed after he
throws the burglar to the cops? What happens to the man who was turned into a rock monster once he accepts that
hes just going to be an orange rock monster now? What happens when the dude who has trapped himself in an
iron suit to keep his heart beating has to go to work the next day? That was the twist.
And with that twist came the rise of modern comic book storytelling, where things stopped being so episodic and
started building on each other. It would be another couple decades before comics would give up on the single issue
as a storytelling unit in favor of multil-part stories and more intricate continuity, and its easy to see how it
wouldve eventually happened without those books, but you can trace it back to that small change, the introduction
of blending those genres.
Thats the kind of simple connection thats easy to explore to its logical conclusion, and can help form a bigger
picture of how comics were influencing and reacting to each other. And for me, thats pretty fun to think about.
The other pet theory that Im working on right now? Whether or not DCs current obsession with dismemberment
can be traced back to Green Arrow showing up in The Dark Knight Returns, a dystopian future where his arm had
been ripped off by Superman.
I mean, yes, Lightning Lad lost his arm in a fight with a space whale back in 1965

but Im pretty sure theyre not trying to recreate the success and maturity of The Super Moby-Dick Of Space.

Read More: Ask Chris #195: Making Connections In Comics History | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-195making-connections-in-comics-history/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #194: Building A Better Superhero Costume

by Chris Sims May 2, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: What do you think is the essence of making a great iconic costume? @thenoirguy
A: With comics being a visual medium and all, especially one thats dominated by a genre marked by its own goofy
language of symbolism and iconography, I think about superhero costumes pretty often. I mean, I cannot count the
number of times I have written the words Batmans Batman-Shaped Kneepads over the past three years, but that
said, Ill admit that I might not be the best person to answer this question. As Erica Henderson (artist of Subatomic
Party Girls and the Ask Chris logo above) pointed out, Im not an artist. Then she went ahead and answered the
question, telling me that Its pretty simple, iconic is something thats quick and easy to recognize. thats why
nobody talks about Cables costume.
Listen, Erica, I dont know what circles you run in, but I talk about Cables costume a lot.

model sheet by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Batman

Admittedly, Cable might not be the best character to bring up for this conversation. I mean, his look
is definitely memorable, but thats less because of anything it says about the character and more because it
represents every design element that marked an entire era. Metal arm, glowing eye, pouches, gigantic gun, more
lines on his face than Archie has in his hair, theyre all there. But, well, Ericas got a point. It might be evocative, but
from a character standpoint, its not really iconic.
If we can be allowed to link all this up to art history for a second, Erica had more to say on the subject, too:
If we take the word icon back it refers to religious art. Back then they were pretty much just drawing everyone
with the same face (not unlike some comic artists), but you add some basic things and you can start easily
recognizing characters with symbols. Those people have halos? They must be holy. That halod woman has a baby?
Mary. And we can guess who the baby is pretty fast. You got a green guy with arrows? Green Arrow. Purple guy
with arrows? Hawkeye. Loincloth guy with arrows? St. Sebastian.

But regardless being able to recognize something quickly is what does it, even when the outfit seems complicated
because of extra stuff, like Spawn. Hes covered in dumb nonsense but still: black and white, reverse Gene Simmons
face, big red cape, chains. Done. Its part of why a lot of these New 52 costumes are less respected because they
took something iconic and then added a lot of noodley junk on top.
My friend Jesse puts it this way- If a kid cant draw it, its not a good superhero costume. If you gave a kid a pen and
said draw original Harley Quinn and then the new Harley Quinn, theyre going to need to think less about the first
one because its simple bold shapes. The more junk you add, the less iconic it becomes.
Shes not wrong, but I think that in terms of superhero costumes, simplicity is only part of the equation. If that was
all superhero costumes needed to be great, then a lot of the best costumes in comics just would not work. Take
Spider-Man, for instance:

Theres nothing about this costume that should work. Its covered in unnecessary lines that are such a pain to draw
that in the 80s, Mike Zeck just basically said the hell with it and gave him a new one that was just a plain black
body suit with a big white Spider on it. It disguises the face and makes the characters reactions impossible to read
unless you cheat by having the eyes of his mask widen and narrow like theyre his actual face, which virtually
everyone does. Its got two different Spider-Man logos on it, one for the front and one for the back. And, maybe
weirdest of all, it actually covers up important things, the web-shooters and Spideys oft-forgotten utility belt, while
having a design that looks like a belt. Seriously, there are few things I love more than when Spider-Man busts out
his Spider-Signal, because he always has to sit there lifting up his shirt like a dope and then tucking it back in.
Looking at all those individual elements, it sounds terrible. And yet, its one of the single best costumes in
superhero comics. Top five, easy.
Part of that, I think, is just that Steve Ditko was a genius at making things that shouldnt work turn out to be
incredible just the very concept of teenage mope gets radioactive spider powers sounds awful until you see it
in action but again, I dont think thats it. Part of it might be familiarity, too, in that were just used to seeing it
and associate it with some of the best stories in comics history. I honestly have no idea why it works as well as it
does, but it does.
The thing is, while simplicity and iconography are great, I think the best costumes, the ones that realy endure, are
the ones that make the effort of telling you something about the character, even if theyre doing it in a very simple
way. Thats one of the reasons Ive often been so frustrated by Wonder Woman because, as I mentioned last week,
the visuals of her costume dont tell you anything about her until you remember she was created during World War
II. Its iconic in that its been around forever, but as far as being revealing, that stops with the tiara and the
bracelets.
But then, look at Superman, for instance, probably the most iconic and enduring costume in all of comics:

Superman
model sheet by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez
Its had its changes over the years, but the basic idea has remained the same, and a lot of that initial imagery thats
been repurposed for superheroes has its traditions in the circus strongman. The trunks, the cape, all that
iconography was brought over with Superman, along with the big bright colors and the big badge on the chest
that makes him pretty easy to identify as whats basically a big policeman. Whats really revealing about this
costume, though, is what it doesnt have. Supermans head and face are exposed so that theres nothing between the
reader and his friendly smile and occasional wink (or, in more recent years, his scowl and tears or glowing red evil
heat vision eyes). He has the cape, but its not really covering anything, so its just there for show it looks good
while hes flying. Same with the belt: Hes wearing tights, so its not really holding anything up, and its not like hes
carrying anything with it, so clearly he doesnt need accessories to handle his business.
Even more revealing, though, is his lack of gloves. Hes someone who doesnt need any extra protection if he needs
to lift something up or punch something or stick his hands into a fire. Hes not worried about leaving fingerprints.
Superman is a guy whose hand you can shake.
As a quick aside, you can contrast that Superman with the current model, whose costume makes no friggin sense.
Its armor. Superman wears armor. The implication would be that he needs armor, which is the exact thing
Superman doesnt need and thats on top of all the noodley junk thats been thrown in because they were
embarrassed to have him wearing trunks. Seriously, theres a reason that when artists were given the choice in
the Adventures of Superman anthology, they overwhelmingly chose to draw the classic suit. Or, as I like to call it,
the good one.
Now, given his status as the first and most influential superhero, Supermans costume more or less forms the
baseline. Im pretty sure Ive mentioned it before, but its always goofy as hell to me when people in the Marvel
Universe refer to superheroes as capes, because who wears a cape in Marvel comics? Thor and Dr. Strange.
Shouldnt they call them masks? But anyway. Because Superman forms the basis of that tradition and the
foundation of the language of superhero comics, its a lot easier to look at other heroes with how they contrast to

that. Spider-Man, for example, has those same heroic colors, but the full face mask automatically makes him way
more secretive about his identity and less open about things.
But, you know, the obvious contrast is with Batman.
If you scroll up a bit, you can see the Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez model sheet that goes along with the Superman one,
from the DC Comics Style Guide, which was used both for the comics and for licensing, showcasing the most iconic
of the iconic costumes. And while I love that Batman costume and think its pretty much perfect, we might as well
look at a little something different.
Heres Dave Johnsons concept art for the New Gotham arc that launched in 2000, a soft reboot of the Batman
titles in the wake of the year-long No Mans Land.

Batman
model sheet by Dave Johnson
I picked this one for a couple reasons. One, its completely rad. I remember seeing these designs in Wizard circa
1999 and just obsessing over how cool they were, especially his take on the Animated Series-style grappling hook
and Batarangs. Second, because Batmans design has changed a lot more than Supermans. There are subtle
variations in both, but Batmans tend to be more extreme, swapping out colors for monochrome and eventually
getting to the extreme of Batmans Batman Shaped Kneepads that we have now. Johnsons design, on the other
hand, was influenced by Batman: The Animated Series, returning the dark blue and grey color scheme, while
ditching the yellow oval, and the changes that it did make reflected some key points about the character.
First, Batman is very protected, even if hes just wearing tights instead of body armor. Hes got gloves and boots,
with the contrasting shininess that makes them look like thick leather. Second, and more importantly, the cape.
Again, I find it pretty hard to find a fault with Garcia-Lopezs design, but Ive always preferred the Marshall Rogerstype idea of Batmans cape functioning as a cloak sitting on his shoulders and joining up below the cowl. It
visually reinforces the idea that hes using it for protection, giving him a subtle hint of human vulnerability even
when hes standing there with it thrown back, all scowly and super jacked.
The accessories do the job, too. Again, I prefer the superheroic style of the classic boots and the capsule utility
belt of the 70s and 80s (because cmon, if we accept that there is Batman, we can accept that he can fit a
boomerang into a little compartment that looks like a pencil), but I like what Johnson does here. The bulkier utility
belt implies that hes actually carrying stuff around in there, stuff that we see him using pretty regularly because
he needs to, and the treads on the boots are there because this guy does a lot of running and climbing. Compare that

to Superman the last thing that dude needs is a pair of boots with a good set of treads, because he flies
everywhere.
The costume reinforces the character. Its not just a matter of looking cool, although it definitely does. Its a matter
of using that imagery to reinforce and build on what you already know.
Theres one more key element to an iconic superhero costume, and that is the silhouette. It has as much to do with
the body as it does the costume, but they compliment each other. To go back to those examples that weve already
talked about, youve got Superman: cape flapping in the breeze, hands on hips, feet pointed down because hes
floating in mid-air, boom. Instantly recognizable. With Batman, its the ears and the scalloped cape everything
else can change, but if you dont have those two pointy ears, hes not Batman. With Spider-Man, it might seem like
the costumes not doing anything, but the lack of a cape or any additional elements to his silhouette is actually what
makes him so great. You can recognize a Spider-Man pose instantly, because they all have those spindly, angular
legs the knees pulled up and the arms akimbo, or that famous Todd McFarlane crouch. Thats the silhouette of a
dude who skitters, slightly off-putting in the way that spiders are. Even when hes swinging around on his webs,
hes usually got the knees pulled up impossibly high, reinforcing that slightly creepy idea.
Which brings us, in a roundabout sort of way, to the last thing I wanted to mention: Team Costumes.

I love those Frank Quitely New X-Men costumes so, so much, because they have that perfect mixture of unity and
individuality.
Lets be real here: The X-Men have never had good costumes. I mean, there are individual X-Men with good
costumes the Phoenix costume is one of my all-time favorites, and most of the All-New X-Men era suits by
Dave Cockrum are pretty solid but when it comes to looking like a team, they always fall flat on their collective
mutant face. The original Kirby-designed uniforms are, and I say this as a die-hard Kirby fan, pretty godawful, and
since then theyve just been a weird mishmash. Unless a team is made up of solo characters, like the Avengers or
Justice League, there should be a unifying theme to them. Which is exactly what Morrison and Quitely gave them.
Theyre great uniforms, because they allow for so much individuality while still being identified as a single unit.
Cyclops always has his jacket zipped all the way up so that the X is always prominent, Wolverines is never zipped
up (and I dont think he wears a shirt under there either). Phoenix usually goes without the jacket, instead wearing
the uniform shirt to maintain a cohesive look. White Queen is the biggest deviation, but she keeps the X motif
only the X is bare skin to reinforce the idea of a show-off who can turn to diamond. It all really works. Its not my
favorite look for them as individuals (Wolverines purple suit from the Darwyn Cooke Wolverine/Doop book is the
best he has ever looked, hands down), but as a team? They never looked better.
The only other team that did uniform costumes that well was the 90s Legion of Super-Heroes, where everyones
costume was based around the same basic template (the color-blocked sandwich design), but with each one
slightly modified to indicate powers. For Impulse, the middle line was staggered to form a big lightning bolt, Triad
had different colors on either side of the center that would form the basis for her other two bodies, Sensor had
well, Sensor was a giant snake with little robot T-Rex arms, so it didnt quite work for her. But it was well done,
especially when it came to updating costumes that had been around since 1958.
I think we can all agree that creating an iconic costume for a giant talking snake is a slightly more difficult matter.

Read More: Ask Chris #194: Building A Better Superhero Costume | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-194building-a-better-superhero-costume/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #193: Lets Pitch A Wonder Woman Movie

by Chris Sims April 25, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: I am sick of hearing that a Wonder Woman movie is too hard. I know how I would do it, but whats your
pitch for a Wonder Woman film? @Bibphile78
A: A few weeks ago, I probably wouldve backed off of this question, for two simple reasons. The first is that I was
pretty sure my specific tastes dont really match up with what goes into a big-budget Hollywood film, but that was
before we knew Marvel was spending a ton of money on a live-action arena show involving dirtbikes and
skateboard tricks, and that theyd cast someone who once played Velma in a Scooby-Doo movie to play Aja in a bigbudget Jem and the Holograms picture. At this point? Im pretty sure Ive somehow ended up being the target
market for mass media, and believe me, Im as surprised about that as you are. So what the hell, lets pitch a
Wonder Woman movie.
Oh, right, the second reason. Well, that ones a little tougher to get around. As Ive occasionally mentioned before, I
dont actually like Wonder Woman. Like, at all. That might complicate things.

Okay, so before anyone gets too terribly mad at me about that, I should probably clarify here: I want to like Wonder
Woman. I really do, I promise. And I dont think Wonder Woman is a bad character, and I certainly dont think shes
a character who doesnt have any value. Shes not, say, Gambit or Wonder Man or any of the other characters that I
think comics would be perfectly fine without youd have to be an idiot to not at least recognize her importance
as a symbol and a pop culture icon thats completely separate from her role in the comics. I get that, and its
actually one of the reasons that shes so frustrating to me as a reader.
For me, the problem is that Wonder Woman has been around for almost 75 years, in comics that have been
published pretty consistently since 1941, and there just arent a lot of those stories that are actually any good.
There are good ones, and there are even good runs, but for the most part, they just dont compare to what else was
going on.
I realize thats entirely subjective, and Ill admit that I havent read every single Wonder Woman story ever
published though I have made an effort to read a pretty big chunk of whats in print thanks
to Chronicles, Showcases and most of the major modern runs as well but I think thats all part of the same
problem. If you ask me to give you a list of three or four stories that will give you a good idea of what Superman or
Batman are all about, I can do it. With Wonder Woman, its a lot more difficult. Theres not as much of a consensus
on Who She Is And What Her Deal Is. We can all sort of agree on what other prominent characters are about (with a
handful of notable sticking points) that form a core that can stay true across different kinds of stories and different
kinds of genres. I always like to point out that Brave and the Bold was on TV at the same time as The Dark

Knight was in theaters, and I feel like those are both equally valid takes, but with Wonder Woman, most of the time,
it doesnt feel like that core is really there.
Personally, I think its a case of shockingly consistent mismanagement. It starts with the Golden Age, and its
important to remember that comic books and the superhero genre were a new medium that was being created by
people who, generally speaking, had no idea what they were doing. If anything, they were taking their cues from
newspaper adventure strips and trying to figure it out as they went along, and I doubt that any of them had any
idea that these characters would be around in the next century. Its a problem thats particularly relevant for
Wonder Woman because in her original form, shes inextricably tied into World War II. She wears an American
Flag, for cryin out loud, but unlike Captain America, who will always have that whole Super Soldier thing tagging
along, the rest of her identity doesnt really support it. Wonder Woman is not particularly patriotic, but that
costume has stuck around in some variation for ever. So right from the start, we have this weird inconsistency, this
conflict between character and design, intent and reality, and thats without getting into anything else from the
Golden Age.
Side note, Im not a huge fan of the New 52 redesigns because they are almost universally wretched, but I
actually do like that Wonder Woman got a costume that wasnt so thoroughly built around that wartime imagery.
Its not perfect Im not crazy about the darker colors and it could use a few straps but if nothing else, it gives
her her more of a visual identity of her own, rather than just putting her in the same colors as Superman. Plus, Cliff
Chiang makes it look pretty great.

So it starts there, and in the years since, its just been a matter of people being constantly not sure what exactly
they want to do with her. Should she be de-powered to be more relatable as a modern woman? Should she be an
adventurer during World War II? Should she be a classic Golden Age Justice Society character or a modern Justice
League hero? Is she a brutal warrior or a superhero diplomat? Is she a wide-eyed newcomer or a war-weary
outcast? Theres a constant tug-of-war between different creators and editorial directions, many of which are going
on at the same time, with people wanting to have it both ways. One of the best examples is how DC wants Wonder
Woman to be this super important, iconic character, the third member of the Trinity and with good reason;
they have this hugely resonant feminist icon that they are contractually obligated to keep publishing in perpetuity
but they wont ever commit to it. Shes never had a second book.
Seriously: If we have Batman and Detective Comics, and we have Superman and Action Comics, and if
theyre really the Trinity that DC keeps telling us they are, we should have Wonder Woman and Sensation Comics.
Thats not even a question.

But again, I think that reluctance to commit to it comes down to just not knowing what they want to do,
and that comes from everyone looking at this character that has all these different conflicted things going on, and
having their own idea how to get in there and fix it.
So of course, I have my idea for how to fix it, and of course, Im pretty sure my idea is the right one. Which brings us
back to this hypothetical movie pitch.

First things first: My version of Wonder Woman would have to be a movie for kids. In this imaginary scenario
where I have somehow seized absolute control of Hollywood (and not used that power to revive dirtbike-based
action cinema, the finest genre we have yet created), this is the sticking point that I will not budge on. I get in a lot
of arguments with my comics cowriter, Chad Bowers, about how my ideas for superheroes tend to all be about

making them more kid-friendly, and he makes the very cogent point that kids dont like stuff thats for kids. Hes
very fond of pointing out that the comic I read at five years old that made me the life-long fan that I am today was
one about a drug dealer whose girlfriend committed suicide, so Robin kicked him off a balcony to his death, which
is probably the most non-kid-friendly story that 1988 had to offer. And hes not wrong. But as I always shoot back,
it was Batman: The Animated Series that really got its hooks into me, and while that show gets a lot of praise for
being more mature and appealing to adults, theres no getting around that it was made to appeal to a ten year-old.
Which it clearly did.
The thing is, girls need Wonder Woman. Heck, girls already like Wonder Woman, whether its from shows
like Justice League or just her prominence as an advertising icon, and that has resulted in this massively lopsided,
underserved market of potential fans. Shes important. Shes an icon. She is, in a lot of ways, one of the very few
things that was made for them in this crazy, jacked up industry that we have. I cant tell you how many times
friends with daughters have complained about how their kids like Wonder Woman and want to read comics about
her, but there are never any around that they actually want to let them read, but it happens a lot and in six years
of working at a comic book store, I had my fair share of dealing with customers who had that same problem. Greg
Rucka and Drew Johnsons run on Wonder Woman was probably my favorite take on the character ever, and
Azzarello and Chiangs has been one of the high points of DC over the past few years, but, yknow, theres splash
pages of Wonder Woman snapping Max Lords neck to deal with, and there are a lot of parents out there that just
dont want to deal with that. I dont blame em.
So the solution is to just give them the Wonder Woman that they already want. I think DCs biggest cinematic
problem is that theyre still chasing Marvel on the big screen. Marvels characters have always skewed a little more
teenage, so on one level, it makes sense for them to be translated to the screen as the kind of PG-13 action movies
that weve gotten, full of casual violence and dudes getting Yakuza kicked into bulkheads. I get it, even if I dont
always like it, since Im the most squeamish, hand-wringing polyanna that has ever owned a full run
of Punisher comics. But with the DC characters, unless its spectacular (The Dark Knight), it doesnt work. If they
really want to succeed, they need to embrace what makes their characters appealing by making movies that are for
everyone.
Seriously, I dont even know why theres even a discussion about this in a world where The Incredibles exists as a
movie about superheroes for children that also has jokes about life insurance, dead-end jobs and the
disillusionment of growing up as a fan to find out your heroes can disappoint you. Its for everyone, kids
included. I just want to sit everyone down and go do that. It aint hard, its been done before.
So in addition to launching an all-ages Wonder Woman title (one of my dream projects that will likely never, ever
happen, not gonna lie), you make the movie that kids can go to. Man of Steel and Dark Knight Rises were both
marketed to kids on varying levels so all you have to do is make a movie that lines up with the market
youre already trying to get. You can make it smart, you can make it dark, you just have to keep in mind who your
audience is. And its so easy. Wonder Woman, the Wonder Woman that we have in DC Comics, the in-continuity
canon Wonder Woman, is quite literally a magical princess that can talk to animals. How hard is it to just go with
that.
So thats step one.
Step two, and it pains me to say it, is to make it an origin story. I know were all getting tired of them, and that
were anxious to just move on with the story already, but I think you kind of have to in this case. For one thing,
Wonder Woman hasnt been a solo character in mass media in almost 40 years, and for another, if were really
going to do this and use it as an opportunity to boil down the essence of who she is, what she does, and define her
for a modern audience, then you almost have to start with a clean slate.
My ideal plot and Ive thought a lot about this dream project Wonder Woman run Ive wanted to do over the past
decade is that you start by taking Paradise Island away from Earth. It shouldnt be a place you can just go to,
theres no crashed planes landing there in World War II and introducing all the Amazons to Mans World. Its a
myth. Its something like Mount Olympus or, to stick with the cinematic comparisons, something like Asgard.
This forgotten place full of immortal warriors, far from the concerns of what were doing down here on Earth. But,
like Asgard, its a place where theyre aware of Earth, where they can look down and shake their heads and this
world weve got here and how bad were screwing up.
But one of them doesnt think about how much were screwing up. She looks at Earth, and she sees something she
can help. She sees people who need a champion, people who need someone to show them how to rise up, people
who need to be defended and inspired and rescued, someone who has trained all her life to fight, but who has
nothing to do with those skills because theres no war in Paradise. She wants to make a difference, and she knows
where she has to go to do it.

No prizes for guessing who she is.

Ill admit that its a pretty basic setup (1 part Thor, one part Little Mermaid, mix and season with sets from Xena:
Warrior Princess to taste), but I think it works, and you can go in a few different ways with it. The traditional origin
story has the tournament, but my preference has always been to see Diana earning her abilities in a series of those
classic Greek Mythological labors, like Hercules, Theseus or the Argonauts. A big journey to get what she needs
before she finally goes to Earth.
But more importantly than that, it sets her origin apart from the other two heroes that shes always going to be
stood beside: It gives her a choice. Superman chooses to use his powers to help people, and thats great, but when
you get right down to it, he cant stay on Krypton. That life is gone, and so hes sent to Earth. Batman cant un-shoot
his parents, his life is changed by something beyond his control. Theyre both heroes that are reactive at heart, they
have situations forced upon them. For Wonder Woman, the one thing Ive always loved about her character is
that she doesnt have to be a superhero. She could just stay right there on her magical island. But she knows there
are people who would be better off if she was out there, so she goes. She makes the choice to be a hero. For me,
thats what sets her apart, what makes her so inspiring, that she has no personal stake in whats going on, but she
still chooses to do the right thing. If you start at a core of that kind of altruism and determination, then everything
else, the moral strength, the intelligence, the kindness, it all falls into place.
Getting back to comparing it to movies, I think theres a lot there thats appealing in the same way as the character
work in Captain America you just get a lot more out of the wartime roots with Cap than you do with Wonder
Woman, where theyre this weird vestigial toe.
So the first movie would be all about Wonder Womans journey to Earth, an adventure that she has where she
leaves Paradise Island behind, in a way that she can never really get back to it, but she knows we need her more. So
theres this grand, mythological adventure, a villain (Ares) barring her progress, but it ends with her arrival on
Earth. And yeah, I said first movie, because the third thing Id do is commit to that jazz. Superman has had one good
movie out of six, Batmans fared slightly better with two and a half out of seven, and they still keep cranking those
things out no matter how badly I want them to stop. Theres no reason to go into Wonder Woman not thinking of it
as a franchise. Make the effort. Have the cameras rolling on the second one before the first one opens. Put
everything you can into making her the star that you say you want her to be.
See, thats the thing: You talk about people saying its hard to do a Wonder Woman movie. It aint that hard, folks,
and I know that because they have already mapped out how you do it. The character work of Captain America, the
sweeping mythology of Thor, the all-ages appeal of The Incredibles, the engaging personalities of stuff like Tangled.
Its all out there already, and youre starting with a character whos already on t-shirts, who people already know
and want to like. If thats hard, then how the hell did we get a movie about Green Lantern?

Read More: Ask Chris #193: Let's Pitch A Wonder Woman Movie | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-193-letspitch-a-wonder-woman-movie/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #192: Power Rangers RPM Is The Darkest Timeline

by Chris Sims April 18, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: What was so good about Power Rangers RPM? @ykarps

A: Thats right, everyone: After deciding on a whim last year to sit down and watch every single episode of Power
Rangers ever produced, all seven hundred and seventy-five (and counting), and last week, I finally did it when I
made it through 2009s Power Rangers RPM. Id already seen Samurai, and Id been watching Megaforce as it aired,
so that was it. And I wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
But while I was watching it, I came to the conclusion that as much as I like Samurai and Jungle Fury and Ninja
Storm in which a trio of teens give up on hiding their Kiwi accents about six episodes in theres not even a
contest about which series is the best. RPM wins that argument hands down and I kind of hate to say that.

Long-time CA readers, or, lets be honest here, anyone Ive ever talked to for five minutes who has gotten a sense of
my towering ego, may be tempted to think that this is because it means that I have to admit that I was
wr underinformed when I talked about how much I loved Samurai and the utter weirdness of teens inheriting a
battle against nightmare creatures that came through the shadows and cracks in buildings in order to harvest the
tears of innocent humans so they could sail their monster ship in from the Nightosphere. Thats not it not
entirely, anyway. That show still rules and I stand by all statements previously made with regards to its ruling.
RPM, though, pretty much blows it away on every level, except for maybe the costume designs. Its better acted,
better written, the cast has chemistry that the Samurai rangers really lack and a romance subplot that was actually
engaging and subtle, two things that are rarely seen in the entire franchise. It takes the existing formula and does
new things with it that no other series had done, and it all works really well. But the other reason its so good, the
one that makes me almost hate to admit how great it is, is that it is dark.
And when I say dark, I dont mean that its dark by Power Rangers standards. Its dark by mass media standards. I
was describing it to Matt Wilson on an episode of War Rocket Ajax last week, and I was talking about the origin of
their mentor, Dr. K. I got to the part about how their mentor is a young woman who was abducted and put into a
secret Government think tank codenamed Alphabet Soup, where they stripped her of her identity and designated
her with a single letter before putting her to work designing weapons. Then I told him about the flashback where
shes sitting in a room on a chair thats too small, being presented with a birthday cake by her two faceless
supervisors who have brainwashed her into thinking shes too sick to ever go out into the sunlight, and how they
take away the cake before she can eat it and tell her to get back to work after she makes her birthday wish, and her
response is I wish I could remember my name

Matts response: That sounds like some Hideo Kojima s**t.

Hes not wrong, and thats far from an isolated incident. This is a show where the premise involves most of
humanity being wiped out by a sentient computer virus called Venjix that has devoted itself to launching constant
assaults on the last outpost of the human race in order to kill the majority of the population and enslave the rest.
Theres a sequence of episodes devoted to the origin stories of each of the characters of which Dr. Ks is the
climax where you find out that Ranger Yellows parents are trying to sell her into an arranged marriage because
theyve gone broke, and that the reason she became a Power Ranger is because she watched the only person who
ever actually cared about her die in front of her when the virus attacked. She never learned his first name either.
Its kind of a recurring theme.
And it goes on from there. Ranger Green is wanted dead by the mob, Ranger Red is trying to live up to the legacy of
a brother who died in the initial war against Venjix. The Gold and Silver Rangers who show up in the middle of the
season were Dr. Ks only friends at Alphabet Soup, two twins who finish each others sentences and return to the
show revealing that they survived and engaged Venjix in asymmetrical warfare from the Cursed Earth and are now
obsessed with explosions. Theyre often the comic relief, but when you get right down to it, theyre essentially a
cheerfully traumatized pair of child soldiers.

So yeah. Its dark. Which is especially weird, because as I understand it, the source material, Engine Sentai GoOnger, is about racecar drivers and their talking cars that look like cute stuffed animals. And for me, that makes it
really hard to talk about, because the dark stuff is often whats really interesting about the show, and that makes it
sound way more problematic than it actually is.
Superhero comic books heck, superheroes in general have a problem with darkness. Thats not news, and
odds are pretty good that youve heard that same thing before, probably from me, but it remains a huge problem
within the genre. Theres this false idea thats taken root at the heart of a segment of supehero fans that equates
cynicism with maturity, and it pretty much ruins everything. Comics, at least, seem like they might finally be
shaking it off, but in mass media, we have some moron claiming that a character like Captain America, a character
created to represent the best of us and be an inspiration for the values that were supposed to believe in even if the
reality doesnt always measure up, can only be interesting if hes a jingoistic, imperialist asshole. There was a
movie about the Avengers where a battle for the actual, honest-to-God fate of the world wasnt enough to motivate
them to become a team and they had to be lied to about the death of someone they knew so they could really work
up the energy to go out there and nuke some aliens. And we have a Superman movie, a Superman movie marketed
to children (they sent me review copies of the I Can Read! storybooks and stickers to prove it) that ends with
Superman deciding that the villain is right and that he can only win by using his super-powers to kill someone, a
movie that was filtered to a flat grey because the people who made it are so ashamed of people thinking Superman
is a cartoon character for children, which he is, that they didnt even want to take the risk of putting a bright color
on the screen.
Its a problem.
And because of that, I feel like I have to qualify my enjoyment of any piece of superhero media that veers towards
darkness. And, to be honest, its why I cant really bring myself to fault Power Rangers Megaforce, which is not very
good, for its pretty simplistic, reductive message of The Environment Is Good. Or, in their case, the
envahrnment. I will never understand why Robo Knight has a Southern Accent, but, whatever, its good for the
kids.

As a result, the conversations Ive been having about RPM all tend to start with Well, its really dark, but
because a superhero concept thats dark and morally conflicted has become something that I increasingly loathe
just on general principle. And Ive finished that sentence with a lot of different words, like its dark, but its really
smart, or its dark but the cast is great, but theres one thing that I think sums it up better than anything else, and
explains why the shows so good.
Its dark, but it isnt cynical.
That cynicism, especially cynicism in childrens media, is what really bugs me. The idea that heroism and kindness
arent valuable is the sticking point, not the idea that you can tell stories where bad things happen. RPM is super
dark, particularly when it comes to the origin stories, but its also a very hopeful show, all things considered. Dr. K
makes a perfect example her character evolves and changes from this maladjusted, hidden figure who will only
refer to the team by their color designation to someone who cares about the people around her, fighting to protect
them rather than fighting to fix her own mistake. The emotion on display when she finds out that the only two
friends she has ever had in her life arent dead because of something she did is pretty amazing.
It helps that the cast is actually really solid arguably the best that the series has ever seen but its just as
important that the show is smart. Theres a balance between darkness and comedy, between fear and hope that
never skews too far in either direction. Its never so bright that the action isnt thrilling, and its never so dark that
it seems mired down in despair. Although, that said, it actually is really funny, especially the episode where Ranger
Green starts asking why there are always explosions behind them whenever they transform, and then uses this
knowledge to defeat a monster.
Its shockingly character-driven, too. Most of the shows are focused on the toyetic stuff and keep introducing
different robots, but RPM had less of the mechs than any series I can remember. I dont even remember what most
of their robots looked like, because the shows were so driven by character interaction and the overarching story.
Just the very idea of giving the characters origins so that each one was driven by an individual motivation rather
than just standing around the juice bar when a floating head happened to need five teens of various social
archetypes alone sets it apart.
Really, it comes down to being an engaging, well-produced treatment of the thing that super
sentai (and tokusatsu in general) tends to do very well: Heroics that are free of cynicism, presented in a world

where friendship, loyalty and kindness are as important as robots punching each other. The difference is
that RPM does it differently, and while that definitely involves more darkness than what had been done before or
since, its more about being smart.
Also, these two dang ol cuties got married in real life.

That cheers me up almost as much as Bulk and Skull being IRL best friends.

Read More: Ask Chris #192: 'Power Rangers RPM' Is The Darkest Timeline | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris192-power-rangers-rpm-is-the-darkest-timeline/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #191: Dr. Doom, The Gold Standard Of Comic Book Villainy
by Chris Sims April 11, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Why is Doctor Doom the gold standard of supervillains? @franzferdinand2

A: In case you missed it a few weeks back, I wrote a column about the differences between Lex Luthor and the
Joker, and mentioned that while those are two characters I like an awful lot, Dr. Doom is far and away the gold
standard of supervillainy. Hes compelling, hes sinister, hes got a great design thats lasted, virtually unchanged,
for 50 years, and he can be dropped into almost any type of story and work beautifully. In short, hes the single
greatest villain in superhero comics history.
Well, unless you count Bob Kane, but thats a whole other thing.

What makes Dr. Doom so great or at least, one of the things, and arguably the most important is how
adaptable he is. It might just be because my attention span was rotted away at a very young age by the Nintendo
Entertainment System, but Ive always been drawn to characters that can work in a wide variety of stories. It helps
them stand the test of time, that the core of the character can remain solid while everything else can be shifted and
arranged to get the most out of a situation.
Batmans probably the best example of that, because there are so many different versions of him that have been so
prominent over the years that its kind of become his calling card. The gritty vigilante is just as valid as the campy
crimefighter, whos just as valid as the world traveling adventurer, and the idea that all of these things can coexist
is a huge part f what I love about that dude, but hes not the only one. If you go down the list of my favorite
characters, youll see that its a common trait. Spider-Man and the Thing have long series that are all about teaming
them up with whoever wasnt busy that month. Even Jimmy Olsen, whos tied in so tightly with not just a single
character, but a single era of that characters 75-year history, is a character whose strange transformations
became a running gag that was always leading to something that was new and weird.

Even at their best though, none of them work quite as well as Dr. Doom, if only because Dr. Doom is extremely
adaptable, without requiring you to change anything about his character. With a few minor exceptions, most of
which are purely cosmetic, there are no distinct eras of Dr. Doom. Theres just one continuous character who
works perfectly in a wide variety of stories.
And the amazing thing is, hes been like that since day one.

Im always fasciated by the way that characters evolve and change over the years again, this is something Ive
thought a lot about when it comes to Batman but Dr. Doom is one of those rare major characters that arrives
fully formed. Batman, Superman, even the Fantastic Four themselves all took a little while to find their footing and
really become the characters that we know. I mean, Batman didnt even have dead parents until six months in. But
Doom? Dooms pretty much been Dr. Doom since that very first panel.
Sure, the design was refined a little and made more superheroic (like the Mole Man and Namor, Dooms original
look feels like it was a throwback to the pre-Marvel days of Golden Age Timely books and Atlas monster comics),
and sadly, that vulture never really made a return appearance, and he has, of course, been built on and refined
since then, but in terms of personality, its all there. The ego, the hatred, the ruthlessness and deception, the

pettiness, the excess dude just casually sits there petting a tiger like its not even a thing its all right there from
the first story. Which, I feel I should remind you, is about Dr. Doom sending the Fantastic Four back in time to steal
pirate treasure.
Incidentally, I love the fact that Dr. Doom just cold built a time machine in his first appearance and is using it for
what amounts to petty (if mystical) thievery, and that this is such a founding moment for the Marvel Universe that
his Time Platform has become something thats just casually referened and accepted as part of the world those
characters live in. Referring to the energy trace of time travel as Von Doom radiation is literally my favorite nonNextwave thing that Warren Ellis has ever written:

But yeah, everythings there. Hes adept at both science and sorcery, he hates Reed Richards because of what he
saw as a challenge to his intelligence, and he sees other people as pawns in his complicated schemes for
domination. Hes the monarch of a foreign country, which brings a global scale to the New York-based Marvel
Universe in a way that even introducing invading aliens didnt. And all of that adds up to one very important aspect
of Dr. Doom: Hes not just a Fantastic Four villain, hes a Marvel Universe villain.
And really, hes the first one. He may have even been the first in superhero comics Superman and Batman had
been teaming up since the 40s along with the original Justice Society, but nobody had really made the concerted
effort to build a cohesive universe in the way that Lee and Kirby (and Ditko, and Ayers, and Heck, etc.) were doing

at Marvel. Part of that just meant that superheroes could hang out together, but it was just as important that
the villains could float from one book to another, too. Before Doom, the antagonists for the FF had been characters
that would become pretty solidly entrenched as Fantastic Four Villains, like the Mole Man. Namor, even after he
flipped back into being a protagonist, remains primarily associated with the FF, even though hes been a Defender,
an Avenger, an Invader and an X-Man, and even though he started 20 years earlier as a solo act. The Skrulls would
get there eventually, but it wouldnt be until the 70s that they really became a cosmic threat, and even then,
individual characters like the Super-Skrull, Paibok and Lyja the Lazer-Fist (the best name in comics) would be
inextricably linked with the FF.
You could argue that Dr. Doom is, too, since his major motivation from the start was his intense, specific hatred of
Reed Richards, but he branches out very early. Hes as much a villain for the FF as anyone, sure, but its not at all
out of the question for him to show up and ruin Spider-Mans day, either.

That story happens in 1963, right at the beginning of the Marvel Universe, and it sets a precedent that shapes the
entire line from that point on, specifically Doom. Because the superheroes are so closely knit, because they do hang
out together, and because Doom has that science and sorcery thing that gives him so many different story hooks,
he can show up anywhere.
He and Captain America can team up for international intrigue. He and Iron Man can time travel to the days of King
Arthur and battle against or alongside Morgan Le Fey:

This, by the way, happens three times and it is amazing.

He and Dr. Strange can descend into Hell and battle the devil himself Mephisto for the soul of Dooms dead mother:

He can even show up to fight the Punisher, and it works every time.
Because of all that, because hes not defined by his relationship with a single character to be honest, most of my
favorite Doom stories arent Fantastic Four stories at all, although I definitely love those too and because theres
such a strong, adaptable base to work from, Doom has really been shaped into a great character. Its almost like
watching the development and evolution of a protagonist, because you can see him in these different situations
that bring out and refine different aspects, in the same way that a protagonist develops from battling against
different villains and being in different situations. But theres one difference.
Doom isnt a protagonist. Doom is utterly, relentlessly, remorselessly evil. And thats great.
Everything Doom does is in service to himself, and everything is hindered by his fatal flaw, a towering ego that
simply refuses to believe that he can possibly fail. To Doom, every failure is simply a minor setback, nothing more,
just another slight to be avenged at a later date, and every single thing that he does is geared towards getting to
that later date and finally having his revenge. Even in a story like Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom: Triumph and Torment,
in which Doom is as close to being the good guy as he can possibly be (because hes, you know, fighting against
the devil for the soul of his mom), hes still full of secretive plans and machinations, and hindered by his own
indomitable ego. Even when his mothers soul is at stake, Doom will not lower himself to beg for help. She is less
important to him than his own pride.
The thing is, Dr. Doom is so full of ego, so utterly confident in himself and that his heinous acts are excusable in
pursuit of his own benevolent mastery of the world (and that hes been written so well over the years) that even

readers and occasionally creators have bought into it. Mark Waid famously talked about how Doom is regal, but
not noble that hed tear the head off a newborn baby and eat it like an apple while his mother watched if it
would somehow prove he were smarter than Reed. And hes right that ego is his driving force. Its not that his
mother is suffering, not really. Its that he has to conquer death and Hell itself to get back something that was taken
from him. Even his mothers soul is a possession it belongs to Doom, and that a demon holds it captive is
effrontery that will not stand.
I mean, this is a guy who built an army of robots that look and think exactly like him, and frequently blames his
failures on their malfunctions. This is a guy who not only stole the Silver Surfers powers, but made sure to put
the Surfer in a room where he could see space so hed know exactly what he was missing out on while he was
locked up in Doomsdadt. He is in no way acting for the benefit of others.
I mentioned that Doom is remorselessly evil, and I was speaking literally about that, because its exactly the plot of
one of my all-time favorite stories, Paul Tobin, Patrick Sherberger and David Baldeons Dr. Doom and the Masters
of Evil. It was originally realased back in 2009 as part of the stealth All Ages line that also gave us Spider-Man and
the Secret Wars (the one where Brian Clevinger brought back U.S. 1 as U.S.Ace [Edit: That was actually Avengers
and the Infinity Gauntlet]) and Iron Man and the Armor Wars (which had nothing to do with the original Armor
Wars storyline, but was extremely awesome), and since it had cartoony art and was ostensibly made for kids, a lot
of readers missed out on it.
Ive been trying to get people to buy those books since they came out, especially Dr. Doom, so Ive really tried hard
not to spoil Tobins incredible twist ending for anyone going in. That said, its been five years and you can buy it for
literally one penny on Amazon, so it is now officially Not My Problem if you havent read it.
So heres how it ends.
For the entire story, Doom is leading various teams of supervillains to accomplish different goals, setting up heists
and missions to get to this mystical site that will grant him one irrevocable wish. The implication, both to the
readers and the characters, is that Dooms wish is going to be to just instantly destroy Reed Richards, because why
wouldnt it be?
Its not.

Dooms wish is to eliminate his own conscience, to free himself from any sense of doubt and guilt. To always think
to always know that what he is doing is right, even if its tearing the head off a baby and eating it like an apple.
He will never regret an action, hell never wonder if he should do things differently or if he should try to be a better
person, because he no longer can. All thats left is that ruthless, relentless surety in himself, that indomitable ego.
Its one of the perfect Doom stories, and if you accept that as part of the character, it makes him equally compelling
and terrifying. Who wouldnt want to lead a life with no regrets or guilt? But who would want that if it meant you
could never know if youd become a monster? Is the surety that youre the hero worth never knowing if youre
actually the villain?
For Doom, it is, because for Doom, theres only one person who matters.

Read More: Ask Chris #191 Dr. Doom, The Standard Of Comic Book Villainy | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-191-dr-doom-the-gold-standard-of-comic-book-villainy/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #190: The Best First Three Comic Pages Ever
by Chris Sims April 4, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Supposedly it takes three pages to hook a reader before they drop off, so what are the best opening
three pages in a comic? @shutupadiran
A: Huh. I dont think its going to surprise anyone to find out that Im a dude who thinks a lot about how comic
books are structured and what you can do within that structure, but Ive never heard that bit about the first three
pages being where you have to hook the reader. It makes sense, though when you look at it, those first three
pages, along with the cover, form a distinct storytelling unit, and its the first thing you see when you pick up and
pop open a comic.
Thinking back on comics that I love, theres a really distinct pattern there. I like stuff that builds to a big last page
just fine, but the ones that I tend to rave about when those first issues hit always open up strong. Its like the first
five seconds of a song. Some of them might build to a crescendo as they go along, but when you have something like
the famous beat from Be My Baby or the opening harmonics from I Get Around, you knowinstantly that youve
got something.

The reason that its the first three pages and not just page one (or even just the cover, really) comes from the way
that comics are built. They offer a lot of interesting ways to structure a story, and the three-page opening sequence
is one thats completely unique to the medium. When you open one up assuming, of course, that your story
doesnt begin on the inside front cover and that youre not dealing with a recap page then page one exists on its
own. Its a right-hand page, which means that its a distinct unit unto itself, but when you turn, youre given an
entirely new storytelling unit: Two pages side by side. That might not seem like much, but it opens up an entire
world of possibilities, from double-page splashes to symmetrical layouts to creating patterns or even just ignoring
it and treating the panels as distinct units.
Theres a lot going on there, and its something that really only comes from print comics. With webcomics, there
are other things you can do, whether its animated gifs or hidden alt text or using Scott McClouds idea of the
infinite page, and with digital comics like you get from a CBR file or Comixology, its another whole new ball
game. Those are only designed to show one page at a time one panel, if youre reading on a phone, which is why
Roberson and Culvers Edison Rex is built on a rigid grid and so you get an entirely different set of possibilities
and limitations. iPads arent meant to show double-page spreads, but they can show transitions and changes from
panel-to-panel like you get from the digital versions of Batman 66, Marvels Infinite Comics or
the Thrillbent books. Theres a different structure from each, but its worth noting that they all rely on the act of
turning a page (or clicking a button to advance the story), an action on the part of the reader, to control the pacing
and form what makes a unit of the story.
Listen. I told you I think about this stuff a lot.
Thats one of the reasons that Im really surprised I havent encountered the three-pages rule before, actually. Not
to get too self-promotional here in this column that already has my name in big purple letters up at the top, but this
is something that Ive run into a lot when it comes to writing my own comics. It was particularly tough
with Dracula the Unconquered, the (very) irregular series that I do with Steve Downer and Josh Krach, because
there were so many ways I wanted that story to be able to break down. I wanted it to be a 24-page complete story
in each issue, so thats one unit, and I wanted to do a classic three-act structure with three eight-page acts, so thats
another, and within that, I wanted to make sure that the first six pages, which I planned to put up as a free preview,
had enough to grab the reader and get that sweet, sweet dollar. Juggling all that and making it fit into a single issue
was pretty complicated, and I remember being really frustrated trying to make it work in that first issue.

My initial plan was to open with an ominous speech from the villain as they dug up Draculas coffin and broke
through all the protective spells and such, but it was throwing off everything else. It was clich, and worse, it
was boring. In the end, I just decided to throw it all out and open with the part that was exciting, which was Dracula
just sitting up in the coffin with the stake pulled free from his heart and just go from there. Draculas alive again,
and thats where were starting. Explaining stuff is for nerds.
Anyway, thats enough about my comics for now (ha ha, j/k, it will never be enough).
Historically speaking, Id guess that the whole first three pages thing only really became the standard in the 70s.
Before that, in the Golden and Silver Ages, three pages was almost half of your story, so the idea was to hook them
with the cover and the opening splash, which is why they were doing stuff like putting gorillas on as many comics
as they possibly could. But as the single issue became the dominant unit, that opening became much more
important. And, conversely, as the preferred structure moved towards the paperback/hardcover market, the first
three pages lost importance, instead moving to having a compelling last page at the end of your first
issue/chapter to bring people back for the rest of the book, which was really frustrating if you were still reading
those stories as individual issues. Which, you know, is how they were still being published.
As for who does it best, well, I hate to stick with the usual suspects when it comes to this sort of thing, but when I
think about comics that have a strong opening particularly a strong opening in the first issue of a run, because
thats when its really important its not exactly surprising which names start coming up. The first one that
popped into my mind was, of course, Walter Simonson, who, alongside letterer John Workman, kicks
offThor #337 with one of the most amazing openings ever:

size

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Without even mentioning Thor, the Gods, or even really whats happening and what its going to set up, Simonson
takes things into an astonishingly epic direction from the first sentence. Seriously. The core of an ancient
galaxy explodes! Thats the first thing that happens in this run. And as it progresses, as you turn the page, it just
keeps building, with this towering figure looming in space, ominously swinging around pieces of stars before
bringing it down on some cosmic anvil with a resounding DOOM!
I love that DOOM!, by the way. Its the best. Its a sound effect, a premonition, and a story title all in one, and it
caps off this sort of cold open before we shift to Don Blake on the next page. Its a great opening.
Unsurprisingly Grant Morrison is another creator who comes to mind. I used the opening to All Star
Superman with Frank Quitely above, and its worth noting that while everyone (myself included) always
remembers it for the four-panel, eight-word origin recap, that the final touch to that is seeing Superman himself on
the page, flying through the suns corona to rescue the space capsule. Its a beautiful image thats set up by those
four previous panels, but its also the key to the entire story: That moment is when hes being poisoned by the sun,
setting everything else in motion.
Morrison and Andy Kubert pull a similar trick in Batman #655, too, with the pages that launched Morrison into a
long tenure shaping the franchise:

size

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Man. That is a crazy couple of pages, but it really does set the tone of the entire run, the idea of playing with
identity and what it means to be Batman, impostors and replacements and the Joker weaving through the entire
story. Its got everything but zurr-en-arrh, and even that shows up as graffiti a few pages later. But if you were
reading that when it came out? When all you knew was that Grant Morrison, whose most recent work involved
launching an X-Men story by blowing up Genosha, was taking over Batman? Then seeing a Joker-poisoned
Commissioner Gordon being thrown off a building and then Batman being beaten to death on page three was pretty
shocking stuff. It was certainly compelling, even if you couldnt quite wrap your head around what was going on yet.
Plus, the Joker being so ecstatic about killing Batman in front of a bunch of vulnerable disabled kids cracks me up
every time. Just cartoon evil, that guy.
There are others that are more than solid, too. Mark Waid is, as you may know from the past 20 years of amazing
comics, pretty good at writing first issues, and Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon are no slouch either. Their cold
open to their first issue of Punisher is pretty much a perfect summary of the character:

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size

But if you want to know who did it best, then theres really no question. Its Kirby. Of course its Kirby.
Kirby had a particular knack for his openings, even more than, you know, everything else about superhero comics. I
wouldnt be surprised if he was the one who came up with the whole three-page rule, because thats exactly what
he did in his comics and he did it in a very particular way that made the most of the form, especially in the 70s
when he was unleashed on comics to do his own thing. Those books were always built with the same format: Page
1: Full page Splash. Pages 2 and 3: Double-page splash. Ive always called the technique Kirbyscope, although Im
not sure where I picked that up, but it is astonishingly effective. In fact, if you go back up, youll notice that Morrison
favors that double-page splash once you turn the page too.
The one that always gets the most attention, maybe the most famous three-page opening in comics history, comes
from New Gods #1, and it is a classic:

size

Click for full

THERE CAME A TIME WHEN THE OLD GODS DIED! is probably the single best sentence that has ever opened a
comic book, especially when you consider that this was Kirby debuting a new comic book mythology after leaving
Marvel, shots across the bow that let you know that were done talking about Thor. Theres so much text, but its
done with that sweeping, bombastic grandeur of worlds being destroyed and remade and Orion flying closer to the
reader that you dont really notice. Its just big.
Its arguably the best opening the New Gods were certainly the height of Kirby as capital letters JACK KIRBY
but that said, its not my favorite. For that, its the sheer unrestrained destruction of OMAC #1.

Click for full size

To get the full effect of this one, you really have to see the cover, too, if only to remark about how strange it is. Im
pretty sure thats one of the reasons that OMAC was a relatively obscure Kirby book for so many years, because it
just looks so weird right from the start. Its dominated by text, with the central figure being a tiny image of the main
character throwing what appears to be a box of dismembered woman at you, the reader. Kirby, incidentally, had a
thing for addressing and assaulting the reader on the cover theres an issue of The Demon where Etrigan is on
the cover pointing at someone in the foreground (and, not coincidentally, the person looking at the comic),
shouting IM UNLEASHING EVERY HORRIBLE THING YOUR MIND CAN IMAGINE CAN YOU TAKE IT?! which is a
pretty difficult challenge for a young reader can resist. But OMAC #1 and its box of lady parts is on a whole other
level.
It is, to say the least, slightly off-putting, and when you crack this thing open, it doesnt get any more sane or
reasonable on page one. Just a close-up of that same box o lady, this time with a label identifying her as a talking
BUILD A FRIEND and dialogue that indicates shes some kind of prefab sex doll. Then, if youre still here, you turn
the page, and theres the One Man Army Corps, losing his s**t and getting ready to destroy this whole thing.
And in those three pages, you learn everything you need to know about OMAC.
1: He is OMAC, the One Man Army Corps.
2: He broke in here against impossible odds.

3: He lives in a future thats full of weird and upsetting stuff, the same stuff thats weird and upsetting for you, the
reader, and he is here to destroy the hell out of it.
The crazy thing about OMAC okay, one of the crazy things about OMAC is how prescient it is for 1974, full of
nuclear tension and people selling water, battles against the super-rich, weird fetishes and stories of plastic
surgery gone awry. Its like the dude had a time machine that brought him TMZ headlines from 40 years later and
was filtering it down into sci-fi comics. Its not as grand as New Gods or as fun as Kamandi, but its my favorite for
exactly that reason. And this opening, this crazy sensory overload that Kirby throws at everyone, barreling at them
in the same way that time itself is inevitable and passes without letting you catch up, is fantastic.
Although to be fair, OMAC #2s opening might be better, since it involves punching seven people at the same time.

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Ask Chris #189: Batmans 75th Anniversary

by Chris Sims March 28, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: What does Batmans 75th Anniversary mean to you? Caleb, via e-mail
A: Thats a tough question. I mean, as you have probably noticed if youve spent more than five or six seconds
browsing ComicsAlliance, Ive written about Batman before. Ive written about Batman before today. Thats how
much it happens. But to be honest, I dont really think of things in terms of big anniversaries as much as I think of
them as slow, ongoing processes that see those characters change. Its the long-term view that I like, where you
take a look back and see what stays consistent to form the core of the character, rather than trying to fit it all in at
once.
So really, I guess thats as good a place to go with this as any. Batmans 75th Anniversary (with his first appearance
in Detective Comics #27 in 1939) marks three quarters of a century of Batmans evolution as a character, from
those pretty sketchy beginnings all the way to today, refining what works best to make the character. And really,
its that evolution, compressed into 75 years by hundreds of creators and corporate interests working to refine the
character, is pretty fascinating to think about.

When you get right down to it, Batman began as a synthesis. Not just a synthesis of Bob Kanes terrible original idea
for a dude in red pajamas swooping around on wings and Bill Fingers ideas for literally everything else, but as a
synthesis of everything else that was going on in pop culture at the time. Ive written before about how Batman in
his original form is a pretty direct descendent and, if were not going to be all that charitable about it, kind of a
total rip-off of the Shadow, and if you look back, I think thats a connection that holds up. The Shadow was at the
height of his pulp and radio popularity, doing big business by informing listeners every week that about the bitter
fruit borne by the weed of crime, and you can see how that popularity informed the early development of Batman.
The millionaire alter-ego, the dry and brutal early stories, the guns that were in place before they started to
distinguish Bruce Wayne from Lamont Cranston by giving him a different origin. Even the Yellow Peril villains and
the strange adventures fighting vampires one moment and mobsters the next, thats all stuff lifted directly from the
Shadow and dropped onto the comics page.
The difference is that Bill Finger and Kane (or, more appropriately, whomever was ghosting for Kane that day)
were filtering those ideas out of the pulps and into an entirely new medium and an entirely new genre: the
superhero.
See, despite the occasional attempt to take him back to his pulpy roots, Batman was never actually a pulp
character. He was a pulp-inspired superhero, and while that might seem like nitpicking over semantics, it makes a
lot of difference. The creators of the Golden Age were in this unique position of having to figure out what the rules
of a medium and the conventions of a genre were while they were making the stories that they were trying to sell
to readers. Its what makes Golden Age books seem so weird. They read like the people behind them had no idea
what comic book stories are supposed to be, largely because they didnt. They had no idea what they were doing,
which is why you get stories like Rockman, the Underground Super Agent, the king of a subterranean city who digs
through to the surface so he can fight Nazis, or Marvex, the Super Robot, who has to keep informing human women
that he can never love him because he is Marvex, a Super Robot, proving his point by pulling his clothes off to
reveal his metal chest. They are weird.

But if you were paying attention in that last paragraph, the one about Super Agents and Super Robots, you might
have already guessed where a lot of them were looking for guidance: Action Comics and Superman. As the
pioneering figure of the genre (who was himself informed by pulp characters like Doc Savage and Philip
Wylies Gladiator), Superman inspired a bunch of imitators that were trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle.
Those stories, from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (and other creators that included, not coincidentally, Bill Finger),
were the foundation of the rules that the entire genre was built on, from storytelling conventions to the way
characters were supposed to look. Superheroes having a code against killing, for instance, is something that Id
argue stems directly from Superman, because his creators realized early on that a super-powered killer, even if
justified, would be a terrifying bully rather than an inspirational source of hope. The codified establishment of a
secret identity. I mean, the very idea of superheroes wearing capes, and that we still refer to cape comics to this
day as a shorthand for a genre, even though they havent been a fashionable part of the design since around 1954.
That all comes from those early rules.
Incidentally, its worth noting that even more important than being first is the fact that Superman was a massive
success in terms of sales, too. Its no surprise that people people like Bob Kane wanted the money that came
along with the emerging superhero genre, so they hewed close to the ideas that had already been established. Its
one of the reasons that the Silver Age came to be dominated by the aesthetic that you think of when you hear those
words you know, massively overpowered heroes, silly plots, gorillas because it all stems from Otto Binder
and Captain Marvel Adventures, which was outselling Superman in the 40s before the lawsuit cut it off at the pass.
My point is, thats the environment for which Batman was created, the influences that shaped him and gave us our
starting point: A synthesis of the darker pulp adventure hero with the shiny new comic book superhero. Hes
mutable from day one, changing and evolving and refining over the years, and you can see it start to happen almost
immediately, because the first big evolution comes only five issues after the origin locks Batman into place as his
own character: The debut of Robin.

Ive written about Robin pretty extensively in the past so Ill try to keep this short, but again, its one of those
moments where you can see the conventions and tropes of a genre becoming written in stone as youre reading.
Sidekicks had existed before, of course, from Iolaus to Dr. Watson, but Robin was a whole new kind of sidekick that
gave rise to a hundred imitators. Bucky, Kid Flash, Stuff the Chinatown Kid, Wing, Sandy the Golden Boy the list
goes on. And oddly enough, its where you can see Batman and Superman separate as the defining leaders of the
genre. Even if Jimmy Olsen was meant to function in a similar sort of role, Superman never had a sidekick in the
same way that Batman did.
Its a really interesting move, because it changes not just the direction of the genre, but the direction of
the character himself. Things start to move and shift to accommodate something thats popular and lucrative that
readers are demanding, so we see Batman shifting even further from the dark gunman of the Shadow and towards
the character that we know today, the one built, at his heart, around ideas of family.
The years that follow see a host of really interesting slow changes that build on each other, making this chain that
leads you right until today, with outside forces and internal development all forcing Batman to evolve and change.
There are so many stories, so many influences and so many subtle changes and refinements that wed be here all
day if we tried to cover them all, so lets follow one particular chain for a few years and see where it leads, shall we?
The comics code and its prohibitions against capital-C Crime comics (of which Detective Comics, by its very nature,
certainly was) make it more difficult to show the gun-toting mobsters that had been Batmans primary opponents

through the 40s, so the result is the weird sci-fi Batman era of the 50s, full of alien worlds and rainbow
monsters.

Those stories get increasingly bizarre, paving the way for the kind of bizarre crimes of the Arch-Criminal era of
the 60s. Those stories saw a focus on elaborate deathtraps, byzantine criminal plots and obsessive nemeses for the
Caped Crusader (and the Boy Wonder) to foil, and we all know where that leads: Batman on ABC-TV as a massive
pop-cultural force and 50 years of Biff! Pow! headlines whenever comics make the news.
Now, its easy to see what happens next as a simple backlash to the 50s and 60s, but things like this
rarely just move backwards. Batman becomes slightly darker as creators push him in a more serious direction to
shake off the stigma of the silly TV show, sure, but theres also another outside influence shaping how he changes:
James Bond.
Theres been a connection between those two franchises ever since they both hit a critical mass of popularity in the
60s. In a way, they mirror each other really closely, each focused on the idea of a highly trained but otherwise
ordinary man who is, in reality, an unstoppable and indestructible ultra-competent crusader hell-bent on carrying
on a mission with the aid of assorted fantastical gadgetry and occasional scoldings from an older Englishman. And
really, if you doubt that theyre still influencing each other to this very day, just go watch The Dark
Knight and Skyfall back to back and see if you notice any similarities.
(Hint: You will notice the entire movie.)

So building on that connection, with Bond as the sort of blueprint for the contemporary adventure hero in the same
way that the Shadow was the blueprint in the 40s, you see Batman reshaped into more of a worldwide
crimefighter, an adventurer on the global scale. Denny ONeil and Neal Adamss Ras al-Ghul stories are essentially
just Bond movies with the martini and Walther swapped out for a cowl and a batarang. They even dispense with
the pretense of a secret identity, and throw in an alluring femme fatale just to complete the circle.

And it continues from there on through to today, as pop culture evolves and Batman evolves right along with it to
reflect the times. Bits and pieces of the past are discarded and retrieved, ignored and restored, examined and
altered as new pieces are added to fill out parts of the puzzle and make those things mean something different. You
can see it happening in the move away from Year One in recent years, a move that doesnt try to deny the
importance of that story, but seeks to recontextualize it (like Morrison and Daniel in Batman) and build on what it
already established (like whats going on right now in Zero Year). Its a process thats been going on now for 75
years, and the result is a character with a rare combination of a solid core that can still adapt to new stories and
situations as time goes on. Its why Batmans my favorite character, and why I think about him constantly.
And hopefully, the next 75 years will bring out even more.

Read More: Ask Chris #189: Batman's 75th Anniversary | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-189-batmans75th-anniversary/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #188: Lex Luthor And The Joker

by Chris Sims March 21, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Who do you find more psychologically interesting, the Joker or Lex Luthor? Jordan, via email
A: You know, its weird. As much as you see Superman and Batman together in stories where theyre continually
contrasted against each other, full of endlessly terrible first-person narration about how Clark likes pancakes
because he cant understand what it means to be vulnerable but Bruce always told me Alfred makes the best French
toast, he has so much trouble trusting others or whatever, their arch-nemeses dont often get compared with each
other in the same way. They team up from time to time, sure, but usually the focus is just on their common goal of
murdering the good guys, so you dont get too much there. That said, I like both of those characters a lot, and after
thinking about it, Ive come to the conclusion that as the Worlds Foremost Batmanologist, as someone who has
written extensively about the Joker and his relationship with Batman, its definitely Lex Luthor.
Boom. Yall just got swerved.

Dont get me wrong, its not that I dont think the Joker is interesting, not by a long shot. Hes up there with Dr.
Doom, who I think we can all agree is the gold standard, as one of the greatest villains in comics history. But at the
same time, hes not really all that complex. Not really.
When you get right down to it, the Joker is actually very simple. No matter what version of the character youre
looking at, hes only ever motivated by one thing, and thats that he wants to defeat Batman and I say defeat
instead of kill because murder is only part of the equation. Its a big part of it, because it tends to make for the
most thrilling straightforward adventure story, but its certainly not the only thing. Its the common factor to
everything he does, whether its trying to push Batman into crossing the line and taking a life or trying to win a
surfing competition to become king of the beach. Its all about proving Batmans fallibility and mortality, and with
it, that everything Batman stands for is fallible and mortal, that it can all be destroyed with just the right
application of death and destruction.
And really, that makes sense. In a world where everyone and their cousins dog has seen The Dark Knight, its
pretty clich to talk about how the Joker is (sigh) an agent of chaos, but in a lot of ways, thats true. Batmans
entire deal is that a random act of violence cost him everything as a child, taking away safety and comfort, and his
response is to grow up dedicated to imposing order on a chaotic world. He becomes a crimefighter, and crime by
its very nature is chaotic. The Joker disrupts that order, but the thing is, he does it in a very calculated way.
Everything he does is designed around a specific goal, a twisted love letter to one person. Everything else is
incidental.
Thats what makes the Joker such a compelling villain, because while the goal is always the same, the method of
attack is always different. Is he going to poison all the fish in Gotham City and then use that as an excuse for a series
of murders, setting up a game with rules that dont make any sense to complicate the simple fact that hes killing to
prove that he simply cant be stopped? Is he going to set up an elaborate killing spree built on misdirection, where
all the death and suffering is only a side effect of the true plan? Is he going to shape an impressionable young
doctor into a living instrument that he can use and discard as necessary? Is he going to go after Batman directly or

undermine and provoke him by attacking his allies? Hes going to do all of that. Or he might just rob the box office
at a showing of Pagliacci. It could go either way.
The most interesting psychological development for the Joker is the one that Grant Morrison came up with, which
he debuted in Arkham Asylum and later brought up again during Aztek and his run on Batman, where he
characterized the Joker as having supersanity, where his personality is constantly reinventing itself in response
to a chaotic world. Its a neat idea, and I really like it as an explanation of the different versions of the Joker that
crop up, from the mass murderer to the would-be King of the Surfers.

But at the end of the day, thats kind of all it is, too a metatextual explanation for something that exists because
the stories have been written by different people in different eras. Again, that doesnt mean its bad you give me
half a chance and Ill talk your ear off about how much I love that part in Batman R.I.P. where he treats the Black
Glove like a pack of amateurs because they have no idea what you need to do to even come close to scoring a
victory over Batman but in terms of being psychologically interesting? Its pretty simple. Dude wants to beat
Batman, and will do anything, on any scale, to accomplish that. No one else matters, theyre all just tools and
resources.
Luthor, on the other hand, is fascinating.

When I talk about Lex Luthor, I should probably go ahead and note that the version of the character Im working
with is primarily going to be the Evil Billionaire version first introduced by John Byrne when he rebooted
Superman after Crisis on Infinite Earths (or the Superman: The Animated Series version, for those of you more
cartoonishly inclined). Lex has seen a handful of different versions himself over the decades, but unlike the Joker,
he doesnt have that handy metatextual out for different versions, and thats my favorite. Not coincidentally, its
also the version I grew up with, but, you know, that s how it goes with this stuff.
Luthor and the Joker both share a few interesting points in how theyre built, but theres one key difference: With
the Joker, Batman is the goal. With Luthor, Superman is the obstacle.
The Joker exists because of Batman. I mean, in the literal sense, all villains exist because theyre created as a foil for
the protagonist, but its been established within the story since way back in 1951 with The Man Behind The Red
Hood that Batman was instrumental in the creation of the Joker as we know him today, whether he was a criminal
before he got dumped into that tank of crazy chemicals or not. Its remained consistent for 63 years, to the point
where its actually pretty notable that The Dark Knight, probably the most widely known Joker story in
history, didnt make that connection and instead chose to have the Joker appear fully formed, but even then, that
movie was thematically all about criminals like the Joker coming to prominence in response to Batman. The
connection was still there, just shifted to a more metaphorical level.
With Luthor, there was originally the same connection. Plucky young scientist Lex Luthor is working on a
Kryptonite antidote to help out his buddy Superboy when the experiment goes wrong and Superboy intervenes,
putting out the fire and causing Young Lex to believe he sabotaged the experiment rather than share the glory with
a mere human. Its actually the blueprint for the later Reed Richards/Victor von Doom relationship, except
that a) Dr. Doom was dabbling in forbidden black magic and trying to rescue his mother from the actual devil,
which is rad, and b) Lex went bald instead of getting a scar that made him wear a metal mask for the rest of his life.
It stems from around the same time, but over the years, the stories have largely moved away from that idea. With
the exception of Smallville (which is riddled with problems), the prevailing trend recently has been that Lex was, if
not outright evil as a kid, at least a contrasting figure from the very beginning. Even when he and Superman are
shown as childhood friends, theres still a contrast of ideals at play:

With Businessman Lex, its especially pronounced Clark Kent arrives in a Metropolis thats utterly dominated by
a completely amoral Lex Luthor. Its one of the best reimaginings of a character in history, because transitioning
Luthor out of being a criminal scientist (which, for the record, produced some amazing stories) allowed him to
explore changing ideas of what power actually was. Before Supermans arrival, Byrnes Lex Luthor was the most
powerful man in Metropolis, someone who held the city in a subtle stranglehold, someone who had positioned
himself, literally and figuratively, above everyone else.
Geoff Johns and Gary Frank actually took this idea even further in Secret Origin, a story that I actually really love,
recasting Lex as a sort of evil Willy Wonka, who was not only the master of the city in an economic and political
sense, but who even had a monopoly on hope, giving it out to people of his choosing in order to bend the
population to his will and condition them to look to him as something to be worshipped and feared.
And it all stems from arrogance.
The affront to Luthor from Superman isnt that hes an alien, it isnt that hes standing in the way of human
progress. Its not even that he cant understand why someone would use unlimited power for the benefit of others,
because his brain is simply hardwired for self-serving pragmatism with no concept of altruism, although thats a
much larger part of it. The affront to Luthor is that Superman is someone, the only person in his entire life, who has
the ability stop him from doing whatever he wants. Hes the most powerful man in Metropolis.

The sheer level of narcissism at play with Luthor is endlessly interesting to me. Its a big part of what I like about
Dr. Doom, too. If you really wanted to put me under the microscope, in fact, you might even go as far as saying that
Im drawn to it because its something that I relate to and that I see it in myself, but thats pretty flimsy. I mean,
where are you going to find, say, 188 examples of me thinking I know everything?
Either way, it manifests itself as a pretty great lens of understanding a character. I talked before about how the
Joker doesnt really see other people as people theyre tools and resources, the only other person whos real in
his mind is Batman, and everyone else is just there as part of this big machine that he can use as part of his plans.
With Luthor, its a little different. Theyre still not people, but theyre not nonexistent, either. Theyre property.
Theyre assets on the balance sheet, to be used by him, but no one else.

Luthor believes that he should, by all rights, own everything, which is actually why it makes sense to see him
occasionally turn on other villains, since killing anyone in Metropolis is damaging his property. But at the end of
the day, their lives belong to Lex Luthor. Not only does Superman stand in his way, but hes out there flying around,
inspiring people, making them think they have a choice in the matter? Its infuriating.
The arrogance itself is incredibly compelling, and its the focal point of one of my absolute favorite stories, How
Much Can One Man Hate, by Mark Millar and Aluir Amancio, from Superman Adventures. Its when you couple it
with the level of self-delusion that he operates under? Thats when things get really interesting. The old line that
Lex and Superman alway likes to pull out is that he could better the world if he wasnt so focused on Superman,
but, like Dr. Dooms vaunted nobility, thats not true. Lex was never going to make the world better. Lex was going
to make his own life better. Anything else that was bettered as a side effect would be incidental and minimized
because no one else deserved it.
Its his relationship with Superman that really sets it, though. Luthors perception of things operates under that
narcissistic delusion he doesnt just want to beat Superman, and he doenst just want to kill him, either. I think
he wants to punish Superman. And why? For his arrogance. For Luthor, Superman is the ultimate egotist, someone
who is imposing his will on a man who should be above such things. Luthor doesnt just want him dead, he wants
him brought down and humbled, he wants him to take his proper place in the world which, of course, is lower in
the heirarchy than Lex himself. But the irony, of course, is that arrogance is Lexs own sin. Superman is free of ego.
Superman doesnt impose his will on anyone. Thats what makes him Superman. He helps people. But for Luthor,

that help is standing between him and treating people like disposable assets, stopping him from toying with the
lives of others for his own amusement.
The Joker has no illusions about who he is and what he does. He knows hes the villain, he knows hes the force of
chaos. Luthor, on the other hand, holds that twisted idea in his mind, rewriting and rearranging the facts so
that hes the hero and Superman is the fascist would-be overlord. And he believes it, because, after all, hes Lex
Luthor. Hes the smartest man in the world. Why shouldnt he be in charge?
Theyre both good characters, but Luthors delusion and narcissism are so much more relatable than Jokers offthe-scale chaos. We all want to be Superman and Batman (or we should, at least) but in reality, we all tend to edge
closer to Luthor, believing that whatever we do is necessary because were the heroes of our own stories, and that
the people who get in our way are enemies, even if its just something as simple as rolling our eyes at those idiots in
line in front of us at the bank who didnt bring a pen to fill out their deposit slips. Joker represents the fear of the
chaos that exists outside us, the things beyond our control, and in defeating him, Batman shows us that we can
endure those things and come through stronger on the other side. But Luthor is the ego thats inside us all, that
thing that says he doesnt deserve that, I do. Its that reflection that we see in him that makes us hate him, and
when Superman wins, when Superman shows that that can be stopped, that altruism is real, that we can do whats
right instead of whats expedient, its easier for us to conquer that part of ourselves. There are different aspects at
play, and I find one a little more compelling than the other.
Of course, that doesnt mean they cant be partners.

Seems legit.

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Ask Chris #187: Archie Gets Weird

by Chris Sims March 14, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Whats the weirdest thing Archie Comics has ever done, and why was it awesome? @darkmaple
A: It almost goes without saying at this point, but Archies marketing strategy over the past few years has been
nothing short of brilliant. All the stunts theyve been pulling and I mean that in the most positive way possible
have been designed to shake up the public perception of just what Archie Comics are. Most readers, even if theyre
casual fans of the actual Archie comics, tend to have this mental picture of Riverdale thats built around those eightpage gag strips where Archie has to run back and forth between two dates, and for good reason. Thats been the
core of the line for the past 70 years, so when they announce something like Lena Dunham dropping by to write a
story or an adult-oriented horror comic where Archies classmates are devouring each others flesh, it immediately
makes people wonder how its going to work in the peaceful, idyllic world of Archie Comics.
But heres the thing: Theyve always been weird out there in Riverdale. Theyre weird as Hell.

If were talking about the single strangest comic theyve ever put out which, you know, was the actual question
you asked then theres no getting around the obvious answer. Its Afterlife With Archie, hands down, no debate
necessary. Ive got every issue of that comic sitting on my desk right now, and every now and then, I still have a lot
of trouble believing that its something that actually exists. And the crazy thing is, the zombies are the least of it.
As writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has been fond of saying in the past, its not just a zombie comic, its
a horror comic. He and Francesco Francavilla have designed a world where everything is meant to be creepy and
unsettling, from the zombies all the way down to a version of Riverdale where Reggie can run Hot Dog over and
spend a sleepless night scrubbing blood off of his car to, well, Cheryl and Jason Blossom and their incestuous
relationship.

Seriously, when it comes to weird stuff thats happened in an Archie book, theres no amount of Jughead TimePolicing thats going to begin to hold a candle to the kids from Pembrooke Academy getting all Cruel Intentions out
there in their mansion.
Its so far out there in terms of Archie books, heck, in terms of comic books, that it sparked a debate between me
and my writing partner, Chad Bowers. Im pretty sure he likes the book as much as I do, but he wondered whether
it was, as he put it, like Identity Crisis for Archie fans by which he means a book that ruins everything by
skewing it all into a spiral of trying to go darker and more adult, moving away from the core of whats actually

appealing about those characters in the name of catering to an audience that just wants things serious, dark, and
grotesque.
Before I could even attempt to pull rank as an Archie reader, he shot me down by pointing out that Im not exactly
the audience he was talking about. Dont get me wrong, I have a deep and unironic love of the Archie characters
and their adventures, but theres nothing I love more than finding those books where they did get into the more
bizarre and forgotten corners of the universe, whether its the serious, dramatic action stories of the 70s, or the
stuff Ill be getting around to in a few minutes. As a result, Im the exact target audience for a book like Afterlife. But
is there someone out there who only likes the gag strips and the comedy, someone who looks at that Cheryl
Blossom scene with the same frothing hatred that takes over my brain when I think about how those dopes called
in Superman Superman to look at a knot because ha ha hes a boy scout get it.
I dont think it is, for a couple of reasons, the first and most important being that Afterlife is actually a really great
comic so far, while Identity Crisis was 100% hot garbage. Second, its still the exception rather than the
rule. Identity Crisis was the bottom of a barrel that got rolling back in the 80s, the culmination of a trend thats still
continuing today. Afterlife, on the other hand, is pretty isolated Archies output as a company still
overwhelmingly geared towards kid-friendly titles, whether its the main-line comedy books or the all-ages action
titles like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man.
Another main factor is that as weird and scary as things get, everyones still more or less in character, which is
exactly what makes it work, and frequently what makes it kind of hilarious. Betty and Veronicas rivalry has been
amped up and dipped in acid, and Reggies been nudged from annoying prankster across the line to complete
dirtbag, but the relationships and characters are all where they should be. I was just talking to Jonathan at the
Riverdale Podcast, and while it took him til the latest issue to warm up to the series, what sold him on it was that
Archie was still the klutzy guy whos always going to come through and do the right thing.
Even if, you know, the right thing in this case is beating his zombie father to death with a baseball bat.

What really makes me think that everythings going to be okay, though and this is where we finally drag this
column kicking and screaming back to the original question is that this is far from the first time that Archies
gone off the rails over the years, and again: I mean that in the best way possible.

Like I said, thats the stuff that really interests me as an Archie fan, and the reason is that these characters are built
to fit into any story that requires them, almost to the point of being a high school full of stand-ins. Theyre not quite
archetypes in the traditional sense; theyve all accumulated enough quirks over the years that they qualify as
characters with actual personalities that are pretty consistent, and its not difficult to describe them in terms of
what they want, even if that motivation is as simple as Veronica or Hamburgers. But at the same time, theyve
got this purposefully universal quality to them. And since we tend to only see them in one kind of story, seeing
them in another genre, where they actually fit just as well, is endlessly entertaining to me.
Thats the secret that makes Afterlife work, because the line between Archies gang of friends and your average
slasher movies roster of teenage victims is so blurry that it might as well not exist, but thats just the most recent
take on it. And obviously, the other most famous example and the one that held the heavyweight championship
of weird Archie stories until about four months ago is Punisher Meets Archie.

Like Afterlife, its a comic where the joke is entirely in the premise, and like Afterlife, it also succeeds by staying true
to the core of the characters. Its good because it actually works as both an Archie story and a Punisher story.
But even thats not the only weird comic Archie published over the years, and theres stuff out there thats every bit
as bizarre. And I dont mean bizarre like this

Or this

Or this

Or this

Or even this, the single greatest comic book panel ever published:

(Sorry. I had a lot of those saved up over the years.)

For my money, theres a line of Archie comics out there thats every bit as weird as Afterlife, while actually being
the exact opposite of that book in almost every way. And Im referring, of course, to the Spire Comics line of
Christian Archie stories.

I am obsessed with these things. The actual story behind them is fascinating even before you get to whats on the
page, and the short version is that its all down to one man: Al Hartley. Hartley was a long-time comics artist who
broke in at Timely in the 50s, working with Stan Lee, but when Lee and Jack Kirby revolutionized superhero
comics in 1961, Hartley wanst really a good fit. It makes sense that he wouldnt be stylistically speaking, his
work is about as far from Kirbys as you can get and he only ended up drawing one superhero story for Marvel,
and scripting a few others. Where he found his niche was in Patsy Walker, the Archie-esque teen humor book,
which he stayed on til 1967, well into that first leg of the Marvel Age of Comics.
And then there was Pussycat.

This, my friends, is the comic Ive been dying to see a reprint of,
and that I doubt well ever get: An almost-but-not-quite-porn comic about a sexy spy working for S.C.O.R.E. to
battle the evils of L.U.S.T., and frequently had her clothing torn off along the way. It was sort of the mid-60s version
of Empowered, but written by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber with art from the likes of Wally Wood and Bill Ward (who
drew the classic The Cavortin Case Of The Booby-Trapped Bra). Despite the presence of Lee and the fact that it
was published by Martin Goodman, it wasnt a Marvel book it was more Marvel-adjacent, this weird little lost
artifact that, aside from Matt Fraction Jamie McKelvie briefly incorporating her into the Marvel universe int he
pages of their beautifully kooky Defenders.
Hartley drew a few issues, but then, in 1967, he became a born-again Christian and left the book, and Marvel, for
what are probably obvious reasons. Ironically enough, his signature character, Patsy Walker, would be
incorporated into the core Marvel Universe as Hellcat, marry the literal Son of Satan, and gain psychic powers from
spending time with the Devil. Hartley, meanwhile, ended up at Archie.
His version of the gang was extremely devout, to the point where he was actually asked to cut back on one point
(for reasons Ill get to in a second), and he went on to become one of the more influential creators who shaped
Bettys character in particular. In 1972, though, he was instrumental in launching Spire Comics, the religious line
that adapted stories like The Cross and the Switchblade and the infamous Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika,
but also licensed the Archie characters for their own religious adventures.
Thats what makes the Spire Archie books so interesting to me. Hartley had been working in the teen humor genre
for almost twenty years by that point, so a lot of times, they read like standard Archie comics, and then they
suddenly take a left turn into these panels where Betty and Archie talk about how their dates involve chastely
reading the bible, while other teens are hunched-over shadowy figure whose dates end in guilt and shame,
presumably because they were totes bangin.
No, seriously. Thats in there.

Goodness knows that I dont want to offend anyones religious beliefs, but thats a little over-the-top. I mean, its
certainly no Jack Chick tract where demons are casting people who give out Halloween candy into fire, but still.
Getting blasted with the gnawing shame of pre-marital sex in an Archie comic is kind of surprising.
Theyre all like that, too. One of my favorites involves the gang apparently wandering into Riverdales seedy porno
district and being confronted with the best fake movie title of all time:

Did DIVORCE ANYSTYLE ever get a DVD release? Criterion should probably get on that.
You could say that those dont necessarily count since they werent actually put out by Archie, just licensed out to a
third-party publisher that happened to have an established Archie artist writing and drawing the books, but like I
said, Hartley was prone to dropping a little of it into the regular books, too, and theres one hoo boy. This couldnt
have been the one that caused the publisher to intervene and ask him to tone it down a little, but in Life With
Archie #129, theres a scene thats so bonkers that Id stack it up with any of the gory violence in Afterlife in terms
of sheer I cant believe this actually happened factor.
The story in question involves a debate over whether life was better in the in the past or in modern times (because
thats the kind of conversation people had before the Internet, I guess), and Archie and his friends who are all
teenagers agree that LIFE WAS BETTER IN THE 1890s.

Because, you know, in the 1890s women were MORE than equals, and people showed cops the proper respect,
which are definitely the things that high school kids in 1972 were concerned with. As I am always fond of noting,
you dont really see Chuck and Nancy weighing in on that debate. I think they mightve had slightly different
opinions.
Those are far and away my picks for the weirdest things to ever happen in an Archie comic, and while they all have
varying degrees of being awesome, thats really just scratching the surface. I mean, I didnt even get into that time
Betty had to fight a bear, or when ten foot tall aliens showed up in Riverdale and started blasting people with their
eye-beams, or even that time when Veronica was held at knifepoint by a robber who kidnapped her and drove
Archie to go full-on vigilante to take him down.
No, seriously. Those 70s books are wild.

Read More: Ask Chris #187: Archie Gets Weird | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-187-archie-getsweird/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #186: The Strange Rise Of The X-Men

by Chris Sims March 7, 2014 12:45 PM

Q: Why do you think the X-Men didnt find their audience until two decades after they were created?
@godofthunder851
A: Ive got a minor quibble with your timing in this question it was more like 12 or 15 years, really but youve
got an interesting point there. I think most comics readers are well aware of that piece of trivia about how the XMen were about to get the axe before Giant Size X-Men #1 breathed new life into the franchise and set them on the
path of becoming what was probably the single most popular and influential franchise of the 80s and 90s, and
thats not really how things usually work. In comics, you tend to either come out of the gate to massive, enduring
popularity (like Batman or Spider-Man), come out strong and then fade away for whatever reason (like, sadly,
Shazam!), or just sort of flounder in the midcard. Its rare that something sticks around on the edge of being
canceled for a solid decade before it finds its footing, and nobody bounced back harder than Marvels Merry
Mutants.
But really, what youre asking here is two separate questions: Why didnt the X-Men take off in 1963,
and why did they in 1975? So lets look at the history and see if we cant figure it out.

In a lot of ways, X-Men was clearly the odd man out in that original Marvel lineup. Ive been through this a lot
before, but its impossible to understate how much of a revolution those books were. Fantastic Four and SpiderMan were basically instant hits, and while Iron Man and Thor werent really A+ players, they were a solid
foundation for the universe that led to Avengers and the return of Captain America, which was a huge
deal.Hulk mightve been canceled after six issues, but thats such a great concept that it never really left, he just
kicked around the midcard in Tales of Suspense with the Sub-Mariner for a while until the audience was there
and even that happened pretty quickly, all things considered.
X-Men, meanwhile, was just sort of there.
In retrospect, that seems weird, not just because of their later success, but because its such an easy concept, both
for readers and creators. The emergence of a race of mutants provides the writers with an easy way to skip over
complicated origin stories and get right to the action, which seems like the perfect medium for people like Jack
Kirby, who had a million ideas a minute that could be dropped right onto the page with that simple explanation.
Making them teenagers who are ostracized by the outside world and dropping it into that school setting gives the
teenage readers something that they can relate to while at the same time giving them that escapist fantasy that
comics have been built on for as long as theyve existed. It even seems like it was perfectly timed, coming out right
when the teenager was truly emerging as a social construct and an economic powerhouse.
On paper, thats one of the best ideas those guys ever had, and thats saying something. But in practice, it just falls
flat right out of the gate. Thats not to say that there arent great ideas there. If you read that first issue, you can see
the foundation of almost everything that would come later right there, from Magneto to the X-Men getting involved
in a military situation, the cold war nuclear paranoia that was so prevalent in that age to the point where mutants
themselves are said to be the result of atomic fallout, human WMDs left in the wake of World War II. Its just that
the execution doesnt live up to it.
Ive said before that X-Men just doesnt feel like Lee and Kirby have their hearts in it, but I dont think thats quite
right. I think the problem is that it was really their first attempt at building on what theyd already done. Its a
refinement rather than an innovation, pieced together from bits and pieces that worked in their other hits. The
problem is that those other hits were themselves still being refined as an ongoing process, and they were way
more interesting, which made X-Men redundant.
It had the hook of ostracized and isolated teens, but that was done way better in Spider-Man, the book that laid the
foundation of the modern superhero. The team bickered while showing off their super-powers and had Angel and
Cyclops competing for Marvel Girls affections, but that was nowhere near as good as the strained family
relationship in Fantastic Four. They were outsiders in a world that didnt understand if they were heroes or
villains, but, you know, thats the Hulks entire deal. X-Men was the first comic that tried to mash all that up its
the first real product of the Marvel Age but it didnt do anything better.
Before we move on, its worth noting that theres another Marvel title thats the same way, that also took a long
time to ramp up and find its footing: Daredevil, which was really just Spider-Man Has A Grown-Up Job Now. Its not a
bad comic by any means, but when its in a crowd alongside This Man, This Monster or The Final Chapter or
even that story where Hawkeye decides hes going to wear a purple miniskirt from now on, it doesnt measure up.
Its just Good Enough To Not Get Canceled, which is probably why they didnt mind handing it off to an artist who
had never written a monthly title before, which is how Frank Miller ended up doing the other most influential
superhero comic of the 80s.
Also, can we talk about that cover for a second? Its dynamic as hell, but what is happening there. Youve got a dude
with wings trying to throw a metal pipe at a guy dressed up like the Devil, a snowman straight up throwing
snowballs, and a girl doing the twist, all taking place in a blank white void while they stand on a fuchsia triangle. I
love Kirby, but that is weird, and aside from Cyclops blasting laser beams out of his face, its not a particularly
enticing image. Also, what is Beast swinging from is up there with who the hell brought the ropes to tie up Mr.
Fantastic on the list of Questions Jack Kirby Covers Raise That They Never Answer.
Theres one other major factor about those early X-Men issues that makes them feel so bland, and thats that the
single most important aspect of that comic, the thing that in retrospect came to define it and keep it as a viable,
thriving storytelling tool, is also completely absent from those early issues: The civil rights metaphor. Its there in
bits and pieces the Sentinels, the prime example of the government repressing and hunting mutants, show up
pretty early on in 1965 but its certainly not the focus. Despite Marvels (pretty well-earned) reputation for
being counterculture that was rooted in real-world struggles, they were still mainstream superhero comics, and
those were a few years away from tackling bigotry with anything that had more layers than Superman and Batman
showing up in a PSA to tell you racism was bad.

Dont get me wrong, I love that PSA, but it aint exactly God Loves, Man Kills, you know?
To be fair, Im basing all of this on the earliest Lee/Kirby issues. Ive never read the stuff that came after. Then
again, neither did anyone else; that was sort of the problem. By the early 70s, X-Men existed only as a bimonthly
reprint title, presumably because X-Men is such a great title that Marvel didnt want to take the chance of letting

the copyright lapse. Then, in the part of the story that everyone knows by heart, Len Wein, Dave Cockrum
relaunched it with Giant Size X-Men #1 and handed it off to Claremont and eventually John Byrne, and it became the
most popular thing that has ever been held together with two staples and a cover.

I dont think its exaggerating at all to say this is the most successful reboot of all time. The only thing I can think of
that even arguably tops it is Flash in 1954, which kicked off the Silver Age and paved the way for so much of what
still sits at the core of the DC Universe, but when you look at what came from that single issue of X-Men, its a tough
call. Launching Wolverine alone changed comics as we know them, influencing the direction of countless
characters and a sprawling media empire and thats a small piece of the influence. The New Teen Titans, Crisis, the
way team books changed forever, everything we think of as The 90s, all of that has its roots one way or

another in that comic. I dont even think wed have the Batman that we have today if we hadnt gone through
Wolverine to get there.
So why was it this book? Its tough to say no comic, even one thats this influential, exists in a vacuum, and its
hard to piece together a the complex web of influences, even if youre pretty sure youre starting from solid ground.
But the most obvious reason is that its really good.
The All-New X-Men era is one of those rare lightning-in-a-bottle moments in comics when everyone involved just
clicked right into place. Cockrum was an incredible designer who took some Legion of Super-Heroes ideas hed been
working on and dropped them right into a team that was in dire need of a new roster with international flair,
Claremonts operatic storytelling was perfect for juggling a complicated web of relationships and longing, and
Byrne? Forget it, man. That dude was putting out G.O.A.T. stuff for a solid decade.

Thats before you throw Orzechowski into the mix, too. Its A-game all around.
One interesting thing about how X-Men was relaunched is that, as a run, Claremont, Cockrum and Byrnes stories
feel very modern, but in a lot of ways, Wein and Cockrums Giant Size reads like a throwback. Its very old school, to
the point where youve got a nod back to the pre-Fantstic Four days with KRAKOA, THE ISLAND THAT WALKS LIKE
A MAN! Even the story that it leads into features the X-Men duking it out with Count Nefaria, a villain from the
early days of the Avengers with a name that sounds like someone the Shadow and Doc Savage wouldve fought. In
retrospect, it makes a strange bridge between these two distinct eras of Marvel comics.
The first and most important thing it does in that respect is that it rebuilds the team almost from the ground up.
Cyclops, much to my dismay, sticks around to connect the team to its past, but everyone else is either gone or
radically changed. Iceman and Angel head off to California to join the Champions (which, for those of you who

havent read it, is to Defenders what Defenders is to the rest of the Marvel Universe), Beast went to the Avengers,
and Marvel Girl became the Phoenix a pretty huge change for a character whose powers were defined in 1963 as
can lift and read a book.
The rest of the team was, of course, filled out with an international roster, and thats one of the most brilliant things
that the relaunch did. Since they were situated out in Westchester rather than being in New York City proper, the
X-Men had always been slightly apart from the Marvel Universe. Its only about 30 miles, sure, but Spider-Man
wasnt exactly going to be swinging by on his way to the Bugle like he could in the background ofDaredevil. By
throwing in characters from Africa, Europe and even Canada, Wein and Cockrum gave the team a global scale that
set them apart from neighborhood heroes. It was something theyd already had, but now there was a personal
investment in it.
It also brought that civil rights metaphor right to the forefront, on a very basic visual level. These were people
who looked different from each other the gigantic wide-eyed Russian, the African goddess, the weird blue elf
with the accent but they all had something in common. They were united as members of a race despite their
differences in appearance, and that also meant that they had a common enemy in the forces that were out to
oppress and destroy them because of their differences from normal people. Compare that to the five white kids in
suits from the original lineup. One of them has large feet. Thats about as much visual variety as you get, and it
doesnt exactly underscore what youre dealing with.
Right away, youre dealing with something that has a much stronger hook, with creators who are far more invested
and devoted to what theyre doing. But more than that, everything that works against X-Men in 1963 ends up
working for it in 1975.
In the early days, Spider-Man had been the book about an outcast, but by the 70s, that wasnt really the case
anymore. Peter Parker had stopped being Steve Ditkos spindly, picked-on nerd once John Romita Sr. showed up to
shove him through puberty and turn him into the strapping young man who was dating a pair of gorgeous go-go
dancers with a lot of bad luck around bridges. He still had his problems at bargain rates, but they were covering
different ground than what you saw with the X-Men. Peter Parker was a guy with a lousy job who had to worry
about paying the bills and providing for the woman who raised him and who was perpetually two seconds away
from keeling over, but he didnt have to worry about fighting for equality or being rounded up and sent to a labor
camp. The X-Men, on the other hand, were hitting that exact note, filling a metaphorical role in the way that nobody
else was and once Kitty Pryde showed up to allow a shift in focus from the grown-up, graduated X-Men (and the
just-out-of-college Spider-Man), they had that teenage POV market cornered too.
The Fantastic Four had the market cornered on bickering teammates in 63, but ten years later, the book (which,
sadly, suffered the worst for Kirbys departure from Marvel in 1971 and wouldnt really recover until John Byrne
took the reigns in the 80s) didnt have anything like the love triangle that was going on between Cyclops, Phoenix
and Wolverine, let alone the interpersonal web of relationships between the rest of the ever-expanding cast. Its
almost not fair, in a way X-Men starts with twice as many characters as Fantastic Four had, with a cast thats
meeting each other and developing their relationships right there on the page, rather than starting fully formed.
Hulk was a hero in a monsters body, but Claremont, Cockrum and Byrne made Magneto a villain you could actually
root for. In fact, its hard not to see his point, even when hes driven to extremes, because youve seen the X-Men
being assaulted by the Government and have to deal with exactly the sort of problems that are keeping Magneto up
at night. The flipside is that they get lumped in with him, so that its not their actions that are getting them labeled
as monsters, but the actions of a member of their race. It all comes back to that central metaphor, supporting it,
leading to interesting and complicated storytelling. Which is exactly what the book did.

All of that gave this second iteration of the X-Men something that the first version didnt have: direction. It had a
clear mission, its parameters were defined and could be expanded and contracted as the story needed, whether it
was to accommodate a cosmic adventure out into space to deal with the Phoenix, or whether it was something as
small as Kitty Pryde having to choose between schools. People knew what the X-Men were about, and because of
that, what they were about could change and evolve over time, returning to that base as needed. The first version
was just more superheroes, but the second told you why you should care, and that made all the difference.

Read More: Ask Chris #186: The Strange Rise Of The X-Men | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-186-thestrange-rise-of-the-x-men/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #185: Superheroes Of The Squared Circle

by Chris Sims February 28, 2014 12:48 PM

Q: Who is the best wrestler in Marvel or DC? @Mike_Zeidler

A: Ill be honest with you, folks: Over the past week, I have pretty much done nothing but watch the new WWE
Network for five straight days, so it was a foregone conclusion that this weeks column was going to be about pro
wrestling. It was either this, or a lengthy examination of what the tag team tournament from Starrcade 89: Future
Shock had in common with Secret Wars II, and I dont think any of us want to sit through that.
Now, Ive written about comics that were about pro wrestling in the past, but if were talking about which
mainstream superheroes would fare best inside the squared circle, well, theres certainly an obvious answer.

Canonically speaking, the superhero whos had the most actual success in wrestling is none other than Benjamin J.
Grimm, the Fantastic Fours ever-lovin blue-eyed Thing, who joined up with the Unlimited Class Wrestling
Federation back in 1985. Unsurprisingly, I genuinely love the idea behind this, which is that there were so many
mutants and mad scientists running around giving people superpowers that there were enough of them who
decided not to commit crimes or fight for justice, and instead joined up with a wrestling promotion for people who
could lift a minimum of ten tons, and this was somehow not the most popular form of entertainment on Earth.
Its such a weird little quirk of the Marvel Unvierse, but in its own way, it makes perfect sense. If you find yourself
on the receiving end of a little genetic tinkering from the Power Broker, are you going to want to be like the
Constrictor, a dude who routinely gets his teeth knocked out by the Hulk and once got beaten up by Gambit, or are
you going to want long limousines, jet airplaines, and the ten pounds of gold? I think that choice is pretty clear.
As for how the Thing got involved in the King of Sports, well, it was the 80s, and this is quite possibly the 1980sest
story of all time. That whole series is a bizarre little time capsule, but there was a point where Bashful Benjamin
was just wandering around from one pop-culture fad to another. In the issues right before he joins up with the
UCWF, hes hanging out with the Thunderriders, a team of dirtbike stuntmen, and leaves them just in time to sign
up with UCWF and introduce the world to the superheroic enhancement talent that is D-Man. If hed only teamed
up with U.S. 1 to haul an 18-wheeler full of cosmic cubes across the country, it wouldve been the best comic of all
time.
Quick aside: Can we talk about the Thunderriders for a second? Because they are amazing. Originally known as
Team America, they were another of those obscure early 80s toy licenses that Marvel picked up and built an entire
story around. In this case, the story that a creative team including Jim Shooter, Denny ONeil, Bill Mantlo, Ed
Hannigan and Steven Grant came up with involved a former CIA agent leading a group of five dirtbike stuntmen
who performed across the country while secretly fighting crime. Every time theyd get into a tight spot, theyd be
rescued by The Maurader, a masked, black-clad biker who turned out to be the psychic manifestation of their xtreme dirtbike skills that would possess a team members wife. Their arch-nemesis was a HYDRAs middle
manager, who only joined because HYDRA offers health benefits. Seriously. It is amazing.
Anyway, after spending some time with them, the Thing, who was part of a superhero team that literally saved the
world from being eaten by a giant purple man from space on more than one occasion, had a brief stint as their
World Champion, and I have to imagine that was the extension of what happened a few years earlier in Tom
DeFalco and Ron Wilsons Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7:

For my money, this is one of the all-time greatest Marvel Comic stories, perfectly hitting that balance of simple and
completely ridiculous. A cosmic being called The Champion of the Universe shows up and threatens to destroy the
world unless Earths superheroes go one-on-one in the ring with him in Madison Square Garden, and after
everyone else is disqualified, its up to the Thing to do the job. The Champion wins, but Ben Grimm refuses to stay
down and keeps getting up to keep fighting. Its kind of the perfect representation of his never-say-die attitude,
with the added bonus of getting to see Wonder Man beaten to a bloody pulp and get DQed for running away.
Admittedly, that story was about boxing, but by 1985, when Hulkamania had given wrestling one of its biggest
boom periods in pop culture, it was only natural for comics to add in a little more sports entertainment. Thus,
Unlimited Class Wrestling and the Things all-too-short run with the title.

One more thing to note about the UCWF: Im actually a fan of Ben Grimm as a pro wrestler in the comics, because
my love of pro wrestling is powerful enough to cross into Marvel Comics continuity. When Cullen Bunn and Tom
Fowler brought it back in Deadpool Team-Up #888 a couple years ago, Fowler drew me into the crowd as a
spectator during the Thing and Deadpools tag team match. Im the one holding the soda, next toAdam Warrock:

Aside from the Thing, theres one other major Marvel character with close ties to the world of professioal
wrestling, and that, of course, is Spider-Man, whose very first act upon realizing that he has super-powers is to
hop into the ring against Crusher Hogan:

Again, I love this not just because its a rare appearance of pro wrestling in comics, but because its one of the
few Marvel origins that actually makes more sense now than when it was originally published. I mean, look at Peter
Parker. Hes this nerdy kid whos suddenly super strong and super agile, and so he decides to put on a straight up
luchador mask to go fight crime. Of course that guys into pro wrestling. He even cuts promos on his
opponents while hes fighting them.

Thats a straight up flying headscissor takedown, yall, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
The thing is, all the crazy smack-talking and acrobatic luchador moves arent what youd get from a kid who really
liked pro wrestling in 1963, its what youd get from a kid who grew up with pro wrestling today. Its one of the
reasons that it made perfect sense to keep that part of the origin virtually the same for the first Sam Raimi movie,
just updating things from the giant grappler in trunks to the Macho Man Randy Savage. Seriously, there is no way in
hell that Spider-Man has not annoyed at least Slyde or the Kangaroo into submission by continually asking them if
they smell what hes cookin. And really, how prophetic a name was Crusher Hogan?
Speaking of ol Crusher, hes reappeared a few times in comics over the years, too. The most notable is probably the
aptly titled Whatever Happened to Crusher Hogan? from Amazing Spider-Man #271:

Its a good story I first read it in the Very Best of Spider-Man paperback that I had as a kid but I call
shenanigans on it based purely on Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz retconning Hogan as a washed-up palooka at
a boxing gym rather than tying it into wrestling. Then again, the bad guy in that issue was someone looking to fix
the fights, so I suppose pro wrestling mightve made that a little redundant.
The other major Crusher Hogan appearance comes from a story in Spider-Man: Tangled Web #14, drawn by
Guiseppe Camuncoli and co-written by Brian Azzarello and Scott Levy, a professional wrestler that you might know
as Raven. Its a really good comic and adds a very interesting, noirish, crime-story take to the setup of Crusher
Hogan and his challenge to take on all comers, but its also ultimately really depressing, and casts Spider-Man as
the direct cause of a whole lot of suffering. It is, however, that prototype Spider-Man in the webbed mask and the
sweatshirt who let his uncle die, not the super-hero who learned his lesson, so its actually pretty easy to justify it,
but man, it gets dark at the end.
There are a few other superheroes who have tried their hand at the noble art of grappling Superman got into the
ring a few times in the Silver Age, which is every bit as weird as it sounds but theres one last one that bears
mentioning, if only how bad it was, and thats the time Batman was a pro wrestler. Not the regular version, you
understand, but the alternate version created for Stan Lee and Joe Kuberts Just Imagine Stan Lees Batman.

If youve never read Just Imagine, dont. Despite the presence of a lot of talented artists and the ultimate stunt of
having Stan Lee recreate the major figures of the Distinguished Competitions roster, the whole thing was pretty
abysmal, as evidenced by the fact that it gave us pro wrestling Batman and still wasnt any good.
The short version is that ex-con Wayne Williams (get it? Because Stan Lee characters have alliterative names?) was
trying to find the man who killed his father, Handz, so he decided to secretly investigate the crime by becoming a
famous pro wrestler named Batman. He literally sews himself a bat costume, walks into a gym, and then is a
millionaire three weeks later. I mean, sure, thats probably about as plausible as a magic ring from space that lets
you make giant glowing green chainsaws, but still, you have to draw the line somewhere.
Then again, the regular DC Universe Batman does wear a bright yellow belt that people are always trying to take
away from him, and spent a lot of time in the 90s fighting a dude on steroids who wore a lucha mask and did an
actual pro wrestling backbreaker as his signature move. Maybe hes been a pro wrestler all along?

Read More: Ask Chris #185: Superheroes Of The Squared Circle | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-185superheroes-of-the-squared-circle-best-wrestler-marvel-dc/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #184: A Brief History Of The Metal Men

by Chris Sims February 21, 2014 3:30 PM

Q: Lets say I know nothing about the Metal Men except some of their names. Should I care about those
guys? @_lexifab
A: On the off chance that youre wondering why this is the week that people are asking about a relatively obscure
team of disposable superhero robots now, Im going to go ahead and guess that it has something to do with their
return in the pages of the brand-new Justice League #28. Thats a book that I approached with a whole lot of
cautious optimism, because Ive been a fan of those characters ever since I was a kid. One of the very first comics I
ever read was that John Byrne issue where Chemo absorbed Superman and became a giant lime green Superman
that shot toxic waste out of his eyes and straight up killed one of the heroes. When you see that at five years old,
thats the imagery thats going to stick with you.
So yeah, Id say you should definitely care about the Metal Men, even beyond just my childhood affection for em.
Not only are they one of the most perfect concepts in superhero comics, but theyre also one of the most
interesting, on the page and behind the scenes.

If you really want to care about the Metal Men, you pretty much have to start with Robert Kanigher, who cocreated the team in 1962 alongside Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Kanigher is, without question, one of the most
fascinating dudes in comics history, because hes been a part of so many strange things. Before he got into comics
in the Golden Age as a writer and editor, he came up writing for pulp novels and radio shows, and during his
extensive career at DC, he wrote the story that kicked off the Silver Age, revamped Wonder Woman for the Silver

Age, and had a hand in co-creating characters like Black Canary, Poison Ivy, and, of course, Sgt. Rock. He even wrote
a book on how to make money as a freelance writer called, appropriately enough, How to Make Money Writing.
If youre curious as to what his advice was, Ill save you the cover price on that one: VOLUME. Kanigher is known to
this day as one of the most prolific writers in comics, and part of the reason he was involved with so much notable
stuff in his tenure is that he was just cranking out story after story after story. When youre doing that much work,
its going to eventually add up to a pretty significant payday, and Kanigher was a writer who honed his craft to
become an efficient storytelling machine.
How efficient? Well, youve probably heard this one before, but since its one of my all-time favorite behind-thescenes stories in the entirety of comics history, Im going to tell it again. When Kanigher was working on the war
titles as an editor, a piece of cover art came in that he wanted to make a slight change to before it was printed. To
give more room for the logo on the cover, he attached a note to it reading drop an inch, and then sent it off to be
lettered. When the cover came back, the letterer had mistaken the production note for a cover blurb and added a
caption box reading Featuring DROP AN INCH! and other exciting battle action stories!
This, needless to say, presented a problem, but rather than have the cover blurb covered up or retitling a story they
already had, Kanigher just took his lunch hour to bang out a nine page story about hunkering down to avoid enemy
fire.

Thats pretty amazing, but the downside to that along with what Wikipedia calls his unstable personality and
violent temper was that for Kanigher, a job grinding out stories was often just that: a job. He was fully capable
of writing a genuinely great story, and actually did pretty often, but the majority of his work tends to read like it
was cranked out on an assembly line. Even with the wild premises that became his trademark, theyre usually
formulaic, repetitive and reductive. For every fatalistic Sgt. Rock story about the pointlessness of war or ambitious
and fatally flawed shot at modernizing Wonder Woman, there are a dozen paint-by-numbers genre stories that are
about as surprising as a pair of old shoes.
Theres a vast gulf between his highs and lows, but I think theres a reason for it thats readily apparent. Its hard to
speak about what was actually going on in Kanighers mind as he wrote, but as a reader, its pretty clear that the
good stories, the best ones, are the ones where Kanigher actually cared. Read enough of his work and you can see
the pattern like clockwork. The ones that were just a job are the ones that are boring, but on those occasions when

Kanigher got invested in a project, the ones where he actually cared about telling a story, thats where he took
risks, crafted twists, built characters and situations that are completely unforgettable.
Theyre also the books where he gets downright weird about things, and the prime example of that is Creature
Commandos, a horror-flavored twist on his usual war comic formula. If you havent read it, its about a World War II
task force made up of classic monsters or at least, vaguely science-based equivalents that could skirt around the
comics code. There was a vampire, a werewolf, a Medusa and a Frankenstein, all bossed around by a super-aggro
military man who basically called them worthless freaks in every other panel. They fought Nazis, and appeared in a
comic that advertised HITLER WOULD FREAK OUT.

Amazingly, this was not the most successful comic of all time, and when the series got the axe, it ended with a
Kanigher-scripted one-page sequence where the Creature Commandos were berated for being useless and
unmarketable by their commanders, and then shot out into space to die with the equally berated and betrayed
R.K.
I mentioned the volatile temper, right? Right.
Of course, the other side of that pattern is that its a cycle even on the books that Kanigher was clearly putting
his effort into, it gets to a point where you can see him lose interest and grow bored with the concept, reverting
back into the same sort of formulaic grind that he used on everything else. It happens with virtually every comic he
wrote, even the ones that start off hot with enough forward momentum to break through any rote storytelling that
might hold them back. It even eventually happens to the Metal Men, sadly.
That said, theres a long, amazing stretch that kicks off in 1962 where everyone involved is putting everything
theyve got into it.

When you get right down to it, theres a purely monetary reason for the creation of the Metal Men thats not that
hard to suss out. I always make the mistake of thinking its Kanigher, Andru and Esposito riffing on what Bob
Haney and Ramona Fradon were doing in Metamorpho, but I have that backwards since I read Metamorpho first

Rex Mason & Co. didnt show up til 1965. It doesnt take the Worlds Greatest Detective to figure out what the real
influence was, though.
I mean, its a team book rooted in slightly dubious comic book science where the members constantly bicker with
each other and are led by a pipe-smoking scientist who is constantly frustrated by the advances of a platinumhaired woman getting in the way of his science. If this sounds like a familiar setup, theres a pretty good reason for
that.

Theres no way Kanigher wouldnt have been aware of what Lee and Kirby were doing down the street, and theres
even less of a chance that he wouldnt have wanted to jump on the early success by riffing on that formula in his
own book. That doesnt mean Metal Men was a direct ripoff of Fantastic Four by any means this kind of exchange
of ideas was pretty common at the time, as evidenced by the similarities in the Doom Patrol and the X-Men. Haney

and Fradon would even do an amazing satire of Lee and Kirbys Galactus trilogy a year after the original hit the
stands in a three-part story where Metamorpho battled the Thunderer, an intergalactic conqueror preceded by a
herald who was two feet tall and defeated by a guitar that shot laser beams. Its still one of the best parodies in
comics history, to the point where they referred to Metamorpho as The Worlds Second Greatest Comics Magazine
(But He Tries Harder) in those issues.
Point being, it was clearly a new idea that Kanigher (and Andru and Esposito) were excited about, and they went in
full force with it. Kanigher always had a gift for bizarre plots (see also: the aforementioned Creature Commandos
and The War That Time Forgot, the War Comic that pit soldiers against dinosaurs), but when the Metal Men
debuted in Showcase, he ratcheted things up to a truly bonkers level. Seriously, page one, panel one of that
comic? Radioactive dinosaurs. Thats where he starts, and it gets even weirder from there.
It wasnt just the setups, though, it was the characters themselves.

Ive always wondered whether it was Kanighers experience living through Seduction of the Innocent and the senate
hearings that led to the Comics Code that motivated him to attempt to give these comics an educational bent
(something Ive also wondered about Metamorpho), but whatever the motivation was, the result was magic. The

combination of factual science trivia being doled out between stuff like radioactive dinosaurs and walking toxic
waste tanks is just endlessly entertaining.
The Metal Men may have been given one-note personalities Gold is self-important, Mercurys hot-headed (and
liquid at room temperature), Irons strong, Platinum is lovestruck but basing those personalities on the actual
physical properties of the metals they were based on, however loosely, is a great idea. Leads dense, get it? And
when you drop those one-note personalities into the same story and let them bounce off of each other, the results
can be pretty compelling. Especially when were looking at it from the point of view of Dr. Magnus himself.
Will Magnus is one of the best parts of the story, if only because hes just so fascinatingly weird. Hes not the
adventuring scientist that you get with Reed Richards or the two-fisted genius like Doc Savage hes just this uptight
50s dad in the middle of the craziest stories youve ever read, perfectly calm about everything going on around
him except his frustrations with his creations frustrations that stem from the idea that he made them too
perfect.
His relationship with Platinum alone is something that could fill entire books with analysis of just what exactly is
supposed to be going on there. If youve never read it, the short version is that Platinum is extremely vocal about
being in love with Doc, which he always responds to by telling her that shes a robot, not a woman, and that hes
going to give her to the science museum if she doesnt shut up about it. Its crazy, and the question that keeps
coming up if you read these stories is why did he make a lady robot in a sexy nurse costume thats in love with him if
hes just going to be a jerk to her? Its like some bizarre sociopathic BDSM thing that plays out in the most literal
possible manner in the pages of a superhero comic from the 60s.

Later creators have attempted to justify this, along with the rest of the Metal Mens personalities, and one of my
least favorite retcons of all time was that Magnus had actually given them the digitized personalities of real people
that he knew who were killed. For me, thats both depressing and way too limiting. I much prefer the idea that
Magnus was just too good at what he did. He accidentally created sentient beings when he wasnt trying, and his
frustrations come from the fact that theyre too much like their creator, full of life and emotion.
I mean, dont get me wrong, that doesnt really make the stuff with Platinum any better, but Im way more
comfortable with that than I am with Magnus threatening to give his dead ex-girlfriends soul to the science
museum.
Anyway, as much as Ive talked about Kanigher, you cannot overstate how much Andru and Esposito brought to the
table. Like Bruno Premianis work in Doom Patrol, their work on Metal Men is astonishingly dynamic. It holds up
even today, and back in 1962, I can only imagine how turning a page and seeing this wouldve blown someones
mind:

Its their contribution that really makes the Metal Men one of the most perfect ideas in comics. Theyre just so
strikingly visual, unified by a design that makes them clearly identifiable as a team, but distinctive enough that they
maintain their signature shapes even when theyre shape-shifting. Leads always blocky, Mercury always flows
(hes liquid at room temperature), Platinum coils and springs, Gold is always a little more elaborate than anyone

else. Their stark, monochromatic designs make them pop on the page, and now that I think of it, when you combine
that with their one-note personalities, youre basically looking at the formula for a Power Rangers series years
before super sentai became a going concern.
Im harping pretty hard on those original stories when the question was about caring about them now, but what
Kanigher, Andru and Esposito did in that initial run reprinted in an Archive Edition that you can get cheap thats
worth every penny but every story that followed really did build on that foundation, and very few did it as well
as the originals, even if they did run out of steam after a year or two. Its a book thats years decades ahead of
its time, and they introduced so much that was revolutionary and different that theyre really hard to top without
feeling like youre just a cover band.
And one of the most important concepts they introduced was that the Metal Men were disposable heroes.

Not to spoil anything about a comic that came out 52 years ago, but the Metal Men were destroyed in their first
appearance. They were destroyed in almost every Metal Men story, in fact its kind of their deal. Its actually
really shocking to see them get blasted apart and torn limb from limb, and Ive wondered if that was Kanigher,
Andru and Esposito sneaking around the comics codes rules about violence by having it all happen to robots who
always get rebuilt at the beginning of the next story. Or maybe it was just an easy way to ratchet up the drama.
They were, after all, the same team that created the original Suicide Squad.

Either way, it gives Andru and Esposito the opportunity to do some amazing visuals, and also underscores the
theme of the robots humanity. Theyre characters that sacrifice their lives to protect people in every single story,
or at least get as close as you can in DC Comics in the Silver Age. Theres an eager resilience to them, but that just
means that they have to face these threats that end up being weirder and more brutal than youd ever see
in Superman. Theyre out there on the fringes, where things get bizarre and the consequences are being torn to
bits. Doom Patrol did that, too, with Robot Man, and it works beautifully there.
So, skipping ahead half a century, that brings us to where were at now, with Justice League. I think its pretty clear
by this point that I have a lot of affection for these characters, and I went into their reappearance with what were
probably the lowest possible expectations. Having a favorite character come back in a Forever Evil tie-in is worse
than never seeing them again, and with the hilariously awkward references to the Doom Patrol that cropped up
last month, it wasnt looking good. But after reading it and being reminded that Mercury is the only metal thats
liquid at room temperature I really liked what I read.
Sure, Will Magnus is a pathos-ridden sad sack in an army jacket which, to be fair, is definitely not inherently
worse than the 50 Shades of Platinum weirdo seen above but the core idea is there, spelled out in an explicit
mission statement. The Metal Men protect people even when it means their own destruction; they wont
be forced to be weapons because theyve chosen to be heroes, and theres a clear difference there. Its exactly what I
want to see from those characters. I do miss Copper from the Duncan Rouleau run, though, but since her entire deal
was nobody remembers Copper exists, its probably appropriate that she didnt show up here.
So thats the Metal Men. If you were wondering why theyre back now, or why they keep coming back even though
theyve never quite caught on to the level that they should, the answer in the real world is the same as it is in the
comics. You cant keep a good idea down.

Read More: Ask Chris #184: A Brief History Of The Metal Men | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-184-a-briefhistory-of-the-metal-men/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #183: Thor And The Casket of Ancient Winters

by Chris Sims February 14, 2014 1:04 PM

Q: Since you hate Frozen so much and are stuck in an ice storm, what are some good stories about snow and
ice? @prograpslady
A: Those harsh words I had for Frozen are going to follow me to my grave, arent they? Listen, Im glad you like
your little movie about ice puns and slapstick snowmen and I would never take that enjoyment away from you. I
just like things that are, you know, good. Its not necessarily that youre wrong, its just that I have more
sophisticated and refined tastes, which is why I like the finer things that cinema has to offer. Like, say, any movie
that prominently features a dirtbike or karate.
Anyway, its true: As I write this, Im bundled up in a Batman snuggie (the blanket with sleeves and a utility belt)
with snow on the ground and ice on the roads. This, of course, is pretty unusual for my home state of South
Carolina, so Ive been thinking all day about stories where a bitter winter plays a central part and really, theres
one that stands out right at the top of the list. From Walter Simonsons Thor, the story of Malekith and the Casket
of Ancient Winters.

To be honest, there actually is a little bit of a competition for this

particular title. Soft Targets from Brubaker, Rucka and Larks Gotham Central is probably the single greatest
Joker story of all time, and it takes place in the middle of December. Its actually one of the core elements of the
Jokers plot, something so intricate and well thought out that it really makes you hope that Brubaker and Ruckas
respective nemeses never drop them into a vat of acid and set them off on a live of thematic crime. Uh, for reasons
other than just generally not wanting awful things to happen to them, I mean.
Still, as much as the plot revolves around the Christmas shopping season and involves a snowy Gotham City, I dont
know that Id really call it a comic about winter weather. I definitely wouldnt call it a Christmas comic, even though
it climaxes two days before Christmas Eve, a date thats very specific and necessary for how its constructed.
With Thor, though, the idea of ice and snow as a force thats opposed to the heroes, something deadly in its own
right thats been manipulated to make a bad season worse, is right there at the forefront.
And it also has the benefit of being part of the single greatest run in superhero comic book history.
Saying that Simonsons Thor is a masterpiece is a little like pointing out that snow is cold, but its always worth
remembering how well that book is put together. Its an epic in every sense of the word. Not only does it sprawl out
over the course of four years with stories that, for the most part, are built around one continuous story, but that
story is one thats cosmic in scope. This is a comic where the very first words of the run are Far beyond the fields
we know, the core of an ancient galaxy explodes.

Thats not just set dressing, either. The destruction of the Burning Galaxy is the act that sets everything that
happens in Simonsons Thor into motion, because its the first step in Surturs plan to invade Asgard. That is, after
all, the focal point for the run, building for an entire year before it happens and then providing the fallout for
everything that follows.
But for being a story thats so cosmic, its also amazingly intricate. There are things set up in the first issue that
dont come back for a year, or that return at odd moments, breaking up the narrative to return to far beyond the
fields we know for two pages, then cutting back right back where it picked up. Even the way that those scene shifts
are built into the story is brilliant, with Simonson using page turns to cut away for two pages at a time, juggling
multiple storylines that are eventually going to come together and then weave back apart. He shifts from Thor to
Balder to Volstagg to Sif, juggling different variations on the same theme, and one of the interesting things
about that is how he plays with time when he does it.
The stories are told to us concurrently, cut together to form one single narrative, but they dont take up the same
amount of time for the characters. Volstagg, for instance, relates the story of Balder fighting his way back from Hel
over the course of three or four issues, during which several days pass for Thor:

I dont think were meant to believe that Volstagg is sitting on Agnar for an entire week its not exactly out of the
realm of possibility, I suppose, but I doubt that Volstagg would miss that many meals. Instead, the cuts back and
forth are meant to tell two stories whose themes parallel each other, while also heightening the drama by
providing a way to cut from one to the other when the tension is at its highest. These comics are gripping when you
read them all together in a paperback 25 years later; I can only imagine what it was like to get it once a month.
In case you cant tell, Im a really big fan of the technique on display here, but the single best thing it does is
construct a narrative where everything follows logically. Everything that happens in this comic has its
consequences, everything has a reason, and every action has its inevitable fallout, which is pretty important when
youre trying to construct a story of mythological proportions that involves prophecies being fulfilled.
Surtur destroying the Burning Galaxy and beginning construction of the Twilight sword makes a great splash page,
but its also what destroys Beta Ray Bills people, sending Bill out into space to find them a new home and leading
him to Thor, leading to him battling Thor, getting his powers and becoming an ally, leading in turn to him leading
Asgards forces in the battle for Midgard* (*: Earth) during Ragnarok n Roll, but those are just
the immediate consequences. The forging of Twilight is also what stirs up Fafnir the Dragon

who kills Eilif, the Last Viking, sending him to Valhalla as the Last Hero, completing the army of Asgard and
heralding Ragnarok. Theres an intricacy at work, a story that fits together perfectly, and that finally brings us back
to the Casket of Ancient Winters.
In any other run, I have to imagine that the story of an ancient enemy who was exiled from the nine worlds in ages
past returning to find an artifact that could unleash the fury of the past ice ages onto the entire world would be a
pretty big deal all on its own. And in Simonsons Thor, it is a big deal but its also just a small part of Surturs
master plan.
See, Surtur needs Malekith to open the Casket of Ancient Winters to freeze the barrier keeping him trapped in his
kingdom so that he can shatter it thats the immediate consequence but he also needs it to unleash the hellish
winter on South Carolina Midgard in order to keep the majority of Odins forces busy, complicating their battle
against the fire demons that he sends down as part of a three-pronged attack. But even that is really just a
distraction for its true purpose, planning the ultimate sneak attack by allowing the god of fire giants to unleash a
primal cold on Odin, trapping him:

Blikspiggle grampf!
Thats a great set of consequences. Its surprising for the characters and the readers, but in a way that makes
perfect sense within the logic of the story, and it lays out clear stakes for multiple sets of characters involved in the
story. Its not just about whether Thor can get to Asgard in time to save his dear old dad, its also about whether the
Human Torch and Roger Willis can get to the shards of the casket and put it back together in time to free Odin and
turn the tide.
Beyond its importance in the larger story, the stuff about the Casket of Ancient Winters is still great. The idea of a
golden box that contains all the cold of winters past is the perfect kind of mythological McGuffin, and Malekith, a
sinister shape-shifter drawn from stories of faeries and the wild hunt is a great counterpoint to Thor himself. In a
lot of ways, hes Loki Lite in the same way that Beta Ray Bill feels like a redesign of Thor to incorporate more
Kirby elements, Malekith, with his shapeshifting and smirking half-Drama mask face, feels like the same idea
applied to Loki but he works for the story.
Like the rest of the run, its got the perfect blending of mythology and modern Marvel Comics, pitting brainwashed
humans armed with mind-controlling Faerie food against Thor and his new pal, a veteran whose chief weapons
against the fey (who are of course vulnerable to iron, just like it says in the Monster Manual) are steel-jacketed
bullets from a .45 and a metal plate in his head that gives him a resistance to their evil magic.
Its also notable in being an interesting failure for Thor, who ends up not preventing the bad guy from getting what
he wants. It heightens the tension of everything going on around it, directly paving the way for Surtur and all that
comes with him, but theres more than that, too. Since its directly Thors fault, since he falls for the deception thats
hitting him from both sides from Malekith and Lorelei she was kidnapped by Malekith after a log dressed in her
clothes subverted her plan to bewitch Thor to fall in love with her, its a very intricate story it shows that even
the gods are vulnerable. Thats a key element in a book like Thor, where youre dealing with someone whos
constantly operating at this mythical level.
Plus, it gives nice visual effect to the whole thing. Not just with the big explosion of winter weather that busts out
when Malekith breaks the casket

but with how it bled into the rest of the line. The entire battle with Surturs forces takes place while a snowstorm
is raging through Manhattan, and thats not something that was confined to Thor. If you picked up, say, SpiderMan that month, youd see it snowing in that book, too, with characters wondering what was up with that. Its a
simple way to give the impression of a unified superhero universe, but its not something you see too often outside
of line-wide crossovers.
Speaking of, Final Night, the DC Event where the sun went out, is another big-name story that involves freezing. Its
not what Id call a very good comic, but it did give us that one issue of Hitman where the characters board
themselves up in the bar and talk about the first time they killed someone, which is amazing, so its a bit of a wash.
In the end, the Casket of Ancient Winters story is done so well and with so much great stuff going on that until I go
back and read it, it always feels like it was more than just a few issues told as part of this larger, epic adventure.
Theres enough going on even in a few issues to make it feel like it stands apart, like its just one of many stories of
Thor overcoming impossible odds, and thats exactly that a book rooted in mythology should have.
Of course, its also what lays the groundwork for Loreleis seduction of Thor and her alliance with Loki that almost
leads him to take over Asgard, and also what gives Thor the reason to travel to Hel to free the mortal souls that
Malekith and the Faeries had trapped there, which leads to his battle against Hela, which is why she curses him
with brittle bones, which leads to that fight in the issue thats all splash pages where Thor hits the Midgard Serpent
so hard that he breaks every bone in his own body, which is when the Destroyer shows up, and well.
Like I said, its a very intricate run.

Read More: Ask Chris #183: Thor And The Casket of Ancient Winters | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-183thor-and-the-casket-of-ancient-winters/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #182: The Butler Did It

by Chris Sims February 7, 2014 1:00 PM

Q: Where do you stand on the modern day love affair with the toughening of Alfred Pennyworth?
@danceformyhorse
A: Ive joked before about how I love Alfred more than most people love Batman, but lets be real here: thats
only half-joking. Alfred is easily one of my favorite characters in comics, and I could happily read an entire series
about the adventures of the Batmans Gentlemans Gentleman, even if it just focused on the problems of how to
keep a robotic Tyrannosaurus and a giant penny from getting too dusty while cleaning up Batmans anti-crime
basement. So believe me when I tell you, friends, the idea of a tough-as-nails Alfred Pennyworth is far from a
modern invention.
Alfreds been a badass since day one.

Okay, well, maybe not quite since day one. He was, after all,
introduced by Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson way back in 1943 as more of a comic relief character, an overweight,
overstuffed amateur detective who inserted himself into Batmans life as equal parts nuisance and sounding board.
After showing up at the mansion and basically demanding employment, which, to be fair, is a pretty baller way to
go about getting a job, he impresses Batman and Robin by figuring out their identities, but even that just happens
by accident. Before long after he lost the weight and grew the moustache to match the actor playing him in the
serials, but before he lost the weird Claremontean highfalutin accent he even got his own series of comedy
strips where he bumbled his way through solving crimes mostly by accident.
That said, it was only a few years before they started filling in the pieces of Alfreds history, shaping him into
someone who fit a little better into the growing family of characters waging an endless war on crime. Its part of the
evolution of his character, something thats still going on today.
The reason it feels (to me, anyway) like Alfred has always been a two-fisted tough guy in his own right probably
has a lot to do with the comics that got me started down my path of becoming the Worlds Foremost Batmanologist.
The very first comic book I ever read was Mike W. Barr and Irv Novicks DC Comics Presents #83, when Alfred once
again hulked out and turned into the Outsider, a creature so powerful that it took Superman, Batman, and the
Outsiders to take him down. I say once again because this was actually a sequel to a story from the 60s where
Alfred was killed off and then resurrected as a weird lumpy monster in underpants who tried to kill his former
employer, something that I remember being covered pretty briefly, and that confused the heck out of me when I
was 3. Still, it impressed on me the idea that under the right circumstances, Alfred could be a pretty threatening
dude in his own right.
Then I read Untold Legend of the Batman, and any suspicions I mightve had that Alfred was a total badass were
confirmed with a vengeance.
I absolutely love Untold Legend. If youve never read it, it was one of a few short mini-series put out in the early
80s that was designed to catch new fans up on the pretty complex continuity behind these characters. Back then,
you couldnt just type a characters name into Wikipedia and get a comprehensive history, and you were still years
away from paperback collections. Even if you were actively following the comics, reading fanzines and picking up
80-Page Giants for the reprints of old stories, its still pretty likely that youd be missing bits and pieces of the story.
Thus, Untold Legend and Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes, both of which were presented as a mystery that
forced its principal characters to stand around talking about their past for three issues.
Its actually way more exciting than it sounds. Untold Legend in particular stands as one of my all-time favorite
Batman stories, set up around a mystery of someone breaking into the Batcave, stealing Thomas Waynes costume
from The First Batman, and destroying it before mailing the remnants back to Batman, all wrapped up with a

strange and compelling psychological twist at the end, with Batman screaming at himself in a deathtrap of his own
making. That this was one of the first comics I ever read, and that I read it all the time when I was a kid, probably
shaped my tastes more than anything else. Seriously, check this page out:

When thats your formative image of Batman, youre probably going to grow up really liking comics where Jim
Aparo draws that dude open-hand slapping jerks in disco suits into unconsciousness.
For our purposes today, though, the relevant part comes in the second issue, which, in addition to all the batslapping, goes into the history of Robin, the Joker, and Alfred:

That, folks, is Alfred Pennyworth liberating a concentration camp and then mowing Nazis down with a machine
gun fired in one hand while the other has a fistful of barbed wire. Thats hard. Thats, like, Lee Marvin hard. And
again, when thats your first real look at Alfred, when theres a comic that goes hey, that guy who wears the tuxedo
and makes chicken soup for Batman? Heres his origin story, thats an image thats going to stick with you. You
dont really get more badass than that.
What Im getting at here is that this was how Alfred worked in 1980, and all Untold Legend was doing was
highlighting elements of the character that had been established years before. Even if its just stuff that he did in
the distant past, Alfreds been a badass for a long, long time.
It really makes sense that he would be, too. For all intents and purposes, Alfred is, after all, Batmans father figure
Ive written about this before, but thats the really interesting wrinkle to the story that Alfred brings in when he
shows up. Batman is motivated by the loss of his parents, but part of the fantasy is that as an adult, he gets
a new father, with the added bonus that this one is technically an employee that he can boss around so that he can
stay up all night if he wants to. Robin is the first step in Batman rebuilding his family as an adult, but Alfred fills the
role of a father, and a huge part of that is that he has to be able to take care of Batman.
That, ideally, is what parents do, right? They provide that sense of security and protection the same things that
are taken away from Batman when Thomas and Martha Wayne are killed is exactly what he gets back when Alfred
joins up. The thing is, the needs of a child are pretty vastly different from the needs of a man in a costume who sets
out to end crime by throwing little metal bats at it every night. If were going to buy into the idea that Batman is
mortal and can be hurt, then hes not going to get the kind of injuries you can patch up with rubbing alcohol and a
Hello Kitty band-aid, and if Alfreds going to be the one to fill that parental role, then his skillset is going to have to
be ramped up as far beyond the average as Batmans. So he becomes a butler who just happens to also be an exsecret agent with training as a combat medic. Theres actually a kind of logic to it.
The trick is that as Batman himself evolves over time, Alfred has to change to keep up, which is why it seems like
badass Alfred is a modern invention. A lot of the most visible Batman projects particularly the Nolan movies
have shifted the focus away from Batman the adventuring crimefighter and more towards the gritty urban
vigilante, and with that, you get an Alfred whos shifted along the same axis, especially if you take Robin out of the
equation and leave Alfred as his only confidante. The same thing happens to Commissioner Gordon, although thats
usually to a lesser extent; Gordons role is usually less flexible than Alfreds just by nature of having to be rooted in
the police department. Thats how you get Michael Caine as an ex-SAS soldier talking about hunting down warlords
in Burma, or the Jason Statham-esque Alfred of Beware the Batman:

Incidentally, aside from the thing with the guns (more on that later), I actually liked that take on Alfred a lot. Just as
Batman can be different things depending on the story being told, its nice to see a version of Alfred that we havent
really seen before either. Theres a lot of interesting drama you can get from the idea of a big, physically imposing
Alfred who has to publicly protect Bruce Wayne while also helping Batman behind the scenes, and I like the idea of

a more working-class Alfred contrasted with the privileged (albeit tragic) Batman. Plus, JB Blancs voice acting is
really stellar.
The only thing I didnt care for about it, and something that adaptations of Batman into other media seem to be
having an increasingly hard time with, is that he was a bodyguard and not a butler. Ill admit that theres a good
chance thats because I can be a traditionalist in weird ways about this stuff, but I do think it changes the dynamic
of those characters. Its not that Alfred necessarily has to be a servant thats something thats always going to
be weird, even if Bruce Wayne is unimaginably rich but if you make him a bodyguard and then also make him a
physically imposing character, and also keep the level of dedication to his duty that has always been at the heart of
Alfreds character, it raises the question of why hes not out there in a costume himself taking bullets for his
employer. A butler, even a badass butler who spent his youth gunning down Nazis in the war, isnt called upon to
do that. A bodyguard is. Its a weird setup, and it can lead to some awkward shifts in how the characters work.
And nothing is more awkward, and nothing botches the characterization of Alfred as a tough guy harder
than Batman: Earth One.

I have a pretty intense, visceral hatred for this one based mostly on
the end, but Ill admit that in one way, it does a pretty decent job of bridging those two ideas of Alfred, the mildmannered servant and the (former) badass assistant. Rather than skewing younger like Beware the Batman, Johns
and Frank depict Alfred as an older man who also walks with a cane, hinting at an injury that keeps him out of
action while also not necessarily stopping him from going tough when the occasion calls for it. In that respect, hes
very reminiscent of Old Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond, someone who has the potential to get into the action on
occasion, without pulling the focus away from the character whos actually the star. The only bad part about that is
the ridiculously awkward way that they nudge the reader into recognizing who Alfred is by having him declare
himself to be Bruce Waynes butler, as a joke, for no reason. Its goofy as hell, but, you know, Ive seen weirder.
The problem is that they push him too far, building him as a super-cool, rad to the max!, not your daddys Alfred,
which just serves to steal focus and make Batman himself look like a complete and utter imbecile. Spoiler warning,
but the end of that story comes when Batman gets chumped out in two hits by the Penguin honestly, the
Penguin and is rescued from certain death when Alfred busts in and shoots the Penguin with a shotgun, blasting
him out of a window and killing him. One more time, for those if you in the back, this is a Batman origin story that
ends with someone saving Batmans life by killing someone with a gun.

Batmans relationship to guns is a pretty big deal, and when a major conceit of your story is that Batman owes his
life to someone being shot and murdered with one, youve lost the plot. At that point, theres no reason at all for
Batman not to stand up and go dang, you were right all along, Tough Alfred! I should definitely just shoot these
dudes so that they dont stab and bludgeon me to death. Despite my desire to see superheroes say dang more
often, thats a pretty sucky ending. Alfred saving Batmans life is fine, Id even go as far as saying its necessary for
the character, even, but thats not really the best way to do it. It sets up Alfred as a badass, sure, but Death Wish
3 should not be where youre looking for inspiration.
That doesnt mean the modern Alfred cant have a balance, though. Personally, and completely unsurprisingly since
its the version I had when I was a kid, Im still drawn to the idea of Alfred as a good-hearted man with an
adherence to romantic ideas about duty and honor, who sees violence as a regrettable necessity. It gives him
something in common with Batman himself dude loves his work, but hes not out there because he wants to
punch people, hes there because he wants to save people, and would like nothing more than to see a day when
breaking the Riddlers jaw was no longer necessary. Alfred, someone capable of great violence but who chooses to
offer aid and comfort instead, understands that. Theres a nobility to what he does, even if theres a hardened edge
sitting just under the surface.

Read More: Ask Chris #182: The Butler Did It | http://comicsalliance.com/alfred-pennyworth-origin-historybatman-dc-ask-chris-182/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #181: Wolvies Angels

by Chris Sims January 31, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Whats your take on Wolverine and his many girl sidekicks? Do you think its important for their stories,
and whos best? @manuel_mc89
A: I think its been well-established over my time here at ComicsAlliance that I have a whole lot of affection for the
X-Men, and Wolverine in particular. I love that guy, mostly because it was basically unavoidable that I would end
up becoming a fan of a dude who could punch you with knives and rode around on motorcycles and didnt play by
the rules, man. I mean, I was ten years old in 1992. That I didnt also enter my teenage years as a huge fan of Cable
and Shatterstar (his sword has two blades!) is basically miraculous.
Point being, Wolverines great, and on the list of things he does that Im always eager to see, mentoring younger
characters is right up there with stabbing hundreds of ninjas. And folks, I like Wolverine stabbing ninjas a lot.

The thing about Wolverine being a mentor is that it works for all
the reasons that it shouldnt work at all, and it starts with the idea that hes a loner. Well, a loner, anyway
weve had forty years of stories where hes been nothing but a team player, and almost two solid decades where
hes been on every team in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, to the point where there was an arc
in Exiles about a team made up of nothing but alternate-universe Wolverines. Seriously, it is without question Tony
Bedards finest hour. That said, I dont think that really takes away from the idea of Wolverine as a guy who doesnt
really get along with other people. In fact, theres a way to look at it that actually reinforces it.
If you look at his history, Wolverine is a dude who has always been attacked and exploited by outside forces.
Whether it was the Canadian government turning him into a killing machine to further their own ends
something that I assume the actual Canadian government does to its citizens all the time because comic books have
never lied to me about international politics or Sabretooth showing up to kill his girlfriends, the people who
manage to get closest to him and earn his trust always end up worse for it, whether its in the form of betrayal or as
the victims of the betrayal of others. His entire life has been shaped by that; even Professor Xavier only recruits
him because he wants something out of the deal, and Im not sure if battling Krakoa the Living Island is any more
noble a goal than stab-murdering the enemies of Canada.
Point being, Wolverine is a loner by necessity, not by choice.
I think thats where the fascination with samurai comes from, as an attempt to romanticize his loneliness. Rather
than see himself as a guy who always gets his current friends murdered by his former friends, he instead deals with
it by fancying himself a wandering ronin* who must nobly take that burden upon himself. Its a coping mechanism
that manifests itself pretty often as Wolverines extended fetishizing of Japanese culture.

I dont think it ever actually comes up in the comics, but trust me on this one: That dude has a lot of opinions about
anime.
You can see it pretty easily when he joins up way back in Giant Size X-Men #1. The X-Men have always been a team
of outsiders and misfits because thats their entire metaphorical deal, but most of those characters have some kind
of support system. Colossus has his family in Russia, Storm is worshiped as a Goddess, Banshees a cop. Wolverines
nominally employed by the Government, but he has no real attachment to them. He walks out without a second
thought because theres nothing keeping him there. The only other member of the All-New X-Men that really fits
that pattern is Nightcrawler, whos literally hunted by the public:

I think thats why you get so many good stories about Wolverine and Nightcrawler becoming friends. They play off
each other; Wolverine turns inward in response to a life of tragedy, while Nightcrawler turns to Religion.
Wolverines the grim samurai who dispatches his enemies, Nightcrawlers the cheerful swashbuckler who forgives
his. Theyre a study in opposites, but they can relate to each other because they start from the same place.
So thats where Wolverine really enters the story: a loner who doesnt actually want to be alone, whos suddenly
dropped into a school.
Im pretty sure Ive written about this before, but the idea of the X-Men as the product of a school is a huge part of
the appeal for me. Even when the focus isnt on students taking classes, the role of the X-Men in helping and
training young mutants is incredibly important in my view of how the team should work. It might just be my wellknown love for teenage superheroes, but the metaphor of feeling alone and persecuted and the strange changes
that occur during puberty not exactly the most subtle thing comics have ever brought to the table has always
worked better for me in the context of a school than when it just focuses on the X-Men as a paramilitary strike
team. When you look at him in that context, its only natural that he takes on the role of a teacher.
I mean, really, who else is going to do it? Cyclops? Even if I put aside my opinion on how that dude is just the worst,
I have a hard time seeing him as a teacher in the traditional sense. As much as he might want to follow in Charles
Xaviers footsteps (uh, so to speak), hes too fixated on the whole superheroic aspect of it. You put him in front of a
class full of curious children and tell him to pass on what they need to know, and hes going to draw a picture of a
Sentinel, circle the weak points, tell everyone that the fate of their entire race is going to be left to a giant blue man
with vague shapeshifting powers if they fail, and then wish them luck on the exam. An A means you survive. A B
means you die in the concentration camp from Days of Future Past.
Useful information, but, you know, pretty grim. Turns out if you throw your kid out of a plane and then go to space
and grow a sick moustache, they turn out kind of repressed.
Wolverine, on the other hand, might be a rage-fueled berserker killing machine on some (most) occasions, but hes
also a guy with some romantic (in the classical sense, not the lovey-dovey one) ideas about honor and sacrifice and
rewarding those who actually do show loyalty. Those are things hes going to want to pass on, especially when he

sees someone facing the same kind of external dangers that have plagued him for his entire life. Hes driven by the
desire for companionship, along with what hed see as the noble goal of protecting others from the kind of things
he had to deal with, while also preparing them for the inevitability of those attacks and betrayals. Because for
Wolverine, they are inevitable they happen five, sometimes six times a month depending on whats doubleshipping, after all and the only way to face them head on is to be prepared.
And thats where the sidekicks come in.

Theres always going to be drama in the idea of a loner having to pass down his knowledge to a pupil. Even if its
something weve seen before, theres always going to be an element there that can be twisted to something new,
whether its the differences in the student or the differences in Wolverine himself. The guy who took Kitty Pryde
under his wing was vastly different from the guy whos running the Jean Grey School, if only because the latter has
had an additional three decades of adventures and shocking revelations about his own past to keep up with. His
perspective can change and be informed, and the way he interacts with a new character as they breeze into the cast
is different each time.
Thats what sets the pattern apart. The interesting thing about Wolverines sidekicks is that even in the world of
comics, where almost everything eventually returns to the status quo, they tend to age out of the role. Theyre only
really sidekicks for so long before they move on and get replaced by next years model, from Kitty Pryde to
Jubilee to X-23 and Armor and Rogue in the movies and so on. That fits the metaphor, too theyll always be
teammates, and there will always be a connection there, but eventually they move on from a teacher because
theyve learned all they can. Its one of those rare instances of forward momentum, where characters are allowed
to grow and change based on their interactions with each other, building this intricate web of relationships both to
Wolverine and to each other.

Its always fun to see Kitty Pryde and Jubilee interact, because theres so much history in how they relate to each
other. They were both the new recruit that Wolverine guided until they were ready to face the world on their own,
but they were doing those things at very different times, with very different versions of Wolverine the
distrustful tough who never even told his teammates his claws were part of his body (thats actually a plot point;
Kitty thought they were weapons stored in his gloves) contrasted with the gruff but dedicated teammate of the 90s
team. Theres a lot of drama to be had with that, assuming that Jubilees not some weird-ass vampire or something
this year.
And its every bit as fun to see them interacting with Quentin Quire, the most recent (and the most antagonistic)
character to fill that role in the pages of Wolverine and the X-Men, whose teenage rebellion is nothing if not a poorly
masked cry for attention and approval from Wolverine.

Then again, thats always been the great thing about the X-Men: the way those characters interact, the intricate
webs of hot-headed rivals and unrequited longing and students and teachers and complete scumbags is at the core
of those stories, and its definitely a huge aspect.
As for who did it best, well, its hard to beat Kitty Pryde. Just by virtue of being first, she provided a blueprint for
virtually every character who would fill that role after her in one way or another, and got astonishingly weird while
she was doing it. Just by virtue of her path from wide-eyed newcomer with a power that made her a perfect
viewpoint character she could stand there watching the events with plenty of thought balloons whilenothing
going on could touch her, a power that ought to have been called Super-Narration to veteran X-Man, shes
bizarre. Then you add in Wolverine and you start getting stories like the one where she learns how to be a super
ninja in roughly six hours, and things get weird.
But the relationship at the core of it remains compelling. Theres a reason that my all-time favorite X-Men story is
that issue where Colossus breaks Kittys heart because of the Secret Wars and then Wolverine and Nightcrawler
take him out to a bar to beat the hell out of him, only to accidentally pick the one bar in New York City where the

Juggernaut is hanging out that night. Its the perfect mix of these personal relationships, bizarre coincidences and
superheroic action that the entire franchise is built on, but the heart of it is Wolverine seeing Kitty in pain and
wanting to protect her in a very fatherly way. But, you know, because of Secret Wars.
That said, Ill always have a soft spot for Jubilee, just like a mall baby has a soft spot for chili fries.

Read More: Ask Chris #181: Wolvie's Angels | http://comicsalliance.com/wolverine-x-men-mentor-sidekickskitty-pryde-jubilee-ask-chris-181/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #180: Love Letters

by Chris Sims January 24, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Lettering: who does it best and why? @awa64

A: Comic book lettering is up there with inking and coloring in the holy trinity of underrated comic book skills, but
its also one of those things that, once you start paying attention to it, youll never be able to not notice it again. Im
not exaggerating even a little bit when I say that its one of those things that can absolutely ruin a comic if its done
wrong, even if everything else is perfect. But to be honest, of those three elements, lettering is still probably the
most underrated.
The thing is, when its good, it can be absolutely gorgeous in its own right. And fortunately for us, there are a lot of
people who do it very, very well.

Todd Klein
Heres why lettering matters so much: The single most important thing about any comic book is whether someone
can actually read it. That sounds like the simplest idea in the world, and it is, but its worth keeping in mind if you
ever set about making a comic of your own, because it can affect every single step of the process, and you get it a lot
in those three aspects. You can have the best story and the best line art, but if the other stuff doesnt fall into place,
nobodys going to be able to get to the point where they care about any of it. If the lettering doesnt work, your
words stop being a story and just become words, laying there on the page divorced from their meaning. If the
coloring is muddled, if things run together to the point where you cant distinguish them, or if theyre soaked in
eye-searing neon when they should be fading into the background, that pulls focus away from what those words
and pictures are trying to do. Its distracting it puts a barrier between the reader and the story. And its
especially bad with lettering, because on one level lettering is already a barrier.
From a purely physical standpoint, lettering sits between the reader and the story. The standard practice, whether
its done by computers or goes all the way back to pasting cutouts on a bristol board, is to go in after the arts
finished and put the balloons and dialogue on top of it, placing them over the art. When you look at it that way, its
very easy to see how it can become an obstacle, and when its done poorly, thats exactly what it is. But when its
done well, its a bridge. Its what allows you to enter this world, to follow along with the action, to get wrapped up
in the story which is exactly why so many people dont notice it.
Generally speaking, when lettering works, its nearly invisible. It exists to serve the art and the story, so most of the
job is just not covering up anything crucial in the art and making sure the writers words are right there on the
page in a way that gets their meaning across clearly. The trick is when they step up and start adding to what theyre
doing, which is when you realize how important that job actually is. Its bundled up into a lot of skills, not just in
the calligraphy of writing legible letters, but in balloon placement, in special effects that add to the story, and even
on the art side in making sure that you leave enough room for the dialogue.
One guy whos really amazing at that is Joe Caramagna, probably best known currently for his work
on Daredevil alongside Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. Daredevils actually a great book to discuss on this front,

because its one where sounds and spoken words, things that are impossible to replicate in print, always play a
pretty huge part. This always puts the emphasis on lettering, whether its artists drawing in the sound effects as
part of the art or just something as simple as figuring out how to represent super-hearing and whispering on the
printed page. Caramagna who, incidentally, is also a pretty solid writer himself always rises to the occasion.
Most of the time, its with that same idea of creating the invisible bridge between the reader and the story, but
every now and then, hell bust out a trick that reminds of just how good he is at his job. Case in point, the way the
doors close on a speaking man in Daredevil #26:

I love that panel. It uses the medium to represent something in a way that could only happen in comic books. If
comic book creators had signature moves like professional wrestlers, that would be one of Caramagnas he did
something similar a few years ago in Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalos Shed, where Curt Connors narrative captions

were literally torn apart when his personality was destroyed by the Lizard, similar to what the also-fantastic Chris
Eliopoulos does when Banner transforms in Indestructible Hulk:

So whos the heavyweight champion of the lettering world? Well, assuming that were discounting Jazzy Josh Krach,
who letters pretty much all of my own comics (and does a bang-up job with em), there are three that immediately
spring to mind, and the first is the one that its easiest to make a case for:Todd Klein.

Todd Klein is, mathematically speaking, the greatest comic book letterer of all time. So great, in fact, that of the
twenty Eisner Awards that have been given out for lettering since they started in 1993, Klein has won sixteen.
Thats 80%, including a streak that lasted from 1997 to 2008. Dude is the Undertaker of lettering, and its easy to
see why. Hes not only the guy who wrote the book on lettering specifically The DC Comics Guide To Lettering
and hes not only a guy whos exceptionally good at what he does, but hes done it on a ton of high-profile projects
like Kingdom Come, Tom Strong and Sandman.
That last one is a testament to just how good Klein is. Its one of his most visible contributions to storytelling,
because there are multiple characters in that book who have distinctive patterns to their word balloons that
reinforce their personalities. In those scenes where all of the Endless are hanging out together, each of them is
lettered in a completely different style Dream himself even yammers on in those irregular black balloons with
white lettering, which runs counter to the usual rules of illegibility but works beautifully because Klein knows how
to pull it off. It gives the impression of a strange, ethereal, otherworldly voice, which is exactly what that book
needed. It just wouldnt be the same with standard lettering, even if it was done well, and Klein did every issue.
My personal favorite Klein work, though, is another DC book he did for its entire run: Suicide Squad.

Love those sound effects.

The second guy I always go to when it comes to great letterers, someone I always get excited about when I notice
his distinctive letters cropping up, is Tom Orzechowski.

Id be willing to bet that more readers have seen Orzechowskis lettering than just about anyone else working in
comics, if only because hes the dude who lettered every classic X-Men story you love. Every snikt and BAMF and
there was no quarter asked and none given and the focused totality of my psychic powers and JEAN! from
those comics was put there by Orzechowski, and they are all beautiful.
Hes a master of balloon placement and perfect sound effects, and of hitting emotion and sound in the way that he
presents the words on the page. Its difficult to explain why I like his lettering so much, other than to just say that I
really, really like how he makes letters. Which is handy, because when youre lettering Chris Claremonts dialogue
for 20 years

youre going to end up making a lot of them.

My all-time favorite, though, the guy Id put forth as the G.O.A.T. when it comes to letterers, is John Workman, best
known for lettering Walter Simonsons Thor:

I love literally everything about Workmans lettering. It doesnt hurt that Simonsons Thor is quite literally the
greatest superhero comic ever published, but still, the lettering is gorgeous. The big round balloons, the different
styles that he uses for his captions and scene transitions and story titles, but lets be honest, the real stars here are
the four-syllable sound effects that you get when gods start smashing things with their hammers. No one has ever
made KRAKABABOOOOM! look as good as Workman does, and its breathtaking every time I go back and read
those comics.
Ive only been starstruck when meeting comic book creators a couple of times, but I flipped out when I met
Workman at one of the first cons I ever went to. I even asked him to put a sound effect in my sketchbook:

The little exclamation point is my favorite part.

Those are my picks for the top, but honestly, its just scratching the surface. There are plenty of other amazing
letterers out there, from founding fathers like Ben Oda to consistently great creators like Stan Sakai, and Dave
Gibbons, and even Dave Sim, though Ive never read his comics. Its an incredibly underrated art form, something
that makes everything else in your favorite comics possible by providing the bridge that leads to everything else.
And sometimes, people get hit so hard that there are five syllables. Thats where the magic really happens.

Read More: Ask Chris #180: Comic Book Lettering | http://comicsalliance.com/best-comic-book-lettering-kleinworkman-orzechowski-ask-chris/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #179: The Jimmy Olsen Robin War!

by Chris Sims January 17, 2014 12:28 PM

Q: Why is it that Robin has endured as Batmans teen sidekick, but Jimmy Olsen hasnt as Supermans?
@doubting_tom
A: I dont know why, but for some reason, I got a lot of questions this week about sidekicks in general and Robin in
particular, but this one stuck out for a pretty obvious reason, which is that I really, really like to talk about Jimmy
Olsen. Its weird, though, Tom, because youre absolutely right: As much as I might love the guy, hes often ignored
in and minimized in superhero stories, something that doesnt happen a lot to someone who was once a fixture of
the cast who was popular enough to hold down a solo title for 150 issues. Meanwhile, were up to our pointy bat
ears in Robins, ex-Robins, dead Robins, potential Robins and Future Robins. It seems a little imbalanced.
But at the same time, theres definitely a logic to it, and there are a lot of reasons that those two characters have
ended up how they did. It has to do with when they showed up, the role they fill in the story, how theyve changed
over the years, and the idea that maybe Jimmy Olsen isnt really a sidekick at all.

I mean, thats what we call him Ive done it more than just about
anyone, mostly because Ive thought about Jimmy Olsen more than most people have thought about Superman over
the past ten years but really, thats more because sidekick is the word we use for teenagers who hang out with
grown-up superheroes than because its his actual role. Theyre not really partners in the way that Batman and
Robin or Captain America and Bucky are; Jimmy doesnt generally head into battle and help Superman fight Lex
Luthors robots or anything. If he had to fill out a form, he wouldnt list crimefighter as his primary occupation,
and if anything, hes usually the one who has to be rescued from whatever trouble shows up in the story. Robin
mightve pioneered the role of the Boy Hostage, but Jimmy went pro with it, to the point where his only consistent
accessory (aside from the bowtie, I suppose) is the watch that he uses to call Superman for help.
Really, Jimmy Olsen is exactly what it says on the cover: Hes Supermans Pal. Thats what makes him great, too,
because it changes so much about both of those characters. One of the flimsy justifications that people who make
bad Superman stories always go to is that hes too powerful, too godlike, and that someone like that just cant relate
to the average human and thats why he needs to walk across the country or whatever. This, of course, is hot
garbage for a variety of reasons, but Jimmy Olsen pokes a pretty big hole in that theory just by existing. If
Superman was really so godly and remote from humanity, then how is his best friend just a normal guy?
Superman has plenty of people he calls friends, which makes sense. If you made a habit of destroying killer robots
and meteors, youd probably be pretty popular too. But while he has friendships with Batman or the Legionnaires
or the rest of the Justice League, the character whos defined as his friend is a regular guy. Relatively smart and
resourceful, sure, and the product of a world in which super-horses and criminal swamis are an unavoidable fact of
life, but otherwise perfectly normal. Superman relates to him better than he relates to anyone else, and Jimmy,
average young man that he is, can relate to Superman. Theyre friends, in a way that goes beyond just hero worship
or sidekicking. Those dudes actually hang out.
One of the aspects of Jimmy that I really like thats often lost in the shuffle its one of the few modern additions
to Jimmys character, recently brought up by Scott Snyder and Grant Morrison in Superman Unchained and Action
Comics is that Jimmys just as much Clarks friend as he is Supermans:

Thats something that really adds to how both of those characters work, and helps to root Superman in his
humanity. Establishing that Jimmy can relate to both of them equally on their own terms is a pretty big deal, and it
gives Clark someone to talk to who isnt a billionaire vigilante or mythical royalty, friends that are every bit as hard
to relate to for the average reader as an flying spaceman with heat vision. Hes Supermans Pal.
Of course, that also makes Jimmy disposable.
I hate to say it because, as Ive mentioned before, Jimmy Olsen is my third-favorite comic book character of all time
right after Batman and Spider-Man, which means Im one of the few people who likes Jimmy Olsen more than
Superman but if youre paring thing down to the essentials, Jimmys relationship with Superman doesnt do
anything that Loiss relationship doesnt do better.
Im a pretty big fan of friendship based storytelling, but the idea of the most powerful person in the universe falling
in love with an ordinary human woman because she has the same exceptional courage in pursuit of the truth as
he does despite her human fragility is, well, more romantic in every sense of the word. Theres a poetry to it that
you dont really get with Jimmy, and every aspect of her personality just increases how interesting they can be
when theyre paired up. Her competition with Clark as a reporter, her willingness to look past the powers because
she wants to find out more about the person behind them, those are all great character traits. Even the Silver Ages
version of her half-mad pursuit of marriage has this great idea at its core, that shes so tenacious and fearless
that she isnt going to let him run away from their obvious love for each other because hes afraid of the people
close to him being hurt. Its actually really great, even if it manifests as some truly bonkers nonsense some (most)
of the time. With the more modern idea of Lois as someone whos also involved with Clark rather than just
dismissing him as a milquetoast, something that really only came around in the 80s, she filled a lot of the role that
wouldve gone to Jimmy otherwise. Theres a reason Olsens been pretty much twiddling his thumbs since Crisis,
and most of it comes from that redundancy with Loiss evolution.
Even though they do it in different ways, both of which are valid and both, Id argue, are necessary, Jimmy and Lois
cover a lot of the same ground in what they reveal about Superman, and if you have to pick one, theres no
competition. Lois wins every time, hands down. Theres just way more emotion to I love you, Lois Lane, until the
end of time than youre going to get with hey Clark, lets play XBox.
Id call that the core reason for Jimmys decline, but there are other factors, too. Ive always maintained that while
he was around pretty early, Jimmy really evolved as a character in the 50s, and developed in the way that only a
product of the Silver Age could develop. As pal Andrew Weiss has often pointed out, Jimmys just a human version
of Captain Marvels pal Mr. Tawny (they even wear the same suit and jacket), transplanted along with a lot of
Captain Marvels aesthetic into Supermans world by Otto Binder. A lot of his personality is intricately tied to that
particular era of Superman, of which Binder was arguably the most crucial creator, so hes intricately tied to it in
the same way that Batman still has echoes of the noirish, pulpy 40s, or that Cable has with the 90s, or that Luke
Cage has with the 70s.

That wouldnt be a bad thing, if not for the fact that comics in general and DC Comics in particular have been trying
their damnedest to run as far away from the perceived silliness (and, lets be honest, actual silliness) of that era for
the past forty years. It has a weird double effect on the character too. Not only have they tried to mothball a lot of
the things that make Jimmy unique the strange adventures, the optimism, even the idea that he could just hang
out with Superman theyve also changed Superman himself into a character whos less receptive to that kind of
friendship. It started with John Byrne, who stripped out both Jimmy and Pete Ross in favor of rebuilding Superman
with the focus on Lois and Lana. It wasnt an entirely unwelcome change, but it cemented the idea of a Superman
without Jimmy as a necessary ingredient. Throw in the shift towards more high-stakes, fate-of-the-world
storytelling, and the very idea of Supermans Pal seems weird. Superman can hang out with Jimmy Olsen when hes
dealing with the kind of weird problems of the Silver Age (so many swamis, you guys) but when hes flying off to
stop Darkseid from enslaving humanity or General Zod from building a mountain of skulls or whatever, stopping
for a chat with his human pal seems as out of place as taking the time to build wax statues in the Fortress of
Solitude.
It also goes back to what I was saying earlier about how Jimmy pokes a hole in the Superman-is-Unrelatable theory.
He does, but so many people, and so many creators, have that rooted in their head that theyre compelled to make
it work. They dont adjust the perception of Superman to match the stories, they adjust the stories to match their
perceptions. If Jimmy proves that Superman is someone the average person can relate to, then I guess we just cant
have Jimmy Olsen cluttering up our story where sad lonely Superman cries about stuff, which is a mostly what he
ended up doing for the first decade of the 21st century. Would you want to hang out with the douchebag Superman
from the first half of Grounded, or the dour deadbeat dad/stalker from Superman Returns or, heaven forfend, the
washed-out killer from Man of Steel? I dont think Jimmy Olsen would. As Erica Henderson put it when I chatted
with her about this, We cant really have Jimmy back until Superman stops being sorry for being Superman.
So if all thats true, why does Robin endure? At first glance, they share a lot of the same qualities, but theyre shifted
just enough to make a huge difference in how their characters work.

To start with, Robin, like Jimmy, is unquestionably a product of his

era. The 40s were lousy with kid sidekicks, from Speedy to Bucky to Stuff the Chinatown Kid to Toro to,
regrettably, Ebony White, but think about how many sidekicks youve heard of who were created after 1960. The
latest prominent sidekicks I can think of are Kid Flash in 1959 and Aqualad in 1960, and I have to think thats more
because of Robins popularity than because the sidekick zeitgeist still being in effect. Supergirl came about in 59
too, but even though she fits the definition of sidekick better than Jimmy Olsen (she actually does go on
adventures and contributes to them in a non-hostage fashion), most of her appearances were solo stories over
inAdventure Comics. Wonder Girl was never really a sidekick she was actually created by accident, when Bob

Haney didnt realize that the Wonder Girl he was writing into Teen Titans wasnt Wonder Womans sidekick, but
Wonder Woman herself in the past, a la Superboy.
This, incidentally, ruined the continuity of the DC Universe forever, so the next time DC reboots, blame Donna Troy.
Theres a big shift in superheroes in the 60s that essentially makes teen sidekicks obsolete, at least as they were up
to that point, and its name was Spider-Man. Peter Parker heralded the arrival of the solo teen hero, which at the
time was a pretty revolutionary concept. Billy Batson was a kid, sure, but when he said his magic word, he turned
into a grown-up; Spider-Man was a kid even with the mask on. Robin was in solo stories starting in the 40s, but he
was still the back half of Batman And; Spider-Man was the star attraction of his own story. Even the name was a
shift calling a high schooler Spider-Man instead of Spider-Boy says a lot about how much it changed things.
Since then, virtually every younger character in superhero comics, whether its Speedball or Nova or Jaime Reyes
or Invincible or Terry McGinnis or Buffy the Vampire Slayer have followed that model. It works pretty darn well.
But even though teen sidekicks became a punchline (well, more of a punchline than they already were when
Wertham started poring through back issues looking for homoerotic subtext), even when the genre moved on,
Robin endured. They not only kept him around, but when the character got a new role (which, incidentally, largely
followed the Spider-Man formula), the role remained. We got a new Robin, then another one, then more. Hes in the
fabric.
For why, you have to go back to the beginning again. Ive always been under the impression that reason all those
heroes had sidekicks in the first place was so that they could appeal to the kids. Adults are fundamentally difficult
for children to relate to, just by virtue of being adults. Theyre authority figures. They already have names like
Captain America already, and when you hit the 50s and they basically turn into dads, theyre even harder for
their target audience to relate to. Hence the need for sidekicks, to give the kids someone they could more closely
relate to, as well as providing the character with someone to talk to, explain the plot, or rescue all the standard
stuff that comes from adding in a partner. You know, Watson stuff.
I dont know if that was the actual intent of those stories, but it definitely worked that way for me when I was a kid.
Watch your feet, Im about to drop a name, but I mentioned this to Batman 66 and Aquaman writer Jeff Parker
earlier today when we were talking about it on Twitter: As much as Batman was my hero, I never wanted
to be Batman. I wanted to be Robin, because he got to hang out with Batman. He does all the cool stuff, has the
utility belt, gets to ride in the cool car, but he doesnt have to be quite as grim as Batman himself. All the benefits,
without all the responsibility.
Admittedly, Robin does have to watch his parents die, but rather than going off and brooding and training for years
and honing himself into a living weapon to make war on all criminals, he gets a new father figure that day, and
its the coolest dude on Earth. I never wanted my parents to die, but, yknow, if they had to go, getting Batman as
your new dad is a good consolation.
Thats the great thing about Robin, and the thing that really makes for the best sidekicks: They function as the
heroes, but in miniature. Robin is probably the single best example of this idea, followed closely by Supergirl,
because theyre constructed to mirror the tragedies that shaped the characters they associate with. Robin, as
originally constructed, has that same defining moment, witnessing his parents murder, but Batman is
there immediately. Dick Grayson isnt alone in the way Bruce Wayne is, which makes perfect sense. Batman already
exists. Dick Grayson doesnt have to go off and become Batman, because that role is already filled, and since it is,
someone is there to lessen the tragedy.
I talked about a lot of this stuff a while back so I wont retread that ground too much, but Robin shows a crucial
aspect of Batmans character, just like Jimmy Olsen shows a crucial part of Supermans. In the same way that the
idea of humanity, expressed as kindness and unrequited altruism, sits at the core of Superman, Batmans core is
about family, expressed as protection and safety. As a child he loses his, so as an adult, he builds a new one, and
Robin is the first step in making that happen. Becoming the father figure that he lost is a bigger victory for Batman
than anything else in the history of the character, because it shows that hes winning. He has already changed the
world, just by making sure that someone else didnt have to go through what he went through alone.
Its worth noting that Robin originally appears before Alfred, which sets up this interesting dynamic where he
becomes a father figure and then gets one of his own to replace the one he lost and then gets another interesting
wrinkle when Commissioner Gordon evolves in the 70s, as a peer and partner to Batman who is himself a father.
Its a weird way of dealing with the single most important moment in Batmans life and how it changes him, but its
made for some pretty interesting stuff over the past 75 years.
Those core ideas of family and protection and safety are inextricable from the greater idea of Batman. Even those
stories of Batman as a dark loner almost always involve Gordon or Alfred, filling that role of family that was
pioneered by Robin. Its all crucial for Batman to work as the unique character he is.

So why, then, has Robin endured as a representation of family when Jimmy Olsen hasnt endured as a
representation of humanity for Superman? Well, he hasnt. Not really, not any better than Jimmy Olsen has. Its like
I said, Jimmys role is largely usurped by Lois, who does it better and with more storytelling efficiency, and the
Kents, who provided the modern version of people Clark could go to when he needed to be himself I like the
Kents only slightly more than I like Jor-El and Lara, but I cant really argue with the metaphorical benefits of
establishing Clarks humanity by showing his actual human parents. With the focus on them, Jimmy fades into the
background; someone else is doing his job. Robin went the same way. The difference is that the role remained the
same we just called four or five very different characters by the same name.
Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, even Lucius Fox in the Nolan movies, they all do the same things that Lois, Lana and
the Kents do for Superman, but Robin or more accurately, the Robins are always there because theyve quite
literally become different characters over the years, with each one fulfilling a particular need and reflecting a
particular aspect of the character.
What it comes down to is that Robin, the role and the characters that have taken it, have changed over the years in
a way that Jimmy Olsen didnt, a way that Jimmy Olsen couldnt because there can only ever be one of him. If you
create a Jason Todd or a Tim Drake or a Damian Wayne, you dont have to lose Dick Grayson in the process. You can
make a completely new person and put them in a mask and pixie boots without losing the previous incarnation, all
while theyre all evolving as characters along with Batman himself. Thats a lot easier to do when youre just
handing off a costume, and a lot harder to do when youre trying to create an entirely new Jimmy Olsen although
that didnt stop Smallville from trying, when Jimmy Olsen died and was, I swear to God, replaced by his brother
Jimmy Olsen.

Read More: Ask Chris #179: The Jimmy Olsen - Robin War! | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-179-the-jimmyolsen-robin-war/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #178: Stan Lee, The Man And The Myth
by Chris Sims January 10, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: What is Stan Lees actual legacy? @TheMikeLawrence

A: I dont think there could be a more complicated subject to tackle in a single column than this one, because as an
industry and as an art form, I think we all have a lot of complicated feelings about Stan Lee. Depending on who
you ask, when you ask them and what hes been up to lately, hes a conniving credit-stealer, a shameless selfpromotion machine, a driven little man who dreams of having it all!!! and got it by coasting on the hard work of
others, or hes a charismatic innovator who got put into that spotlight because hes a natural showman, a smiling
ambassador of the medium and everybodys friendly comics grandpa. And its further complicated because you
cant really talk about him without talking about collaborators like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, either.
Thats what makes him hard to talk about, even if youve spent nearly your entire life being aware of him. Theres
just so much to get through thats filtered through so many angles, and as a result, I genuinely think that hes
simultaneously the most overrated and underrated creator of all time.

via Sean Howe

Lets start with this: I say that hes underrated because it is almost impossible to overstate his contributions to
the medium. Theres a huge segment of die-hard fans and creators that fall all over themselves to minimize his
contributions in favor of glorifying Kirby, and its easy to see why: Its literally impossible to overstate Kirbys
contributions, and hes the one who never got the attention that Lees been reveling in for the past fifty years. But
to claim that Lee wasnt a vital ingredient in those early years of Marvel, or that he didnt have value as a
figurehead for the company well after he finally handed Amazing Spider-Man off to Gerry Conway is a disservice to
both men, and its something history doesnt really support. I mean, dont get me wrong, youre an absolute lunatic
if you dont think Kirby was doing the vast majority of the work in their partnership, but still, its not quite as onesided for either man as some folks would have you believe.
If you go back and read through those first years of Marvel Comics, Lees fingerprints are all over those books, if
only as a function of the sheer amount of work he was putting in as the writer/editor who had a hand in every
comic. Thats the thing about his role scripting dialogue in all those Marvel books: The Pro-Stan crowd is often
made up of people who see him as a writer in the way that, say, Alan Moore is, clacking away at a typewriter and
dashing off these full scripts for classics like The Final Chapter and This Man, This Monster and then handing
them off to artists who just do what theyre told. Its a patently crazy idea, and Ive had more than one conversation
in my life where I had to explain the whole idea of the Marvel Method to someone who had no idea why I put so
much stock in Kirby.
At the same time, its just as crazy to go with the other extreme that you get from some Kirby-Ditko partisans, who
would have you believe that Stan was just sitting in the office counting Scrooge McDuckian amounts of money until
the pages came in, at which time hed scribble in dialogue that was already half-written, sprinkle exclamation
points like an overexcited Johnny Appleseed, and make sure his name came first in big letters on the title page.
Theres more than a little truth to it, sure. Kirby would often write dialogue in the margins that Lee would
incorporate into his script, and at the time of Amazing Spider-Man #33 the single greatest Marvel Comic ever
printed Lee and Ditko were in the middle of the period where they didnt speak to each other for years while
collaborating on one of the most popular comics being published. In that case, I assume the art would arrive and Stan
actually would just dialogue it and send it off to Artie Simek for lettering. Lee himself said as much in an interview
in 1965, although he phrased it as I guess Ill leave him alone until sales start to slip, which isnt exactly the most
charitable way to refer to the work.
But lets say, for the sake of argument, that this actually was what Lee was doing in those years, not just on SpiderMan with Ditko, but on every book. Even if he and Kirby didnt have their plotting sessions, even if we didnt know
that he was the one arguing with Ditko about wanting the Green Goblin to be revealed as Norman Osborn to give
Spider-Man a personal connection to his greatest enemy, theres still a lot there. In the bare mininum, he was still
writing dialogue, assisted or not, for every Marvel Comic, doing his best to add depth to those stories and build the

connecting storylines that set Marvel apart from the competition. Obviously, its not perfect by any stretch of the
imagination that legendary scene in an early X-Men issue where Professor X has a thought bubble about how
hes definitely secretly in love with high school-age Jean Grey certainly comes to mind but still, he was also the
one keeping Peter Parker from becoming a super aggressive Randian creep. If that was the only thing he ever did, it
would still be pretty darn impressive.

Its easy to look back on Lee-the-Writer and dismiss him, especially

given the past 30 years of stunt projects with the Stan Lee name emblazoned on the cover. Stuff
like Nightcat andRavage 2099 and Stripperella and the almost-unreadable Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating The DC
Universe books (which managed to include a pro wrestling Batman that I still didnt like, defying everything I know
to be true about my tastes) doesnt do much to improve his image, especially if youre seeing it alongside the
inevitable contrast of Kirbys later-era work.Hunger Dogs is a legitimate masterpiece, and Super Powers might be a
weird little cartoon toy comic, but compared to Stripperella, its the Sistine Chapel and Hamlet all rolled into one.
Point being, Lees writing leaves a whole hell of a lot to be desired once you get outside of that lightning-in-a-bottle
era where Marvel was redefining superhero comics with Lee arguably at the helm. You can look back on all that
breathless dialogue from the early days and have a laugh at its expense, but compared to the house style of DCs
scripts, it was a revelation. It seems hokey now, but so does Denny ONeils dialogue in Hard Traveling Heroes, and
hell, so does a lot of Frank Millers dialogue, and weve had 30 solid years of people trying to recreate that to get
used to it. Again, at the bare minimum, he was a big part of something that redefined a genre. If the tradeoff for
those first 100 issues each of Fantastic Fourand Amazing Spider-Man is the occasional Mighty 7, then its a trade Im
willing to make.
But thats just Stan Lee the Writer. Like I said, bare mininum, if thats all he did, its still a pretty impressive
contribution to the medium. But the thing is, thats not all he did. Not by a long shot. Stan Lees greatest talent, for
good or ill, was never writing comics, or even editing them. It was promotion.
I touched on this in an earlier column, but the real magic of Stan Lees contribution to Marvel wasnt just filling
Kirby and Ditkos panels with five-dollar words and screeds against the commies. It was that brash, aggressive
style that put a face (not coincidentally, his own) behind the comics. From very early on, the letters pages were
clear to let readers know that Stan and Jack were the ones behind the adventures of the Fantastic Four, and again,
you cant really overstate how revolutionary that was. This was a time when creators were rarely if ever credited,
but Lee ironically, given the reputation that would come out over the years for stealing credit and hogging
attention was part of the crowd putting their names right there on page one.

Theres definitely a self-serving aspect to that, of course. I dont know if its true or not, but if you told me Stan Lee
started the practice of naming the writer first and the artist second, Id believe you without even questioning it.
Still, its revolutionary. At the same time when that jackass Bob Kane was still claiming that he wrote and drew
every Batman story, when readers only knew Carl Barks as the good Duck artist, Marvel books listed writer,
artist, inker and letterer. Imagine what a crazy shift that mustve been for fans. Imagine, just for a second, not
actually knowing who Geoff Johns or Brian Bendis or Jim Lee were, and having to guess at who made your favorite
comic because this story looked a lot like that story, and the dialogue was similar to one youd read last year. Thats
essentially what it was like. If you want to know who wrote an issue of Detective Comics from the early 60s, theres
a chance you might have to go look up the records to see who actually got paid for the work. If you want to know if
Sam Rosen lettered the Galactus trilogy, that dudes name is right there on page one.

Because of that ease in identifying just who it was that made these books, and because Lee took space in each issue
to hype up Marvels offerings, take pot-shots at the competition and compliment Marvel readers on their excellent
taste in reading Marvel comics, there was a personality behind those books, and, oddly enough, knowing more
about the people who made the stories also makes them feel more real. And because Lee was the one handling the

words for the most part while Kirby and Ditko were going full-tilt at the drawing board doing the lions share of the
work, Lee was that personality. He was the one answering letters and shilling the books and using that bombastic
style of his to charm readers and interviewers. Kirby mightve been Marvels heart, but Lee was Marvels mouth in
every way that mattered.
Ditko was, I dont know, its weird elongated fingers.
That is Stan Lees greatest contribution. He was the pioneer of that bombastic style of good-natured selfaggrandizement and confrontational salesmanship thats still represented in the way Marvel presents itself to this
very day. By getting out there, by making himself the focus, he became as much of a character, as much of
a product as the comics. He was a marketable commodity, and he sold very well.
Theres a reason that Stan Lee Presents tag lasted as long as it did at the start of every Marvel story, even once
The Man himself had shuffled off to other projects, and theres a reason his projects to this day still lead with his
name at the start of the title. Believe me, nobody actually wants to read a new comic written by Stan Lee, but when
you spend forty years dropping his name at the start of every storyline, people have some pretty strong
associations.
But then, thats also the problem, isnt it?
Thats the other side of the equation, the point where it tips over from charismatic ambassador of the medium to
glory-hounding credit thief. Just as you can never really take away the value of giving Marvel as a company a
personality that drew readers to their stories, you also cant get around the fact that Stan Lee made himself that
personality, overshadowing his collaborators for decades and, intentionally or not, minimizing their
massive, massive contributions to the medium.
Its something thats been a part of the Stan Lee that we know for as long as theres been a Stan Lee to know, and I
think the best you can say about it is that it doesnt seem like he did it out of malice. That, however, doesnt change
that it happened, and that it started early and continued often.
Its worth noting that the general public has never really had a good idea of how comic books work, and that the
mass media is more guilty of this than most. Even today, when comics are providing the source material for a
gigantic chunk of pop culture thats raking in billions of dollars, the people who arent paying attention to them
often dont quite understand how they work. Tell someone youre a comic book writer, and theres a good chance
that theyre going to think youre either something like a prose novelist, spinning an entire story out of whole cloth
and then directing an artist as they provide optional illustrations, or that youre the guy who writes the words in
the little balloons. Lee, who, if anything, was probably closer to the latter, was often portrayed as the former.
Quick sidenote: Remember in the late 90s, when Ben Stein had a talk show on Comedy Central? Those were
strange days indeed. One episode featured Stan Lee as the guest, and I have a vivid memory of Stan Lee having to
explain that while he had done some art for the army during World War II he talked about his crowning
achievement, a poster campaigning against venereal disease that depicted a smiling sailor proclaiming VD? NOT
ME! he was only the writer on all those classic Marvel stories. Stein, a dude who had a game show based around
the premise that he knew a lot of stuff, could not understand this. Lee had to keep reminding him that he never
drew the Hulk. Seriously. For some reason, they left all of this into the version of the show that made it to air.
That wasnt the first or last time that happened, either. In his absolutely indispensable Marvel Comics: The Untold
Story, Sean Howe recounts the story of a 1965 profile in the New York Herald Tribune (the same source of that
quote about Ditko above) about Lee and Kirby that went out of its way to glorify Lee at Kirbys expense:
Freedland was impressed with Lee. He painted him as an ultra-Madison Avenue, rangy lookalike of Rex Harrison
responsible for tripling the comics circulation to 35 million copies a year, selling 40,000 memberships to the Merry
Marvel Marching Society, and inspiring 500 fan letters a day. Freedland depicted Lee wearing out his eyes from
reading fan mail and fretting over the choice of exactly the right sound effect for a page of Fantastic Four #50.
Charmed by Lees self-deprecating quips and Fellini anecdotes, the reporter barely made mention of Martin Goodman,
and skimmed over Ditkos contributions, referring to Spider-Man as Lees masterpiece the most offbeat character
he could think of
[...]
Freedland cut to Kirby, a middle-aged man with baggy eyes and a baggy Robert Hall-ish suit. He is sucking a huge
green cigar and if you stood next to him on the subway, you would peg him for the assistant foreman in a griddle
factory.
Needless to say, the article was a sore point for Kirby for years, and was almost immediately followed by Ditkos
departure from Marvel. Lees often-repeated story about how he created Spider-Man when he saw a spider and

thought it would be groovy (he always says groovy) if a person had those powers, an origin story that has
neglected to mention Ditko every time Ive heard it, probably didnt help.
To be absolutely fair about it, thats not entirely Lees fault. He played up to it, sure hes been playing up to it for
half a century now but you cant blame him for being an outgoing and naturally charismatic guy. Its easy to see
why Nat Freedland fell into the trap of Lees magnetic personality, even if he was grossly irresponsible as a result.
Its worth noting that in the 60s, Marvel produced a record for the Merry Marvel Marching Society where the
members of the Bullpen performed a strange little skit likely written by Lee given the quality of the jokes and
Lee is far and away the most personable, charismatic of the entire bunch:
Kirby and Flo Steinberg are pretty enjoyable too, but everyone else is charmingly awkward as they read from the
script. If youre trying to put a public face on Marvel, if youre setting up stage shows and college tours like they
were doing to capitalize on the companys success, you can tell just from that recording who youre going to pick
and it aint Steve Ditko, who didnt even want to be on the thing.
Looking back, it seems to me that the attention took Lee by surprise, and even though you can debate for days
about whether he actually tried hard enough to credit his collaborators and was just outdone by a combination of
ignorance of the medium and his own charisma, its hard to blame him for embracing it. Why wouldnt he? It was
wealth and fame, two things that very, very few people have ever turned down.
But that, in turn, is something else that casts him as a villain of sorts and a very Marvel Comics type of villain too,
compared to Ditkos reclusive, principled loner and Kirbys imaginative, energetic workhorse. Howes book
which is about as even-handed a recollection as youre likely to find paints a picture of Stan Lee that seems like
someone who was eager from the start of things to leverage his fame in comics to get into other media, leaving
comics behind in favor of magazines, movies, records and stage shows. Its more than understandable by the
70s, Lee had been working in comics for thirty years, going through the boom and bust of the Golden Age and then
again in the early days of Marvel. Its a volatile market, and to put it bluntly, hed contributed more than enough to
be justified in leaving at that point. The problem is that all the ventures he tried to hitch his rising star to had
attempts at recapturing the sense of personality that had brought such success at Marvel only now, it
manifested as an element of glorifying Lee himself.
Howe, again, in Marvel: The Untold Story (I told you it was indispensable) recounts one of the worst examples:
Lees name also appeared at the top of the masthead of Celebrity, a People knockoff that inserted Lee into the action,
posing for photos with story subjects. The vintage of the stars Mae West, Mickey Cohen, Robert Wagner, Lucille Ball,
F. Lee Bailey gave it the feel of an episode of Love Boat. The articles fawned over all of them. If Celebritys attitude
to the phenomenon [of stardom-obsessed culture] seems diffident, wrote one observer, that may be because it is
published by Stan Lee of Marvel Comics fame, and primarily devoted to the exploits of Lee, the first comic book author
to gain celebrity status.
Its not hard to draw a straight line from fiascos like that to the ongoing eye-rolling saga that is Stan Lee Media, a
company that Lee himself is no longer associated with, but that he sold his name to in a bid for new media fame.
Howe covers that, too, and folks, if you dont think that story involves defrauding Fidel Castro and people fleeing
the country with a quarter of a million dollars in cash at one point, you really need to get that book.
Again, its hard to blame Lee, because again, whos going to turn down that level of fame? Whos going to not want
to get into the thriving movie industry when hes been through comics collapsing twice at that point in his life? But
when you combine it all, the hunger for stardom, the tendency to glory in the attention, the self-deprecating
attitude towards the genre and medium that he helped revolutionize, the minimizing intentional or otherwise
of the contributions of others, its easy to see how we arrived at the caricature of Lee the glory-hound, the pitchman and promoter that hes become instead of the creator that he was.
For his part, Kirby (someone who was a lot closer to the situation than anyone else) painted a brutally vicious
picture of Lee when he introduced Funky Flashman in Mister Miracle #6, only a short time after leaving Marvel and
his final falling-out with Lee. You can tell how angry he is with the way he sets the story up, making no bones about
what hes doing with the #5s next issue blurb, announcing I know him! You know him! But do we need him?!
When the actual character showed up, well, harsh doesnt quite cover it. The issue opens with Kirby labeling
Flashman as the driven little man who dreams of having it all!!! The opportunistic spoiler without character or
values who preys on all things like a cannibal!!! including you!!! Like death and taxes, we all must deal with him

sometime! If you can measure Kirbys emotion by the number of exclamation points he used per page, he mightve
had actual steam coming out of his ears when he drew it.
Then it gets even more savage, with Flashman introduced as the master of a crumbling estate that he never earned,
attended by a toadying manservant:

With Funky Flashman, Kirby even blew the secret of Stan Lees toupee right there in a DC comic. Its Ether in four
colors, with Houseroy maybe even more vicious a parody of Roy Thomas than Flashman is of Lee thrown in
for good measure.
What makes it the most damning is that, like all of Kirbys superheroic sagas, it has at least an element of truth to it.
When the guy who was there for all of it, who did the majority of the actual work that Lees reputation is built on,
puts someone on blast to that level, its hard not to side with him. Especially when Lees position as an
unquestioned figurehead continues to this day, while Kirby remains in relative obscurity.
Remember at the beginning of this, when I said it was almost impossible to overstate Lees contributions to the
medium? The reason I phrased it that way is because people somehow manage to do it. Theres a segment of
fandom that has this blind hero worship of Lee that seems like a satire of those early Marvel days. It wasnt that
long ago that I saw a post on Tumblr lauding Stan Lee for his decision to write the comic about Northstars
marriage, completely without irony. Id like to think thats an isolated and extreme example, but Ive seen enough
people gush about Lee being the creator of the Marvel Universe (with the usually unspoken corollary that hes
the sole creator) to know that its way more common than I thought.
Incidentally, my favorite example of this? Kevin Smith, who put Lee in a movie and gushed in the dialogue about
how great it was that he created the Marvel Universe, and then later mentioned in an interview that he never got
why people liked Kirby so much. Smith would go on to play a character named Jack Kirby in the Daredevil movie.
But again, you cant lay the blame for all of that at Lees feet. Yes, hes the one who shows up in the movies, yes, hes
the one with a convention named after him, yes, hes the one thats always in the media being credited erroneously,
but thats largely a function of the fact that hes still alive. Ditko is still alive and still producing comics, but hes
made it clear in no uncertain terms that he doesnt want anything to do with Marvel, even going so far as to
legendarily use his original art from Spider-Man as cutting boards. If Kirby was still alive, Im sure hed be doing
interviews and making cameos in the Avengers movie too, but hes not. Stan Lee is, and as much as it might fuel
that public perception of his godlike role as a creator, theres nothing wrong with respecting his accomplishments.
Besides, at 91 years old, youd probably stop correcting people too. If I live that long, Im going to claim to have
created Spider-Man all by myself.
So whats his legacy? Well, as someone who tries really hard to be an optimist, Id like to hope itll be closer to the
first half of this column than the second. Lee, for all his many flaws, for all the funky flashiness that drew attention
away from the people who deserved it just as much as he did, was a driving force in shaping superhero comics and
through them, pop culture as we know it. I might be a Kirby partisan I am a Kirby partisan, if were going to start
fighting that fight but minimizing Lees contributions to the medium doesnt fix anything. It just wouldnt hurt to
look at it all with a slightly more critical eye.

Read More: Ask Chris #178: Stan Lee, The Man And The Myth | http://comicsalliance.com/stan-lee-legacy-jackkirby-steve-ditko-marvel-history/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #177: Reformation 66

by Chris Sims January 3, 2014 12:00 PM

Q: Do you think that, for all their superficial campiness, the Adam West Bat-villains are actually the least
likely to reform or even feel bad about the crimes theyve committed? lego-joker
A: Ill be honest with you, folks: I got this question on Tumblr a few days ago, and while I wrote a (relatively) brief
answer over there, its something Ive been thinking about ever since. Fortunately, its my column, which means
that the only rule is that there are no rules. And, you know, the weekly deadline. That is a pretty serious rule if I
intend to stay employed.
Point is, theres a very simple answer to this question, which is that its absolutely right. The arch-criminals
of Batman 66 will never, ever reform, mostly due to the fact that nothing is ever meant to change on that show.
Theres a status quo that has to be maintained, one thats even more strict than the one in the comics. But at the
same time, that lack of momentum says a lot about how those characters and the world in which they live are
constructed.

The thing about Batman 66 is that its a heck of a lot smarter than
it usually gets credit for. It had to be thats the only way that a show like that, meant to appeal equally to both
wide-eyed kids enraptured by the brightly colored heroism and the smirking adults who got a laugh out of the
irony of the same. I think thats the reason so many people have this visceral hatred for the series, even now, when
its experiencing a renaissance thanks to finally getting some merchandise deals worked out: The show was every
bit as good at satirizing its subjects as it was at representing them with a pretty fair amount of accuracy.
The flattened characters were a function of both, really. The Comics Code prohibition against glorifying crime and
the hidebound storytelling of the Silver Age meant that the bad guys couldnt ever be shown as sympathetic. They
existed purely as obstacles to be overcome, and when the TV show came around, it flattened that down even
further. The villains were the big draw of 66 in more ways than one they were the choice roles that had bigname actors requesting parts, and that constantly stole the show from West and Ward, whose major function was
to act as a straight-man soundboard for the arch-villains to bounce off of but in a lot of ways, they were cookie
cutter parts. The quirks of the crimes were different, of course, with cats eye opals, gold-plated sarcophagi and
valuable clown paintings all reserved for the appropriate villains, but if you swapped out a couple of adjectives and
a bit of set dressing, one could work as well as the next. The motivations were all the same, particularly in that they
didnt actually exist.
The crooks of Batman 66 didnt really have any life-changing, motivating tragedies and, incidentally, neither did
that version of Batman. They just had affectations, high pitched giggles and sparkly catsuits that were applied to
the same formula of crime and deathtrap. Nobody ever really seemed like they were that hard up for cash, so crime
wasnt a vocational thing for them. They didnt need the money theyd get from heisting the ancient riddle scrolls or
whatever, and theres only really one episode I can think of where someone is actually frustrated at being unable to
fence stolen goods and actually profit from the crime. It wasnt about the money for them, it was about the act.
They werent just criminals, they were arch-criminals they only existed to break the law, committing crime
simply for crimes sake.
And I love this idea.
Ive mentioned before that my personal view of Batman involves an evolution of both crime and crime-fighter.
Bruce Waynes parents die in a very, very simple criminal act. There are versions that take away the randomness of
the crime and make it an act of retribution for something Batmans father had done before, and in a way, that
works it shows you a world where no good deed goes unpunished, establishing that even a stalwart pillar of the
community like Thomas Wayne cant really fight against a system that irrevocably corrupted but I love the
simplicity of a mugging gone wrong in a place where they thought they were safe. Wrong place, wrong time, one
man, two shots. Thats all it takes to change everything, to show Bruce that hes living in a world where there is no
safety from crime.
The act that takes away his parents is, Biblically speaking, the oldest crime in the book. Its a simple crime, so he
makes an equally simple promise: to end crime. And he does. Thats one of the great things about Year One and
Nolans Batman Begins and The Dark Knight: they show us that the very first thing Batman does is the last battle
against crime as we know it. When Miller and Mazzuchelli show Batman snuffing out the flames on Carmine
Falcones dinner table, theyre showing us the end of an era.

Congratulations to this panel for its 100th appearance in Ask Chris.

But thats only one facet of crime, and if Batman is a new kind of person, someone with limitless resources and
fantastic determination, then Crime is going to have to evolve to keep up with him, metastasizing into a purer
strain of criminal. Just like Batman no longer really needs to avenge the death of his parents, the criminals of
Gotham City dont really need to profit from their crimes, making them a means to an end. Crime is the profit,
evil is the end, re-establishing that imbalance, trying to inject that element of fear and chaos back into a city that
outgrew traditional ideas of evil. There arent any more muggings in Gotham City, there are trick umbrellas,
explosive birthday cakes and skywritten riddles. One is just as chaotic as the next, but theres a logic behind one
that, without Batman, is absent in the other.
If you take that idea and flatten it out, ironing out all the psychological complexities and simplifying it for a 22minute time slot every Tuesday and Wednesday, smoothing everything over with a healthy amount of irony, youre
left with Batman 66: Criminals who commit crimes purely for the sake of crime, and a crimefighter who battles
against them purely for the sake of the law.
Thats one of the reasons that I think the show got away with only mentioning Batmans origin once in the pilot and
then never bringing up his parents murder by dastardly criminals again. By flattening everything out, they were
left with a hero who was every bit as compulsive as his villains, only on the opposite side of the scarred-up coin. Its
why Batman is relentlessly square, obeying every law to a fault. Hes the embodiment of the Law, the opposite of
Crime. One of the most important distinctions the show makes also a product of the comics is that

Batman isnt a vigilante. Hes a duly deputized agent of the Gotham City Police Department. The hotline phone isnt
just a good visual and a convenient bit of of TV storytelling, its also a great visual signifier for how the character
works. Hes the cops cop the person the police call when theres a crime. Hes that much of a crimefighter.
There are a couple of really interesting things about the way thats set up. First is that eliminating the origin and
the setup of Batmans war against crime in favor of arch-villains recasts him as a more reactionary hero. The
villains always act first, taking the initiative away and forcing him to react. They set the challenges that he has to
rise to, and as a result, those challenges are almost always tailored specifically for Batman. The Riddlers the best
example, delivering his crimes with literal written invitations for Batman to solve them.

Theres a reason hes the lead-off villain in the very first episode of the show. He sets the tone.
The same idea is why the show occasionally dips into stories where Batman and his foes are competitors in
addition to being mortal enemies. Surfs Up, Jokers Under, in which Batman and the Joker have to win a surfing
competition, or Hizzoner the Penguin, in which Batman and the Penguin face off in a mayoral election, are often
held up as the height of the shows excesses in this regard, but really, they make a lot of sense if you look at them
the right way. If the criminals can best Batman, then they point out his flaws. If Batman is flawed, then the law itself
is flawed, and crime becomes a viable alternative in its own right. The faith of the people is shaken, they start to
wonder why were bothering locking these people up, they give into fear, they surrender themselves to rule by
criminals and psychopaths. If Batman takes second place in a surfing contest, the whole system comes crashing
down.
The second thing is that it brings this interesting idea of fatalism into the story. The criminals commit crimes
because they are capital-C Criminals, compelled to do so for no reason other than Crime For Crimes Sake, and
Batman (along with Robin, Batgirl, Alfred and, to a lesser extent, Gordon and OHara) battles against them because
hes just as compelled. Its who he is you cant imagine square, stentorian 66 Batman committing a crime
himself any more than you can imagine him flapping his arms and flying to the moon. Its just not in his nature.
And, to bring it back at last to the original question, neither can the criminals.
My all-time favorite moment of the show, right up there alongside Surf Jams Joker and Robin being vexed by a gang
of mod pickpocket schoolgirls in Londinium, is from Catwoman Goes To College/Batman Displays His
Knowledge. You can probably guess the premise from the title, but the end of the episode is great. Theres a
blatantly sexual seduction scene thats stuck in my memory from the first time I saw it for a variety of reasons

but the one thats important for our discussion today is that Catwoman, even though shes working an elaborate
deathtrap, seems to genuinely want to be with Batman, and he genuinely wants to be with her. She tells him that
they can be together, the two of them against the world, just as they both want. But when he asks about Robin
two being a number that does not allow for sidekicks Catwomans response is a blunt Ill have him killed,
painlessly.
West doesnt get the credit he deserves for the acting he did on this show, and neither does Julie Newmar. Her
matter-of-fact delivery and the way he tenses up are fantastic, despite the well-earned reputation for campiness,
and it says so much about those two characters. Catwoman, even when shes reaching out, is quite simply incapable
of thinking without considering crime. Shes not even being malicious about it giving him a painless death is
actually a step up, an act of unbridled kindness compared to 15 minutes before, when she was trying to drown the
dynamic duo in boiling hot coffee. That, to her way of thinking, is as appealing a solution as there can possibly be.
Hes out of the way, he doesnt suffer, so whats the problem? But for Batman and, hopefully, the audience the
suggestion of murder just to make ones life more convenient is anathema. Its where the tone of the scene changes,
where the attraction in Wests voice is gone and he resumes his righteous proclaiming.
When I wrote about this scene and how much I love it on Tumblr, a reader pointed out that this is actually more
vicious than Catwomans comic book counterpart, who (at the time) was a thief, not a killer, something that set her
apart from Gothams other villains. I think thats a function of the ironing-out process mentioned above, but it also
points to another idea that springs out of all this talk about reformation. Putting those limitations on Catwoman
keeps her as exactly the kind of viable romance that she isnt on the show. Theft can be more easily forgiven than
murder, after all.
Thats the way it is for a lot of female villains, characters that seem to be evil only as long as theres not a man
around whose love can turn them into a good woman, something that puts them in a pretty dubious place as
characters. Dont get me wrong, Catwomans one of my all-time favorite characters, and I love her just as much as
the unrepentant special guest villainess of Julie Newmars performance as I do with Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke,
Brad Rader and Cameron Stewarts antiheroine of the East End. Shes not the first one to fill the role, either, and I
like Princess Aura from Flash Gordon too. But still, the evil woman who has to be smooched over to the side of the
angels is a trope thats pretty insultingly overwhelming when it comes to villainesses.

Thats one of the reasons that I think the Baroness from G.I. Joe is such an important character, my pattern of
affection for haughty, bespectacled brunettes notwithstanding. With the exception of the hilariously awful
character assassination in the live-action movie, shes a fully unrepentant villain, evil by choice and not likely to be
seduced away from her life of international terrorism. Her descent into evil is based on a misunderstanding of
events, but so is Dr. Dooms, and neither one of them is going to be lured into heroism by Channing Tatum and his
smile. You could probably argue that the Baroness is certainly influenced by Destro, but that came as a result of her
devotion to Cobra, not the other way around. Besides, who isnt influenced by Destro?
Point being, she isnt going to be seduced from her path in life, and neither is Newmars Catwoman, even with her
obvious affection for Batman. But for the latter, there isnt even a choice. She, like the other 66 villains, is trapped
by a flattened, fatalistic view of morality, a reason for being that predicates her entire existence on villainy.
They cant change. Theres nothing to change. Theyre arch-criminals, existing in service to crime.

Read More: Ask Chris #177: Reformation '66 | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-66-villains-reform-catwomantelevision-dc-ask-chris-177/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #176: SUBTLETY!!!!!

by Chris Sims December 27, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Is writing comics with a lack of subtlety a good or bad thing? Or does it all depend on how its handled?
@therealdealkern
A: This is a really tough question, because unlike a lot of things I write about, I dont have a definitive answer one
way or the other, even though its something I notice all the time. Looking back, it seems tricky to figure out why I
love some things and hate others for what seems to be the exact same reason. I mean, Ive got a reputation as
someone who loves over-the-top stories and comics that have a complete lack of anything that even approaches
nuance, full of blunt statements, raw emotions and names that couldnt be more on the nose if they were a pair of
reading glasses.
And yet, at the same time, there are stories I hate precisely because they have that same lack of subtlety, or because
theyre eye-rollingly obvious. Theres got to be a difference somewhere, right?

Disneys Frozen is a perfect example. I saw it the other day, and

with the exception of two or three scenes, I could not have had a worse time in the theater. I had pretty high hopes,
but everything was just so mind-numbingly obvious from the very first moment of the film. I realize that youre
going to get that when youre making a feature film out of a Hans Christian Andersen fable, but there wasnt even
the slightest attempt at crafting a metaphor. It was all just there, to the point where there is a song about a
character repressing her emotions that repeats the line conceal, dont feel, which is bludgeoning the audience
with a point so hard that Im surprised I didnt walk out with a concussion and thats before she makes a
kingdom of ice-olation. Everything that happened was both painfully obvious and precariously based on the idea
that people had to studiously avoid ever discussing any plot points with each other, with characters that had to not
just be naive, but actively dumb to make it all work and a villain who makes a telegraphed third-act heel turn more
or less by default because the rest of the characters are too busy being good. I didnt like it is what Im getting at
here.
And yet, at the same time, the reason I had such high hopes for Frozen was that I really, really loved Tangled, which
is arguably just as obvious in how it goes about presenting its story. Its got the same based-on-a-fable setup, the
same blunt statements about character motivations, the same linear plot that hits all the expected beats in the
same order. Even the overarching structures about the dangers of literally hiding someones talent away where no
one can see it versus literallyrepressing your emotions and becoming cold to the people you should love, are
equally straightforward, sitting right there in a land free of metaphor.
Its almost fair to say that theyre the product of the same factory, so whats the big difference? Did I relate more to
the moral about defying authority figures? Is it that I dont generally care for musicals and didnt know Frozen was
a full-on singing spectacular until I was sitting in the theater? Is it that Tangleds clever use of hair as an
adventuring accessory reminded me of my beloved Kabuki Quantum Fighter for the NES? Is it, as I suspect,
that Tangled did not feature a wretched little snow homunculus that exists in defiance of the laws of God and man?
I suspect its a combination of all of these and more, but Im pretty sure its that first reason is a pretty big factor. I
could talk all day about how Tangled is better written and has characters with more depth than a tablespoon, but at
the end of the day, Im willing to forgive a lot if a story affects me on an emotional level. The thing is, thats a really,
really tricky thing to try to quantify its the most subjective quality a piece of media could possibly have, and it
happens across all media.
Superhero comics provide a ton of easy examples of this same phenomenon, because theyre a genre that has never
had all that firm a grip on the very concept of subtlety. The entire medium was pretty much launched when there
was a guy with super-powers that made him a super-man whose name was Superman, and thats about the level
weve been working with ever since. Even Watchmen, the book thats been held up as the high point of maturity for
the genre for the past 35 years, is only slightly less subtle than a brick to the head. Its more like a brick to the head

thats been wrapped in a pillow, I guess. I mean, the book is called Watchmen, and if you didnt quite get an idea of
the themes involved from that, theres a handy quote right there on the dust jacket helping you out. Then there are
the characters. Ozymandias, who believes hes in control everything, manipulating events to serve his higher
purposes, placing himself above any government or oh I dont know king? Rorschach, who believes what he sees in
black and white to be an objective truth even though everyone around him sees things subjectively just like in a
psychological Rorschach test? Maybe wrapping that brick in a pillow is giving it too much credit.
But that doesnt mean that its bad. There are a lot of great comics, some of the best comics, that have completely
dispensed with subtlety in favor of going straight for their point. My favorite comics creator in history a pretty
inarguable contender for the greatest of all time is Jack Kirby, a guy who created villains named Baron Von
Evilstein and Annihilus, and thats just scratching the surface of how unvarnished he made his metaphors. His
greatest comics, the saga in which he created some of his most emotionally affecting stories, was built around a
group of good guys fighting a bad guy who represented the dark side of human nature, whose name was Darkseid.

There is nothing subtle about referring to oneself as THE TIGER-FORCE AT THE CORE OF ALL THINGS. There is
also nothing that is not completely awesome about that.
Its not just in comics, though. It wasnt that long ago that I was talking to Keiron Gillen about Young Avengers an
interview where I talked about how much I love that its a book about teenagers literally being estranged from
their parental figures while battling a villain named Mother and we talked about this same theme of subtlety
where we got to talking about music, too. This, incidentally, is what happens to everyone who talks to Kieron Gillen
about anything, but in my case, it led to a conversation about how much I love stuff like Pet Sounds and those Phil
Spector songs, where its just bare, honest emotion. Thats the primary appeal of that stuff for me. And along the
same lines, its why I like comics about teenage superheroes, because of the overblown emotions that teenagers
have that sand off the last traces of varnish from those metaphors.
So if thats the case, were back to asking why its so off-putting in something like Frozen. Why do I think
Annihilus is a perfectly acceptable name for a bad guy, but roll my eyes at Atrocitus even though it is pretty
much the exact same name? Why do I think Mother trying to control children is a great core for a story, but
Kryb being a weird monster with an actual crib used to kidnap babies is jaw-droppingly terrible? Uh, not to pick
on Green Lantern or anything okay, maybe a little but its the first stuff that came to mind.

What is even going on here.

The more I think about it, the more Im coming to the conclusion that subtlety is pretty unnecessary, which, if
youve read the comics Ive written, is a conclusion you probably already knew I was heading for ten paragraphs
ago. Its just another tool in the box, and skipping it doesnt break anything, as long as everything around it is built
to support what youre doing. The emotional resonance that you get from something, the connection that lets you
forgive or embrace elements that would otherwise seem a little too on the nose, all that comes from the way a story
is built and presented, the level of craft thats put into it.
That might not be a satisfying answer since thats all stuff thats pretty tough to define and can vary from person to
person, but if what youre doing is constructed well enough, its going to come through. All the stuff that I dont like
for being so obvious is because it seems easy, like it hasnt been refined, or because theres some other problem
where that lack of subtlety doesnt serve the point. Frozen, for instance, has problems beyond everyone just going
around yelling about what theyre feeling at any given moment, and the New Gods have a lot going on beyond
everyones name. There has to be enough there that it all fits together thats the real key. As long as everything
else works, its not going to hurt anything if you name a character who acts before he thinks because hes so
impulsive Impluse.
Kryb shouldve probably gone through a second draft, though.

Read More: Ask Chris #176: Subtlety In Comics | http://comicsalliance.com/subtlety-and-metaphor-in-comicsask-chris-176/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #173: The Trouble With The Jokers Girlfriend Harley Quinn
by Chris Sims December 6, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: What do you think about Harley Quinn? @Gavin4L

Ill be honest with you, Gavin: Harley Quinn is a tough character to write about. Ive been struggling for a long time
now trying to figure out how to get started, because theres so much there built around a single character that gets
into a lot of tricky, complicated areas, from her almost accidental creation and often mystifying popularity to how
much shes changed and been altered in a relatively short period of time, and how you can almost chart the
changing aesthetic of the entire company just by looking at a single character. Its a lot to get through, even if youre
someone who lived through every bit of it as a fan.
Really, I guess thats as good a starting point as any. What do I think? Well, I like the character a lot, but when you
get right down to it, shes one of the most misunderstood and misused characters in all of superhero comics.

And when I say shes misunderstood, I dont just mean that in my

usual grumpy, increasingly bitter old man way, where Im frustrated with the creators and editors behind how
shes been presented in comics. Its the fans, too, and thats where things start to get dicey, but Ill come back to that
in a minute.
Its almost impossible to really overstate the impact that Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and Batman: The Animated
Series have had on Batman (and, by extension, DC as a whole) over of the past two decades. For a while, it was
taken pretty much for granted that it was the single best version of that franchise that had ever existed, and even if
you think thats being a bit over the top with the praise, its a hell of a lot harder to argue that it didnt launch DCs
most creatively successful venture into mass media. The movies are nice to have and all, and they probably brought
in more financially than the animated series ever did especially once everyone realized they really like
superhero movies and you got a story where the Joker tried to blow up a couple of boats that literally made a
billion dollars but in terms of influencing and shaping the source material and bringing in new fans, BTAS beats
em all hands down.
You just need to look at the track record: BTAS definitely wouldnt exist without the success of
Burtons Batman 89, but while the movies stalled out after Schumacher, there hasnt been a time since 1992 when
Batman hasnt been a fixture on television with those cartoons. Admittedly, he was never really gone thanks to
reruns of Batman 66 and Superfriends, but BTAS redefined the aesthetic, and provided a foundation that theyve
been building on ever since. All you really have to do to chart it is sit down and think about how many times youve
heard Kevin Conroy growling about being The Night. We got Superman: The Animated Series because of Batman,
and we got Batman Beyond and Justice League because of those. Even when the initial DC Animated Universe had
run its course, its easy to argue that we got Batman: The Brave and the Bold specifically as a reaction to the darker
tone that Dini and Timm had taken when they launched BTAS, and in terms of story and approach, we wouldnt
have gotten the Arkham Asylum video game without it.
Thats where the show really had its impact: with its approach. At a time when comics were getting increasingly
caught up in continuity, BTAS was spearheading what would eventually become the movement towards focusing
on the iconic versions of the characters. If you go back and read Dini, Timm and Mitch Brians
original BTAS Writers Guide, which you should because its amazing, youll see that one of the first things they do is
explicitly forbid origin stories in favor of focusing on a version of the character thats already established and
geared towards having adventures right now. They trim away all the baggage and leave just the important stuff

if you watch closely, they even establish everything you need to knowright there in the 57 second opening
sequence and the result is that theyre operating with much leaner versions of the characters, where the
metaphors and motivations are a lot closer to the surface.
That might be the greatest lasting impact of Batman: The Animated Series. It didnt just give us a Batman who was
stylish and cool and so dark that he was actually drawn on black paper, it gave us a Batman who was easy to
understand and relate to. The darkness of his motivations is right there on the surface when he relives his origin
after the Scarecrow doses him, but the affection for Alfred and the fatherly partnership with Robin is there too,
right on the surface. Thats what really drew people in, even if the red skies, art-deco Batmobiles and blimps were
more obviously awesome.
I mention all this because that approach didnt stop with Batman. It happens with the villains, too maybe the
single best example of which is that the episode that introduces the Riddler is actually called If Youre So Smart,
Why Arent You Rich?, neatly summing up his entire motivation in an eight-word title card. Its all right there, in a
way that makes them accessible without sacrificing the complexity of their characters.
Thats the kind of aesthetic that produced Harley Quinn, and its worth noting that she was created almost by
accident. When she first appears in Jokers Favor, its as a one-note joke, a gag character designed to set up the
twist of the episode, that the Joker hounds and stalks and threatens this poor nobody over the course of years so
that he can open a door as part of a larger scheme. Keep that in mind, too, because the secret of that episode is that
its also Harley Quinns entire story in miniature.

Thats all Harley was meant for initially, but theyd accidentally hit on this magic combination that made her a
keeper instantly. Theres so many great things just in that first appearance, from the incredible Bruce Timm design
to Arleen Sorkins voice and mannerisms (on which the character was loosely based), but I think the most
important thing is that she gave the Joker something hed never really had. For better or worse, and for as many
hack jokes as it invites, she was suddenly Jokers Robin, in a twisted funhouse mirror way that shows exactly how
different from Batman the Joker really is.
The Joker had a couple of short-lived associates before, of course, because when youre a character thats been a
pretty constant presence in comics since 1940, theres not a lot of stuff you havent done. There was Gaggy

Gagsworthy, a truly terrifying one-shot sidekick from 1966 who also dressed like a harlequin (and was later
resurrected by Paul Dini and Guillem March as a foe for Harley), and you could argue that Harleys pretty directly
descended from the various molls and henchwenches that palled around with the arch-criminals on the TV show,
but theres something different that sets her apart that was developed when she returned: She was hopelessly in
love with the Joker.
When I say hopeless, I dont mean it in the cute Im a hopeless romantic sort of way, either. I mean that what
she feels is utterly, tragically devoid of hope. Because shes a Batman villain, shes built around a simple metaphor
thats made to contrast with Batman. Since shes inextricably tied to the Joker, that core metaphor is built around
his, too, and because she was developed and honed in that lean animated series aesthetic that put that metaphor
right at the forefront, shes actually a really fascinating character in a lot of ways. At heart, at the core of what she
is, shes the living embodiment of obsession, in a way that contrasts with both Batman being driven to fight crime,
and the Jokers pseudo-romantic obsession with Batman and only with Batman.
See, thats the tragedy of Harley Quinn, the thing that makes her so compelling underneath all the bright, poppy
cheer. Shes in love with someone who will never, ever love her back. Someone who can never, ever love her back,
because hes thoroughly obsessed with someone else. Its something that weve all been through, and thats what
makes her so easy to identify and sympathize with. But because its an obsession, an addiction, its phenomenally
self destructive (something else we can all probably relate to), and because its playing out in the grand
metaphorical stage of superheroes, everything about it is taken to its horrifying extreme.
Ryan North did a great installment of Dinosaur Comics that perfectly captured the feeling of being a kid with a crush
and believing that the object of your desire was objectively the best girl ever, and Harley follows that to its logical
tragic end the flaws shes overlooking are that hes a terrifying mass murderer obsessed with killing the Batman.
That is not a solid foundation for a relationship, and when that relationship actually does happen, such as it is, it
becomes one of the most genuinely tragic things in comics.
Thats the thing about superheroes: They dont really do things by half measures. Its not just that the Joker doesnt
love Harley back, its that he doesnt even see her as anything that could possibly be desired. Theres only one other
person in the Jokers world, and everyone else is just an object that he can use against Batman. And to make things
worse, its not just that he doesnt return her love, its that he uses it. Theres no lets just be friends with the Joker,
there are just things that can be made into deathtraps. Hes every sociopath who broke someones heart taken to
this huge extreme, manipulative and abusive in a way thats frightening and disturbing, not because it originates
from the shock value of hack writers trying to be mature, but because it operates on the same superheroic,
metaphorical level of Batmans determination and Supermans kindness. It feels horrifyingly natural in that
universe, and it all gets directed at Harley, because shes the one object thats always around, because she cant stop
herself from coming back. As far as he cares, shes just there to open the door.
I thought Arkham Origins was a total snooze, and I thought it was goofy as all hell that they condensed the Jokers
seduction (such as it is) of Harley into a five minute cutscene rather than playing it out over the course of months,
but I actually do like the way that its presented. Its done as a conversation between the two characters that you
hear while youre playing from the Jokers point of view, and hes talking about his obsession with Batman, using
those same terms that cast it as a twisted version of romance, this obsession with his perfect match that he knows
hell be with forever, while Harley is getting flustered because she thinks hes confessing his love for her, which
shes more than willing to accept. Again, its as hilariously over-the-top as everything else in that game, and falling
head-over-heels for the Joker in the span of ten minutes doesnt really do Harleys character any favors, but its a
nice presentation, carried off well by Troy Baker and Tara Strongs acting.
Dini and Timms Mad Love, which tells Harleys origin story, however, is darn near perfect. Its a great piece of
comics, because it takes those exact feelings that weve all had in those self-destructive crushes and plays it right
out on the page. Its the Buzzcocks song translated directly to the page, and one of the things that really makes it
work is how easy it is to find yourself in her shoes. She doesnt just develop a crush on someone, she obsesses over
him and tries to make herself more like something she thinks hed like:

Incidentally, this is a scene that actually made me re-evaluate her godawful redesign for the New 52. I mean, look,
its still awful, but if you look at it in a certain way, it kind of makes sense. When Harley reinvents herself for the
Joker, she dresses herself in a way thats explicitly designed to be for him, and that fits with the way he presents
himself. That classic Bruce Timm costume is great, and part of that is because those vivid, blocked colors look like
they fit next to Timms Joker. One clearly follows from the other. If, however, Harley was reinventing herself to fit
in with a version of the Joker who cuts his own face off and wanders around for a year with no face on and then ties
his face skin to his head with a pair of belts, then shes probably going to end up with something a hell of a lot
dumber, which she did. I hate to admit it because neither one of those things is actually very good, but you have to
admit theyre equally stupid. It might not look good, but it highlights the obsession, and thats the key part.
Getting back on track, its that obsession that motivates her, just like weve all had that intense infatuation thats
made us want to change ourselves to better fit someones idea of what we should be like. But because that
obsession is operating at a superheroic level, once she reinvents herself like that, theres no going back. Shes too
far gone to ever fully pull herself back. She cant quit loving the Joker, no more than Batman can stop fighting crime,
or Spider-Man can stop helping people who need him. Its stitched into the fabric of who she is.
Thats what makes the end of Mad Love so tragic and affecting, because we all want there to be hope for her, just
like we want there to be hope for ourselves that we can get over our broken hearts and move on, but for Harley,
there never is. No matter what the Joker does to her, no matter how blatantly hes manipulating and abusing her,
she just cant get out.

Shes hopelessly in love.

Its great, but its also where the misunderstanding starts. There are fans out there who have what Id consider to
be weird ideas about almost every character that spring from not quite getting what theyre all about you know,
the classics like Batman should just kill the Joker! Supermans too nice! and People care about Aquaman!
but theres a strain of Harley Quinn fandom that creeps me right the heck out. Like I said, shes an easy character to
identify with, and the reason shes so tragic and compelling is precisely because shes built on a metaphor thats
simultaneously universal and personal. Its something that resonates with me as much as any other character.
Its when they start idealizing her relationship with the Joker that things go off the rails. Theyre not tragically starcrossed lovers, theyre not two people madly in love and united against the world. Shes obsessively codependent
and hes an abusive sociopath. If you finish those comics and wistfully sigh and hope you can find your own Harley
and/or Mistah J someday, then you should probably go back and read them again. But, you know, to be fair, taking
any relationship advice from an Ask Chris column is probably not a good idea either.
Either way, this is where you start to see problems from a character standpoint, too. Because shes so easy to
identify with and relate to, and because she rocketed almost immediately to a level of popularity that was pretty
evenly split between people who identify with her central tragedy and dudes who just want more sexxxy chixxx in
skintight latex, theres a push to take what looks like a pretty obvious step and recondition her as a protagonist in
her own right. The thing is, as obvious as it might seem, its not so simple.

It never really works, because it cant work. Harley orbits around the Joker in the same way that the Joker orbits
around Batman. You need to remove him and at least partially resolve that obsession if youre going to have her as
a protagonist, because you cant really have your protagonist obsessively pining for a character youve spent 70
years shaping as a remorseless obsessive and utterly unsympathetic killer. But if you do that, if you remove that
obsession, then youre not only taking away the foundation of the character, youre also taking away the one thing
that makes her so easy to relate to. Youre left with just a standard issue manic pixie dream girl, and that gets real
old, real fast.
I think thats why the original Harley Quinn ongoing series, despite launching with a creative team I really like,
ended up being kind of a mess, and got downright unreadable when it got a new team that attempted to make it a
dark, gritty crime book starring a lady in a clown costume. And by the same token, I think thats why people tend to
gravitate to those Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn team-up stories for reasons beyond the obvious slashy sexxxy chixxx
action, I mean. Ivy herself is one of the more sympathetic villains, but shes still rooted (haw haw) firmly enough on
the side of the bad guys that it doesnt pull Harley too far out of her orbit. Even better, Ivy works as a viewpoint
character for the reader. Shes eternally frustrated because she sees exactly what we see, and her annoyance with
Harley comes from knowing that shes never going to be able to free herself from the Joker. She cares, but can only
express it in that same negative, villainous way that leads her to hold the city hostage until they have ended the
tyranny of lawnmowers. But even that cant last it only works in short bursts.
Harley just fundamentally isnt built to be a protagonist, even a damaged and psychologically scarred antihero. And
yet theres this myopic idea that continues, that a character this compelling and popular needs to be a star, and of
late its created this schizophrenic take where shes being bounced around from one incarnation to another. I
mentioned that her terrible new costume actually does make a certain amount of sense, but thats about the only
thing that does. Shes been bounced around since the reboot, where people are trying to fit her into the roles of a
vicious killer on par with the Joker and wacky lovesick rascal at the same time, and the end result is a character
thats now impossible to relate to.
Nothing quite solidifies it more than her atrocious Villain Month appearance in Matt Kindt and Neil
Googes Detective Comics #23.2, which casts her as a Joker-in-absentia in a way so tone-deaf that it tanks the past
20 years of the character. If you missed it, well, lucky you, but the core idea is that having freed herself of the
Suicide Squad, Harley decides to murder children on-panel by giving away exploding video games.

Theres no way to come back from that. If Harleys aiding and abetting the Joker because shes obsessively in love
with him, then shes a tragic and sympathetic figure. If shes deciding on her own to commit acts of mass murder
and terrorism, thats a fundamental change that removes that sympathy. Unless you choose to ignore this
particular issue, and I cant imagine a scenario in which this is not the sensible choice, shes impossible to root
for. She killed a bunch of kids. Thats a big deal. And then a month later they launched an ongoing series that
promises zany adventures featuring roller derby and puppies.
Any chance that I had of getting behind this new version of Harley Quinn as a character in her own right, any hope
that I wouldve had about their chances of synthesizing what works about the character and putting in a new form
that could be separated from the Joker without losing its foundation, is now completely overshadowed by the fact
that a comic with her name on the cover featured her murdering around twenty people on-panel (with more
implied), most of whom were children. How fun is that roller derby comic going to be when its following that?
How am I supposed to reconcile these two ideas that theyre giving to me about the same character at the same
time?
And in the end, thats what were left with. A fascinating, compelling character that was created to perfectly fit into
a specific role in a larger context that ended up working so well that she outgrew it, and has spent the last few
years being hammered into shape to fit a new role. Shes a character I like a lot, but they sure are making that a
difficult thing to do.
Read More: Ask Chris #173: The Trouble With Harley Quinn | http://comicsalliance.com/harley-quinn-paul-dinibruce-timm-dc-ask-chris/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #172: DC, Marvel And The Problem

by Chris Sims November 22, 2013 12:41 PM

Q: You mentioned The Problem in last weeks column. So, what is The Problem? @green2814
A: Last week, I dug in a little into the idea that even though they share prominent creators and have influenced
each other back and forth over the course of the last 50 years, the DC and Marvel Universes have some
fundamental differences in the way theyre structured. One of the things I really wanted to get across in that
column was that neither one is really fundamentally better than the other, theyre just incompatible in a lot of ways,
and I touched on how that results in something I call The Problem. Since thats still pretty fresh in everybodys
mind, and since you were nice enough to set the ball right on the tee and hand me the bat, I might as well elaborate
on that now. Its actually pretty simple.
To put it bluntly, The Problem is that DC wants to be Marvel, and they have for the past 50 years.

I call it The Problem and I think I have a pretty good reason for
that, but to be honest, that desire has actually led to some of the best DC stories ever printed arguably some of
the best comics ever printed, so its not entirely a bad thing. The thing is, when you look at the history of those two
companies and how theyve fed off each other, you start to see what looks like an inferiority complex thats driven
decisions about the direction of their stories that seems to be there for decades, across multiple creators and
editors, and once you notice it, the evidence just keeps on mounting up.
To really understand it, you have to understand what a profound change the arrival of Marvel comics was to the
superhero genre, and to do that, you really have to go back to the beginning. DC or at least, the company that
would become DC is there from the very beginning of superheroes as we know them. For all the scholarly talk
about how sequential art goes back to cave paintings and how the early superheroes were just the next step from
pulp novels (which is true), the superhero comic as we know it was born with Superman and Action Comics #1. DC
is there on day one, and everything that comes after, right up to today, is directly descended from that one comic.
And theres a lot that comes after, too, and it starts right away. Supermans popularity launches this massive boom
in the Golden Age that sees a thousand imitators springing up overnight, creating this huge amount of material,
most of which most comics readers have never even heard of, and probably wouldnt care about if they had, and
with good reason. I recently wrote about how modern Siegel and Shusters Action #1 story feels, but for every
Golden Age story from Jack Cole or Will Eisner that feels like its years ahead of its time, there are a dozen that are
almost unreadable for how flat they feel and thats coming from someone who actually likes a lot of those weird
old books.
Now, within a couple of years, Marvel or at least, the company that would become Marvel is there too, but
not really. Not in the form wed recognize, even though Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and a couple of characters like Captain
America are already in place. Theyre laying groundwork for stuff thats going to come after, but at the time, theyre
not really anything DC needs to worry about, and before too long, there wont really be anything for DC to worry
about.
Five or six years after Action Comics #1, the Golden Age boom is in full swing, but ten years after that, theres
nothing that even comes close to challenging DC for dominance in the world of superhero comics. Superman in
particular had become an instant American icon, and even though Batman started off as a pretty blatant ripoff of
the Shadow, it wasnt long before creators like Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Dick Sprang had forged him into his
own character. They had that unmistakable aura of being the originals, and that went a long way towards
cementing them in pop culture, fueling DC to some pretty incredible heights. That company steamrolled its way
through the 40s and 50s, knocking out its competition with a ruthless efficiency until it was pretty much the last
man standing. This is oversimplifying it a little, but what they couldnt outsell or outlast, they either bought or just
flat out destroyed. When Fawcetts Captain Marvel was outselling Superman, they sued to put the kibosh on that,
claiming he was infringing on Superman, and when ECs horror comics were toppling superheroes out of

dominance, DC (along with MLJ, the company that would become Archie) were the ones pushing for the Comics
Code that would effectively neuter EC and put their biggest competition into an early grave in the name of
Protecting Americas Youth.

More importantly than that, though, they didnt just eliminate their competition: they absorbed them. When
Quality went down for the count in 1956, for example, DC picked up Plastic Man, Blackhawk and a few other
characters and dropped them right into their burgeoning universe. This wasnt limited to the Golden Age, either.
Theyd eventually get the EC books (and MAD Magazine) too, and the Charlton books (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom,
and all those) in the 80s. While it would take them a while to finally acquire Captain Marvel, they got something
more important out of it than the character. They got Otto Binder, the writer of those classic Captain Marvel
Adventures stories, who would go on to be the definitive Superman writer of the 50s, and certainly one of the most
influential of all time. His tenure at DC saw the creation of some of the most popular elements of Superman, the
stuff thats still in use today. Supergirl, Kandor, Bizarro, the Legion, the concept of the out-of-continuity imaginary
story, those are Binder stories. He didnt create Jimmy Olsen (Jimmy, the Harley Quinn of his day, was an import
from the radio show), but he certainly defined his character and with it, the feel of the Silver Age. And he did it by
just continuing the style he and CC Beck had been honing on CMA.

The irony of DC suing Captain Marvel because he was too similar to

Superman, and then hiring a writer to make Superman more like Captain Marvel is staggering. Its almost on the
level of Archie destroying ECs popular, lurid horror comics and then doing a zombie comic with incestuous Cheryl
Blossom subtext, but at least they waited 60 years for that one.
The point Im making here is that from the very beginning, this is how DC as a company has dealt with their
competition. What they cant destroy, they absorb. Theyre like Dracula (DraCula?), and like Dracula, it often
leads to some pretty awesome stuff. I wouldnt trade those Binder Superman stories for all the Captain Marvel
comics in the world, just like I wouldnt trade some of the other stories that this brought.
While all this was going on, DC was thriving. Huge sales in comics, sure, but also as a pop culture phenomenon. It
cannot be understated how much of a cultural impact Superman in particular had the Superman radio show was
the medium used to bring down the Ku Klux Klan by exposing their secrets, for Petes sake. Thats a big deal.
And while all that was going on, Marvel (or Atlas, or Timely, you know the drill by this point) was just sort of there,
hanging out, trying to get things going. Mostly they stuck with romance comics (a genre Jack Kirby and Joe Simon
invented) and monster books that were more or less watered-down versions of the EC formula with protokaiju and predictable twist endings, and while I wasnt there, I almost have to imagine that part of that was because
there wasnt much of a percentage in mixing with DC in terms of superheroes. DC had its own horror comics and
romance titles, but then, as now, they werent really the key part of the line (though, you know, they at
least had them). DC was focused on superheroes, and since they had the most popular superhero ever created, and
the second most popular superhero ever created, and the third, and the fourth and the fifth, and Aquaman, whats
the point of even trying to compete with them? How do you even begin to take on Superman?
Well, if youre Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and youve been watching all this go down for the past 20 years, its easy.
You just sit down one day and reinvent the superhero comic. No big deal.
Which is exactly what they did. Ive talked about this before, how the Marvel comics are deceptively simple in how
they work. Theyre undeniably adventure comics, the same kind of superhero stories that DCs publishing, only
they add in the stuff theyd been working on for the past decade. The twists and horrified reactions of the monster
comics, the angsty, unrequited yearning of the romance books, and just bundle it all together in a book that doesnt
look like anything else on the stands. That last part is easy, because at this point, the only thing worth mentioning
on the stands is DC, and they all have a pretty similar look. Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Curt Swan and Kurt
Schaffenberger are all phenomenal artists (Schaffenberger is probably the most underrated and overlooked
Superman artist of all time, and his work is flat-out gorgeous), but to a certain extent, their art all sort of looks the

same. There are differences and styles and you can tell them apart, sure, but theyre definitely part of the same
school.
Jack Kirby is not.
So in 1961, Kirby and Lee take a gamble and put out Fantastic Four #1, a new kind of superhero comic

Marvel and
DCs November 1961 offerings. Supermans toughest day doesnt seem all that tough by comparison.
and people Lose. Their. S**t.
It might not have been an overnight success theres that legendary story of Martin Goodman giving up on Marvel
and shutting down the offices and Kirby arriving and throwing out ideas like Lets bring back the Sub-Mariner!
Lets bring back Captain America! in a last-ditch effort to strike gold while the workmen are trying to take the
furniture out of the buildilng but it doesnt take long before Marvel develops a pretty huge fan following. And the
way they do it, the way they cultivate it, isnt just through the books themselves.
Obviously, the books are a big part of it and didnt really need any help standing out against DCs Silver Age fare. By
all accounts, Mike Sekowsky was a treasure of a man and a consummate professional who could hit a deadline like
a prize fighter, but his barrel-chested Justice League looks like a bunch of cardboard cutouts next to Steve Ditkos
weird spindly limbs and twisted grimaces or John Romitas solid, romance novel cover models running around
in Spider-Man. Whether they like it or not, everyone knows Marvels doing something different. But thats only half
of how they set themselves apart.
The other half, quite frankly, might be what made all the difference, and you can lay it at the feet of exactly one
man: Stan Lee.
You can argue for hours, days even, about Lees proper place in history, about whether he deserves the starry eyed
admiration of the general public who think hes the sole creator of everything there was in the Marvel Universe and
whose shoulders bore the monumental, nearly unthinkable task of scripting every single classic of the early days of
Marvel, or whether he deserves the scorn of the Kirby and Ditko partisans who see him as a funky flash-man who
attached himself like a parasite to more talented artists and then used them to catapult himself (and only himself)
into the spotlight every chance he got. I think the truth of that is somewhere in the middle, but theres one thing
you can say about Lee that I dont think anyones going to dispute: Hes the ultimate salesman. Lee is, to this day, a
self-promoter of unfathomable skill, and in those early days of Marvel, he was in his prime.

He was not there to make friends. He was, in fact, there to make enemies.
Lee realized, just like everyone else, that Marvel was doing something different from the competition, so he used
the soapbox of letter columns to set up the idea that it was time to take sides, laying out that Marvel and DC were
engaged in open conflict for the readers, and the Marvel books were constantly telling you that you were smart for
reading Marvel books instead of Brand Ecch. If you go back and read those Fantastic 4 Fan Pages from the early
years, theyre like these bombastic diss tracks, and Stans writing Ether every single month. Its actually kind of
hilarious: At one point, it gets so bad that people who like Marvel and DC write in to ask Stan to please stop
insulting them at the end of every issue. Stan, in true huckster fashion, puts this issue to the readers with a poll:
Should they keep talking about how much DC sucks, or focus instead on how much Marvel rules?
Incidentally, DCs letter columns at the time would occasionally feature Robert Kanigher just straight up being a
dick to people who wrote in nitpicking stories, basically telling readers to get a life. They are also hilarious, but its
not really difficult to see why Stan didnt have much of a hard time getting this adversarial relationship going.

The key point of Stans argument is that Marvels offering a more sophisticated choice, and to be fair, thats fairly
accurate but only in the way that DCs making comics for kids, and Marvels trying to corner the teen market.
This, its worth noting, was the dawn of the teenager as an economic powerhouse, and that made a huge difference
to the evolution of comics as much as it did to everything else. You can see that reflected across all of pop culture as
everyone tries to capitalize on it, whether its Marvel comics and their soap operatic angst or, you know, the best
song ever written. It all happens at once, and it was inevitable that it was going to happen in comics Marvel just
got there first, because DC had no real reason to change just yet.
So Marvel becomes a success. Even more than that, Marvel becomes a success with the exact crowd that DC was
losing anyway as they aged out. This was a fact of the industry for a long time, too Gold Key, one of the other
comics publishers at the time (though not one that ever really made any headway in superheroes) used to actually
have a policy of just reprinting the same ten or twelve stories over and over again, because they figured they only
had a two-year window of readership. Kids would get into M.A.R.S. Patrol or Brothers of the Spear when they were
twelve, and by the time they were fourteen, their interest would inevitably turn to, I dont know, baseball. Since
you only had them for two years, why bother making more than two years worth of stories? Just cycle through
them, because by the time you hit the next round of reprints, everyone who read them last time has discovered
making out and is no longer interested.

the Spear #1 and #12. Significantly less interesting than making out.

Brothers of

It strikes me as a pretty defeatist attitude, and is probably the reason Im not writing about the key differences
between DC, Marvel and Gold Key, but, you know, whatever works for you.
Marvel changed all that by the simple act of catering to a slightly older audience. Instead of the average comics
reader getting to the point where they were no longer being served by DC and therefore no longer being served by
comics, period, there was now something that was designed to stretch that interest for a few more years. As a
bonus another trick picked up from soap operas Marvels stories werent the concise, self-contained eightpagers that ran in DC books. They were one continuing epic where each installment was fully built on the last,
where nothing ever ended back at the status quo. There was always a cliffhanger to keep the reader coming back,
even when it seems weird not to finish something. A while back I wrote about Fantastic Four #50, and how the
most surprising thing about it was that after raging for two issues, the Galactus story ends halfway through the
book, and then its off to visit Johnny at college to start up the next thing.
Again, even while Marvel became a success, DC was not exactly hurting at the time. Far from it, in fact while the
FF were fighting Galactus, Batman was in prime time in a show that was wildly popular. Theres a weird desire in
certain parts of comics fandom to minimize the Batman show, but it was a massive hit, to the point where Batman,
the Beatles and Bond were considered to be the three Bs of the 60s. Thats pretty great company to be in, folks.
It was also, despite another annoyingly persistent myth, actually pretty faithful to the comics of the time this
January, DCs actually acknowledging that after 48 years by putting out a collection of the stories that were used as
episodes. I could not be more excited about that.
Point being, DCs formula was still more or less working for them. Obviously styles were evolving, but thats going
on all the time. The thing is, after a few years, it becomes pretty apparent to everyone that Marvels not going
anywhere, and DC finally has an opponent it cant outlast and is starting to have a hell of a lot of trouble outselling.
So they go with the tactic that they, as a company, always go to when they cant afford to ignore something.
They try to absorb it.
The degree to which they succeed really depends on where you set the goalposts, but Id argue that they didnt
quite get what they wanted. The universes are too fundamentally different to really do the job the way they want to

do it. Its easy to graft Captain Marvel onto Superman, but by the time DC decides they need to do something about
Marvel, those radically different styles are already crystalized in ways that dont fit together that smoothly. But
they keep trying, for the next 42 years.
And like I said, its not all bad by any means. Its actually something of a renaissance for DC, and it starts in 71 with
the most logical move DC could possibly make if they wanted to capture Marvels success: They hire Jack Kirby,
which, with all due respect, is basically hiring Marvel. But see, this is the other part of The Problem: They know
they want to be more like Marvel, but they dont really understand how to get there, so instead of unleashing Kirby
on the DC Universe (which, to be honest, probably wouldve been more jarring than anything else), they put him in
this weird little box. For the most part, they let Kirby do what Kirby does, which is create new concepts, and from
that we get a ton of amazing stuff added into the DC Universe: Darkseid and the New Gods, Etrigan the Demon,
OMAC, Kamandi, far futures and distant pasts, cosmic and magical, and its all great. But they dont do the one thing
youd expect them to do. They dont put him on Action Comics and have him usher in a bold new era of weird
cosmic Superman stories in the flagship book. They put him on Jimmy Olsen.

Again, I love Kirbys Jimmy Olsen, but its such a weird book to put him on, and it shows how little faith they had in
Kirby while at the same time wanting him to give their universe a touch of that Marvel magic. Its a little early for a
lot of people, but Im of the mind that you can mark the end of the Silver Age and the start of the Bronze Age from
the exact day that Jimmy Olsen #133 hits the stands. Jimmy was such a product of the Silver Age that he couldnt
have existed as he did at any other time in comics history, but the second Kirbys on that book, theres no going
back. The Silver Age is over. Which, of course, is exactly what DC wanted, to have their books feel more modern and
to appeal to the teens, to blunt the backlash of fans who thought Batman 66 had been making fun of them.
And yet, they send in Silver Age mainstay Al Plastino to re-draw Supermans face so that things dont get out of
hand.

What follows is a decade of DC trying to play catch-up. Peter

Parker deals with campus riots over housing for low-income students, goes through hard economic times and
watches Harry Osborn take acid in Amazing Spider-Man, so DC sends a space cop with a magic wishing ring and a
Robin Hood cosplayer on a trip across the country because one of them didnt know racism existed and the other
didnt know drugs existed, and the result is one of DCs most highly regarded stories. The same team that did that
one, Denny ONeil and Neal Adams (who had worked together before at, surprise, Marvel) would also produce
some amazing Batman stories, but ONeil would be given the assignment to reduce Supermans power, bringing
him more in line with these flawed Marvel heroes. He teamed up with Curt Swan to do it, but in another sign of DC
being skittish and not quite knowing what they want, the changes are reversed in record time. Late in the decade,
they lureAmazing Spider-Man writer Gerry Conway over from Marvel, and he and Al Milgrom (another Marvel
mainstay) create Firestorm, who is exactly what youd expect from a DC attempt to do a Spider-Man story in the
70s. You can see it happening all over the era.
And then you hit the 80s, and Operation Make DC More Like Marvel goes nuclear.
It starts with New Teen Titans, which is maybe the most blatant attempt at playing catch-up to Marvel by giving
them a team book that would be comparable to the endlessly popular X-Men, created by two guys who had made
their names across the street at surprise! Marvel Comics. Wolfman in particular hadnt just written six years
of Tomb of Dracula over there, he had a cup of coffee as editor-in-chief. Thats how much of a Marvel guy Wolfman
was at the time, and Perez had worked with Roy Thomas and Jim Shooter on Fantastic Four and Avengers. As a
sidenote, in the same way that I mark the end of the Silver Age by Kirbys arrival on Jimmy Olsen, I have a friend
who mars the end of the Bronze Age by Perezs arrival at DC, stepping in to draw Justice League when long-time DC
artist Dick Dillin died in the middle of an arc. Its a huge departure in style thats almost as jarring, and when you
consider what comes after, it makes a lot of sense.
New Teen Titans was a smashing success in building a book with the mix of action, adventure, romance and drama
that Marvel had revolutionized superhero comics with, but for the purposes of this story, it pales in comparison to
what comes next. When DC sees the success they can have by actually committing to becoming more like Marvel,
they decide to go all in on a scale that no other publisher has really done since (although theyve done it a couple
more times themselves, to varying degrees of diminishing returns): they scrap the entire universe altogether
in Crisis On Infinite Earths and build one thats more like Marvel.
One interesting note about Crisis that underscores it all is that one of Wolfmans ideas for the new DC Universe that
would result was actually going as far as renaming the company from DC (short for Detective Comics, the piece

of trivia everyone knows) to Action Comics, but it was shot down because DC had the name recognition.
Personally, I think Wolfman was absolutely right. It has the same connection to the history of the company and
actually makes more sense given that its the book that launched everything, and perhaps more importantly,
Action is exactly the kind of intriguing, enticing brand name for something that DC isnt, and that Marvel is.
This is the key point, and its the one thats glossed over to an almost maddening degree. The reason they always
state in the company line is that the Pre-Crisis was just too darn complicated for new and occasional readers
thats how they phrase it in the recent Superman 75th Anniversary hardcover and it makes a certain kind of
sense when you consider that stuff like knowing the difference between Earth-2, Earth-X and Earth-C was
considered the arcane realm of annoyingly detail-oriented True Fans. Really, though? Its one of the biggest and
most persistent lies in the history of DC Comics, albeit one that ranks significantly lower than Batman Created By
Bob Kane.
Its complete bulls**t, and we know that for a variety of reasons. First, the DC Multiverse wasnt actually
used that often. It showed up once a year in Justice League for their annual crossover, but beyond that, it wasnt
really used any more than any other plot device, unless you were, you know, Rascally Roy Thomas (another Marvel
import whod been EiC at the House of Ideas), who really, really loves the Golden Age characters. Second, and
probably most damning for the its too confusing line, I can assure you that if you actually read a comic about
Earth-2, they were not going to let you forget it. They would go out of their way to let you know what you were
dealing with and the idea of parallel worlds was explained WITH DIAGRAMS virtually every time it showed up. You
were about as in danger of being confused by Earth-2 as you were by Superman putting on glasses and this Clark
Kent guy showing up out of nowhere. Third, if the multiverse was so deucedly complicated,
they prrrroooobbbbably wouldnt have almost the exact same multiverse in place now.
And yet, that lie persists, and ironically, its often brought up by Marvel partisans to explain why Marvel was so
much better than DC, as though theres another Earth with another Superman, only hes older is in any way even
remotely as complex as, say, any two-year stretch of X-Men comics between 1989 and the present.
Looking back, theres only one logical reason to want to throw it out: Because Marvel didnt have a multiverse.
Well, except that they did, but they kept it confined to one book hosted by some creepy bald voyeur that nobody
actually liked, other than that one about Conan being stranded in the present and walking around with a pet
leopard, but were getting sidetracked. The sole reason for it is that they wanted to be more like Marvel they
even did it as a twelve-part world-shaking event because thats what Marvel had done a year earlier with Secret
Wars and all the evidence you need to know thats true is in how they rebuilt.

When it came time to redefine their major characters, heres who DC got: John Byrne on Superman and Frank
Miller on Batman. Perez would come in a few years later to rebuild Wonder Woman, but in 86, those were the guys,
and they could not have been more Marvel Comics. It should be noted that Byrne in particular had wanted to do
Superman forever. There was a time during the Shooter era when Marvel actually came really close to just buying,
or at least getting the publishing rights to the DC characters from Warner Bros., and when Byrne heard about it, he
had his pitch ready within about nineteen seconds. It fell through, obviously, but Byrne got the job after Crisis,
largely because of the massive success hed had on X-Men (of course) and Fantastic Four, the most Marvel title of
em all.
Millers a much more interesting case in a lot of ways. What always gets glossed over about Miller and Batman is
how little there actually is, and when you get right down to it, there are really only eight issues. Okay, no, theres
actually about 20ish if you count penciling Santa Claus: Wanted Dead Or Alive (which I do) or the recent stuff
like Dark Knight Strikes Again and All Star Batman (which I dont), but really, those endlessly influential building
blocks of modern Batman? Eight issues. Two stories. Two incredibly influential, monumentally great stories,
but two stories. Im not sure if I buy it, but you can make a case that just by sheer volume, the Frank Miller comic
that influenced Batman most wasnt a Batman comic at all. It was Daredevil. Thats certainly the book that got him
and David Mazzucchelli the job redefining a vigilante for a crime-ridden urban sprawl.
The weird thing about these two stories in particular is that they get these guys that are so strongly identified with
Marvel titles and, with Miller, they get a story that feels undeniably like a DC title, albeit one with the same grim
elements that you find in Daredevil. Everyone remembers the grittier parts of Year One with the crooked cops,
Catwoman as a dominatrix and the hard-boiled narrative, but at the end of the day (and the end of the fourth
issue), thats a book thats steeped in optimism, where One Man Can Make A Difference and where Batman jumps
off a bridge and catches a baby and survives. In Marvel comics, people tend to have a much harder time with being
thrown off of bridges.
Byrne probably comes the closest to doing a Superman that fits that Marvel aesthetic, if only by virtue of drastically
reducing Supermans (ugh) canonical power level and then capping off his run with a story where Superman
executes three pocket universe Kryptonians and then leaving the other writers of the book to deal with all the
baggage that brings along, but he did a lot to preserve what was there at the core of Superman. Man of Steel (the

comic, not the movie) is still my standard for Superman origins for exactly that reason, although its worth noting
that his major, lasting contribution to the universe was recasting Lex Luthor as a sinister industrialist rather than a
professional mad scientist supervillain which is a very Marvel Comics way of doing things.
Incidentally, did you catch pocket universe in that last paragraph? Two years, folks. Thats how long the death of
the DC Multiverse, the entire stated reason for Crisis, managed to last.
If that wasnt enough of a sign that DC was trying to hammer itself into something more similar to the Marvel
Universe, there are other signs all over the place. The Justice League, for instance, was recast without the big-name
heroes into a team book built on contrasting personalities that felt more like the 80s Avengers, and when you hit
the 90s and Marvel rolls out with stuff like X-Force, you get DC hopping on the bandwagon with Extreme Justice,
but the exclamation point on the whole era was probably INVASION!, a comic that actually had an exclamation
point in the title. Its my favorite event ever, partially because its so quick (three 80-page giants illustrated by Todd
McFarlane before he jumped ship and started drawing Spider-Man) and partially because there are so many good
tie-ins, but when you get right down to it, INVASION! is almost hilarious in how much its attempting to be Marvel.
For one thing, its the only DC story written by Bill Mantlo, one of the key writers of Marvels Bronze Age (and one
of the most tragic stories in comics, please help if you can), but then theres the consequences. The big result of the
whole thing? Invading aliens drop a gene bomb on the population, triggering latent meta-genes in the
population and activating super-powers in a small percentage.

In other words, it brought mutants to the DC Universe.

Its worth noting that this led to another creative renaissance for DC, and that despite the desire to compete with
Marvel on their own terms, the 90s DCU was defined in a way that was uniquely its own. This is something else
Ive written about before, and its the reason Mark Waid and Mike Wieringos Flashis arguably the most important
DC Comic of the 90s, because its the comic that was firmly rooted in the idea that would distinguish DC from its
competition: The idea of Legacy.
When they collapsed their alternate universes into one, they did the one thing those multiple Earths were explicitly
designed to prevent: they put everything on a timeline that dated back to the actual creation of those comics. It
took a little massaging over the years, but eventually that came to work in its favor, by establishing that the DC

Universe was built on this tradition of heroism that stretched back to 1939, with superheroes from World War II,
where the heroes of past eras could pass their titles down to a current generation. There are obvious problems
with this, of course, because it forces you to choose between having a Superman whos current and young and a
Superman in his rightful place as the first superhero, but you know, there were ways around it. Heck, theyd
already created characters like Etrigan who dated back thousands of years, so the Superman is the first ship had
already sailed. The idea they settled on was that there were heroes for a while, and then there werent, and then
Superman comes along and ushers us into a new age of heroes thats bigger and better than anything before.

Its a great idea, and its what led to books like Flash, where it was a
primary theme, and in Green Lantern, a book that had die-hard fans who apparently werent aware that having
3600 versions of a character means that he can be replaced, and even in the Batman titles, where Robin was the
role that progressed as time went on. It was a good idea that led to great stories, and best of all, if youre trying to
distinguish yourself from your rival, it was something Marvel didnt have.
Marvel, for better or worse, has always been about whats going on now, and a lot less eager to look back at its own
past. Thats the spirit of Kirby running through those books, I think, but the result is that if its always now, it was
never really then. Peter Parker never was Spider-Man, he is Spider-Man, and while there are often attempts to
shake things up by putting a new character into a role, it never really lasts. While DC was building the idea of a
progression from Jay to Barry to Wally, from Alan to Hal to John to Guy To Kyle, from Dick to Jason to Tim, etc.
Marvels standard method was to bring someone in for a while and then have them graduate to the new
character to their own role when the original version came back. Rhodey fills in as Iron Man, then becomes War
Machine. Eric Masterson fills in as Thor and then becomes Thunderstrike. Ben Reilly fills in as Spider-Man and then
the angry shrieking gets so loud that we just stuff him in a metaphorical woodchipper until enough time passes
that we miss him. Its the circle of life. And its also the policy that DC adopted when they hit the reset button again
in 2011, restoring the likes of Barry Allen and Hal Jordan to their previous roles.
For a while, that was the way things were, and weirdly enough, this is also the part of history where Marvel
straight up goes bankrupt, and DC, for the very first time since 1961, is perfectly cool with not being Marvel
anymore. But it didnt last, largely because of The Other Problem, which is and I swear Ill keep this one short
that DC got it into their collective head that they needed to be Very Serious. This is an extension of The Problem
that goes back to the days when DC Comics were for kids and Marvel Comics were for teens, and DC raged like a
little brother because it didnt want to be for kids, it wanted to be for grown-ups. At the same time that theyre

restructuring their universe to be more like Marvel, theyre also publishing the comics that will get them the most
critical success that they will ever have, the ones that I dont even really need to identify by name because you all
know where this is going, but I will anyway: Alan Moore and Dave GibbonsWatchmen, Frank Millers Dark Knight
Returns and, just as importantly, Moore and Steven Bisettes Swamp Thing, among others.

And once again, people Lose. Their. S**t.

Biff! Pow! Comics arent just for kids! Theyre not even comics anymore, theyre Graphic Novels so put it in the suck
it bucket, Adam West! And the thing is, theyre not just mature readers comics, theyre actually really good, and so
are a lot of the others that spring up around this time, whether theyre coming from the Indie Boom of the 80s or
winning Pulitzer Prizes like Maus. And DC, the collective entity that is DC as a company, the one Ive been
personifying for the entire column, sees this and has a revelation.
Aha! says this imaginary version of DC, I get it now! The reason they liked Marvel, which was going for a slightly
older audience, the reason I had competition that cut into my sales after bestriding the Earth like a mighty colossus
for three solid decades, was that they wanted things that were mature. All that stuff that I used to do that was for
kids, about cartoon characters with superpowers facing down weird situations, that wasnt mature. They want
violence and blood and cusswords and crying and moping and boy howdy they definitely want a whole lot of rapes.
And since I can only do one kind of thing, that is what I must do. Seriously, they have been chasing that dragon so
hard that they actually did more Watchmen comics in an effort to drum up past glory. It creates this weird corporate
schizophrenia where they want to look back at the high points of their past, but want them to be more Very Serious
than they actually were. This is The Other Problem, and its why we have Identity Crisis and a Superman movie
with no bright colors that ends with death.
And then DC slowly begins the process of trying to make that vision a reality. In the mid 2000s, Marvel has come
back from bankruptcy and it gets so bad that DC does two comics Identity Crisis and Justice League: Cry For
Justice that are so hellaciously ruinous that they pretty much have no choice but to throw the baby out with that
foul tub of bathwater and start over again. And this time, they hire yet another former Marvel Editor-In-Chief, Bob
Harras, to run the show. And that pretty much brings you up to today.
And again, its worth saying that theres good, even great work coming out of DC this time around, too, even if the
overall mood of the universe, if such a thing even exists, feels like a relentless grind to get through sometimes. But
that, in turn, raises the question of why, if there are so many amazing comics that result from this, from The New
Gods in 71 to Hard Traveling Heroes to Batman: Year One to Flash to Zero Year, is this The Problem? If theres that
much good that results from it, then shouldnt it be, at worst, The Curious Affectation?
The reason that its The Problem is because of how it makes them look at their characters with this eternal
inferiority complex that can never really be resolved. That fundamental difference between the universes that I
mentioned above and wrote about at length last week means that if they want to be Marvel, theyre never actually
going to get there. Theyre just going to keep tying new ways to get there and resetting when they realize that
theyve only complicated matters, and its all so unnecessary. Superman doesnt need to be anything else, hes

already Superman, and the same goes for Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of those characters. They can be
better, sure, but the way you make them better is by sitting down and asking how can this be better, not by asking
how can this be more like that other thing? You get good stuff out of that, yes, but you also get Superman
executing criminals and Extreme Justice, and thats the kind of thing we can do without.
For their part, Marvel pretty much seems like they could give a f**k.
Read More: Ask Chris #172: 'The Problem' | http://comicsalliance.com/dc-comics-marvel-golden-age-silver-agecomics-history/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #171: The Superman (Well, Supermen) of the Marvel Universe
by Chris Sims November 15, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Do Superman-esque characters like The Sentry or Blue Marvel work in the Marvel Universe?
@SuperSeth64
A: You know, Seth, this is one of those questions that seems really simple when you first look at it. I mean, its a yes
or no question, so the short answer is about as short as it can possibly be. The thing is, the reasoning behind that
answer has to do with how entire shared fictional universes work and how theyve been influencing each other for
the past 50 to 70 years, and how one character in particular has defined an entire genre that came to dominate the
medium, so for the long answer, well, I hope youve got a few minutes.
If you dont, heres the short answer: No. No they do not.

Which isnt to say they havent tried, of course, and to be honest,

its not even to say that the characters that are based on that arent any good. Gladiator, for instance, is about as
transparent a Superman knockoff as he can be you know, the super-powered alien in a red and blue costume
with a cape named Kallark whose codename is a reference to the Philip Wylie novel that heavily influenced Siegel
and Shuster? and hes one of those great little Marvel Universe supporting characters that can be dropped into
the background of almost any story to give it a touch of the strange or cosmic. Then theres Hyperion
from Squadron Supreme, whos part of a whole team of Justice League analogues and who was at the center of a
series that was equal parts deconstruction and genuine superhero epic before that was cool. The good one by Mark
Gruenwald and Bob Hall, I mean, not the terrible later version written by Michael Just cant stop writing Alan
Moore fanfic Straczynski.
Those are both good characters that are in good stories, but they dont really work all that great outside of their
specific contexts. Gladiator is awesome when he shows up to smack around the X-Men or lead the charge against
some cosmic threat, but hes never going to hold down a series where he coexists with the rest of the Marvel
universe for any great length of time. Squadron Supreme is every bit as amazing as the books that always
overshadow it, but the same goes for Hyperion. They have their defined roles, and with the way that universe was
built, theyre very difficult to break out.
What it comes down to is that the Marvel universe is built on limitations. Thats the core difference between the
foundation of the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe. Even though theyve largely been shaped by the same
creators over the past few decades, theyre built around very different ideas that are expressed in the characters
that define them. Theres nothing that makes me roll my eyes harder than when people refer to the DC characters
as Gods because thats such a goofy, high school way to look at them, but even Ill admit that theres an element of
truth to it. The DC Universe, even before there was a DC Universe, was built around characters that have this
uncomplicated aspirational ideal to them. You just need to look at Superman to see it.

Despite what you may have heard, Superman is not a complicated character. Hes an extremely simple idea: A man
with the power to do anything who always does the right thing. Thats it. He is, quite simply, the best and most
powerful person in the world, and that kind of simple idea is at the core of those characters right on down the line:
Batman isnt an accomplished vigilante, hes The Worlds Greatest Detective. The Flash is The Fastest Man Alive.
Green Lantern has The Most Powerful Weapon In The Universe. Captain Marvel is the Worlds Mightiest Mortal,
and while he might not have been a DC character originally, there was enough of him that got filtered down to
Superman (via Otto Binder, who would become the most important Superman writer of the Silver Age) that the
idea behind it counts as much as anything does. These are ideas that are limited only by the imagination and the
occasional storyline McGuffin designed to create a little tension before Good ultimately wins out (more on those in
a minute).

The result is that the universe that springs up around these characters has that same idea of limitlessness to it.
Theres no ceiling on how big and exaggerated things can get in the DC Universe, which is why Gotham Citys had
75 years of the Worlds Greatest Detective and is still a horrifying red-skied crime-ridden nightmare. It has to be
because thats the challenge that you have to give a character like that. It wasnt too long ago that I was
complaining about how Superman hasnt done anything for the past 20 years other than fight Zod, Doomsday and
Darkseid, and while I think thats a huge part of The Problem, its easy to see why they keep going back to those
same three villains: The evil version of Superman himself, the unstoppable physical force, and a tyrannical Cosmic
God of Evil. Those are big problems, and when you have a character defined by being Best and Most Powerful, I
imagine its hard to figure out something else thats suitable.
On the flipside, we have the Marvel Universe, which was created as a direct contrast to those limitless characters. If
you go back and read those early Marvel comics, its amazing to see how much they were trying to distinguish
themselves from the characters that were dominating the market, and not just because Stan Lee was taking
smarmy pot-shots at Brand Ecch in the letter columns. These were stories that were assembled out of monster
comics, romance books and horror stories, and those were all about imposing limitations on characters. Here was a
monster who couldnt be stopped, here was the plaintive yearning that could never be fulfilled, here was the one
mistake that doomed us, doomed us all. Those were the elements Timely had been batting around for years
Marvels big trick was just applying those same beats to adventure stories.
Ive written about Lee and Steve Ditkos Amazing Fantasy #15 before, and how weird it is if you try to look at it in
isolation. If you dont know that Spider-Man comes back and goes on to become one of the most successful, longrunning characters of all time, it reads like a horror comic, to the point where it ends with a boy walking down a
dark street crying because hes responsible for his father figures death. In a lot of ways, Lee and Jack
Kirbys Fantastic Four #1 is the same way. One mans hubris leads him to drag his family into the dark unknown of
space, and they end up getting these powers that are kind of visually horrifying one of them becomes an actual
monster.

Dick move, Reed.

The result of that is that you get a universe thats built around these little tragedies, and part of that involves
putting limits on those characters, even if youre just putting them there to see them overcome. Go down the list of
Marvel characters, and they all have these limits on what they can do. Daredevils really just a guy whos pretty
good at fighting even though he cant see. Iron Man wears a tank, but hes got that heart problem. Captain Americas
the best human being you can imagine, but he still needs to catch bullets on that shield instead of bouncing them
off of his chest. The closest you get to the kind of definitive superlative that you have with the DC Characters among
those early Marvel guys is the Hulk, and folks, that dude has problems like you would not believe.
The two best examples are, naturally, the character who was the prototype for this formula and the one that
defined it: The Thing and Spider-Man. The Things pretty self-explanatory (sad rock monster), but Spider-Man
embodies this idea more than anyone else in the company. Spider-Mans strong listen, bud, hes got radioactive

blood and when you think about how much of an effort it would be to lift up a car with your bare hands, you
start to understand that hes really strong. But hes not so strong that he can just lift up anything.
Until he can, that is.

Thats the entire trick with the Marvel characters, isnt it? They spend all their time telling you what they cant do,
and then they do it, and were all impressed because weve been told so often about those limitations. Its not
impressive for Superman to lift up a bunch of wreckage because all they do is tell us how strong he is, but when

Spider-Man does it, its almost unbelievable that he pulled it off, even though all of this stuff is every bit as made up
as the rest of it.
Thats the contrast between the universes, and to be honest, neither approach is intrinsically better than the other.
Theyve each produced fantastic and terrible stories over the years, and they each have characters that are some of
the best in fiction and also Aquaman and Cyclops. Theyre just different, and thats part of how theyre designed,
and there are also bits and pieces of each universe that run against the grain.
Incidentally, these ideas of limitations and the lack thereof are all carefully maintained lies that collapse the
moment you actually think about them. Supermans got a weakness so on-the-nose that Kryptonite has become a
synonym for the word weakness, and there are a thousand dei ex machina to get any Marvel character past any
obstacle they might face, too. Part of maturing as a reader is realizing that all of this is constructed in service of a
story thats being told, and another part is realizing that even when you know theyre constructed, youve got to
buy into all these ideas being valid anyway. The reason Spider-Man doesnt wear an Iron Man suit that makes him
bulletproof and gives him jet boots is that a bulletproof Spider-Man isnt as exciting to read about, something that
they actually went out of their way to prove as fact a couple years ago.
At this point, you may be wondering when Im actually going to get back to the part of the column where I actually
answer your question, and were getting close. I have to confess, though, that Im almost completely unfamiliar
with the Blue Marvel, although a quick look at his Wikipedia page includes the phrase After a surprise
confrontation with Sims on the moon, so believe me, Im interested. Were almost there, trust me, but I had to go
through all that because when youre talking about Marvels roster of Superman knockoffs, youre really talking
about taking the core idea of one universe and putting it into another.
Its worth noting that when the DC Universe tries to adopt ideas from Marvel, it tends to go pretty well, up to a
point. Its easy to think thats because Marvel was built around newer, more forward-thinking ideas, and to be
honest, thats partly true. But its also true that since 1961, DC has wanted nothing more than to be more like
Marvel Comics, and theyve reshuffled their entire approach to their universe accordingly. This has led to some
great stuff, too another thing Ive written about before is that Wally West, the character who more or less
defined the 90s for DC Comics, was really just DCs version of Spider-Man but its also a huge part of The
Problem, and thats a discussion for another time.
When its Marvel attempting to incorporate a DC style idea, theres a lot more friction, and theres no place that
shows that more clearly than when they try to do a Marvel-style take on Superman. Theyre bringing Superman
into a universe that was created to be a contrast to Superman, so every time they do it, they have to hammer it into
a shape that fits. Gladiator has the powers and the names, but hes a space conqueror whos literally powered by
his ego. Hyperion is just as much of a flawed clone as Bizarro.
And then youve got the Sentry, who shows the problem and the solution better than anyone.
Back when I was working at the shop, we had a book discussion club, and one of the most memorable sessions was
when we picked that original Paul Jenkins/Jae Lee Sentry miniseries to talk about. About a dozen of us all got
together after wed read (or re-read) it, and while we all started out kind of agreeing that we liked it and that it was
an interesting experiment in showing the contrasts between universes, the more we picked apart the idea of
creating a Superman-type character, giving him those traditional Marvel limitations and then trying to retrofit him
into the Marvel universe, the more we hated it. Over the course of about three hours, the whole group, who I dont
think had ever 100% agreed on anything before, had pulled a full 180 on The Sentry and were laughing about how
much we hated it.
The short version (ha!) is that it just didnt work. It collapsed as soon as you poked at it, it was too disjointed, it
required you to make too much of a leap to believing that universe could ever have been built the way it is if that
character had really been there all along. And to be fair, maybe the problem wasnt with the character himself
(although Id argue that the Sentry was barely a character at all), but with that original publicity stunt gimmick of
trying to make him a lost character whod been there all along. He doesnt fit.
And then like two months later he showed up in The Avengers, so, you know, whatever.

For a long time, I just flat-out hated the Sentry as a concept, because he only came close to working in that original
mini-series, and didnt even work well there. Having him lingering around in the actual Marvel Universe was just
seeing this weird floppy appendage that didnt do much of anything but rip Carnage in half for the benefit of people
who would be impressed by ripping Carnage in half. If youre one of them, Im sure youre lovely, but I dont think
we have a whole lot of common interests. But then something happened that made me completely reconsider:

Age of the Sentry, by Jeff Parker, Paul Tobin, Nick Dragotta and Colleen Coover. As you can tell from the cover,
I love this thing.
A big part of that is that its basically just Parker and Tobin writing Silver Age Superman fan-fiction with all the
goofy stuff I love about those comics, like Ursas the Ultra-Bear and Harrison Oogar, the Caveman of Wall Street, but
the story actually ran a little deeper than that, and it solved the problem of how to make him work very neatly.
Instead of taking the character and altering him to fit the universe, they altered the universe around the
character. Age of the Sentry created a lost, Silver Age-style version of the Marvel Universe where a character like
the Sentry could exist, and that made all the difference.
Now, obviously, thats pretty easy to do on a small scale when youre dealing with an isolated miniseries and a
whole lot harder to do when youre working with an entire fifty year-old shared universe, but its really the only
way. Otherwise, you just end up hammering things to fit, and more often than not, that hammering makes them
break.
Read More: Ask Chris #171: The Superman (Well, Supermen) of Marvel | http://comicsalliance.com/supermancharacters-marvel-universe-ask-chris-171/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #170: Everyones Favorite Pre-Owned Nuclear Submarine Captain, P.N. Gwynn
by Chris Sims November 1, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: How can the Penguin be crafted to be a decent Batman foe without seeming too silly but still true to the
character? @phillyradiogeek
A: My first thought when I saw this question was that the Penguin is already a pretty decent Batman foe, but the
more I thought about it, the more I wondered if that was really true. Outside of Burgess Meredith and his amazing
purple top hat, Im not sure that Ive ever actually been excited at the prospect of getting a Penguin story as
opposed to one of the other prominent Batman villains. Even the Riddler is someone Im way more interested in
than the Penguin, but I dont think the problem is that there isnt something good in there. I think the problem is
that theres way too much.

The one thing that always surprises me about the Penguin is that
he was created in 1941. I always mentally lump him in with that second wave of villains that showed up in the
Silver Age, but hes as O.G. as it gets, to the point where he was actually created by Bill Finger and (allegedly) Bob
Kane. Hes there almost from the beginning, right in that early crowd with Catwoman and the Joker, but if you
asked and you kind of did Id be hard pressed to name a single definitive Penguin story from the comics.
Even one that was just memorable would be tough to come up with. That issue of Brave and the Bold where he
fakes his death and then dresses up as a nun in order to conduct the choir at his own funeral has been a favorite of
mine since I read it when I was a kid, but when you get right down to it, thats more of a story about the Joker being
framed for Penguins murder than it is about the Penguin himself.
Quick aside: That story, Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn and Jim Aparos Only Angels Have Wings from Brave and the
Bold #191, is awesome. And, now that I think of it, it probably explains a lot that one of the first comics I ever read
featured the Penguin in drag, Joker attempting murders with a novelty purchased from the back of a comic book,
and Batman getting bopped on the chin by a gigantic spring-loaded boxing glove from the trunk of the Jokermobile.
Kind of explains a lot, including why I cant even think up a Penguin story without getting sidetracked on
something that has another bad guys name written in big letters right there on the cover.
What Im getting at here is that the Penguins been around for over 70 years and, in the comics at least, hasnt really
done a whole lot outside of filling up space in group shots of Batman villains, and part of that is that I dont think he
was created with anything in mind other than the visual. Finger copped to being inspired by the top-hatted
penguin in ads for Kool cigarettes when he came up with the character, and I honestly dont think they got much
further than that. And really, why should they? Its not like those dudes knew he was going to stick around for the
next century; all they wanted was an interesting visual of a beaky, high-society mobster to contrast with their twofisted, square-jawed protagonist.
The thing is, all of those other big-name Batman villains that stuck around that long have those really identifiable
gimmicks that lend themselves well to those formulaic crime capers that Batman was always foiling back in the
day. Cats, riddles, the number two, all that stuff works really well in those stories because they give a nice structure
to whats going on that its easy for the reader to latch onto, and because of that, they tend to be really specific. The
Penguin, on the other hand, is all over the map with that stuff.

The obvious character hook, of course, is the bird stuff, but thats
always felt like it didnt quite work. It feels tacked on, like they were a few years into it before they realized that oh,
hey, penguins are birds, maybe that should be his thing. Much more prominent, probably because of the TV show,
are the trick umbrellas, but Ill be honest with you: Ive probably thought about the Penguin more than pretty much
anybody else you know, and I have no idea how those were added into the equation. I mean, I know theres an incontinuity reason for it, but as far as how they ended up as part of the character design in the first place, your guess
is as good as mine. Were umbrellas considered to be an accessory necessary for formal attire? And then someone
realized you could probably put a gun in there if you were going to fight Batman? Is that all there is to it?
So already were dealing with two weird gimmicks that dont quite work, but theres a bigger problem, too. Unlike
the other major Batman villains, theres nothing that really connects the Penguin to Batman. It becomes especially
apparent as time goes on and Batmans enemies make that shift from criminals to madmen and grow to represent a
psychological contrast to Batman. Its that connection that makes characters like the Joker, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze,
Catwoman and even Two-Face and Deadshot so compelling, but its something thats completely absent from the
Penguin.
In fact, after that became the dominant theme of most Batman stories, the Penguin became the odd man out by
being the only major Batman villain who wasnt insane. Birds and umbrellas were never quite the driving
obsessions that the other arch-criminals had, so while they were all transformed into these dark portraits of
madness and violence, he was pretty much just a short, fat dude who wanted to rob banks while dressing nicely.
And that, in turn, led to Penguin getting another gimmick without ever shedding the first two: The idea that the
penguins penchant for formalwear wasnt just because he liked how he looked in a tuxedo, but because he had
aspirations of class.

On paper, this is a really good idea, because it finally gives you that contrast that you need to really spark a
relationship between two characters. It recasts the Penguin as an Old Money Villain in the same way that Bruce
Wayne is an Old Money Hero, putting both of them at opposite ends of these American Dream stereotypes, where
Batman, despite being born into billions, honed himself into the man he would become and spends all of his money
on boomerangs and capes philanthropic efforts like the Wayne Foundation, and the Penguin is this entrenched
member of a corrupt family that built its money on shady deals and exploited workers. Its actually a pretty
interesting idea unless, you know, youre a kid and you couldnt give two cusses about the history of industry in
this fake city and just want to see Batman punch somebody and its been a huge part of the character in recent
years, to the point where the Cobblepots have been just as involved in Gotham Citys history as the Waynes. But
that said, even though its a solid idea thats led to some interesting stories, it doesnt quite work as well as I think
they really want it to.
The problem here is that the Wayne Fortune and Bruce Waynes position as the heir of this massive Old Money
family isnt actually that important to Batman. I mean, it can be, depending on how you look at it, but as far as Im
concerned, its a really minor part of who Batman is and what he does. Batmans status as a millionaire isnt really a
socioeconomic commentary, its just a plot contrivance to explain why he can spend all his time being a vigilante
detective who drives a sweet car. Its just something thats there to facilitate all the stuff that actually is worth
caring about, and basing an entire character motivation around that is putting him on pretty shaky ground. Its like
creating a Superman villain who wanted to fight Superman because he really hated yellow sunlight. Its there, yeah,
but there are other things to work with.
The end result is that you have this long-running, established, well-known and popular character whos kind of a
mess in terms of character and motivation, which makes him really difficult for creators and readers to get a
handle on. Thats definitely a problem, and if youre going to set out to fix it, youve got a couple of options.
First, and easiest, is just to ignore the stuff that doesnt work and build your stories around the stuff that does. This
seems to be what most of the more recent creators have been doing, ditching umbrella robberies in favor of that

Old Money Crook who runs a nightclub and has aspirations of restoring his familys name. All the classic elements
are still there, but theyre just affectations rather than core elements of the character. He has an aviary in his club
but doesnt go out of his way to steal exotic feathers, he has an umbrella with a knife or gun at the tip but not an
arsenal that includes hypnotic helicopter bumbershoot, and that nuclear submarine he bought while posing as P.N.
Gwynn is sadly never mentioned.
Despite my grousing earlier, it works. Even if the family fortune isnt a completely necessary element of Batmans
character, its still part of the story, and you can play it up when you need to to make things interesting. And
it can be interesting, leading to a Penguin that hates Bruce Wayne as much as he hates Batman, but for separate
reasons, creating an interesting dynamic that no other villain really has.

You just have to rebuild him from the ground up. Which, fortunately for the Penguin, DC just did.
The other option is to take things in another way, working to create a version of the penguin that has those classic
elements of Batmans notoriously eccentric Rogues Gallery and blend it with the more recent characterization,
which is exactly what they did in Batman Adventures.
Even though he was voiced by the guy who played Little Enos in Smokey and the Bandit (something I just found out
last month, which delighted me to no end), Penguin was never one of my favorite villains on Batman: the Animated
Series. This was probably because Batman in my Basement was one of those episodes that I saw so many times
that I got thoroughly sick of it, and also because 1992 almost ruined the Penguin completely. There was, however, a
pretty huge bright spot in The Batman Adventures #1, the first issue of Kelly Puckett and Mike Parobecks tie-in
comic that still ranks as the best Batman title of the 90s. In that story, Penguins Big Score, they toyed with an
idea that was never really brought up on the show: That the Penguin did aspire to a sort of upper-crust classiness,
but that it was all a veneer over his criminal ways. The suits and five-dollar words were just an act to make him
seem more important, covering up a brutality that would always keep him down there with the common crooks
that he looked down on:

As far as I know, thats the only appearance of the Penguins word-of-the-day calendar, but its an idea that really
stuck with me, and one that I like a lot. Theres a big difference between the crook who could be Bruce Wayne and
the crook who wants to be Bruce Wayne. While theyre both interesting, I tend to lean towards this version a little
more.
Of course, theres also the third option where you just write Burgess Meredith in his purple top hat.

That works too.

Read More: Ask Chris #170: The Penguin | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-170-the-penguin-batmandc/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #169: A Very Power Rangers Halloween

by Chris Sims October 25, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: What are the best halloween themed Power Ranger episodes? @I_AM_maxHELL
A: Im about 400 episodes into my attempt to watch the past 20 years worth of Power Rangers, and one of the
things that has consistently surprised me is that there arent a whole lot of holiday-themed episodes. Theres a
Christmas special here and there and a couple of episodes where they staple a Jack OLantern onto some existing
footage and call it a Halloween special, but those are very few and far between. Maybe thatll change once I get up
to Mystic Force, the season where they use their witchity powers to battle an army of the undead. Youd think
theyd be doing a lot more than they did.
Thats pretty weird, right? I mean, Ill admit that I want holiday specials more than the average person I am,
after all, a guy who owns Pikachus Winter Vacation on VHS and gets really excited every December about the
possibility of seeing Christmas Comes to Pac-Land show up on TV but youd think theyd provide some readymade plots for shows that already tend to be formulaic. Then again, when your entire show is based around
monsters showing up and then getting blown up by a giant robot, I guess that takes a lot of wind out of the usual
style of Halloween story where an extra spoooookymonster shows up. When youre starting with a moon-witch
who wants to murder a bunch of teenagers, there arent many places to go.
Like I mentioned (and as youll see below), the usual tactic seems to be to figure out which episodes going to air in
late October and then just cut out everything that happened in the original Super Sentai show and replace it with a
slightly spooky set of clips. This years Power Rangers Megaforce Halloween special, Raising Spirits, did exactly
that, but with an added layer of weirdness of having to work around footage where the monster was eventually
defeated by pie-making, which they solved by writing a story where the Pink Ranger made a pumpkin pie while the
other Rangers stood around telling her she was baking for the wrong holiday. It was, to say the least, a little
bizarre, although it did provide us with this years annual Halloween Safety PSA, where the tiny perfect angels
of Megaforce remind you not to eat loose, melty chunks of chocolate handed to you by a monster:
But, as CA editor Caleb Goellner (an OG Power Rangers fan who considers me a Johnny-Come-Lately for just
deciding to mainline the entire series this year) pointed out a few years ago, they did occasionally make the token
effort. Of course, he includes a few generally spooky episodes on his list, rather than my strict guidelines for what
is and isnt Halloweeny, but we can agree that there are at least a few worth watching. So if youre planning on

watching a little tokusatsu between your Hammer Dracula movies this Halloween, then well, if thats your plan
for Halloween, then theres a pretty good chance youre actually me, and this column has just become the worlds
most overwritten to-do list. Point is, three particular episodes come to mind, and theyre all on Netflix if you want
to check them out.
First up, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1s Trick Or Treat.

This s**t is f**king infuriating.

Remember how I said that most of the holiday specials involved slapping a couple of candy canes or a Jack
OLantern onto unrelated footage? This episode actually does the opposite of that. They have a vaguely Halloweenthemed villain, a giant Jack OLantern monster that can replace your head with a pumpkin, suffocating you and
presumably leading to a messy death where your skull was made into a delicious pie. The problem is that a) the
monster was The Pumpkin Rapper, who, as Zordon put it, would distract you with his clever raps and rhymes,
which worked out about as well as youd expect, andb) it aired in May. Even the people who came up with a
rapping Pumpkin monster realized that early summer is kind of a lousy time to make a Halloween special, so
their solution was to do an episode that was completely Halloween themed, except that it doesnt take place on
Halloween.
This isnt the bad part.
The bad part is that they chose to do this by padding the episode out with a plot where Kimberly went onto a local
TV stations Halloween-themed game show that apparently airs year-round called Trick or Treat, where the host
dresses as Dracula and everyone in the crowd wears a Halloween costume.

That would be fine dumb, but fine if it wasnt for the fact that this game show makes me want to build a
Frankenstein body for my television just so that it has a neck I can strangle. The object of Trick or Treat is to ask the
host trick questions. This is the worst premise for a gameshow ever. This makesDeal or No Deal look
like Jeopardy! And it doesnt even make sense! Kimberly gets an early advantage when she asks the host what the
secret identities of the Power Rangers are. Thats not a trick question! Thats just a question, with an answer he
doesnt know! DAMN you, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and may you be struck down with the chillblains as
retribution for your sins!
Uh sorry everybody. I take game shows kind of seriously sometimes.
With a mess like that, its no wonder they took the next few years off, but when they finally got back around to it
in Power Rangers Samurai, they ended up doing two, and the first one is actually really interesting.

Its called Party Monsters, and at its heart, its basically a clip show. They tend to do that a lot with the Holiday
specials, actually. The Samurai Christmas special where the MegaZord breaks down and they all have to spend
Christmas eve in the cockpit telling stories is the same way. Its how they dress all that up that makes this one fun,
though: Rather than the Rangers re-telling the stories, the episode has the monsters recounting their defeats after
gathering for a Halloween party in Hell.
Seriously. Samurai was always kind of enjoyably dark, what with it being a show about demons who entered our
world through shadows on a mission to cause suffering so that the tears of humanity will flood the Sanzu River and
unleash actual demons on the world which is especially enjoyable given how goofy the rest of the show gets
with that premise but this is one of the only times in the franchise where they actually go yep, we sure did
get actually killed by those Power Rangers. Our bodies were destroyed and now our souls, because we have souls
by the way, are in Hell where we have nothing to do but think on how we died in violence.
As grim as that might sound, its actually a pretty lighthearted episode. Negatron, for instance, the monster who
fought the Rangers with insults that made them explode, is a complete dick to everyone else at the party, which is a
pretty good gag. The best bit, though, is that the monsters spend a lot of time being genuinely offended that the
Rangers tend to do that thing they do where they turn around and let us explode behind them instead of at least
being polite enough to look at them until the fights actually over. When you think about it, that is pretty
disrespectful.

Its not the best Halloween special thats ever happened, but putting the focus on the monsters instead of the good
guys is a nice way to go about something thematically appropriate.
And then theres the other Samurai Halloween special, Trickster Treat, which is BANANAS.

For those of you wondering, yes: Those are the Samurai Rangers wearing animal costumes on top of their Ranger
costumes. Thats where this thing starts.
Okay, no, it actually starts with a bunch of monsters beating up a bunch of people in full on fur-suits, which is all
taking place in a dream world where a monster has trapped them, and its Halloween and theyre also dreaming its
Halloween and that they were having a costume contest to determine who got the Super Samurai power that week
which is why they have animal ears on their Ranger helmets but when they realize theyre dreaming they go into
another dream where the Pink Ranger is singing a pop song and the other Rangers, in full costume, are her backup
dancers, and then they realize thats a dream, and they start having a fight with their MegaZord but thats all a

dream too and they finally realize that because theres a hypnotic windmill in each dream but sometimes it takes
the form of a pinwheel and when they destroy it they realize that the monster behind it all is actually watching
their dreams while sitting alone in an abandoned movie theater and OH MY GOD THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE:

HOW DID THIS GET ON A SHOW FOR CHILDREN? That is, like, Scary Stories To Read In The Dark-level nightmare
fuel.
Maybe its a good thing that they didnt do a whole lot of Halloween stories. Imagine how cussed up things would
be if they were trying to be scary.
Read More: Ask Chris #169: A Very Power Rangers Halloween | http://comicsalliance.com/power-rangershalloween-episodes-ask-chris-169/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #168: (Mad) Science vs. (Spoooooky) Magic

by Chris Sims October 18, 2013 12:02 PM

Q: Would you rather your vampires and other monsters explained through magic, religious, or scientific
contexts? @CineastBenRowe
A: You know, Benny, I was all set to dive into another question I had this week about what was the best Ghost-Type
Pokmon, but the more I looked at the questions I was getting, the more this one stuck in my head. I guess you
could say it haunted me. Haunted me like a Gengar, which, while actually a dual-type Ghost/Poison Pokmon,
definitely qualifies and is really pretty awesome and creepy when you start reading all the stuff about how it was
originally intended to be a ghostly doppelganger of Clefairy back before kids decided that they liked Pikachu about
a thousand percent more than any other Pokmon. Ive had a keychain of one since the tenth grade.
Oh, right, your thing. It wont surprise you that I have a pretty definitive answer, but it might surprise you to find
out what that answer is.

If youre a long-time Ask Chris reader or heck, if youve read Ask

Chris before at all, because that particular column was way more popular than the one where I wrote
Superman/Batman movie fanfic you might recall that I once spent a couple thousand words explaining why I
like Scooby-Doo. The short version is that despite the talking dog, its a secular humanist blueprint for thinking your
way around superstitions. It teaches kids to question what they believe in and look for the reasons behind them,
and shows that they can always find that reason. Theres even a little bit of hopeful agnosticism in some versions,
as theyre continually looking for ghosts and phantoms and Wolfmans and just, you know, never actually finding
them because they dont exist.
It doesnt always work out so well in practice like only 10% of what is collectively known as Scooby-Doo is
actually any good but its something thats really important to me as a fan of the franchise. Its at the the point
that, much as I think we all love Vincent Van Ghoul, I consider anything that actually does have real ghosts and
monsters in it to be hot garbage that I have absolutely no time for. With all that said, you might think that I apply
that same kind of logic to all entertainment, and that I can only really get into a story of the supernatural when all
the spooks and haints are justified by extremely tenuous science.
Truth is, I hate that stuff.
Well, hate might be a strong word. There are definitely stories that work the monsters arent really monsters
premise in a way thats really enjoyable, but generally speaking, theres not a whole lot that bores me faster than
when a story starts drifting into explaining how theres nothing supernatural about the supernatural, its all just
science that actually makes less sense than the magic its taking the place of. I might be a hard-line science partisan
here in the real world, but all those scenes where someone yammers on about how vampires just have a virulent
form of porphyria, or how werewolves are, I dunno, just dudes with a bunch of back hair are a straight up snooze.
Now that Im thinking of it, it feels like this is a subset of another, slightly larger problem that I have with a lot of
stories where supernatural creatures show up and then stand around explaining how real [monster type, usually
vampires] arent like all those movie [monsters] and theyre going to tell you how the real [monsters] work. It
happens all the time, and while I get the idea of wanting to use a vampire without having to deal with every single
piece of folklore thats been batted around over the past couple centuries, it pulls me right out of the story every
time it happens. Its this weird bit of world-building that the creators prioritize so they can tell the story they want,
when really, Im pretty sure you can just throw some monsters in there and get away with dropping everything but
the big stuff that people actually care about. Its not a rookie mistake, either Garth Ennis, a guy Id put forward

from 1995 to 2005 as being the best comic book writer in the industry, does it in at least two comics that I can think
of.

Its all just part of trying to get rules in place so that you can build things around the rules, rather than using them
as plot elements.
The Blade films are a perfect example. David Goyers many later sins notwithstanding, I like those movies a lot, but
in a lot of ways, I like them in spite of the direction they went with all the supernatural elements that, when you get
right down to it, really ought to be part of a franchise that had its start in Tomb of Dracula. The blood-filled fire
sprinklers and Triple H chaperoning a vampire pomeranian are fine, but when Wesley Snipes starts hissing about
how theyre about to fight a bunch of vampires with ultraviolet flashlights, thats one of the dumbest things I have
ever seen in any movie. And as the record will show, I have seen a lot of dumb movies.
Stuff like that happens all over the place, and most of the time, its just unnecessary, for the simple reason that
these are stories about magic, and magic is already stories.
Kieron Gillen writes about magic better than just about anyone else in comics, and in his Ares miniseries from
Marvel comics, he sums up my preferred approach to the supernatural in one of the most elegant and enjoyable
ways Ive ever seen. Ares, who was then one of the Dark Avengers, leads a team of SHIELD agents down into a
secret base belonging to Hydra, the terrorist organization. A bunch of things go horribly wrong, which they
probably wouldve expected when they saw all the Hydra soldiers reduced to skeletons, and one of the things that
happens is that Ares ends up planting all the soldiers teeth in the ground, which then each sprout into fully-armed
skeletal warriors. The reason? Thats what the teeth of the Hydra the one from Greek mythology do in the
story of Jason and the Argonauts.
One of the soldiers mentions that it doesnt make sense, and Ares responds quite simply by telling him that it
doesnt have to make sense. Its magic, and it makes more than sense.

Thats the way I like to think of the supernatural, especially in superhero comics that have an anything-goes
attitude towards mythology, where Greek gods and Norse gods can hang out with a Sorceror Supreme who spends
his time battling elder things from the Hyborian Age and they occasionally deal with demons from actual Roman
Catholic Hell that burst up through the streets of New York with alarming frequency. In a universe where thats all

true, then the supernatural has its own kind of truth. Magic is symbolism, its a story that becomes real in the
telling, and it has its own set of rules that make perfect sense as long as youre looking at them the right way, in the
context that supports it.
To get back to the Blade example, its not that sunlight hurts vampires because they have skin thats sensitive to UV
radiation, its because daylight is less scary than nighttime. You cant see whats going on in the dark, so there could
be something out there thatll hurt you, but in the day, you can have a good look around and, nope, no fangs trying
to drain your life out through your neck holes. Its that simple, and theres a language to it thats inherently
interesting, just in the way that theres a language of superheroics that we all learn from reading the genre.
Incidentally, while were on the subject, vampires and wooden stakes are also an interesting study in how this stuff
evolves in pop culture. Symbolically, the reason that youre supposed to pound a wooden stake into a vampire is
because youre literally nailing a dead thing down so that it cant get up and cause a ruckus. The trope has evolved
in pop culture to the point where you have Buffy just ramming chair legs through rib cages and calling it a night,
but by and large, that symbolism is still there underneath it all. It follows that peculiar brand of logic and
symbolism that you get with superstition in a way that, to throw it back at the original version of Blade one more
time, going after em with wooden knives just doesnt.
Again, this is all just generalizing. There are plenty of stories that I like that treat the supernatural as just a weirder
branch of science, and zombie stories in particular are unique in that while I generally prefer vague sciencey
reasons to mystical ones, it never really matters what the cause of the whole thing is. The entertainment there is
found in how things play out, not what their origins are, but thats because the monsters themselves arent really
all that interesting. Vampires, werewolves and all that other stuff that Hellboy fights tend to have a pretty rich
history thats fascinating on its own, and only becomes more so when it starts interacting with other things,
because its built as a story. There are bits and pieces to be interpreted, histories and ideas about what silver and
moonlight represented to the culture, and what people were afraid of back before they had light bulbs. Its
inherently interesting, to the point where even exploring how it doesnt apply can yield some pretty interesting
results, if you do it right.
Take that stuff out, and generally speaking, youre really just taking the story out of the story.
Read More: Ask Chris #168: (Mad) Science vs. (Spoooooky) Magic | http://comicsalliance.com/monsters-sciencemagic-vampires-ask-chris-168/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #167: Monsters Unleashed (Once They Are Properly Categorized)
by Chris Sims October 4, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: What makes a monster a Halloween monster? Why is Dracula okay but Godzilla is not?
@chudleycannons
A: If youre following me on Twitter, then you may already know that earlier this week, I got into a heated
argument with comic book writer and holiday enthusiast Benito Cereno over what does and does not constitute a
Halloween Monster. The whole thing sprang out of a Halloween-themed musical countdown that Benitos doling
out over at his Tumblr stick around to find out how the Garfield Halloween special got him in trouble as a
youngster that included Blue Oyster Cults Godzilla.
My argument which I posed to my ex-friend in a very civil and conversational manner that definitely did not start
with hey stupid was that this song wasnt a good fit because Godzilla, while he is definitely a monster, doesnt
fit thematically with Halloween. Benitos argument was that it was a fun song. But obviously, as we all know, you
cant have fun without rules.

What it really comes down to is that there is a big difference

between scary and spooky, and Halloween favors the latter. A few people who got involved in the argument as it
progressed pointed out that Godzilla is extremely frightening, and thats a point I will readily concede. I mean, hes
a 400 foot-tall lizard who breathes atomic fire and is capable of leveling an entire city in a fit of nuclear rage. If that
thing showed up outside my door, I would be absolutely terrified. I would also be very confused as to why Godzilla
was stomping his way through South Carolina, but as far as emotions go, that would definitely be a distant second
behind paralyzing fear. But I dont think Id really be creeped out.
Thats the necessary element for a Halloween monster. Halloween as I understand it is, at its heart, about the
unknown and the fear thereof and, to a more precise extent, inevitability. Ghosts and spirits are a big deal
because they exist as part of that unknowable realm beyond death, which, one way or another, is waiting for us all.
Theyre not something that you can get your head around logically, which is why most ghost stories are about
people having to figure out what they have to do to get rid them. Except Ghostbusters, of course, which is more
about just shooting them with lasers until they explode, which is exactly why that is one of the best movies ever
made.
The same goes for other traditionally Halloweenish monsters, too. Jason Voorhees has that inevitable, unstoppable
walk (and machete) that those horny teenagers can never quite outrun, Freddy Krueger stalks the weird, illogical
world of dreams, and so on. Even masks and costumes are things that hide and obscure the person underneath
them, all of which adds to the creepiness inherent in not knowing just whats going on.
And a lot of this is why Dracula remains the best monster ever, particularly on Halloween.

Its been pretty well established over the years that I am very much in favor of Dracula in all his varied forms
except for that one time Kain from Soul Reaver showed up in X-Men in red leather armor and insisted that he was
Dracula for like a year and a lot of that is because, as a villain he hits that perfect balance. Hes a mysterious
supernatural monster whos also a physical villain that can be fought and beaten, at least for a time. Vampires in
general have that nifty thing where theyre dead enough to be beyond what we understand in the normal world,
but not so dead that they cant come back and drag you down with them, draining your blood and spreading their
curse on various horrible nights, all while masquerading as humans even though, underneath it all, theyre
something completely different. Plus, Dracula himself, as written by Bram Stoker, also has that thing where hes an
evil, unknowable, moustachioed foreigner who sailed in to corrupt the formerly chaste teenage daughters of
England, but, you know. Thats a discussion for another time.
The point is, theres a certain amount of subtlety and mystery that you get from a Halloween monster that Godzilla
just doesnt have. I mean, you never really know when a Dracula is going to strike, but Godzilla and his crew arent
exactly going to sneak up on you. If nothing else, those little women who live in the clamshell just will not shut up
about it.
Benitos counter-argument to all of this was that Godzilla is more than just a giant pissed-off lizard, and that he
functions as a very tangible representation of the fear of nuclear armageddon, and that a fire-breathing dinosaur
made entirely of existential apocalyptic dread ought to count for something. Still, I dont really buy it, for the simple
fact that Godzilla and his attendant nuclear fears are all based, however loosely, on science. I mean really, there are
scientists all over those dang movies, always explaining what these monsters are and building robots. They always
seem to know exactly what theyre dealing with, and since they have all the knowledge they need, the only real
problem is figuring out how to apply it. Which, to be fair, is a pretty big problem.
Science and Superstition are two diametrically opposed forces, and Halloween is about the latter. So generally
speaking, when it comes to spoooooky monsters, I tend to just chuck out anything thats based on science.
And then Frankenstein comes along and screws it all up.

Theres no doubt in my mind that Frankenstein and before you tell me that Frankenstein is the scientist, I
would ask you just what the hell you think the monsters last name is is definitely a Halloween monster. Benito
had me pegged pretty solidly when he guessed that my list of Halloween-appropriate monsters would be the
Universal Monsters plus ghosts, but how could Frankenstein not fit in? Hes a reanimated corpse! Hes a bunch of
reanimated corpses! Theres nothing more Halloween than that!
But at the same time, Frankenstein is exactly as thematically rooted in the consequences of man tampering with
scientific forces that are beyond understanding as Godzilla is. Hes built by a doctor in a lab, and mad science is still
science. I can argue all I want that they didnt even have science in 1642 or whenever Mary Shelley wrote
Frankenstein, or that being largely set in a spooky Bavarian castle puts it into the creepy horror genre, but really,
Im just making excuses. The only reason I lump Frankenstein in with Halloween is that the same people who made
Dracula movies also made Frankenstein movies, and they ended up hanging out in comics for the next hundred
years.
So maybe my definition of what constitutes a Halloween monster could use a little adjusting, and if so, I propose
this: A Halloween Monster is anything Hellboy fights. Thats pretty simple, right? And it gives us a definitive
list seasonally appropriate spooky stuff: Ghosts, werewolves, Draculas, trolls, witches, troll witches, Babas Yaga,
and Satan.
And luchadors.

Especially luchadors.
Read More: Ask Chris #167: Monsters Unleashed (Once They Are Properly Categorized) |
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Ask Chris #166: Kamen Rider Fourze Is Better Than Your Favorite Superhero
by Chris Sims September 27, 2013 1:00 PM

Q: Can you tell us about Kamen Rider Fourze? I understand if its too painful to discuss. @Desgardes
A: Kamen Rider Fourze is the single best piece of superhero mass media in the past ten years. And considering
that the past ten years also brought us stuff like The Dark Knight, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and
that Avengers movie that everybody likes, thats no small thing for me to say.
As for how I know this and why Des here refers to it as a painful subject its because the final episode
of Kamen Rider Fourze made me cry harder than anything else Ive ever seen. That last episode of Brave and the
Bold put tears in my eyes, yes, but Fourze had me sobbing so hard that my neighbors started building an ark and
gathering up all the beasts of the land in pairs lest my tears cause a flood that wiped away the sins of man.

Before I get into the specifics about Fourze, I should probably

explain that a little bit. Its not that Im the type of person who never really gets emotional about superhero stories.
If anything, Im one of the easiest people in the world to get tears out of, as long as Im reading a very specific kind
of story. You know WE3, Morrison and Quitelys tearjerker about a dog, cat and bunny rabbit that are turned into
cybernetic killing machines and then rebel against their programming, escaping and searching for a home? Thats a
great comic and I really love it, but its not one that really sets me to weeping, even when the dog starts talking
about how home is run no more. You drop Morrison and Porters JLA in front of me and go to the part where
everyone in the world gets superpowers and they all decide as one to rise up and help Superman defeat Mageddon
the Anti-Sun, because they understand that he always uses his powers to help them, and in that one moment
everyone in the entire world is Superman?
Aw jeez. Im misting up right now just thinking about it. Im not even kidding. Gimme a sec here.
Its tough to explain why stuff like that just gets me right in the heart, but it boils down to the idea that superheroes
are a fundamentally optimistic proposition. They all descend from Superman, a character whos built around the
idea that this person with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men would use them exclusively for the
benefit of others. Batman suffers a tragedy and dedicates his life to preventing it from happening to others. SpiderMan commits one act of selfishness not even selflishness, but just not helping someone and suffers for it, then
atones for it a million times over the rest of his life. Thats what these stories are about at their core, and as much as
theyre meant to entertain rather than instruct, they carry that lesson to their readers, too. With great power
comes great responsiblity isnt just something Peter Parker learns, its something that he teaches, and theres a
good reason why Do good to others and every man can be a Superman is the single best panel in that characters
75-year history.

Thats what really sticks with me about superheroes, and why youll find a hundred columns right here on
ComicsAlliance where I obsess over matters of heroic morality. Its why Im fascinated with what Jack Kirby did
with the idea of a god of war in a cosmology where war wasnt something to be worshipped. Its why I will argue til
Im blue in the face about how Captain America isnt a soldier and doesnt kill people even during the war, and why
I think the imagery of a man who charges onto the battlefield carrying a shield instead of a gun is so important,
even if he does, you know, use that shield to bash dudes upside the head. I have a very specific view of
superheroism as something that we should be meant to aspire to. They have to be better people, because they serve
to inspire us to be better people.
Kamen Rider Fourze takes that idea, boils it down to its purest form, and makes it the center of every single thing
that happens in the show.

Ill get back to that in a second. First, a few basics: When I watched Fourze, I was already getting into Kamen
Rider as a franchise with Shotaro Ishinomoris original manga. For all my pretensions of the grand aspirational
mythology of superheroes, I also sometimes just really like comics where monsters get jumpkicked to death by
dudes on dirtbikes, and as the 40th anniversary installment of the series (Fourze = Four + Zero, geddit?), Fourze
delivers on that front, too. One of the brilliant things about the series is that they somehow managed to make the
most toyetic main character they could while still doing it in a pretty fascinating way.
Heres the short version: Each Kamen Rider has a belt (or driver) that they use to transform and get their superpowers. In 2009s Kamen Rider W (which is pronounced Double, not Double-You), the lead character had a belt
with two slots that gave him two powers at once and a nifty two-tone costume. 2010s Kamen Rider
OOO (pronounced Oz, rhymes with those) had three slots that he could drop circular coins into (geddit?) in
order to get three different animal powers at once. Fourze follows that up with a belt with four slots for Astro
Switches that can be swapped out, with each slot corresponding to one of his limbs, so that he can have four
powers at a time.
Two reasons why this is pure genius. 1) There are a total of forty switches, which means that they can sell you an
action figure and then sell you packs of various super-powers as accessories. 2) When Fourze jumpkicks a monster,
he does it with a gigantic rocket-powered drill on his foot.

He also has a chainsaw foot, a missile launcher foot, and just a straight up flamethrower that makes a firetruck
noise. Its pretty awesome, just in terms of lending itself to action thats fun to watch. But for what makes it great, it
all goes back to those ideas of morality and inspiration.
The show is focused on a group of students attending Amanogawa High, a school with a minor but persistent
problem: Someone is giving students Zodiart Switches that turn them into constellation-themed monsters and
allow them to live out the revenge fantasies that come with their teenage problems. The football player who was
benched for the whole season, the girl whos jealous of her friend, the kids who feel alone and ostracized, those are
the ones singled out and given the ability to turn into Zodiarts, with the twelve Horoscopes lurking behind them
with a sinister plan.
In order to stop them, a transfer student named Kisaragi Gentarou takes up the Fourze Driver that was cooked up
on a moon base (long story) by the antisocial Kengo and their mutual friend, Yuuki. He does the fighting and they
all work together to stop the Zodiarts. In that respect, the first half of the series plays out like a slightly more
action-oriented version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with Joss Whedons snappy pop culture patter replaced
with Yuuki singing songs about her favorite satellites. But the thing is, even though hes the one fighting the
monsters with his chainsaw foot, Gen isnt a character whos defined by combat.
Hes defined by friendship.

Gens entire goal in life bluntly stated in the first episode and then repeated, just as bluntly, as the series goes on
is to become friends with everyone. His entire relationship with Kengo, in fact, which grows over the course of
the series to have the kind of emotional resonance that other shows have tried and failed to create, is based on the
idea that Kengo doesnt like him, so Gens going to be the best friend he can, because being a friend when its easy
isnt really being a friend at all.
Its a small thing, and friendship-based superheroics might sound like the kind of thing that would only appeal to
an audience of children which is, you know, the audience that the show is meant for but Fourze pulls it off.
The key is that Gentarous devotion to friendship never wavers, not even when he fights the monsters. Like the best
Superman stories, he doesnt want to beat them, he wants to help them.
That kid who was mad about being kicked off the football team and turned into Orion to wreck the school?

And thats something that happens throughout the show. Fourze (the show and the character) is miles ahead of
anything else Ive seen in terms of casting the villains as actual people, driven to what theyve done because they
have problems. It gives us a show where the hero tries to understand and help them rather than just kick them
until they explode, and brings with it the hope that if we can just realize that were not so different, maybe we
wouldnt have to fight anymore. I dont want to spoil anything for anyone who seeks it out, but even the ending has
that ring to it, where every single thing that happens is based around a desire to use power to help others, even
when its twisted around.
Eventually, the show reaches a point where the students-becoming-monsters plot stops, but it happens as a natural
progression. Even then, that stuff is replaced in the story with an interesting explanation of what friendship means
to all the characters, how they view loyalty, and no joke the destiny of humanity and how we wont be able to
reach it if we dont come together. And its all happening through a the medium of superheroic battles.
Theres definitely a silliness to it, but the show doesnt shy away from it, and instead presents it with a complete
lack of cynicism thats both refreshign and effective in building the emotional connections between the characters.
It does it elegantly, too. This is a show where huge massive spoiler warning, by the way the main character
is literally betrayed and murdered by one of his friends, is then resurrected by the power of friendship and forgives
the person who killed him, and manages to do that without even an ounce of the terrible, hamfisted Christ imagery
that you get in Superman Returns or Man of Steel. And it has a maturity, an honesty and a confidence in what it is
that those soulless, embarrassing projects lacked.
Theres a bunch of other great stuff about the show, too. The way the moon base changes to reflect the
personalities of the students who join up with Gentarous Kamen Rider Club, the recurring themes and the way
that everything is brought back for the climax, that sequence of four or five episodes where Fourze is basically
fighting the Joker. Its good stuff.
Unfortunately, its also not really available in America, presumably because the attempt to import Kamen Rider as a
spin-off of the American version of Ishinomoris other famous creation, the Power Rangers, was what you might
call an unwatchable mess that tanked pretty hard. The closest Kamen Rider has come since was in 2009
with Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight on CW4Kids. But if you want to see what it looks like in that rare occasion when a
superhero show is both completely unashamed of itself and also extremely well done, its worth seeking out.
Read More: Ask Chris #166: Kamen Rider Fourze Is Better Than Your Favorite Superhero |
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Ask Chris #165: Cartoon Theme Songs And Other Delights

by Chris Sims September 20, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Outside of the opening credits to Batman: The Animated Series, whats the most effective opening to an
80s/90s kids show? @chudleycannons
A: You know, Chudley, I like that you went as far as putting the quotation marks around kids as though being a
31-year-old who gets up every morning to watch an episode of Jem and the Holograms over a cup of coffee is
something that is perfectly normal for my demographic. But theres no shame in my game, friend, so lets talk a
little about cartoons and how they open.
There are, of course, more to kids shows than just cartoons, but if we expanded out into live-action shows, it would
just be me spending the next 1500 words trying to figure out why Zordon needed teenagers with attitude to fight
against a moon-witch, and why that attitude mostly turned out to be helpful and responsible. Besides, I like
cartoons. Or at least, I used to. I saw five minutes of Johnny Test yesterday and now I dont know if I like anything.

Before we go any further, I want to take a moment to engage in the

Internets favorite activity: Correcting someone when you know full well what they meant, and know that they
also know what they meant! And yes, I do recognize the irony of doing the very thing that sends me into an
apoplectic rage whenever someone does it to me. Its one of the privileges of having my own column.

Anyway, C.H.U.D., you talk about the opening credits to Batman: TAS, when that opening sequence which Ive
covered pretty thoroughly here before as one of the all-time greatest achievements in human history doesnt
actually have any credits. It doesnt even have the title of the show, which is one of the many, many great things
about it. Like I mentioned in that other column, theres no break from the reality of the show in that opening,
something that goes against pretty much every other cartoon intro I can think of going all the way back to the
Flintstones. Everyone else felt the need to sum up the entire premise of the show with a catchy song. Dont get me
wrong, I love those as well see in a few minutes, but with Batman, they skipped right over it and just got
to showing you who this guy is and what he does. That might be because after the 89 movie (and fifty years as a
pop culture icon), everyone was familiar enough with Batman that nobody needed to be told what his deal is, but it
works. It might as well be a prologue showing you what Batman was doing the night before the individual episode
started, which makes it really distinctive, even before you get into how economical it is.
I really like that intro is what Im saying here. Its undoubtedly the king, and anything else is going to be a distant
second.
Quick sidenote: Its a real shame that Warner Bros. didnt follow that model for their other DC shows. Batman
Beyond gets a pretty cool intro that does a nice job of getting the idea of a Teenage Future Batman across through
the medium of a Teen Dance Party
but other than that, those shows tend to have just the worst kind of generic openings. Justice League and its weird
standing-around-while-guitars-squeal intro is goofy as all heck, and as much as I love Batman: The Brave and the
Bold, Batman climbing around on a bunch of peoples names is a weird way to get that shows core concept across
to a viewer. It looks more like Batmans going to teach kids to read, and while Id be totally into that (literacy is fundamental!) thats not exactly what the shows about. The worst, though, is Superman. That Superman: The
Animated Series didnt have a B:TAS style intro that elegantly explained who he was and what he did is
downright criminal. You could even set it up to mirror the Batman one, with Krypton exploding the way the bank
does at the start!
As for which one ranks in at second best, theres a lot to choose from. Its tempting to go with one of the memorable
classics like Pokmon or DuckTales, but when you get right down to it, those were shows with great theme
songs (and great attendant video games) that went along with intros that actually werent so hot. And then
theres Jem, which gains points by having the Misfits just flat-out show up to announce that theyre better than the
star of the show (they are correct), but then tanks everything else by having animation that gives you extremely
unrealistic expectations for the quality of the show youre about to see. Ive developed a pretty strong affection for
the intro to X-Men over the past few months, but again, most of that is church bells and not Cyclops trying to shoot
his own name. Its a tough field to narrow down, but Ive thought about it, and Im pretty sure that there are three
solid candidates for the best of all time and purely by coincidence, theyre all from when I was a kid.
Funny how that works out.
First up is the obvious choice: 1987s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
A few weeks ago on their podcast, CA pals Chris Haley and Eugene Ahn talked about how this intro still gets them
pumped up to this day, and theyre not wrong. If what you want in an opening sequence is explosion and ninja
weapons, the TMNT intro is right up there with B:TAS. And if what you want in an opening
sequence isnt explosions and ninja weapons, then what are you even doing with your life?
The TMNT intro is one of the all-time greats in terms of summing up the plot of the show in song, and the best thing
about that is that theyre working with a premise that is both completely frigging bonkers and also completely
accurately summed up in the title of the show. As a result, they just have to say the title a few times, and then
jump right into the best dumbest lines that any theme song, ever. I will never not laugh at theyre heroes in the half
shell and theyre green! I thought this idea was crazy, but green, you say? Now you have my attention.
Plus, its the song that taught a generation about the Cool But Rude/Party Dude axis that so many of us based our
personalities on. Also, its not just me, but whoevers singing this song definitely sounds exactly like Huey Lewis and
the News, right? Right.
Its a solid choice, but pal Benito Cereno brought a worthy contender to my attention: 1985s Thundercats:

If youre like me and havent watched Thundercats since you were four years old, you may have also been surprised
to learn that holy s**t this is awesome. But in a way, thats also a strike against it.
Watching this intro, youd get the idea that Thundercats was a beautifully animated show that was all about badass
cat-people kicking the living hell out of super mummies with ninja weapons. Panthro alone is tearing ass through a
desert in a tank, swinging around nunchuks and doing Rider Kicks! Cheetara has a guitar solo! It looks amazing!

And then the show starts, and only half of that stuff is accurate, and then only on a technicality. There may in fact
be a super mummy, a ghost and weapons that may resemble some used by ninjas, but they sure aint doin no
Rider Kicks. Taken on its own, the Thundercats intro is dope as hell, but like Jem, it sure does lose a lot when you
see it next to what it was actually introducing.
Finally, we have my favorite, which will surprise no one: G.I. Joe!
These things are awesome. They redid it every year that the show was on, swapping out characters as needed but
keeping the same formula, and it is seriously one of the most exciting pieces of animation that was ever made for
the exclusive purpose of getting children to bug their parents for toys. LikeTMNT, it takes the route of just flat-out
telling you all about Americas daring, highly trained special missions force, but like Batman, it does so by showing
you a complete adventure.
Seriously: The intro to the GI Joe cartoon is a battle between all of GI Joe and all of Cobra, often involving airships,
and at least on one occasion, a thoroughly unironic bald eagle attack. Part of that is because theyre showing off as
many of the toys as they can, but at the same time, thats kind of the genius of it. G.I. Joe, both as a cartoon and a
comic, is about taking these goofy military toys which are really only military in the way that some of them
wear green cargo pants and turning them into pretty exciting stories. And when you want excitement, it doesnt
get a whole lot better than Cobra Commander being thrown through the window of a gigantic spaceship that then
crashes and explodes before the actual episode starts.
The only thing that could possibly hinder it is that the intro to the movie creates what is very much
a Thundercats situation. It follows the same formula as the show, but drops a longer, bigger version of the theme
song with Cobra trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty and then getting punched in the face byAmerican
soldiers on Jetpacks, and man, that will make you think you are about to see something that will blow your mind

out through the socks that it will also blow off. And then Nemesis Enforcer and Golobulous show up, and the whole
thing goes to hell. But, yknow, we cant have everything.
Besides, its the only cartoon intro that features Destro. That makes it win pretty much by default.
Read More: Ask Chris #165: Cartoon Theme Songs And Other Delights | http://comicsalliance.com/cartoonopening-theme-songs-credits-batman-g-i-joe-thundercats-tmnt-ask-chris/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #164: Bob Kane Is Just The Worst

by Chris Sims September 13, 2013 12:30 PM

Q: How do you square what happened to Bill Finger with your love of Batman? Is it a problem?
@MikeFromNowhere
A: You know, it is and it isnt. I think the record will show that outside of a few years here and there where I just
wasnt interested in what was going on in the comics, there has been very little that has stood in the way of my love
of Batman. It is river deep, mountain high for me and Batman, and at this point, I dont think theres anything thats
going to change that. But at the same time, there are those moments where Ill be reading one of my favorite
stories, or watching Batman: The Animated Series or Brave and the Bold, and that damn Batman created by Bob
Kane credit comes up, and Im just angry about it for the rest of the day.
Jack Kirby said it best, Mike. Comicsll break your heart.

For those of you out there who may not know why David Uzumeri
and I spit out the words Bob Kane like we just drank sour milk, the short version is that the guy credited with
creating Batman was probably the person who did the least amount of work in that creation, while the people who
did the heavy lifting never even got to put their names on the stories they created. Its not just Bill Finger, of course
Dick Sprang, Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, all those guys got screwed by Kane
one way or the other but while most of those guys thankfully lived long enough to be recognized for their work,
Finger, the co-creator of Batman, died in obscurity without ever getting to claim his creation. Even today, you could
read Batman comics for years and never see his name.
To be fair to everyone involved, I want to stress that this is in no way the fault of DC Comics. Im pretty sure that
everyone working over there would be more than happy to give Finger the credit he deserves, but thanks to Kanes
contract that specified that he would be credited as the sole creator of Batman until the end of time, they cant. And
the main reason for that, judging by reports from most of the people concerned, is that Finger was a great writer
but an awful businessman, and Kane was a moderately talented artist who happened to be an evil genius.
There are plenty of examples, but the best one (aside from the infamous Clown Painting Story) might be the one
about how Siegel and Shuster tried to get the rights to Superman back from DC, as recounted in Fred Van Lente and
Ryan Dunlaveys Comic Book Comics:

Immediately ratting out Siegel and Shuster is one thing, and that fat page rate that he got for comics he never
drew is infuriating, but the kicker is that bit about how he signed his contract when he was underage. Its a lie that
persists to this day, and often shows up in articles where people who dont bother to do their research breathlessly
explain how Kane (and only Kane) created Batman at the tender age of 18. They keep on printing that, even though
he was born in 1915 and only co-created Batman to capitalize on the rush for superheroes afterSupermans debut
in 1939, largely because Kane stuck with that lie all the way to his death.
Marc Tyler Nobleman wrote a great book illustrated by long-time Batman artist Ty Templeton about Finger
called Bill the Boy Wonder and he did it as a childrens book in an effort to make sure Batman fans know whats
up as early as possible that has a pretty interesting breakdown of just who it was that did what. If I have to grit
my teeth and give Kane even the slightest amount of credit, I will say that he was the one who wrote the word
BAT-MAN down on a piece of paper and drew a character wearing a red suit with a domino mask, blonde hair
and a pair of bat wings. All Finger really did was come up with the color scheme, the costume, the cape, the cowl,
the idea that he shouldnt have any superpowers, the origin story about his parents being shot in an alley, the idea
that hes a detective, the words Batmobile and Gotham City, Robin, the Joker, Catwoman, and a few
other minor elements.
In the 60s, when fandom was in full swing and Finger actually started to be recognized for his role in creating
Batman, Kane wrote a letter straight up calling Finger a liar with hallucinations of grandeur, with his evidence
and oh, this f**king guy being that if he had, why, hed have a creator credit, now wouldnt he?
The truth is that Bill Finger is taking credit for much more than he deserves, and I refute much of his statements here
in print The fact is that I conceived the Batman figure and costume entirely by myself even before I called Bill in to
help me write the Batman. I created the title, masthead, the format and concept, as well as the Batman figure and
costume. Robin, the boy wonder, was also my idea, not Bills.
The only proof I need to back my statement is that if Bill co-authored and conceived the idea, either with me or before
me, then he would most certainly have a by-line on the strip along with my name, the same as Siegel and Schuster had
as creators of Superman. However, it remains obvious that my name appears on the strip alone, proving that I created
the idea first and then called Bill in later, after my publisher okayed my original creation.
Oddly enough, in 1989 in the same book where he falsified the dates on some sketches to make it appear that he
created Batman in 1934 Kane said this about Finger:
He was an unsung hero I often tell my wife, if I could go back fifteen years, before he died, I would like to say Ill put
your name on it now. You deserve it.
The difference? In 1989, Finger was dead, and so Kane could say whatever the hell he wanted without having to
worry about ever actually sharing any credit. Finally, in 1998, when Kane died, he did finally credit a co-creator,
and he even did it on his actual tombstone. According to Bob Kane he did have a collaborator on Batman: God
Himself.

F**k. That. Guy. For. Ever. Seriously, when it comes to the greatest supervillain in Batmans history, the Joker is a
distant second behind Bob Kane.
So getting back to the original question, yes. It bothers me a lot that every single story about this character that I
love, a character that stands for justice above all else, is legally obliged to be stamped with Kanes name and legally
prohibited from carrying Bill Fingers and while it helps, no amount of Steranko slapping can ever really stop
that. But at the same time, Batman, to me, is more than just the two dudes who created him.
That might sound weird, and I dont want to minimize the importance of creators the people behind the
characters are the entire reason I love those characters so much, after all but the Batman that I love isnt just
Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Its Frank Miller and Grant Morrison, Dave Mazzucchelli and Chris Burnham, Denny
ONeil and Neal Adams, Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis, Bob Haney and Jim Aparo, Irv Novick and Ernie Chan, Scott
Snyder and Greg Capullo, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, Rick Burchett and Michael
Lark, Alan Brennert and Dick Giordano, Kelley Puckett and Mike Parobeck, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Adam West
and Burt Ward, William Dozier and Christopher Nolan, and a hundred more beyond that. And those same people
have worked at cross purposes, and theyve done things I dont like, within the story and outside of it in the real
world where things actualy matter. For all of the flaws in the system, thats one of the great things about having
these characters that are meant to be serialized forever, that you can see so many different takes on a character
and see whats consistent, what rings true and what doesnt. You get to choose what they mean to you, and
sometimes that inspires people.
Besides, if theres one good thing about Kane taking the credit for creators like Finger, Robinson, Moldoff and
Sprang, its that he didnt actually do much of the work. His names on it, but when you look at who built Batman,
theres a lot more of Bill Finger than there ever was of Kane.
Read More: Ask Chris #164: Bob Kane Is Just The Worst | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-164-bob-kane-isjust-the-worst/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #163: Nobody Gets Better In Arkham

by Chris Sims September 6, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Does Arkham have any success stories and if not, how does it continue to get funding?
@TheMikeLawrence
A: Ill be honest with you, Mike: If you look at it logically, Arkham Asylum is a genuinely terrible mental hospital.
Heck, even if you just look at it by the standards of comic book penal institutions, which only exist so that crooks
can escape from them and occasionally provide something for Hank Pym to do in his spare time so hes not just
some weird due who stares at an ant farm all day, Arkham is just the worst.
But really, its not so much what Arkham has done that keeps it around, as what it has the potential to do.

To answer your first question, there have been a few very few
cases where Arkham inmates have successfully been reformed, at least for a little while. The best example is

probably that run of Detective Comics by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen that saw the Riddler going straight and
becoming a private investigator. Admittedly, this might not be the best example when you consider that he was
only doing it in an attempt to beat Batman at his own game by solving crimes rather than committing them, but
still. When your starting point involves actually building question mark-shaped deathtraps and committing armed
robbery at the Game Show Museum, even just channeling a psychosis towards something thats not technically
illegal is a pretty positive step. Besides, Dinis scripts presented the change as a pretty genuine desire to move
forward with his life, and if nothing else, its the story that got us out of what mightve actually been the single
dumbest part of Hush. I think we can call that a victory all around.
Even more sincere but way less well-known would be Carl Bork, a one-shot villain from the 70s who was
trounced by Batman, did his time, and then put his super-strength to good use as a member of Kurt Busiek and
Tom Grummetts Power Company, a team of superheroes looking to turn a profit with their skills. But again, Im not
actually sure if he was ever sent to Arkham or not. I mean, Id guess that he was since he was a weird looking dude
who fought Batman, but its just as likely that he did a nickel at Blackgate with the rest of Gothams Citys notactually-insane criminals. Either way, The Power Companys well worth tracking down if youre into digging
through back issue bins its Heroes For Hire as a law firm in the DC Universe.
So lets see here. Bork, the Riddler that one time and huh. I think thats it. Well, theres Harley Quinn in that
Harleys Holiday episode of Batman: The Animated Series, but that only lasted an afternoon, and Ill come back to
that later. Arkham has really done a pretty terrible job at helping people work out their issues.
And really, its pretty easy to see why. I once read an article by a psychiatrist who talked about how flat-out terrible
Arkham was for the mentally ill, even from a design standpoint. If youve ever been to a modern mental hospital,
you may have noticed that they tend to favor wide hallways and brightly lit rooms over, say, man-sized air vents
and leering gargoyles in shadowy crevices that are, in defiance of all architectural traditions, situated inside the
building. Theres a pretty good reason for that, namely that most people tend to get kind of stressed out in
horrifying gothic mansions, even when they arent sharing a cellblock with a murder clown. Its not a very
conducive environment for getting your mind right.

This does not

promote mental health.
Now, obviously, there are a lot of reasons for that, and most of them are right there on the surface. The most
obvious, of course, is that it doesnt need to be a place where people are going to get better because none of those
characters are ever going to get better. If they did, wed never get another story where Batman punches them in the
face, which is kind of their entire reason for being there in the first place. If the Joker starts responding well to
therapy and antidepressants, then we dont get any more Batman vs. Joker stories and in theory, we should
want to read more about these characters. Its the same idea behind why superheroes dont kill, just applied to a

slightly different fate for arch-criminals. If they go away, we cant read about them, and generally speaking, the
entire model of long-form serialized storytelling is built on these characters coming back.
Thats one of the reason Bork and Riddler are the first (and only) examples of Arkhams success that spring to
mind. The Riddlers one of those few examples where a reformation moved his character forward in an
interesting new way that allowed him to remain an antagonist, and with all due respect to Bob Haney and Neal
Adams, I dont think anyone read BUT BORK CAN HURT YOU! and wrote in demanding to see more of the
sensational character find of 1968. Then again, that was the issue where the Flash ran to the sun.
Theres another reason thats pretty easy to pin down, too: For all of their fighting to avoid going back there,
Arkham is kind of the villains headquarters, and as such, it reflects how they operate. Batman may have a big dark
cave that he hangs out it, but its also just the basement of his billion-dollar mansion that has room for a dozen
custom cars (and planes, and helicopters, and at least one submarine) and is tended to by a kindly Englishman who
makes sandwiches. Dude even has Wifi down there. The password, by the way, is batman.

Point being, as much as Arkham is a prison for the villains, its also their territory. The idea of the lunatics running
the asylum has been literalized more than a few times over the years, but even when theyre just hanging out
there waiting for their turn to get out and try to heist the Egyptian Cat Statues (theres a waiting list you can sign
up for in the cafeteria), Arkham is theirs. Thats why its the place where Batman goes when he needs to confront
them for whatever reason, and why its always depicted as not just a place housing evil people, but as a place that
has a weird sinister quality all on its own. Batmans the one putting them there, sure, but in a lot of ways, its
their home.
But theres one more thing about Arkham thats very, very important that only really exists in the subtext of the
stories. You ask about how Arkham keeps getting funded if its a terrible and ineffective mental hospital, and it is,
and Im pretty sure that the in-story reason for it (or at least one of them) is that they get pretty generous grants
from the Wayne Foundation. Bruce Wayne has been shown more than a couple of times as being someone with
personal pull at Arkham, so the question becomes about him. Why would Batman, a guy who prizes effectiveness
above all, who always has the plan and even chose a costume designed to strike fear and make his job easier, keep
putting money into something that just isnt working?
Theres a good reason for it, just like theres a good reason for Bruce Wayne to be someone whos dead set against
the idea of killing someone, and its rooted in the same place. As much as people tend to think of Batman as being a

psychologically dark character whos rooted in a desire for vengeance, theres a childlike quality to his origin story
that Ive written about before, and once you see it, it casts everything in a different light. Batman might be scary,
but hes also someone who decided as a child to end all crime, and then dedicated his adult life to making that
happen. Theres a really strong element of hope to that, and while Batmans optimism is often played down in favor
of his pragmatic, analytical nature, hes not a cynic. If he was, he wouldnt bother to do what he does or stick to a
moral code, no matter how pissed off he was about his parents getting shot. You have to be optimistic to be a hero.
And a huge part of that optimism is that he takes his enemies to an Asylum.
Again, theres a super obvious reason for that. Batmans enemies, more than anyone elses in comics, arent just
straight up criminals. They tend to be psychologically damaged in some way, usually and this is the key part
in a way that reflects an aspect of Batman himself. Thats why hes got the most compelling villains in comics. Then
you have Batman, who lived through a pretty traumatic moment, and he knows how much something that can hurt,
and how it can warp your entire life especially if its something as on the nose as Mr. Freeze losing someone that
he loved because he just couldnt save her. He had to go to some pretty extreme lengths to deal with that and
channel it into something positive.
Im the first person to reject that tired idea that Batmans just as crazy as the criminals he fights (because if he is,
then why the hell would we want to see him win?) but I do think that theres an element of sympathy between
them. Theres an understanding there, and since Batman has the kind of nobility that drives him to wage an
unending war on crime and keep people from suffering like he did, I think that sympathy comes into play every
time he wins. He doesnt kill his enemies, even the ones he hates. He takes them to an asylum, the one place
where maybe they can be helped.
Thats what an asylum is, after all. The words got a bad enough connotation that we dont even really use it
anymore, but it actually means a place of refuge where somebody can get help. Its why those places exist, and even
if Arkham is a pretty terrible place thats occasionally been written as being literally cursed by demons and having
a floor plan inspired by the nine circles of Hell, its still an asylum, and its still run by a doctor, not a warden. In
superhero comics, where even the most wrongheaded storylines can never really stamp out that strain of heroic
optimism that theyre built around, that means something.
Going back to Harleys Holiday, I think that might be the best illustration of that idea in the characters history. By
any standard you apply, Harley Quinn is not really a good person. Her boyfriends killed more people than
gunpowder, and even though shes the victim of psychological manipulation and physical abuse (both of which get
pretty dark for a show for ten year-olds), shes right there along with him, willingly aiding and abetting all the
reservoir-poisonings, cake explosions and other general murders. Thats her tragedy, and if its not the Joker, its
Ivy, another character with a perfectly justifiable tendency towards murder. But shes also someone who
doesnt have to be that way. We see it, and more importantly, Batman sees it. Shes one of the few characters that
hes actually nice to more than once in the show, and if he can have an understanding and sympathy for her, a
person whos pledged her life to his most hated opposite number, then he can have sympathy for the other
characters too.
And its an idea that actually predates Arkham, too. Every now and then on Batman 66, theyd mention Warden
Crichton of Gotham Penitentiary, who was mentioned as having high hopes for rehabilitation. That obviously has
its roots in a pretty cynical place for the people writing it the subtext being that trying to rehabilitate the crooks
was futile and that this line of thinking was exactly why Arch-Criminals were always able to bluff their way past
Chrichton and head out to rob the stamp factory before the ink on their parole form was dry but for the
characters, that was always in place as a rule of the universe. Batman himself often laments that his enemies could
make the world a better place if only they would apply themselves to good instead of evil, and while that show
might be purposefully corny, it got a hell of a lot more right about that character than it got wrong.
So yeah, Arkham Asylum, the Lovecraft reference that stuck around for 40 years, might not be a great hospital. But
as a plot device, you dont get many better.
Read More: Ask Chris #163: Nobody Gets Better In Arkham | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-163-nobodygets-better-in-arkham/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #162: Teenagers With Attitude

by Chris Sims August 30, 2013 1:30 PM

Q: As something thats seems so dated after 20 years, how does Power Rangers hold up as a superhero
show? @prograpslady
A: In case you missed it, last Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Well, in
America, anyway Kyoru Sentai Zyuranger hit that mark last year in Japan, and it was the 16th season of Super
Sentai when it started but still, its a pretty big milestone. And between me and Caleb Goellner, who loves Power
Rangers like the rest of you love oxygen, there was plenty of excitement here at ComicsAlliance when the big day
rolled around.
As for how it holds up, well, Ill be the first to admit that a lot of it doesnt. At all. But even when thats the case, its
still absolutely fascinating.

Over the past few months, Ive actually been watching the entire
franchise from the beginning. It started when I watched the Christmas special for 2011s Power Rangers
Samurai for an article and found it to be a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I ended up watching the
entire series, and once I was through that, I decided to check back in and see if any of the other shows that missed
out on because I am technically an adult were as good. The bad news is that theyre not, but thats largely
because Samurai is probably the best of the franchise.
Seriously, this thing is great. The Rangers are all teenagers from families that are destined to be samurai, and when
they first meet each other, they stand asking each other who the Red Ranger is and then being surprised when
someone says No, Im Pink! or Im Green! as though they are not wearing monochromatic outfits in their
signature colors. Then the actual Red Ranger rolls up, in the middle of a city, riding a horse that he created by
writing the Japanese symbol for horse with a magic cell phone. The bad guy is a wounded demon who wants
to flood the river of the dead with the tears of human suffering and sends monsters through gateways to Hell that
manifest as cracks in the sidewalk or shadowy alleys between buildings. One of the monsters has the ability to turn
insults into explosions, and is only defeated because the Yellow Ranger is already suffering from depression and
cant feel any worse about herself than she already does, and they end the first season with the Red Ranger cutting
a dude in half with a sword and then kicking him off a cliff, where he also explodes.
What Im getting at here is that Power Rangers Samurai is f**king awesome.
The other series at least from the 250 episodes Ive managed to get through so far dont quite get to that level,
but Im still compelled to keep watching them. Even when the series is at its most crushingly unwatchable
Turbo Im thoroughly obsessed with how its put together. When you get right down to it, its a bizarre way of
making television, cobbling together this weird Frankensteins monster of a superhero story where half of it is preexisting footage thats re-written and stapled to an entirely new bunch of footage starring completely different
people, trying to make sense of things that were often originally created to be part of a completely different story.
When you look at it that way, its less about whether it holds up, and more just shocking that it ever worked at all.

And for the most part, it did, but not so well that you cant see the
cracks in how its assembled, and those are the parts that I find really interesting. Theres a point in the first season,
for instance, where the plots suddenly get a lot better. Theyre still weird as all hell, you understand, but everything
seems to fall into place a little neater in a way that it hadnt before, in a way that feels slightly slightly more
character driven than just built around a monster coming down to stomp on California until a robot made of
dinosaurs shows up to do karate at it. The reason? Power Rangers was so successful that it managed to outlast its
source material, and rather than just shifting to a straight adaptation of another series (which is the formula that
they ended up with for the current shows), the American version started to rely more on original footage. Without
having to write their way around so much content fromZyuranger, the stories felt a little more natural, even if they
werent always, you know, good.
But thats only part of why its such a weird little chimaera of a television show. Up through Lost Galaxy in
1999, Power Rangers was essentially one long story with continuity going back to the first episode, built on a model
that was more like American superheroes who just happened to get new robots and fight a new villain every year,
rather than the original model of each season being its own separate story. But that said, with two exceptions
and Ill get to those in a second there was very little that actually connected any of it, and a lot of that came down
to the fact that the characters were essentially made to be interchangeable.
In a lot of ways, the American actors were standing in for their original Japanese counterparts in their full-body
suits and helmets anyway, so even if you had a favorite Tommy the focus was always less on
the characters and more on the action. There mightve been enough there with Kimberly and Tommys romance or
the rivalry between the Red and Green Rangers to launch a generation of fan-fiction, but it was never the longing
glances and unrequited romances of the X-Men or anything. As a result, it often mattered less who the Rangers
were and more that there was just someone there to fill the role.
That might sound harsh, but seriously. Theres a part where major characters leave the show and just arent shown
for several episodes until stand-ins get the news that theyre being sent to Europe. Hell, theres this bit
in Turbo where the entire cast is replaced in the span of two episodes, and the show just trundles along as though
nothing happened.

Turbo is pretty terrible, you guys, but for that one shining moment, it was glam as f**k.
I think thats why In Space is considered to be such a high point. It goes in a completely different direction than its
source material, and instead its built like an American superhero comic. It uses continuity, establishes a defined
goal that can progress alongside the monster-of-the-week format by having the Rangers hunt for a kidnapped
Zordon is it still kidnapping if the victim is a floating translucent head in a giant glass tube? and uses
original villains that allowed the people running the show to control the plot and move it in a direction that wasnt
dictated by the source material.
Thats not the only way to make it work, of course. The current shows like Samurai tend to follow their Japanese
counterparts pretty closely, and its actually gotten to the point where its often a lot harder to tell where the
Japanese footage ends and the American versions take over partly because theyve come around to only casting
tiny perfect angels in the roles so that everyone looks the same in costume. Still, watching that struggle between
adapting the source material and diverging from it play out in the actual show is endlessly fascinating.
The weirdest thing about it, though, is how far it is from being a superhero story. I mean, it is a superhero show
theres no getting around the fact that they have powers, dress up in costumes, and fight evil to protect the
innocent but its so different from what you see in comics. If I had to guess, Id say thats because theyre coming
from a different place than the characters Im most familiar with. American superheroes are all sort of descended
from templates defined by Superman and Batman and then got shifted into a more modern characterization by
Spider-Man. Im not familiar enough with Japanese pop culture or even the original Super Sentai shows to make a
guess as to where those stories have their roots (Kamen Rider? Astro Boy? Its got more in common with SupaidaMan than Supaida-Man does with Spider-Man), but theyre definitely coming at it from a completely different place.
Its all right there in the first episode that aired 20 years ago, a story thats so bizarre that it opens with a moon
witch emerging after ten thousand years from what is consistently referred to as a dumpster.

Zordon lays out the basic rules for the series in that first episode, and by far, the weirdest one is the one about
secret identities. Okay, well, no, the weirdest one is that they have to wait for the monster to turn gigantic and start
smashing up buildings before they can go get their robots instead of just stomping on what they already know to be
a murderous creature of pure evil with a metal T-Rex as soon as it shows up, but thats at least kind of easy to
understand from a dramatic standpoint. The secret identies one, though, makes no sense.
It would be one thing if they were protecting their secret identities from Rita so that she wouldnt just sent Goldar
down to knife them in their sleep something she curiously never does because thats pretty much the
established reason to have a secret identity. Thing is, Rita knows who they are from day one and frequently sends
monsters to fight them when theyre just hanging out in the park. Instead, theyre meant to keep their identities
secret from everyone else. The only way to justify it even a little bit is if this is just a sub-section of the rule about
not using their powers for personal gain by keeping them from becoming famous, but from a storytelling
standpoint, its the weirdest restriction to put on them. Whenever it comes up, everyone treats it really seriously
and they always have to sneak off to transform, but it only actually matters, like, twice. Ever.
And then theres that thing where they never actually just go to the moon and shove Rita back in her dumpster,
even though this seems to be completely within their powers. Arkham Asylum might have a revolving door, but at
least theres a door there to revolve, you know?
Through all that, though, there are two things that holds up shockingly well throughout the history of the Power
Rangers. And those two things are Bulk and Skull.

Let that video play for the rest of the day. Youll thank me later.
Remember earlier, when I was talking about how the main cast was meant to be replaceable? Well, it turns out that
the only characters who werent were Farkas Bulkmeier and Eugene Skullovitch. Those dudes showed up in the
first episode and stuck around longer than anyone, and they ended up being the only characters who had a real arc.
I know its not surprising that the dude who prefers Jimmy Olsen to Superman thinks the real stars of Power
Rangers were Bulk and Skull, but its true. Go back and watch those first few episodes even though its clear that
theyre the comic relief goofuses meant to be shown up by the clean-cut heroes, theyre way more aggressive than
you probably remember, especially to the girls. Theyre actually kind of weird and creepy for a little bit before they
settle down in the role of bumbling troublemakers rather than, you know, actual criminals. But from there, in the
background of everything else thats going on, they have this really interesting development where theyre inspired
by the Power Rangers to be better people, eventually wanting to become police officers and, failing that, getting to
the point in Samurai where Bulk actually wants to teach Skulls son how to become a Samurai Ranger himself.
Theyre also the one window into how that world actually works for the people who dont have the ability to turn
into superheroes: Theres an episode where they have to take a psychological test to qualify as junior policemen
(Junior in this case meaning around 26 years old) where its revealed that life under constant threat of
annihilation by kaiju has made them pathologically obsessed with monsters and that in Angel Grove, this is
actually considered completely normal, and even beneficial. Its a throwaway line, sure, but that s**t blew my
mind when I saw it.
So yeah: those dudes hold up. And to be honest, every time I get depressed, I like to think about how theyre best
friends in real life, and that always cheers me up. And that is a lasting legacy to be proud of.
Read More: Ask Chris #162: Teenagers With Attitude | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-162-teenagers-withattitude/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #161: Clash of the Titans

by Chris Sims August 23, 2013 12:30 PM

Q: How much better is the original Teen Titans series than the New Teen Titans? @boxofmillipedes
A: You know, Millie, its funny. New Teen Titans is a book that hits every single checkmark of something I should
like. I love teenage superheroes, Im a sucker for weird team-ups involving goofy combinations like half-demons,
half-robots and full-on alien princesses, and Robin and Wally West are two of my all-time favorite characters.
Throw those things together in a book by the dude who wrote Tomb of Dracula and the artist who would go on to
draw my favorite run of Avengers? That oughtta be a slam dunk, but every single time I read it, it feels like
homework.
Folks, its been thirty years. Maybe its time we all come together and just admit that New Teen Titans was not that
great.

Okay, before anybody starts passing out pitchforks and torches, I

should probably go ahead and say that I realize this is an unpopular opinion and that its purely based on personal
taste, but its true. For me, New Teen Titans just doesnt hold up, especially when you compare it to the book it was
designed to compete against. Theres no getting around the fact that NTT was DCs attempt to capture some of the
success that Marvel was having with X-Men, to the point where they used the exact same formula to create both
books. They each took a team created in the sixties that nobody really cared about anymore, kept a few of the
original members (Robin and Kid Flash / Cyclops and Jean), added in a few new characters to freshen things up
(Raven, Starfire and Cyborg / Nightcrawler, Colossus and Storm), and threw in a character who had originally
appeared in another series who had an interesting hook and was positioned to become a breakout star (Beast Boy
/ Wolverine).
Theyre even structured in similar ways, with the high action of superheroics balanced out by a focus on the
relationships between the characters. Theres romance, unrequited love, the feeling of not belonging in the world,
angst by the bucketful, and all the other stuff thats scientifically designed to make a comic thatll appeal to
teenagers. Even the covers are alike compare NTT #1 to Giant Size X-Men. The only real difference is that they
swapped out the logo.
And to their credit, it worked. New Teen Titans was a massive hit for DC, to the point where they ended up handing
Marv Wolfman and George Perez the job of destroying and restructuring the entire DC Universe in Crisis which,
incidentally, is also a ridiculous mess, but thats a subject for another time. Its the book that hooked a ton of
readers, fleshed out characters like Donna Troy and Beast Boy that had been around for decades but had never
really had much depth, added interesting new elements and characters to the DC Universe, and gave long-time
stalwarts like Wally West and Dick Grayson an entirely new chance to shine. Historically speaking, its an
incredibly important book for DC, and considering the amount of impact it led to, for superhero comics in general.
Thing is, its nowhere near as good as X-Men was.

Say what you will about what they did later in their careers, but there were years when Chris Claremont, John
Byrne and Dave Cockrum were knocking out classic after classic on a monthly basis. Sure, the dialogue is
occasionally a little clunky okay, and by occasionally I mean in every single caption, but those stories hold up
amazingly well. That issue where the Hellfire Club beats the living hell out of the X-Men and Wolverine gets
dropped through four floors to the sewer, then comes back at the end ready to literally murder everyone he sees?
#132? That comic still feels like a product of the Modern Age, and its part of a run that set the standard, influencing
almost every title that came after including New Teen Titans.
This isnt really a knock on Wolfman and Perez like I said, Ive loved the work theyve done in other books but
if you put NTT next to X-Men, Ill pick the latter every time. As much success as they had by tweaking a similar
formula, Titans has always read like it was imitating X-Men and never quite managing to break out of its shadow.
Why listen to the cover band when youve got the original right there?
Plus, it introduced the world to this dipstick:

F**k you, Terry Long. With the exception of Lucy Lane, you are the worst thing that has ever happened.
So yeah, New Teen Titans isnt for me, which is a shame since I actually really like the original Teen Titans series.
Im sure that this doesnt come as a huge surprise to anyone given my reputation as someone whos obsessed with
comics that came out twenty years before I was born, but theres a lot of fun in those issues, and theres a good

reason why the Teen Titans cartoon took Wolfman and Perezs characters and often dropped them into a world
that seemed built by Bob Haney and Nick Cardy.

Bob Haney is one of the best comic book writers who ever lived.
This isnt even up for debate, its just a stone-cold fact. His run on Brave and the Bold with Jim Aparo is almost
always incredible, and Metamorpho, co-created with Ramona Fradon, is probably the sharpest, wittiest and
weirdest DC book of the Silver Age. So when he and Cardy teamed up to do a book about a bunch of sidekicks
hanging out together and dealing with Teen Problems or, you know, what passed for Teen Problems in DC
comics in the 60s, like adolescent cavemen and sinister hot rod mechanics the end result is pretty great.
It might not be quite the high point of Haneys career, but he brought the same thing to Teen Titans that he brought
to a lot of his books: this overpowering sense of fun. He and Cardy were well aware that they were making a book
about kids designed to appeal to kids, and again I cant imagine that it wasnt at least partially a response to the
success that Marvel was having with their teen super-hero, Spider-Man. This was, after all, 1966, when John Romita
was drawing Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane go-go dancing at the coffee shop and Stan Lee was trying to capture the hip
slang that the kids were using. He was an unexpected success right from the start, and while DC certainly wasnt
ready to break their formula on the main books like Superman, Teen Titans was exactly the sort of book where they
could play around with the idea of appealing to the kids in a slightly different way. And if you want hip slang, then
cousin, nobody does hip slang like Bob Haney.
Even if he occasionally slipped into what Ryan North called old-man-itis.

Oh, those crazy rock-and-roll records!

Really, though, thats where the similarities end. Rather than taking a Marvel style approach and filling the book up
with operatic drama, Haney just did well, a Bob Haney book, full of goofy problems that were vaguely tied into
what kids would be interested in. Theres an issue where Aqualad is bonked in the head by a weaponized station
wagon that shoots surfboards, for instance, and theres no way youre going to convince me that this is not an
amazing idea. Eventually, Teen Titans did start edging towards more dramatic stories, but to be honest, thats
where my interest in the book fades. I love Amazing Spider-Man and Ill defend those first 200 issues as maybe the
best run of its length in comics history, but, much like my feelings about New Teen Titans, I dont really need to read
a knockoff.
So is Teen Titans better than New Teen Titans? For me it is, but that probably has a lot to do with reading X-Men as a
kid and not getting around to The Judas Contract until I was in my 20s. For you, maybe New Teen Titans took the
formula from X-Men and refined it into something better, and maybe Teen Titans is just a second-rate Silver Age
book that broke continuity by introducing Wonder Girl and eventually led to Wolfman and Perez having to fix it on
three separate occasions. Stuff like this is all down to what you like, so theres no real way to be right or wrong
about it.
Unless youre me, I mean. Im right. As usual.
Read More: Ask Chris #161: Clash of the Titans | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-161-clash-of-thetitans/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #160: Gettin Older

by Chris Sims August 16, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Does it ever bug you that comics characters dont age in any significant manner? @sackobooks
A: Im not gonna lie to you, Sacko: The first time I looked at this question, I dismissed it almost immediately,
because to me, the answer seems pretty obvious. I mean, I am a guy whose career is defined by being super into a
guy whos been in his early thirties for the past 74 years, so its clearly not that big an issue. But then I got to talking
to Matt Wilson about it, and he made me realize that theres actually a lot there to talk about.
After all, some characters do age. But do they need to?

What it really comes down to is that, at their heart, superhero comics are
meant to go on forever. Theyre often referred to as modern mythology because they frequently function as little
morality plays starring these heroes and villains full of metaphors and super-powers, but thats not really an
accurate comparison, is it? After all, generally speaking, most mythology was not designed to make money for a
parent corporation. With superhero comics, thats pretty much the primary goal.
Dont get me wrong: Most creators go into superhero comics wanting to tell stories, and its pretty easy to see the
ones that are only in the money, because they end up writing Kick Ass making absolutely terrible comics. For the
superhero genre, though, financial success is paramount, because thats how they continue to exist. Superheroes
are, in one respect, meant to be self-perpetuating profit machines, which means that the stories are supposed to go
on forever. Theres never meant to be an ending, and a little thing like a character getting old and dying tends to
undercut their marketability a little. Even Sherlock Holmes couldnt get around that one.
That might sound like a pretty cold assessment, but its really just the way the genre works, and it goes hand in
hand with all the other reasons that I love them. Theres a good reason why the most popular and beloved
characters tend to be the ones that have been around forever Batman, Spider-Man, even villains like the Joker
and Dr. Doom and its because that success has allowed them to grow and change and become the characters we
love over time. If Batman had flopped in Detective Comics #27, we wouldnt be sitting around talking about how
hes one of the most complex and fascinating characters in pop culture. We would, at best, see a weird footnote in
Wikipedia about a third-rate Shadow ripoff created by a medium-talent huckster who later got into forged clown
paintings.
Point being, the idea of going on forever in what Jonathan Hickman called a perpetual second act is one thats
been a part of superhero comics for as long as there have been superhero comics, and while its probably most
prominent there, its not entirely unique to the genre. James Bond, for example, ages like a typewriter carriage, only
getting so far before a bell rings and he gets slapped back to the other side of the page when a younger actor takes
over. So in that respect, characters not aging is something that Im used to.
Batman and Superman being 29 forever is fine, because they need to be vital and relevant. And if a characters
created right, then they can always be relevant and vital. Were always going to want stories about people with
fantastic abilities choosing to do the right thing, about power and responsibility, about dangerous villains being
foiled at the last second by a combination of razor-sharp intelligence and karate kicks. Getting a character who has
to stop and mention that his knees have been turned to dust after decades of swooping down from gothic towers
on a zipline can be good for a different take on things, but generally speaking, it slows things down in the main
story and pulls the focus away from the action. Its way more important to me that characters acknowledge their
history than actually try to live up to it realistically Superman shouldnt be surprised when Lex Luthor shows up
in a green and purple robot battle suit because hes seen it before, even if hes still 29 after all these years.
But that doesnt mean that it cant work.

It really comes down to the character and how the creators choose
to approach them. One of the characters Matt brought up in our original discussion was Judge Dredd,
who does age in real time, and who has gotten older as the series goes on. Theres a pretty obvious out for it in the
comics Dredds a clone with robotic implants living in a weird sci-fi future that recently showed an elderly
character identified as being 158, and he started his career young but hes still 45 years older than he was when
John Wagner, Carlos Eszquerra and Pat Mills introduced him. And Wagner, whos been the primary writer shaping
those stories, has used that to great effect with the character. The Dredd we have now isnt the Dredd of the early
stories. Hes older, hes been through a lot, and those experiences and the knowledge that he is aging and that
even under the best circumstances, he wont be around forever have changed him. Hes the same character, hes
still consistent, but he looks at things differently because hes not the young man he was in, uh, 2099.
It might not be the best example, but the same could be said for Tom Batiuks Funky Winkerbean. The characters
remained static for a while, but thanks to a couple of time jumps, theyre about as old as they should be for
characters who were in high school back in the 70s, and theyve changed accordingly. They same characters who
joked about gym class in those early strips are now smirking through their terror at the inevitability of death. You
know, like us old people do.
That said, as much as I harp on consistency being way more important than realism in a superhero story, it doesnt
even bother me when both approaches are going on at once. Batman has more-or-less stayed the same age for as
long as hes been around, but during that same amount of time, Dick Grayson has grown up and become an adult. If
there was any consistency at all applied to that, then one of those things shouldnt have happened. Again, theres an
easy out by situating everything into that sliding ten-year timeline that they used to have (or a five-year timeline, if
youre trying to figure out how the current DC Universe is supposed to work) and just saying that Robin showed up
really early, but it completely falls apart when four other characters have shown up to replace him and then either
aged out themselves or died.
It shouldnt work at all, but it does. Or at least, it doesnt break anything beyond repair, because its just something
that we accept when we buy into the fiction of Batman. He has a bunch of sidekicks and assorted hangers-on, and
as long as they all fill different roles and represent different things, it all works.
It can even work when both approaches are applied to the same character. Garth Ennis had an eight-year run
writing The Punisher, and during that run, it was very important that Frank Castle had served in the Veitnam War.

It was such a central theme in Enniss work that he ended his run on Punisher MAX with a story that was as much
about Vietnam as it was about the Punisher, with text pages from a fictional book about a soldier who served in
Castles unit. It informed Enniss approach as a writer, and it informed how the artists drew him, particularly
Gorlan Parlov, who made the Punisher a solid wall of an older man. He had to be that old to fit that timeline,
because he was anchored to a real-life event that colored everything from his choice in weaponry to the way Ennis
depicted his mental state.
In Greg Rucka and Marco Checchettos more recent run, though, Vietnam was never brought up. For Ruckas
approach, it was less important what war Frank Castle had been involved in than the idea that he gave years to the
service of his country, protecting an ideal of life that was taken from him when he returned home. The event didnt
matter, just the ideas at its core.
Theyre both valid takes on the character, because both work with what makes the Punisher the Punisher. It just
changes the specifics, and in that respect, were right back to where we were with Dredd. A consistent character,
but with different pieces that can be put together to make different stories.
So no, characters not aging doesnt bother me, because it doesnt matter if Batmans parents were gunned down in
1939 or 2008. What matters is what he does after, and, in theory at least, that he keeps doing it in stories that I like.
Read More: Ask Chris #160: Gettin' Older | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-160-gettinolder/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #159: The Superman/Batman Movie Will Continue Until Morale Improves
by Chris Sims August 9, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: If the Superman/Batman movie has to happen, what would you want it to be about? @jordannwitt
A: Ive gotten this question more than a few times over the past few years, but after the announcement at this
years San Diego Comic-Con that the people behind Man of Steel were actually going through with it after years of
teasing the idea (and ComicsAlliances tendency to send me into the theater whether I want to go or not), it looks
like its an inevitability that were all going to have to face. I was just having a conversation with Chad
Bowers about this the other day, and between the two of us, I think we may have actually figured out how to do
something that Id really like to see.
I mean, dont get me wrong: Im pretty sure literally everyone else in the entire world would hate it, but, you
know, thats how it goes sometimes.

See, heres the thing: I dont think they should do a team-up movie.
Its not because I dont like to see those two characters team up, but because they havent done anything that feels
like it could lead to a team-up story thats even remotely viable. It doesnt feel like theyre doing this because
theres a story theyve been building to, or even because they have a particular story that would work with those
characters. It feels like theyre doing it because well, because Marvel made a junkton of money with
an Avengers movie franchise, and now that somebody else has proved its profitable, they cant just sit there

and not do it. But thats not really anything new; DCs been trying to do stuff that worked at Marvel for the past fifty
years.
For better or worse, the Avengers movies were made to be a franchise. They built them up and laid the
groundwork for connections for years, and the major accomplishment when it all came together was that they took
a bunch of movies that had completely different themes and ideas and managed to combine them into something
that really worked with all those parts. Mythological gods and super-technology and alien invasions and some dude
with arrows all blended really well to create the idea of a shared universe even the Hulk, which had the most
scattershot record going into it with two poorly received films and three actors in the role, felt like he fit in.
The Superman and Batman movies, on the other hand, dont really have that connection. Theyre isolated, and even
the franchises themselves dont have a whole lot of consistency at this point. Even putting aside my problems
with Man of Steel, Christopher Nolans Batman trilogy is over and done with, so theyre basically attempting to
reboot Batman within a team-up story. The entire reason the Worlds Finest team works is that were seeing these
two strong, well-defined characters come together to play off their similarities and differences. Look at the Justice
League animated series, or for an even more direct comparison, the Worlds Finest animated movie, which
succeeded largely because it was building on a pre-existing, fully realized Batman and Superman. Without those
characters being established, theres no way to really strike a balance, it just becomes a movie about Batman with
Superman in a supporting role. It could go the other way, too, but given that the people making those movies seem
to be thoroughly embarrassed by Superman, Id bet ca$h money that theyre opting for an awful lot of Kryptonite
punches.
Even if they did go with the established cinematic version of Batman, it doesnt really feel like that would work
either. Nolans Batman films arent exactly too realistic to allow for a flying alien with heat vision one of the
things I actually like about them is that they move from a sort-of-realistic take in Batman Begins to the downright
mythical, pure metaphor weirdness of The Dark Knight Rises but theyre very much focused on a specific and
isolated version of Batman. No matter how many colors they try to wash out of Man of Steel or how many
cusswords Pete Ross invents, Man of Steel doesnt really work with it.
So, to get back to the original point here, thats the challenge: Figuring out how to do a team-up story that ties all of
that together. So heres my pitch. Studio execs, feel free to take notes and, uh, forget that I just said you were all
terrible like three paragraphs ago.
We open in Gotham City, a year after the events of The Dark Knight Rises, where John Blake (or to use his
Government name, Robin Blake) (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has just finished rebuilding the Batcave. He has yet to
make his debut as Batman, but he knows that when he does, it has to be big. He cant just go out and beat up
carjackers in Gotham City, because the statement is too small if hes going to truly prove that the Batman is
bigger than one man, that hes an inspirational figure, he needs a bigger stage. He needs to take on a criminal that
no one man can touch.
He needs to bring down Superman.
See, while Gotham City is doing okay now that all (well, most) of the secrets of Nolans trilogy have been brought to
light and they havent built a fragile peace on lies and oppression, Metropolis is the exact opposite. Everyone who
lives there is terrified. They just saw half of their city leveled by two aliens in a battle that ended with one of them
snapping the others neck. Theyve seen that this strange visitor who spent his entire childhood being ostracized
believes in a brand of justice with lethal ends they see him not as a protector, but as an invulnerable,
unstoppable judge, jury and executioner.
For his part, Superman (Henry Cavill) is extremely frustrated by all this. Even though his father taught him to just
stand around watching people die, hes trying to live up to his Space Dads instruction to save everyone. Hes doing
his best, but theyve seen him snap a mans neck on live television, and thats not exactly the sort of thing you can
unsee. Everyones always walking on eggshells, apologizing for falling off buildings when he rescues them because
theyre terrified that hell drop them in a volcano to teach them a lesson about window-washing safety or
something.
Despite his best efforts to be a friend, more and more Metropolitans are viewing him as an omnipresent tyrannical
overlord who holds the city in the icy grip of fear. Thats how Blake sees him, and remembering how Bruce Wayne
broke the criminal elements similar stranglehold on Gotham City, sees him as the perfect opponent. No man can
take down a Superman, but Batman is more than a man. He can go past the physical limits and beat the ultimate
opponent.
So Blake suits up and heads out to Metropolis, and this is where you get that big Batman/Superman fight that
everyone wants to see. But RUSSO SWERVE! Blake gets the living hell kicked out of him because Man of Steel didnt
bother to introduce Kryptonite, so he has no ace in the hole. Batman might not have any limits, but Superman can

crush cars with one hand and shoot lasers out of his eyes, so Blakes outmatched from jump street. Its not even a
question, its just Superman throwing him through walls while Blake refuses to stay down he believes that you
only fall so that you can rise, after all.
Through it all, Blake tells him that he cant allow a Superman to lord his powers over humanity, and finally,
Superman gets frustrated enough to snap, although this time its not a neck that hes snapping. He goes into a rage
and yells that for the last friggin time, the symbol on his chest isnt an S, and itdoesnt stand for Superman, but if
Blake thinks hes lording over people, then fine. He wont be Superman. Hell be Overman.

At this point, the audience realizes that Cavill was never really Superman at all, which is why Man of Steel didnt
have the word Superman in the title. It was all part of a long con to reveal that Cavill was actually playing
Overman all along by the way, I didnt mention this before, but in this imaginary world where I get to make a
movie, everyone who goes to see movies has read Grant Morrison and Chas Truogs Animal Man. Overman beats up
Blake some more and replaces his tattered cape with a flag, but just as hes getting ready to snap Blakes neck and
be done with it, theres a huge BOOM!

Thats right, yall: A dang BOOM TUBE opens up, and who comes out? Every Superman and Batman weve seen
in mass media for the past thirty years. Brandon Routh! Tom Welling! Dean Cain! George Clooney! Val Kilmer!
Gerard Christopher! Michael Keaton! Kevin Conroy, Diedrich Bader, George Newburn and Tim Daly are in there in
animated form, Space Jam style! Theyve all shown up to battle Overman the one Superman whos both immune
to Kryptonite and straight up wants to snap necks.
Theres a huge fight that goes for like half an hour with Cavills Overman taking on all the Supermen and Batmen
except Routh, who just kind of hovers off in a corner watching creepily and occasionally striking a Jesus pose
and even though hes overwhelmed, hes winning. The Supermen are focused on making sure Overman doesnt
smash through populated buildings while the Batmen try to formulate a plan to take him down, but hes even
stronger than they thought. Hes trouncing them left and right.
Finally, Welling, Routh and Cain triple-punch Cavill so hard that he crash-lands all the way in Gotham City right
in the middle of Crime Alley. Overman gets to his feet, ready to tear them limb from limb, but hes fallen into their
trap. Because standing there, plugged into the lamppost, is Adam F**king West, in the Dark Knight Returns armor,
jacked into the power grid and ready to punch Overman with the force of an entire city.

Wests punch knocks Overman crosseyed and he goes down like a ton of bricks. He struggles to get up, but before
he can, West leans over, says Sorry, old chum and gasses him with Anti-Kryptonian Bat-Spray. Superman is down
for the count, leaving the rest of the Worlds Finest to use that worlds Kryptonian technology to encase Superman
in one of those giant translucent dongs and send him rocketing to the Phantom Zone, where he can never hurt
anyone again.
The Worlds Finest return to Metropolis where they help the injured Blake back to his feet, returning him to
Gotham City. From there, they re-open the Boom Tube so they can head back to their respective worlds. Before
theyre all gone, though, Welling turns to Keaton and asks Hey, where were the Primes? Keaton replies Oh, the
Earth-1s? You know how those two are. Theyre always busy saving their own world from the forces evil.
And thats how you set up the real Superman/Batman movie for next summer. Its a Lex Luthor/Ras al-Ghul teamup.
Read More: Ask Chris #159: The Superman/Batman Movie Will Continue Until Morale Improves |
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Ask Chris #158: The Mightiest Menace Of All!

by Chris Sims August 2, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: What were those Marvel Godzilla comics like? Are they still in continuity? @ykarps
A: Well, thisll be an easy one: Yes they are, and they are f**king awesome.
I honestly considered just leaving it at that, but your question made me realize that there are probably some people
out there who might not be familiar with Marvels Godzilla. It has, after all, only been reprinted once, as a blackand-white Essential volume that came out a few years ago that cost five bucks more than the rest of the line. If you
dont spend a significant amount of time obsessing over weird Bronze Age licensed comics, then its pretty easy to
miss out. And thats a shame, because well, because its seriously f**king awesome.

But before we get into that, lets talk about your question of
continuity. Most of the time, when a comic book company adds a licensed property to their roster, they keep it in a
nice little self-contained box. It makes sense to do it that way, because the tricky part of licensed comics is that you
dont really own the stuff that youre producing. The occasional crossover is fine, but you dont want to build
something in your core universe around, say, The Shadow or Doc Savage and then get stuck with a bunch of plot
points that you cant use when you inevitably lose the license somewhere down the line. Or at least, thats the
logical way of looking at things.
I dont know what it was about Marvel in the 70s and 80s, whether it was just that the editors werent considering
that because nobody in 1978 was particularly concerned with what theyd be able to reprint 30 years later, or
whether they were banking on the success of Conan the Barbarian and the Star Wars comic giving them the clout to
keep their licenses in perpetuity, or what. Whatever it was, the creators had a tendency to just straight up drop
stuff right in the middle of the Marvel Universe. Sometimes its as subtle and easy to work around as G.I. Joe having
its roots in Lary Hamas pitch for an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reboot, sometimes its the dark gods of Conans Hyborean
Age occasionally showing up to bother Thor, and sometimes its ROM: Spaceknight, where a lack of source material
led Bill Mantlo to create a whole cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe with Rick Jones and connections to the
Invaders, plus the Hulk, the Thing, Shang Chi, Power Man and Iron Fist thrown in for good measure.
Quick sidenote, while were on the subject: The crazy thing about Marvels licensed titles is that even when
they dont cross over with the Marvel Universe, they still feel like Marvel Comics. Star Wars is probably the best
example since you can pretty easily see the difference between the movies Cantina scene and the comics gleefully
action-packed SWING THAT LIGHT-SABRE BEN OR WERE FINISHED! version of the same scene, but its not
the only one. Next time youre rifling through a quarter bin, go find that Starfleet Academy series from the 90s. If
you didnt already know what a Klingon looked like, you would swear it was some weird far-future version
of Generation X.
Point being, when they got the license to Godzilla, they went ahead and did a full-on, Marvel
Universe Godzilla comic, and in a way, it makes perfect sense that they would. Superheroes fighting giant
monsters had literally been a part of the Marvel Universe since Day One it might be the Mole Man whos causing
all the trouble, but the cover to Fantastic Four #1 has the FF slugging it out with a giant green monster. When thats
the foundation of your entire comics universe, and when youve already gone through the trouble of establishing
that theres an island out there thats full of nothing but gigantic monsters, Godzilla and the rest of his running crew

are a pretty easy fit. In fact, Im pretty sure that it wouldve been moredifficult not to have him show up in the
Marvel Universe youve got a ready-made cast of supporting characters just waiting to be stomped on or blasted
with atomic fire.
Which is exactly what you got. Thats the great thing about Godzilla: It gives you every single thing you want from
a premise like Godzilla vs. the Marvel Universe. And by that, I mean that he gets yelled at by J. Jonah Jameson:

Right from the start, Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe and Jim Mooney do a pretty fantastic job with the idea of revealing
that, oh hey, Godzilla is totally in this universe. The way they do it is great, too, and features what might be the
dumbest thing that anyone in a Marvel comic has ever said:

I cannot tell you how much I love Dum Dum Dugans Ive heard about some monster tearin up the orient Its
just the way its written, especially when its revealed on the next page that Godzilla has been the source of two
decades of wholesale destruction in Japan, while Dum Dum, a person whose actual job is keeping track of and
dealing with global crises is only vaguely aware of it. Youd think a gigantic fire-breathing atomic dinosaur would
probably have made the news sometime in the previous 20 years, but to be fair, its the Marvel Universe. They tend
to have their hands full just dealing with the stuff that happens in New York.

From there, it just keeps going and getting bigger and weirder and better as it goes, full of the kind of wanton
destruction and Marvel brand wackiness that you just couldnt get in the movies. Godzilla fights everyones leastfavorite super-team, the Champions, gets suplexed through a building by Hercules, gets thrown back in time for a
battle against Devil Dinosaur, and in what is unquestionably the highlight of the series shrinks down to tiny
size and fights sewer rats in New York, then grows back up to six feet tall, wanders around Manhattan wearing a
hat and trenchcoat as a disguise, and then gets in an actual fistfight against Dum Dum Dugan.

Its basically amazing.

And through it all, one of the most interesting things about the comic is how much it actually adds to the Marvel
Universe. This is where Dugans reputation as a monster-hunter comes from, and the idea that there isnt
just one S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, but a bunch of them that all serve some specialized purpose, like Dugans huge,
heavily armored Behemoth. And of course, theres Red Ronin, the giant monster-fighting robot that shows up
whenever Marvel wants you to know that a comic is about to be super awesome:

All of that stuff is still around, and I think thats another function of the monsters being part of the fabric of the
Marvel Universe. If you have enough of something, you dont have to do those weird, awkward gymnastics to
reference where it all comes from that make a script more trouble than its worth. If you want to talk about ROM,
for example, youre pretty much stuck with calling him the Greatest of the Spaceknights, and talking around him
in those vague terms, because someone wont just take 1% of the money they spent making Planes and buy the
friggin rights already but, uh, thats another column. With Godzilla, there are enough Googams and Fin Fang
Fooms running around that you dont really have to explain why someone would have a giant radioactive-lizardfighting robot. It just makes sense that they would, and if you do feel the need for specifics, theres a whole island to
choose from to justify it.
So yeah, it might not be a cornerstone of the universe or anything, but Godzilla: King of the Monsters is still part of
the Marvel Universe and more than that, its an incredibly entertaining, beautifully goofy comic. The Essential
volume is well worth picking up, and its not hard to find for less than twenty bucks.
I mean, admittedly, its not the best comic about Godzilla

Godzilla vs. Barkley, Dark Horse Comics

but Id say its a pretty close second.
Read More: Ask Chris #158: The Mightiest Menace Of All! | http://comicsalliance.com/godzilla-comics-marvelask-chris/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #157: Temporary Misinformation

by Chris Sims July 12, 2013 1:00 PM

Q: Is there a creator or character you initially disliked before later becoming a fan? If so, what turned it
around? @MASolko
A: If youve read this column before or, lets be honest here, if youve even just kind of glanced at it before
clicking on something else youre probably already aware that Im a person with some pretty strong opinions
that I form quickly and then stand by against all arguments to the contrary. This is obviously the best way to have
feelings, but Ill admit that my rush to judgment has occasionally led me to be
temporarily misinformed.
The biggest one, at least where creators are concerned, is easily Jack Kirby. I wrote a little bit last week about how
my first reaction on reading one of his mid-70s Captain America comics was somewhere between revulsion and
outright fear, but that wasnt the only time I had a negative reaction to his work. Like a lot of people my age, I
got really into the X-Men in the early 90s, and Marvel was more than willing to supply us with as many comics as
our allowances could buy.

Even back then I was kind of obsessive in that way that kids and dudes who read comics and complain about
continuity for a living tend to be, and I wanted to get as much out of that ongoing saga as I could. As a result, I
gravitated towards reprint books like a paperback I got a book fair that had the Claremont/Byrne story from XMen #123 and 124 where the X-Men were trapped in Murderworld. That thing was great. Its easily one of my alltime favorite comics, and is probably half the reason that Im still obsessed with elaborate deathtraps as a plot
device to this day.
But I also made sure to pick up copies of X-Men: The Early Years, the book that was reprinting the original
Lee/Kirby issues from the 60s, and those those, I absolutely hated.
To be fair to my 12 year-old self, X-Men isnt exactly Lee and Kirbys best work. Its okay, and it definitely lays the
foundation for stuff that people would later turn into the companys most unstoppable, all-consuming franchise,
but its pretty clear when you look at other stuff coming out that the stuff they really cared about was elsewhere. If
Id gotten into, say, Fantastic Four when I was a kid instead of waiting to read the Lee/Kirby run when I was like 28,
I probably wouldve come around a lot sooner. That said, theres really no getting around the fact that what turned
me off the most was Kirbys art. The big, blocky hands, the weird, frumpy costumes, the weird angular faces Id
gotten into comics with stuff from Jim Aparo, Mark Bright and Mike Parobeck on Batman, and was just starting to
get into new guys like Todd McFarlane and the Rob. Kirbys art just looked weird and old.
The weirdest thing about it is that my dad loved Kirbys work. Hed grown up reading Thor in the 60s and once told
me about The New Gods, not the story in the comic, but the actual story of Jack Kirby leaving Marvel and Thor to go
create something that was his own, as a bedtime story. No joke. But it didnt really stick, and because the only other
Marvel characters I got into as a teenager were the ones Kirby never really worked on Spider-Man and
Daredevil I never really had the chance to change my opinion. The closest I got was really liking Mark Waid and
Ron Garneys run on Captain America, but that never led to any back issue hunting. I knew who he was, I knew hed
co-created the Marvel Universe, and Id long since gotten over thinking his art was ugly, but I didnt really get it.
It honestly wasnt until I started working at a comic book store and one of my friends said hey, have you ever
read OMAC? that it clicked. He popped open the first issue, showed me this

and I was pretty much hooked. From there, I got into all the other 70s Kirby stuff like Devil Dinosaur, The
Demon, The New Gods, Captain America, Black Panther, and loved them. I was late to the party, but believe me, I
make up for it with my enthusiasm now.
Theres another one that comes to mind, too, and this one I cant blame on being twelve years old: I used to
think Greg Pak was terrible, for basically no reason at all.

I think this one had its roots less in Pak himself and more in my
distaste for Greg Land, with whom he collaborated on X-Men: Phoenix Endsong. That book and Marvel Nemesis:
The Imperfects a tie-in to a video game that nobody remembers about a bunch of forgettable characters killing
your favorite Marvel heroes were my introduction to Pak, and while friend of ComicsAlliance Gavin Jasper
swears that the Marvel Nemesis miniseries was actually pretty good, I rolled my eyes at those things without even
reading them. Seriously, if you think Im a snobby elitist now, you shouldve seen me when I was scowling my way
through the world of retail.
I softened a little bit when I read (and friggin loved) the Amadeus Cho story a year later in Amazing Fantasy, but
when Planet Hulk was announced, I was the biggest jerk about it that you were likely to find behind the counter at a
comic shop, which is saying something. I smirked and talked about how it was just a rehash of Jarellas World, and
since the book consistently sold out, I never actually had to read it.
Until, that is, a slow day where I was going through an overdue subscription folder that someone canceled, which
had the first four months worth. It was a slow day, so curiosity got the best of me, and I ended up reading them,
and thought they were fantastic. But, rather than admit that I was wr wr mistaken in my assessment of quality, I
decided that the best thing would do and again, this is something I did as a legal adult, someone who was trusted
to both drive a car and vote for elected officials was to just not tell anybody that I was reading it so that I
wouldnt have to admit my mistake.
I lasted like two days, because that was the week where the Hulk fought the Silver Savage, and I ended up breaking
down on the way to lunch and confessing that I read Planet Hulk and thought it was great to a coworker, who
responded by revealing that he had also been secretly reading it after bashing it before it came out and thought it
was great too. We had a good laugh.
Now, of course, Paks not just one of my favorite writers in comics, hes also someone that I talk to on a pretty
regular basis for my job, and know full well is an incredibly sharp, amazingly talented writer, even if he doesnt
know who Terra-Man is. Its seriously a nigh-constant reminder that I was an idiot to be so eager to write him off,
and what makes it worse is that hes so nice that he once sent my mom an autographed copy of Magneto:
Testament to use in her classroom when she teaches about the Holocaust. Seriously, Greg Pak is way better than
2005 Chris Sims.
As for characters that Ive come around on, the one that comes to mind is Marvels Hercules. I had a completely
irrational hatred of the character for years and I have no idea why, which is especially weird since I usually really

like it when classical mythology is dropped into a superhero story. I dont think Id ever quite forgiven him for
getting soused and then getting run over by a truck in Under Siege the Avengers story, not the Steven Segal
film. And of course, the thing that turned me around on him was Incredible Hercules, a book that I absolutely loved.
Its thrilling, funny, adventurous, smart, heartfelt Its pretty much everything I want in a superhero comic.
A book by, among others, Fred Van Lente, Clayton Henry, Khary Randolph and Greg Pak.
Q: What are JMSs positive contributions to comics? @bradthebrown
A:

A
Read More: Ask Chris #157: Temporary Misinformation | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-157-temporarymisinformation/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #156: KILL-DERBY!

by Chris Sims July 5, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Wait, whats this I hear about Captain America in a roller derby? Did that really happen? @RonHogan
A: Like a lot of comics fans, I spent my Independence Day talking to people about my favorite Captain America
stories. Before long, this particular issue came up mostly because Im only about five seconds away from talking
about Cap and the Falcon battling their way through a roller derby to the death at any given time. Its sort of my goto topic in case theres a ever a lull in the conversation, which is why Im always such a hit at parties.
Point being, yes, my friends, that comic is very real. And it is amazing.

It happens in Captain America #196, right near the start of Jack

Kirbys return to Marvel in 1975 after the stint at DC that saw him creating The New Gods, The Demon, and OMAC,
among others. Its an era that produced some of my favorite Kirby comics, as it combined that wild, boundless 70s
Kirby style that I love with a return to characters hed created years and in Caps case, decades before. This
was, after all, the era that brought us Devil Dinosaur, the series that saw an angry Tyrannosaurus Rex stomping
aliens to death in the Garden of Eden. That might actually be the platonic ideal of a Kirby comic, but books
like Captain America and Black Panther were right up there with it.
I have a personal connection to this one, too: Its actually the issue after the first Marvel comic I ever read. I was
around four years old, and I dont know where I got my hands on Cap #195 it wouldve been a ten year-old back
issue then but I do remember that it scared the living hell out of me. Theres a scene with Captain America
watching an army of crazed fanatics whipped up into a frenzy that drove them to tear a Freedom Freak effigy that
was hanging from a gallows called The Love Machine apart and club it with metal pipes. That was just too much
for my young mind to handle, to the point where even seeing the cover scared me, and drove me right back to those
nice, safe Batman comics where he was breaking drug dealers thumbs. I think that actually might be why I love
Kirbys work so much now particularly the stuff from the 70s. Things that seemed scary and weird when you
were a kid always have a weird little thrill to them.
I do wish Id stuck around for one more issue, though, because #196 is where things get wild. The whole things
collected in a paperback called Madbomb, but if you havent read it, heres the basic plot: Theres a secret
organization that wants to overthrow America at the bicentennial using a sonic bomb thatll drive everyone crazy,
after which theyll reinstate the aristocracy and turn all undesirables into cavemen to use as slaves. You know,
standard comic book villain stuff. By this particular issue, Cap and the Falcon have infiltrated their secret hideout,
met the head bad guys daughter (Cheer Chadwick), been captured, and forced to compete in the deadly sport
known as Kill Derby!
And this is where things start to get weird.

One of the things I really like about this story is how much importance Kirby puts onto the idea of Caps shield as a
symbol. I love that, because it underscores one of my favorite things about the character: Hes a soldier who doesnt
carry a gun. He carries a shield, because he exists to protect and defendpeople against the forces that would hurt
them. Its one of the most elegant ideas in comics, and something that I think really plays into Kirbys idealized
vision of what America should be, and its also one of the reasons why stories where Cap carries a gun never really
feel right for me. Its a big symbol, and in Caps view and Kirbys that symbol has a lot of power.
So obviously he cant let it be used to kill people in an underground roller derby to the death.
The choice is clear. Theyre going to have to enter the Kill Derby themselves, recover the shield, and escape from
the New Society compound while the other entrants concern themselves with winning the actual pot of gold that
the elites are using as a prize. And that means its time for Cap on a skateboard!

A super-fast rocket skateboard, no less.

Incidentally, the large figure between Cap and the Falcon? Thats Tinkerbelle, the captain of their Kill Derby team,
and the woman who punched out and captured both heroes in the previous issue. Unfortunately, shes only able to
give them the basics of the game, but as its one of those time honored win or die propositions, it seems pretty
simple anyway.
It does make me wonder if I should be watching more real-world roller derby, though. I mean, I know they use
rollerskates instead of skateboards these days, but flamethrowers are still legal, right?

Right.
Once theyre on the track, what follows is some fantastic Kirby sports (or at least sports-ish) action. The dude with
the flame thrower gets blown up, but hes wearing a fireproof suit so he keeps skating around and setting
everything on fire, people are throwing gladiator nets and shooting missiles out of their fingertips. Its awesome.
Theres even a panel where Cap has a line of dialogue that Im pretty sure Kirby himself said to Stan Lee when he
left Fantastic Four:

Its a great sequence, full of the kind of big ideas that Kirby specialized in, with deathtraps that were big and weird
enough to be a threat to his big, weird heroes.
Eventually, Cap and the Falcon find the guy who stole Caps shield, but rather than just jumping on him and taking
it back by force, Cap tries one last time to reason with him:

And that, I think is what really sticks with me about this story, and a lot of what Kirby was doing in the 70s. Hes
constantly exploring ideas of morality in the strangest possible ways, whether its the modern mythology of The
New Gods or something as goofy and almost slapstick as Cap battling his way through the Kill Derby to get his
shield back so he can stop a bomb with a mechanical brain inside it from going off. That stuff provides the
backdrop, but whats really going on here is a portrayal of the ultimate soldier, someone who was essentially
created for war, who still only uses violence as a last resort.
In this story, Captain America and the Falcon are forced into a situation where everyone else is glad to be there,
gleefully murdering each other with flamethrowers and clubs because theres money waiting for the survivor. Even
after going through that, even after participating in that by necessity, Caps still trying to find a better way. And
when he cant, when he has to fight, its not something hes happy about.

Kirby treats even the silliest, most cartoony superhero violence as a regrettable necessity at best, and
thats amazing. Hes never particularly subtle about it using an actual pot of gold as the prize is about as on the
nose as you can get, even compared with the rest of the story but he doesnt need to be, either. Its all there on
the page, mixed up with rocket skateboards and brain-bombs.
Read More: Ask Chris #156: KILL-DERBY! | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-156-killderby/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #155: Closing Time

by Chris Sims June 28, 2013 12:00 PM

Q: Whats your favorite final issue of a comic series or run? @supergeekmike

A: Back when I was working at the comic book store, my friend Scott once told me that if I really wanted to know
what a series was all about, all I had to do was read the first issue and the last issue. Admittedly, this is the same
friend who told me that I really ought to start reading Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, but he had a good point. On
those rare occasions in comics where someone can actually build to a last issue, thats where everything about the
series can come together. And the results can be pretty great.

Pinning down the best last issue is surprisingly difficult, mostly

because I havent finished that run of Punisher 2099 yet, and Im pretty sure its going to be a strong contender.
Really, though, the more I think about it, the more great ones pop into my head that have a pretty strong claim to
the throne.
Suicide Squad, for example, deals with stuff in #66 thats been building since the very first issue. John Ostrander,
Kim Yale and Geof Isherwood take the premise of the book to its literal conclusion, with Count Vertigo and
Deadshot two men with with death wishes who have survived the Squad for over five years at that point
standing on a hillside casually debating whether Vertigo is going to ask Deadshot to kill him. Its strange and
beautiful and poignant in a way that resonates with the themes and characters that theyve been spending so long
building, and the blunt, clipped way that it ends is just about perfect for that comic.
The same goes for James Robinson and Peter Snejbjergs last issue of Starman. I might not agree with the themes of
Jack Knight having to move past superheroics in order to really grow up and become his own man which,
considering that it was the last thing Robinson wrote before he left comics in to take up screenwriting, always
struck me as a message about Robinson wanting to move past superheroes but theres no arguing that its the
perfect ending for that character. Hed been playing with the ideas of family and legacy for eighty issues at that
point, and having Jack decide that he needed to devote his life to his son and honor his father by becoming a father
was great. Plus, the idea that he passed the metaphorical torch/literal cosmic rod to Courtney Whitmore also
makes for a great moment, as its Robinson and his creation, one of the stars of DC in the 90s, handing things off to
Geoff Johns, who was undoubtedly DCs future, and his creation.
Those are great comics, and there are other solid endings out there, too. The last issue of Morrisons run on JLA is
one of the few comics that reliably turns on the waterworks every time I read it, Simonsons last issue of Thor caps
off one of the best runs ever, and Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonens last issue of Nextwave, like every issue
of Nextwave, is essentially a perfect comic book. That said, theres one final issue that sticks out over everything
else.
Hitman #60. Closing Time.

Between 1995 and 2005, you could make a pretty solid case for Garth Ennis as the single best comic book writer in
the industry. Dont get me wrong, hes still great, but during that ten-year span, he was pretty much knocking out a
masterpiece every time he sat down at a keyboard and doing at least two, sometimes three or four at the same
time. He was working with phenomenally talented artists like John McCrea, Steve Dillon and Gary Erskine, and they
were putting out books like Preacher, Punisher, Hellblazer, The Demon and War Story every single month, and
theyre all great. Thats insane.
Its worth noting that Preacher and Punisher both have pretty amazing last issues Punisher, in fact, has about
three of them but Ennis and McCreas Hitman is far and away my favorite, and one of my favorite comics of all
time, period.
The thing about Ennis is that as much as he rose to fame on weird, gross-out stuff like Arseface and the eternally
vomiting Allfather DAronique in Preacher or the (fantastic) Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium story
in Hitman, and as much as hes a guy who hates superheroes to the point where he did an entire story arc about
how stupid he thought Green Lantern was in a book published by DC Comics, his comics have more heart and
genuine emotion in them than anybody else I can think of. Theres a theme that runs through a lot of his work, and
its not a hard one to figure out: No matter what kind of hell comes after you, you stick by your friends because
thats the only thing you have in this world.
Well, except Punisher. The theme of that one is basically just force of nature in a shirt with a skull on it murders
people who need to be murdered for about a hundred and fifteen issues. Give or take.
Hitman, however, falls into the former category, and the brilliant thing about it is that Ennis and McCrea strike this
perfect balance of comedy and tragedy for the first half, and then start sliding the scales toward tragedy. There are
decisions that Tommy Monaghan makes during genuinely hilarious scenes early in the book that set things in
motion that play out twenty or thirty issues down the line, and it gets grimmer all the time.
Not that its particularly cheery to begin with, you understand.

I dont know if Ennis and McCrea had only committed to five years on the book or if they just knew all along how
long they intended to go with it, but theres a shift right at #39 where they just straight up start killing off the entire
cast. Theres never really any doubt about how Tommy and his crew are going to end up, but from that moment, its
only a matter of time. The next 21 issues all count down to that final act, and they do it perfectly.

It is, without question, some of the strongest character stuff that Ive ever read in comics, superhero or otherwise.
Ennis is one of the few writers whos talented enough to get to a point where characters are so exhausted by what
theyve been doing that they can just say whatever theyre feeling without any level of subtlety, and it comes off as
raw and honest rather than just a bunch of flat characters shouting their feelings at each other, and McCreas the
perfect person to draw it. As good as he is at drawing exaggerated characters like Baytor and Nightfist (he will hit
you with his fist!) and the slapstick comedy stuff, he gives the characters a weight and a weariness throughout the
whole thing that makes them feel real. Which, for a book about a guy who has X-Ray vision because alien parasites
gave him jacked-up eyes during Bloodlines, is a hell of an achievement.
Its one of those final issues where you can see whats going to happen a mile away, but it draws you in and
constructs itself so well that its impossible to stop reading. Im a sucker for those never the end! issues where the
hero cheerfully flies into cancellation, but Ennis and McCrea dont waste anyones time pretending like thats an
option. Its not that its not a happy ending, and spoiler warning! even though all the good guys die in violent,
fairly miserable ways, its not really a sad ending, either.
Its the only ending.

It was never going to go another way, because thats not how this story works, and its not how it was ever
supposed to work. It all comes to an end in the only way that it can, because of how well its crafted right from the
beginning.
Unless, of course, you read it in numerical order, in which case the last one youll get to is Hitman #1,000,000, the
issue that contains the phrase I turned my ass into a hand grenade! Either way, its a pretty solid ending.
Read More: Ask Chris #155: Closing Time | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-155-closingtime/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #154: The Super-Bad 70s

by Chris Sims June 21, 2013 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!
Q: Who is the best 70s style (kung fu, monster, urban, or all of the above) comic book character other than
Marvels Dracula? @talestoenrage
A: This is actually a really tough question to answer, and not just because I had to think about it for like two
minutes before I realized what you meant by urban and stopped trying to narrow down characters who lived in
cities. Itd be one thing if you asked me to tell you which character most personified 70s comics as a whole,
because really, you cant get much more on the nose than a demonically possessed motorcycle stunt rider driving
around the desert getting into fights with dudes dressed like giant eyeballs.

But the best? Thats a little more difficult.The obvious answer for my taste, anyway is The Punisher, but that
doesnt really seem to fit quite right. Dont get me wrong, though, he is definitely tied into a certain 70s aesthetic,
and not just because thats when he was created. With his past in the Vietnam war and his revenge-crazed one-man
war against the mob, Frank Castle is directly descended from Don Pendletons long-running Mack Bolan: The

Executioner novels, with helpings of Dirty Harry and Death Wish thrown in for good measure. The first big blackand-white Punisher magazine even ran an interview with Pendleton, just in case anyone missed the connection.
The thing is, while hes immediately compelling as a dude who runs around wearing a gigantic skull on his chest
trying to shoot Spider-Man and/or the Jackal, the Punisher doesnt really get to the point where he can stand on his
own until he gets into his own series. The elements of the 70s vigilante craze are definitely still there, but the
adventures that really shaped the character come from a different place thats distinctly the 80s, as filtered
through the usually bizarre lens of Marvel Comics. Between the opening storys assault on a cocaine kingpin, the
two-part Class of 1984-inspired story where Frank becomes a substitute teacher to fight the Kingpins teenage
goons, and the Stone Cold-esque story where he infiltrates a biker gang as a meth cook named Freewheelin
Frank, Mike Barons run on Punisher might as well be sitting in a video store next to a VHS copy of MegaForce.
Note: This is not a complaint, and may in fact be the highest compliment I can pay.
So with that dude and Dracula out of the running, theres really only one answer for whos the best 70s style
character. Or rather one duo: Power Man and Iron Fist.

I these guys so much, and while I like them a lot on their own, its when they got paired up in 1978 that things
really got great. Not only did they manage to have way more success (and about 25 more issues) as a pair than they
ever did alone, they did it by hanging onto two decidedly 70s genres way longer than they shouldve been able to.
Unlike their competitors over at DC, who only ever managed to get the reasonably terrible Richard Dragon: Kung
Fu Fighter out of the deal, Marvel really went all-in on the kung fu craze. Iron Fist made his debut in 1974 only a
year after the smash hit release of Enter the Dragon and he wasnt alone.Master of Kung Fu and Deadly Hands of
Kung Fu (featuring the Sons of the Tiger!) were all providing the perfect places for ads promoting Count Dantes
Dim-Mak Death Touch, and what they lacked in the kind of motion and choreography that you get from watching a
movie, they made up for it in giving you the kind of stuff that you could only really see in comics especially
in Iron Fist. That was a book about a dude with a magical glowing hand that could punch through anything that he
got by choking out an actual dragon, so yeah. Its pretty exciting.

Of course, looking back, its also pretty cringe-worthy in a lot of ways, particularly in that hes a blue-eyed, blondehaired white kid who gets swept off to a mystical faux-Asian fantasy land to become their Chosen One and save
them from assaults by broccoli people. But, you know, it couldve been worse. He couldve been Richard Dragon.

Luke Cage has his share of cringe-inducing moments too, although

being the first black superhero to debut in his own title helps ameliorate a lot of them. Considering that he was, at
least in part, an attempt to cash in on the success of blaxploitation movies like Shaft and Super Fly, its not really
much of a surprise that his origin story seems like its straight out of one of those flicks: Hes a wrongly convicted
man who gets experimented on in prison, given super-powers that he uses to escape. and then decides to turn a
profit as a Hero For Hire!
This is, without question, one of the greatest concepts in the history of comics. I mean, the Fantastic Four had
essentially been professional superheroes since they started, but a dude with super-strength and diamond-hard
skin who operated out of a storefront and charged by the hour? Thats basically genius, and the title alone is so
great that Im always surprised there isnt always been a book called Hero For Hire coming out.
The part where it gets a little uncomfortable is when Luke spends less time actually heroing for hire a whole lot
more fighting inner-city themed bad guys like his ex-cellmate Shades and a dude called the Cockroach. To be fair,
though, thats also around the time that he flew to Latveria to collect a $200 debt from Dr. Doom, in which Steve
Englehart and George Tuska gave us some of the best panels of the decade. Im pretty sure everybody and their
mother has seen Cages wheres my money, honey at this point, but lets not forget Cage no-selling Dooms
armor

 or Dr. Doom cracking up at how awesome this guy is:

C.R.E.A.L.C.
Point being, these were two characters who were completely and thoroughly rooted in trends of the time, but they
were completely different trends. Im not sure whose idea it was to throw them into the same comic instead of just
canceling the books outright believe it or not, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story does not devote several chapters
to the decisions behind Power Man & Iron Fist like Id hoped because there is no reason at all why it should
work.
But it did.
In a lot of ways, PMIF is the first big mashup comic that really got it. Even characters that were meant to contrast
with each other, like the X-Men, were still sort of designed to go together and play off of each other. Luke Cage and
Danny Rand were barely even in the same genre. Sure, theyre both superheroes, but theres not a whole lot of
overlap between street-level battles with a dude with a mace for a hand named Mace (amazing) and battling
broccoli people alongside the ultimate technique of Lei Kung the Thunderer. And yet, that odd-couple aspect
worked perfectly, largely because it was Chris Claremont and John Byrne at the top of their game shoving it all into
one book to see what happened.
Plus, theyre referred to in the next issue boxes as Luke and the Fist, and if Hero For Hire isnt on the cover a
comic every month, that should be.
Its hard to pin down just what is that worked so well about their partnership uh, Power Man and Iron Fist, I
mean, although I guess you could probably say the same for Claremont and Byrne but a lot of it just comes down
to simple fish-out-of-water storytelling. The best bits of that early PMIF run come from the Fist being this weird,
naive kid who can bring down a building with a punch but has no idea how to deal with the city, or when Luke gets
dragged off into a Shaw Bros. movie for three or four issues.

Seriously, the Mary Jo Duffy/Kerry Gammill story from Power Man & Iron Fist #75, where they go to Kun Lun and
lead an army to fight ninjas, broccoli people and a guy who rides a flying green tiger through space?

Its probably the best comic ever printed.

Creators like Claremont and Duffy sold the relationship so well that readers wanted to see these guys become
friends, and that kind of compelling storytelling meant that the trend-hopping kung fu and blaxploitation elements
werent carrying the whole burden of creating reader interest. Its all still in there, believe me, but it becomes less
about trying to copy movies and more about seeing how this stuff interacts and what kind of fun you can have with
it. It kept all the 70s genre stuff but outlasted the actual trends in a way that I dont think anything else has really
done since.
I mean, were not celebrating the 150th issue of Pog Man and Rollerblader now, are we?
Read More: Ask Chris #154: The Super-Bad 70s | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-154-the-super-bad70s/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #153: One Superman, Two Superman, Red Superman, Blue Superman
by Chris Sims June 14, 2013 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: What was the deal with Red/Blue Superman in the 90s? @ZdenkoVoloder
A: I dont know when I became the go-to guy for writing about weird, generally-regarded-as-terrible stuff that
happened in the 90s, but in this case, its definitely something I can speak on. See, Supermans weird Electric Blue
period was actually last time I bought a comic thinking that it would be valuable someday. It, uh didnt exactly
work out.

What do you want? I was fifteen.By 1997, after Knightfall and The Death of Superman (and to a much, much lesser
extent, smaller events like Green Arrows death), DC was well aware that the best way to get media attention was
to make huge, very visible changes to their main-line characters and hope they announced it on a slow news day.
Since theyd already gone with killing Superman, a new costume and a new set of powers after almost sixty years
of the standard bullet-, locomotive- and tall-building-oriented abilities was a pretty big shakeup. It worked, too, at
least in my case. I hadnt been reading any of the Superman titles at the time I believe I was just getting back into
the DC Universe through Flash, JLA and Starman after my memorable All-Gen 13-Everything phase at the time
but I was lured in with the promise that this was going to be a surefire inve$tment that would Change Things For
Ever.
In pro wrestling terms, this is called being a mark.
To be fair, I wasnt so far gone that I just grabbed it, dropped it into a bag and sealed it in a cool, dry place away
from sunlight. I did read it, and while it didnt really do much for me at the time, I actually do respect what the
creators were trying to do with it. As much as a lot of those 90s event books didnt actually end up being very good,
there are a lot of really solid premises in there. Superman getting a physical enemy that he can go toe-to-toe with
after years of dealing with mental threats like Lex Luthor, or Batman having to fight every single one of his enemies
at once and being slowly worn down because he just wont stop? Those are good ideas, and at the start, sos The
Electric Superman Saga (note: no one calls it that).
At its heart, its really just a throwback to the strange transformation stories of the Silver Age, updated to the
modern storytelling style of the 90s in fact, it eventually turns into an extended reference to one story in
particular, but well come back to that. The point is, thats not a bad idea, and considering the success theyd had
with reviving other Silver Age elements like Superboy, Supergirl, the Bottle City of Kandor and, you know, The
Death of Superman, it makes sense that theyd want to try.
The problem is that its a strange transformation story that goes on for a year, with an installment every week.
And also that it doesnt make a whole lot of sense.
It doesnt help that I only have half the story this thing came out weekly in four different titles and Ive only got
the Superman and Action Comics issues for it all but as near as I can figure, we start out with a pretty interesting
idea: Superman starts to break down on the cellular level, presumably because Kryptonians arent actually
supposed to be powered by yellow sunlight. Supermans body, having absorbed and expended a ton of energy that
he was never biologically supposed to be processing (and having been dropped back into the Kryptonian Gestation

Matrix as an adult so that he could be repaired after a giant bone monster in green bike shorts punched him to
death) was starting to convert to energy that would just dissipate.
This, of course, led to Superman accidentally blowing up toasters.

As someone who likes just a little bit of weird pseudoscience in his superheroics, thats a really compelling idea to
me. It plays off the post-Byrne idea that Supermans powers are all derived from a sort of electropsychic field that
surrounds his body and, way more importantly, it provides one of those classic Superman moral problems. Its a
deadly consequence of actually using his powers that he couldve probably avoided if hed stopped, but for him, the
choice between saving his own life or helping others isnt really a choice at all.
Those are all good ideas, but when it came time to translate them to the page, things fall a little flat. The actual
route from toaster explosions to new costume takes four issues, and when it actually happens, its just Emil
Hamilton turning Kelex (we all remember him, right? Supermans Kryptonian Robot Pal? From the 90s?) into some
circuitry and then sewing it into a bolt of super-cloth that Lex Luthor sends over because he had some laying
around and wants to stop Superman from dying for some reason.
Seriously. Super-cloth. From Lex Luthor. Who had it on hand for just such an occasion.

I will admit that as goofy as that scene is, Super-Scientist Emil Hamiltons LexCorp is BAD NEWS! tickles me to no
end.
As you might expect, it works (and Hamilton was nice enough to sew in some electricity themed trim and leave a
big blank pentagon on the chest where he could write Hope the letter S), he visits his mom and dad in a pretty
sweet moment, and by the end of the month, we finally have Superman with a new costume and new powers:

The thing is, those new powers arent really defined very well by the rest of the issue. Hes just sort of vaguely
made of energy. Dont get me wrong, there are a few interesting aspects of itL Hes now incorporeal so that
bullets pass through him rather than bouncing off, which means that he now has a harder time performing his
primary function of stepping between innocent bystanders and the things that threaten him, and when
hes not Superman, Clark Kent is an ordinary human being without any powers. That presents a nice set of
interesting problems, but its weirdly inconsistent. Electric Superman is incorporeal when people are shooting at
him, but not when he needs to punch people. Hes a regular human as Clark Kent, but he doesnt get into a lot of
situations where this is something he cant solve by just turning into Superman and moving at the speed of light.
And then there are the secondary powers, where he can read CDs because of electricity, or become one with the
Internet.

I maintain that this is actually an amazing idea that just came out before its time. Who wouldnt want to see
Superman get sucked into todays Internet and spend an issue battling against renegade cat pictures and racist
Facebook statuses? Ten years later, when comic book creators had a better understanding than just the files
are inside the computer?, that woulda been gold. Incidentally, I am available to write Superman vs. The Internet,
and I work cheap.
Anyway, things werent really defined that well, and while that can be forgiven because we dont really need to
know how things work, the bigger sin is that he didnt really do much with the new powers. It was all just the same
old stuff with a couple of added oh no, bullets go through me now! lines added in for seasoning. Even in JLA,
which was hitting on some great, creative scenes, he wasnt doing anything that that regular Superman couldnt,
and the story actually suffers for it because it just feels like someones drawing him wrong. Superman wrestling a
renegade angel is a great visual, but when its a weird, off-model Superman, it loses something.
The closest he ever really came to putting his powers to work was by using them to create a gigantic magnetic field
to repel the moon when it was about to crash into the Earth

but even thats just a different method to get something weve seen before. Superman moving planets around is
impressive in theory, but weve seen it enough that its a clich thats been goofed on in books
like Supergirl and Majestic, and even on TV. I guess you could argue that same stuff in a new way was kind of the
point, but why not just do new stuff? Solve the problem in a different way rather than just getting to the same
solution by a different route.
Suffice to say, Electric Superman was a little disappointing. But heres where it gets weird.
As the story continued, the creators decided to double down (har har) on the idea of a Silver Age transformation
throwback by reintroducing an old concept: Superman Red and Superman Blue.

You probably already know this bit, but much like The Death of Superman, this is all a reference to an Imaginary
Story from the Silver Age. Specifically, its 1963s Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue
from Superman #162, where Superman duplicates himself and then sets about solving all the problems, up to and
including which of their two girlfriends they should marry. Red gets Lois, Blue gets Lana, Jimmy get shackled
with the atrocious hellbeast that is Lucy Lane, and Lori Lemaris remains underwater where no one can see her
tears. Its a good one. The modern version, though
Again, this happens in a special that I dont have, but the gist of it is that Cyborg Superman you know, the halfrobot Astronaut that thought it was Superman for a little while and then fought Green Lantern fifteen years later?
invents a machine that can split someone into two extremes of their personalities. I dont know how he did this,
but lets be real here: Hes a half-robot astronaut. Dude knows a lot of things.

Either way, it worked, and Superman was split into the hot-headed Superman Red (who we know is hot-headed
because he says dude and starts droppin the G of the end of his words) and the more cautious, ultra-nerdy
Superman Blue. They dont get along.

For the record, if youre reading a comic that addresses you as fanboy, its best to just put it down and walk away.
Sorry, Lobo fans (Im not really sorry).
The Supersman end up getting into a fight with a bunch of big monsters that Im sure we all remember called the
Millennium Giants, and then he gets his regular powers back. This is never really explained. It just happens, and
Superman refers to it as a reward, but the real reason is a little closer to Its Supermans 60th anniversary and we
can get Alex Ross to paint a cover.
That was basically the end of that, although the actual containment suit cropped up a few more times, first on a
minor character called Strange Visitor, and then more recently courtesy of Chris Roberson and Eddy Barrows
in Superman #711, where it was passed along to Livewire, a reformed villain originally seen on Superman: The
Animated Series.

Even though its just a swimsuit and crazy dominatrix boots, I like the simplicity of Livewires original look a lot,
but thats a nice way to get some usage out of the Containment Suit and tie her in visually to the Superman family.
So yeah: Electric Superman. Some very good ideas and a motivation that I really like bringing back classic
elements of Superman in a more modern setting but done in a way that all but shines a spotlight on the
problems of modern storytelling. It took four 22-page comics a month for an entire year before it was all said and
done, didnt really justify itself, and relied more on nostalgia and people who were in on the joke to sell the idea
rather than using those elements in a new and interesting way.
On the other hand, its what finally killed the Super-Mullet, so I guess that one could go either way.
Read More: Ask Chris #153: One Superman, Two Superman, Red Superman, Blue Superman |
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Ask Chris #152: Death And Resurrection

by Chris Sims June 7, 2013 12:30 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: What was the best resurrection or return in comics? Basically Everyone

A: Probably shouldve seen that one coming, but to be honest, I was convinced this weeks questions were going to
be about great second issues, and Id get to talk about that Kelley Puckett/Daimon Scott issue of Batgirl where
Cassandra Cain decides that she should probably learn how to read. Seriously, get that issue. Its great.
Returns and resurrections, though, make a pretty interesting subject all on their own. Just not in the traditional
sense.One of the more frustrating things about superhero comics is that unless your name is Ben Parker, death is
really more of an inconvenience than a permanent state. If you can think of a character, odds are pretty good that
theyve come back from the dead at least once, and if the character that youre thinking of is one of the X-Men, we
can go ahead and put those odds at a solid 100%. Seriously, I get that everyone had to be mad at Cyclops for killing
Professor X for storyline reasons, but this is like the fourth time that has happened. At this point, thats less of a
prison-for-life offense and more like a fifty-dollar ticket for Unlawful Foreshadowing Of A Future Event Comic.
To be fair, this isnt something thats unique to comics; shocking resurrections are going to be on the menu pretty
much any time youre dealing with long-form sequential storytelling. If Tumblr had existed in 1891, I assure you
that people would be losing their minds about how Doyle was cheapening the franchise by retconning The Final
Problem and captioning their thoughts with an animated daguerrotype from The Brothers Super-Natural. Comics,
though, have made it into something that were not just used to, but that we expect, and because of that, actual
resurrections from the dead dont really interest me that much. Even when theyre good (Phoenix) or kind of eyerollingly unnecessary (Barry Allen), theyre just sort of there.
Returns, however, are a whole different thing.
Ive mentioned this before, but in comics, getting canceled is literally a fate worse than death. Dying means that
theres actually some interest in a character, but when someone just sort of fades away, theres a pretty good
chance that youre never going to see them again. Dont get me wrong, with the superhero genres love of nostalgia,
pretty much everyones going to come back we just got a relaunched Green Team ongoing, for cryin out loud

but its a whole lot easier to bring back your Hal Jordans and your Jason Todds than, say, the Dingbats of Danger
Street. Who, incidentally, shoulddefinitely have an ongoing in the New 52. Call me. Well make it work.
Thats the kind of thing that fascinates me, how these characters just sort of get washed into obscurity and
occasionally return to become bigger and better than they ever were before. And nobody nobody has done
that better than Deadshot.

Deadshots a fixture in the DC Universe now, to the point where hes been featured in two different TV shows in the
past few years. That wasnt always the case, though. When he first appears in The Man Who Replaced Batman, by
David Vern, Lew Schwartz and (allegedly) Bob Kane, he didnt even merit being on the cover.
Admittedly, the cover is this

 and when youre trying to decide how to appeal to ten year-olds, Batman In Space is probably an easier sell
than dude in a tuxedo shooting hats, but still. Quick sidenote: Its always a little surprising to me that a guy named
Deadshot, which could not be more stereotypically 90s, was created in 1950. That David Vern was ahead of his
time.
Point being, he could no have been more of a throwaway villain.

He shows up with a gimmick thats not even really that impressive when compared to a ninja detective in a Dracula
costume (hes pretty good at shooting things), trying to run a con and sully Batmans good name, and is defeated
when Batman sneaks into his house at night and screws around with his gun sights in order to literally drive him
insane. Im not gonna lie, either: I love that. Its simultaneously the perfect example of a Silver Age style solution
that involves making someone think they suck really bad at something, and a great example of Batman being a guy
who isnt afraid to straight up cheat thats what it takes to bring down a crook.
Even so, thats pretty much the end of Deadshot. He doesnt show up again until 1977, during Steve Englehart and
Marshall Rogers run on Detective Comics. That run, aside from just generally being great, was really defined by
revisiting and modernizing forgotten stories from the Golden Age. They brought back old villains like Hugo Strange
and added a new twist on the Jokers origin story from 1940 to get The Laughing Fish, still one of the all-time
greats.
When they brought back Deadshot, though, they struck gold in a completely different way.

Before we move on, can we take a moment to talk about that costume? Its a complete redesign Golden Age
Deadshot just wore a tux and it is nuts. The blank metal face with the one gun-sight eyepiece, the wristmagnums with ammo belts wrapped around his arms, and the fact that its bright red and yellow with an actual
gigantic target on the chest. Its kind of the perfect outfit to wear when youre fighting a guy who famously
doesnt use guns.
Englehart and Rogers updated Deadshots gimmick to make him slightly more of a threat to Batman I say
slightly because their entire fight lasts five pages and ends with Batman threatening to trounce Deadshot with a
gigantic typewriter, which is awesome but more importantly than that, they mess with his motivations.
Deadshot no longer wanted to replace Batman, he became obsessed with killing him, whether out of revenge or just
as a reaction to that original storys bit about Batman messing with his head to keep him from shooting straight.
This, of course, isnt anything unique for Batmans enemies; pretty much everyone you see in that book is obsessed
with killing Batman in one way or another. What made it really interesting is what happened next.
Deadshot was still a relatively minor character in Batmans rogues gallery until John Ostrander and Luke
McDonnell brought him back in the Greatest Team Book Ever, Suicide Squad. Deadshot was the breakout star of
the book he even got a starring role in his own mini-series, the covers of whichterrified me as a child for reasons
I dont understand and one of the reasons was how Ostrander developed him over the course of the series. The
key factor is that he made Deadshot someone who was obsessed with killing Batman (you know, like all those bad
guys), but simultaneously realized that henever actually could.

Deadshot is the one character who sort of stepped back, looked at all the experiences he and everyone else had had
with Batman, and essentially figured out that he wasnt the protagonist of this story. He still had that hate, that
rage, that obsession, but he knew it was futile. As a result, he became this cold, almost nihilistic figure who didnt
particularly care whether he lived or died. He was essentially the perfect character for the changing comics of the
80s, and that take on the character and the complex motivations behind it that Ostrander, McDonnell and
others were able to develop pretty much cemented his place in the universe.
But, and this is a key point that a lot of people who like to bring back old villains miss, he still had the abilities and
equipment to be a deadly enemy to anyone who wasnt Batman.

Thats the thing I really like about Deadshot: His return wasnt just to attempt to make him more of a threat to
Batman which is the standard take for villains, and one that can quickly go out of hand and leave us with a Joker
who cuts his own face off because hes crrraaaaaaaazzzzy but to acknowledge that he never really was, and use
that to flesh out his character in other ways. He becomes more complex and layered.
From there, he became a fixture, which is pretty miraculous that he wasnt heard from for 27 years after that first
appearance. Thats a pretty amazing resurrection, and even though it seems endemic of a genre thats constantly
strip-mining its past, it shows that its not always a bad idea to look back and see what there is to play with.
Of course, now he looks like this

so maybe it wasnt such a hot idea after all.

Read More: Ask Chris #152: Death And Resurrection | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-152-death-andresurrection/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #151: Flash! Savior Of The Universe!

by Chris Sims April 26, 2013 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Is there anything interesting about the Flash? Is he really a core player of the JLA like the animated
series portrays? @JibblyChan
A: I think it says a lot about me that I always find questions like this really surprising, because I forget for long
stretches of time that there are people who didnt get super obsessed with the DC Universe in the early to mid 90s.
It goes without saying that this is a symptom of a larger problem I have with acknowledging that other people
actually have opinions about things, and that they arrived at them by doing different things than I did, but we all
have flaws we need to work on.

I mean, I wont work on any flaws I may have, but I can definitely tell you why the Flash is one of the best and

most interesting characters in comics. Or at least, why he was.

Historically speaking, the Flash is easily one of the most important characters in comics. As much as we like to
assume that the DC Universe is largely built around Superman and Batman, the Flash has been at the center of
things pretty often. Barry Allens introduction ushered in the Silver Age, bridged the gap with the Golden Age by
introducing the concept of Earth-2, and his death, maybe The Last Good Death In Comics, arguably marked the end
of the Bronze Age, and even after his eventual (and regrettable) return, he was the character that scrapped
everything for Flashpoint and the mess were in now the New 52. When the role was given to Wally West in the mid
80s The Flash was the book that defined the DC Universe for the next 20 years.
Thats where my affection for the character comes from. I think its become pretty clear over the past 150 columns
that Ive always liked Batman and Superman, but Flash, specifically Mark Waids run with artists like Salvador
LaRocca and the late, unparalleled Mike Wieringo, was the book that made me love the DC Universe as a whole. The
history, the details, the way things were built off each other with the potential to interact, all of that was stuff that I
was completely obsessed with because of the Flash. But Ill get back to that in a minute.
For now, lets talk about the character himself. You asked if theres anything that makes him interesting, and Id
argue that right from the start, super-speed is one of the most adaptable and inherently interesting super-powers
in comics. The idea of a guy who runs really, really fast is the simplest thing in the world, but when you really sit
down to think about it, there are so many things you can do with it. Im not a huge fan of Silver Age Flash comics,
but Ill give those creators credit for introducing the idea of all the various speed tricks and really making them
work in a way that made those stories exciting. Its a trend that continued into the modern age, and the best stories
are able to add new twists and turns onto that same simple idea. Stopping an earthquake with a million high-speed
stomps on a fault line, punches that can propel someone into the atmosphere at escape velocity, vibrating fast
enough to pass through solid objects and even high-speed learning, thats all stuff thats happened in comics, and
thats just the physical side of things. Once you get into the big metaphors like, say, literally outrunning death
things really get interesting.
Plus, its one of those powers that truly works best in comics. I dont want to get all Scott McCloud on anybody, but I
think it has a lot to do with the fact that comics are static pictures designed to give the illusion of motion. In movies
and TV, super-speed never really looks right, but in comics, artists have decades of training in trying to make still
pictures look like theyre moving around and interacting with each other. When you exaggerate the motion, you get
an effect that you cant really duplicate in a medium that doesnt speak in a language of speed lines.

Along the same lines, I really love the idea that the extra reaction time that comes with super-speed comes with a
chance to examine whatevers in front of him and decide on a course of action. It makes him a problem-solver
rather than just a guy who can punch you really fast, and while Barry Allens not even my third-favorite Flash, even
I cant deny that theres a lot of merit in the idea of a scientist who gets the ability to think his way through what

would otherwise be a split-second decision. Plus, there are just great ideas you can do with that stuff, like the issue
where the Flash sees a kid whos about to be struck by lightning and pours on the speed to rescue him, unaware
that its Billy Batson trying to transform into Captain Marvel.
Plus, that makes things extra dramatic when hes up against a problem thats moving as fast as he is. And, lets be
honest here, a guy who can punch you really fast is still going to be pretty entertaining.

Because of that, hes a character that really rewards the same sort of approach, creating increasingly outlandish
problems and then figuring out how to solve them with super-speed. You know, like that time that he had to race
against a slightly off-model, non-copyright infringing Sonic the Hedgehog to keep aliens from blowing up the Earth
(Note: This actually happened. In 1996). I dont mean to hammer the metaphor too hard, but when Flash succeeds,
its by moving fast and staying one step ahead of the reader.
Thats why it was at its peak in the 90s.

Ive written pretty extensively about the relationship between Wally West
and Barry Allen and why the latter was better off dead than he ever was alive, but it really goes beyond just those
two characters. In the 90s, the entire DC Universe felt like it was moving forward, and a lot of that had to do with
what was going on in the Flash. After Crisis, when all the various Earths had merged into one, with different
characters being moved into different slots on a longer timeline, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were
pretty much anchored into their spots, but the second-stringers characters like Flash and Green Lantern who
were already built on replacing their Golden Age predecessors were given an interesting excuse to be replaced.
And in a lot of cases, they were. There was a new Robin, a new Green Lantern, a new Dr. Mid-Nite, a new Doom
Patrol, a new Green Arrow, a new set of Titans, a new Hawkman, a new Legion of Super-Heroes, a new Wonder Girl.
And because of all that, even if we all knew they were never really going to replace Superman or Batman with a
teenage leather-jacketed clone or weird religious zealot with claws, there was context that allowed readers to think
that maybe there would be a new version of those characters.
The idea of legacies and carrying on a heroic tradition became a central theme in the DC Universe, and a lot of that
was because it was the driving force of The Flash and, to a lesser extent, JLA, which was predicated on the idea of
doing a big team book with all the most popular superheroes (and Aquaman) for the first time since the 70s. It
probably helped matters that Wally West was a character who dated back to 1959 and was replacing a guy who
went out with the ultimate, universe-saving heroic death as opposed to, say, Kyle Rayner, a brand new character
replacing a dude who went nuts, blew up a city and started coveting rings like he was about to ask somebody what
taters were, precious but its just as important that he embodied the idea of a legacy.
Wallys goal of living up to his uncles legacy became one of the driving forces of his character, and the central
conflict of a lot of those stories, especially the classic Return of Barry Allen. Under Waid in particular, the Flash
interacted with his predecessors, his descendants, and even teased the idea of younger characters like Jessie
Quick and Impulse replacing him right then and there.

In a genre thats often defined by the lengths itll go to in order to get the illusion of change without ever actually
changing anything, there was actual change in those books. The Flash, both as a character and a comic, was at the
forefront of that, and, along with Starman, did one of the absolute best jobs of balancing forward momentum
against using the past to build stories. Its an extremely difficult thing to pull off, but when it works, it creates an
engaging story that makes you want to learn more about what youre reading. It gets its hooks into you, and you
end up obsessing about it for like 20 years.

And while the Flash was the earliest to make it a central theme, it wasnt the only one. Its the same core idea that
would spread out into some of the best DC books of the era: Robinson, Harris and Snejbjergs Starman, Ostrander
and Mandrakes Martian Manhunter, Peyer and Moraless Hourman. They were all books that used pieces of the
past to rebuild a rich, complex DC Universe using the ideas of legacy and momentum. It gave the DCU a foundation
that was different than the Marvel Universe, which has always been more based around everything happening
now, with pieces of different books popping up in unexpected places (like, for instance, Dr. Doom fighting SpiderMan), and it made for a really strong, unified background that supported these creators.
I dont know if Ill ever understand why they made the choice to undermine and ultimately dismantle that, first by
shifting into reverse and bringing back all the old characters and then rebooting yet again to ensure that the legacy
characters never existed, but, well, thats comics. If I was interested in being fair, I might point out that theyre
still in the process of building the current DC Universe and figuring out what its going to be about now, but Ill start
being fair when more than four of those comics start being good.
Huh. Kinda lost the plot there for a second. The point is, whether its acknowledged or not, the Flash is a character
who has all of that as his history, with powers that are the perfect combination of being visually striking and
informing his view on the world. You asked if there was anything interesting about him. Im not sure theres
anything thats not.
You know, except for, like, everything about Barry Allen. That dudes a stone cold snooze.
Read More: Ask Chris #151: Flash! Savior Of The Universe! | http://comicsalliance.com/the-flash-wally-westbarry-allen-mark-waid-silver-age-dc/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #150: #150!

by Chris Sims April 19, 2013 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: What is the best 150th issue of any title ever? @phillyradiogeek

A: Comics will use just about any occasion they can for a special issue, but 150 is a pretty weird number to be
excited about. Unless, of course, its the 150th installment of a weekly Q&A column about comics, in which case you
should get very excited and also provide gifts to the writer.
Very expensive gifts. Or cash.Sorry, what I meant to say was that because its such a kind-of-but-not-really-bignumber sort of situation, looking at all of them produces some weird results. There are 150th issues that just cold
skip over like its no big deal, and others that try to make a huge thing out of it, so it ends up being a mixed bag. So
in honor of the occasion, lets have a few from some of my favorite series.
To start with, Im sad to say that Detective Comics, which hit #150 back in 1951, doesnt really measure up. Despite
leading off with a story where Batman fights the gun-toting ghost of an executed hitman, it ends up being a slightly
more improbable version of a Scooby-Doo plot, where a gang boss is using a cardboard cutout covered in chemicals
that are simultaneously invisible and glow in the dark. Even the backup, Robotman Meets Robotcrook, is
nowhere near as good as you want a story with that title to be.
The sesquicentennial issue of Batman, however, features a story where Batman decides he wants to get laid and
builds a robot to handle his crime-fighting while hes macking on the ladies.

Now were getting somewhere. Any issue featuring Batman yelling like a teen on Tumblr about wanting to live life
his own way! and wearing a rose pinned to his tights is going to be in contention for the best comic ever, regardless
of issue number, and thats before you get to the part where he builds a crime-fighting robot to free up his social
calendar.
Even beyond that, Jerry Coleman and Sheldon Moldoff give us one of my all-time favorite panels:

Dude is just so happy, and the guy getting clobbered is weirded out.
But just for the sake of argument, lets see what else comics that hit #150 had to offer. Amazing Spider-Man seems
like it would be a pretty good candidate for the best, since it has what are probably the best first 200 issues in the
history of superhero comics, and 1975 is right in the sweet spot where the book was at its best. Its even an Archie
Goodwin/Gil Kane issue, and thats a pretty solid team.
In practice, though, well

we probably couldve done without that one.

Adventure Comics always a good source of bizarre stories hit #150 around the same time that Tec did, and
while the actual stories are kind of lackluster, the splash pages are basically amazing. First, a bunch of boys in
strange hats learn why trying to spank Superboy isnt a great idea:

Its essentially a morality play designed to get children to stop spanking new members of their high school
fraternities or making them walk on tightropes. Apparently this was a problem in 1950?
Not to be outdone, the Shining Knight spent his splash page in this issue fighting a newspaper that rides a horse, as
drawn by Frank Frazetta:

Comics that hit 150 issues are a little more rare as you get to the modern age especially in recent years but
another favorite of mine hit that milestone in 1994: G.I. Joe #150, in which Snake-Eyes fought his way into the
Cobra sanctum sanctorum, set Cobra Commander on fire with white phosphorous and beat him to a pulp, all to
rescue his dear friend, Storm Shadow.
Which we know because thats exactly how they summed it up in the next issue:

Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the summary is a little more exciting than the actual event, largely
because Snake-Eyes fists were not actually on fire during the aforementioned beating. The actual issue is a little
weird, and while it involves Cobra Commanders anti-ninja holodeck and multiple kicks to the face, theres also a
lot of Snake-Eyes hanging out without his mask on so that his blonde mullet can flow free, pointing at his tattoo and
silently forcing Scarlett to carry the burden of expository dialogue. Storm Shadow is also turned evil again by the
use of a gigantic mind control machine, but really, in a G.I. Joe comic, thats neither good nor bad. Its just something
that happens with alarming frequency.
Lets see, what else is there Uncanny X-Men #150 has one of their more melodramatic battles against Magneto,
who is weirded out when he almost kills Kitty Pryde, presumably because she was wearing the goofiest damn
costume in X-Men history Jimmy Olsen #150 is from that weird hit-or-miss Post-Kirby period Ah! Here we go.

As great as Batmans anti-c**k-blocking robot might be, I think I have found the champion: 1962s Superman #150,
featuring a story by Robert Bernstein and Kurt Schaffenberger (the best Superman artist ever, deal with it) in
which Lois Lane challenges Lana Lang to a duel to the death

and was then shot by Lana Lang, leaving Superman to dispose of her corpse.

This thing is amazing. As you might expect, this whole bizarre situation was a ruse, but unlike the standard
Superman story of the time, its not one that Superman was pulling to teach his friends a lesson. At least, not at first.
Instead, Lois and Lana are having dinner together and commisserating over the fact that Superman wont commit
to a relationship when they hit upon the genius idea of trying to murder each other so that hell finally pick one
of them. Seriously: That is their plan. So they stage an elaborate hoax during Supermans televised appearance at a
Tunnel of Love (because thats what Superman did back then), in which Lana pushes Lois into the water and Lois
emerges shouting Ive suppressed my murderous impluses! Now Im going all out for revenge!
She oversells it just a little bit.
Still, its a promo worthy of Dusty Rhodes, and combined with a couple of glove-slaps that I can only refer to as
highly erotic, its enough for Superman to buy the whole thing. So he does what Superman does back then when
hes not appearing at theme park ride openings: He stages an elaborate hoax ofhis own, involving what else?
robot girlfriends! He makes one of Lois and one of Lana, and then, just in case this wasnt every weird Lois Lane
story trope cranked up to eleven, he locks the genuine articles up in the nearby castle theyre using for their
battleground sorry, did I not mention that there was an isolated European castle in Metropolis in this story?
and then tricks each of the women into thinking they accidentally murdered each other.

Please note how super-stoked Jimmy is over this plan.

Under normal circumstances, this would proably be where it ended, but we still have one more twist to go. When
Superman lets Lois and Lana out of their impromptu prisons, they each assume that the other was faking to get
some advantage in their ongoing feud for Supermans heart, and start going at it with actual battle-axes and
longswords.

Lets be real with each other for a second: If you tell me that you have read a better piece of dialogue than
Sorry, Superman! I cant listen to you! Im too busy killing this hussy! then you are lying through your teeth and
are not to be trusted.
The girls end up going over the parapet, but when Superman saves them, its revealed that these are actually the
robots, and the real Lois and Lana were pulling another hoax in order to teach Superman a lesson about trying to
teach them a lesson! There are three levels of hoax involved here! This is straight up Inception levels of emotional
manipulation! It is amazing.
So thats it: Unquestionably the best 150th issue of all time, definitely worthy of the kind of celebration that
requires very expensive gifts.
Or cash.
Hint hint.
Read More: Ask Chris #150: #150! | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-spider-man-x-men-superboy-issue-150dc-marvel-ask-chris/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #149: Darkseid Is

by Chris Sims April 12, 2013 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: How awesome is Darkseid as a fixture in a supehero universe? @TheGonzales

A: So awesome. Largely because hes the Space Devil who wears a miniskirt and thigh-high boots and does not give

a dang.
The more I think about Darkseid which is often the
more Im convinced that hes inextricably tied into Superman and how he works, and thats actually not something
I was initially too keen on. I prefer to think of Darkseid first and foremost as a villain for the entire DC Universe,
then as the ultimate evil of the Fourth World Saga, and only then, as a distant third, as one of Supermans enemies.
But really, thats a view of things thats on some pretty shaky ground right from the start.

For one thing, its pretty hard to argue that hes not a Superman villain when his first appearance is in an issue
of Jimmy Olsen and he hasnt really done much for the past 25 years other than show up and throw down with the
Last Son of Krypton. Even if hes an opponent for the entire DC Universe, the entire DC Universe orbits around
Superman. Hes the foundation upon which everything else is built, but its more than that. It has to do with how
theyre constructed, and how theyre set up in direct opposition to each other, even when theyve got their own
stuff going on. When you look at it that way, what it really comes down to is freedom.
Ive been over this part before, so bear with me while I hit the Cliff Notes version: Supermans greatest power isnt
that he can throw cars around or fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes, even though thats pretty awesome. Its that he
always, always uses those abilities to help others because thats the right thing to do, and in doing so, he inspires us
to use our abilities to do the same thing. Hes an inspirational figure, but the key factor there is that its a choice,
both for him and for us. Superman could very easily make himself king of the world and impose his morality on
everyone and just straight up stop us from killing each other because again, that dude has laser eyes but he
doesnt. He protects people from harm and stops the things that would hurt them, but at the end of the day, hes
just there to keep us safe. What we do with that safety is up to us, and he trusts that more often than not, well
make the right choices.
I go to this one a lot, but theres no better summary of that idea than the final message he leaves to Earth when he
thinks hes dying in The Last Days of Superman. You know, the one he writes on the moon with his eyes?

Darkseid, on the other hand, represents the exact opposite of that idea.
Ive written before about why I tend to reject the idea that Supermans a particularly religious figure, even though
there are pretty obvious influences from Moses and Jesus mixed up in his story. Even if his role is largely built
around inspiring others, hes still an adventure character first. Hes not built for religion.
The New Gods, on the other hand, are entirely built around religion, which you can tell because their book has the
word GODS written on the cover in giant red letters. The thing is, theyre a set of gods created for a universe that
already had its defining figure, so while the stories of the New Gods say that Darkseid is opposed by Highfather, the
reality is that hes set up in opposition to the force of good thats already at the center of everything.
Whats interesting about the New Gods is that theyre very clearly these cosmic beings that are rooted in these big,
allegorical battles between Good and Evil, but like a lot of Jack Kirbys creations, theyre still very human. Its not

really a surprise that is, after all, what Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and the rest of the Marvel crew brought to the
table when they redefined what superhero comics were in the 60s but it plays up to how they work. Mr.
Miracle, arguably the hero of the Fourth World saga, is entirely driven by the very human, very personal desires for
freedom and love. Orion is a pacifist who struggles with his temper, whose only real defeats come from himself.
And Darkseid, the embodiment of pure, cosmic evil, expresses that evil in a very human way.
To start with, hes motivated entirely by greed. Theres a great panel that sums that one up, too, from Superman
Adventures #41, the comic where Mark Millar wrote an entire story on every page of a 22-page comic:

By itself, thats not much with the exception of the handful that just want to f**k with Batman, almost all villains
are motivated by greed in one form or another. It does, however, lead to the more important aspect of his
character: That he wants control. And the way he wants to get it is Anti-Life.
The Anti-Life Equation is one of my favorite things that Kirby ever created, because it says so much about the
philosophy that forms the foundation of the Fourth World Saga. For Kirby, the opposite of life wasnt death, it was a
lack of choice. It was slavery. it was being controlled. Thats what Scott Free and Big Barda are escaping from, and
why Orions greatest struggle is to master his own nature theyre making the choices that Darkseid would take
away from them. And just like the ability to be Superman, the secret to the Anti-Life Equation is inside all of us.
In the absence of Anti-Life though, Darkseid still conquers, only in a more subtle way. Just like the way that Im
often bored by stories where Superman just lifts up heavy stuff and punches out robots, stories where Darkseid is
played as a big physical threat are usually completely uninteresting with the notable exception of the huge
knock-down, drag-out fight in Walter Simonsons Orion #6. Instead, Im fond of the stories where Darkseid
manipulates the characters around him, preying on and exploiting their distrust for each other, their fear, their
selfishness. Hes not a guy who walks out of a Boom Tube, shouts his own name and starts punching people
except when he is, which is terrible hes a guy who pushes people to embrace the dark side of their own
personalities. For all of Kirbys craftsmanship, he never did have much time for subtlety.
Thats why my favorite Darkseid stories are the ones where he shows up, sets something in motion and then leaves
people to tear themselves apart, breeding the mistrust and isolation and hate that turn otherwise good people into
willing servants of evil. My favorite example, aside from the time he straight up chilled out in Scott Frees house
sipping brandy and casually waiting for him to get home so that he could ruin Scotts life with a sex tape, is the
issue of Forever People where Darkseid builds an amusement park.

The Forever People is easily my least favorite of the Fourth World books, but this one, one of Darkseids earliest
appearances, hits perfectly. It takes a pretty standard comic book clich, the amusement park rigged up with
deathtraps which, admittedly, I love every single time it shows up and twists it a step further into something
thats genuinely creepy. For Darkseid, his park isnt abandoned or hidden, its a thriving business thats full of
customers who stream in to watch the people suffering. Darkseid masks their screams of terror and pain behind
the flimsiest illusions of happiness, but in one of the most important and terrifying segments in superhero
comics, he lets the children see exactly whats happening.

Why? Because he knows that the adults (and their cock and bull stories) will teach the children to ignore the
suffering around them, filtering out the needs of others to focus on themselves. Theyll grow up isolated and alone,
not even realizing that they can choose a better way, secure in the knowledge that they can walk right past the
horrors of the world and never stop to help the exact opposite of the inspiration that theyre meant to draw from
Superman.
Its a war of ideals thats played out on this grand stage of superhero action, with two champions at opposite ends
who never even have to raise a hand against each other to be locked in this struggle for the fate of the world.
Darkseid is the perfect counter for the idea of a good man who essentially has the powers of an alien god by being
an alien god who knows exactly how to prey on the evils of man. Hes out there, somewhere beyond reach, he
wants to enslave us all, and the only thing keeping him from doing so isnt Superman, its us. Superman just shows
us how to do it.
Thats what makes Darkseid so awesome. That and the miniskirt.
Read More: Ask Chris #149: Darkseid Is | http://comicsalliance.com/darkseid-superman-jack-kirby-fourth-worlddc/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #148: Batmans Happy Ending

by Chris Sims April 5, 2013 1:30 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Can Batman have a happy ending or is he always doomed to be the old man in Dark Knight
Returns and Batman Beyond? @tjones0982
A: I guess that depends on whether your concept of a happy ending includes punching the Riddler right in the

face. Spoiler Warning: Mine does.

I dont think Im blowing anyones mind
here when I say that wanting to see how a story ends is a pretty natural impulse. A story without an ending feels
incomplete, even when, like superhero comics, its the kind of story thats never really meant to end. When you get
right down to it, the entire purpose of a superhero comic is to continue being published indefinitely so that its
creators (or, if were being a little more honest about it, its parent company) can continue making money. Jonathan
Hickman mentioned a while back that superhero comics are always second acts, and hes right with as much as a
story structure demands closure, there always has to be enough left unresolved that we can have another story
next month.
Still, that impulse is there, and it always has been. We have stories about how Hercules, Robin Hood and King
Arthur end more on that last one in a second and superheroes like Batman arent really all that different. The

thing is, because theyre being wedged into stories that arent designed to have them, those endings dont always
work that well.
Dont get me wrong, Dark Knight Returns is a great comic, but like I mentioned in last weeks column, those stories
from the late 80s that tried to edge toward it as an official future of which Death in the Family and The Cult
were probably the most memorable were way worse off because of it, and the same goes for the stories ten
years later that did the same with Kingdom Come. There are exceptions, of course; Scott Snyder and Francesco
Francavilla tying Jim Gordon Jr. from Year One in to the rise of the Mutant Gang in DKR in The Black Mirror was
awesome, but it was also subtle enough that it wasnt the entire focus of the story.
The thing about those stories, though and Batman Beyond, since you brought it up is that despite their billing,
theyre not endings. For all the pretense around them as the Official For Really Real Future, theyre just as much a
second act as the rest of those comics. Dark Knight Returns ends with Batman out of retirement, going underground
to act in secret, recruiting a bunch of impressionable teens to do his bidding:

That last line, the contrast of Bruce embracing this new idea of what being Batman means as a life thats good
enough with the openings rejection of a death that never would be is great, but it doesnt close anything. It tells
you right there on the last page that Bruce Waynes story will continue, although as we all know, there was never a
sequel to The Dark Knight Returns.
Kingdom Comes the same way, ending with the heroes all coming out of retirement to beat up the 90s and maybe
do some other stuff down the line. Even Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, which shut the door on 50

years of Superman comics in about as resounding a way as it was possible to do, ends with a piece of coal being
crushed into a diamond and a wink from a character who knows that nothing in comics ever really ends. In that
respect, they all fall in line with how King Arthurs story ends, with the declaration that hes the once and
future King. Hes only dead for now, and eventually hell come back and have more adventures, probably with a
laser sword version of Excalibur. I think Brian Bolland drew it.
Batman Beyond is a little different, but only because it doesnt have any pretenses of being an ending. Its Terry
McGinniss show, sure, but Bruce never leaves. Hes all over that thing. Hes just not running around punching out
crooks, and while were on the subject, I love how the show justifies that. That opening, with an older Batman being
pushed to a physical limit to the point where has to use a gun, the one thing for which he could never forgive
himself, is so well-done:

I completely buy his revulsion and disgust at himself, the realization that he can no longer be what he was, and his
decision to quit being Batman rather than compromise his moral code. That stuffs great. What I dont buy and
what, unfortunately, is necessary for the premise of the show is that not being Batman would ever stop Bruce
Wayne from fighting crime. You can take away his physicality in its entirety and the dude is still the Worlds
Greatest Detective, who, as you might have heard, is somewhat interested in public safety. Its hard to believe that
hed just go sit in a mansion until Peter Parker showed up at some point in the future. It just makes for a much
better show if hes out of the picture for a while.
All of which is to say that those Grumpy Endings you bring up both leave the possibility that Batman
actually can be happy in his later years his much, much later years by being continuations of the story rather
than actual endings themselves.
Of course, the fact remains that hes a friggin sourpuss throughout. So do I think that there could be a truly happy
ending for Batman? Well, yes and no. To dial back a little because what this column needs is another lengthy
diversion, I know I dont think that Batman needs to be all that crabby in thepresent.
Its not that I want everything to be the bright and cheery pop art world of the Adam West show [note: this is a lie, I
definitely do want everything to be like that forever] but I like a Batman whos not a complete and utter jerk to
everyone around him way more than the skulking, sidekick-backhanding loner that hes occasionally been

characterized as, like in 90% of his interactions with Superman since the mid 80s. Batman: The Animated
Series and its accompanying comics actually did a really good job with this, giving us a Bruce Wayne who seemed
genuinely friendly and interested in other people, but who was still undeniably driven and serious about punching
out criminals. Those scenes where hed have casual, friendly conversations with Alfred or Robin, or when hed roll
up to Wayne Enterprises in that hilarious mustard-yellow suit but still turn that growl on when it was time to be
Batman did a lot to round out his character in a way that a lot of other versions missed.

Believe it or not, there was a point to all this, because it affects just what it is that were going to consider a Happy
Ending for Batman.
Batman is, at the core of the concept, a crimefighter. Hes defined by his opposition to crime, particularly murder
even more particularly, murder by gunshot of parents in an alley, but hell branch out to poisoned reservoirs if he
needs to. So really, the only unambiguously happy ending for Batman can only come once hes done wiping out all
crime ever. Now, not to be to cynical or anything, but this is not likely. Thats kind of a bummer, I know, but the
bright side is that we pretty much get Batman comics in perpetuity.
The logical ending to that is that Batman just fights crime until he dies fighting crime, but thats not exactly
happy, even if you account for how much joy he has to take knocking the Riddlers block off. So the question is, do
you adjust the standards? Is it enough for Batman to know that he made things better in Gotham City, that he
helped to literally save the entire world on multiple occasions as a member of the Justice League and that, on a
personal level, hes had a positive effect on the lives of people around him, like the Robins (okay, some of the
Robins)? All of those things are true because they have to be if things arent better with Batman around, then
hes a pretty awful superhero and that is a theoretical possibility that this column does not discuss. So is that
enough?
Or is he so driven that no matter how much good hes done, itll never be enough? Will he ever be satisfied if he
cant meet that goal of eradicating all evil in Gotham? Would even that be enough if there was still evil elsewhere in
the world?
Personally, I come down somewhere in the middle, but a lot closer to the former than the latter. Its not that I dont
think hes driven, or that hell ever be completely satisfied, but its like I said: Dudes the Worlds Greatest Detective,
and if theres one thing that Gotham Citys full of, its evidence that Batman and Bruce Wayne have made things
better. The simple fact that the citys not overrun with glaciers, carnivorous plants, murderous clowns, fear gas,
crossword puzzles, ninja assassins and whatever the hell the Penguins been trying to do all these years is a pretty
good sign. Hell, there are even people confident enough to continue opening businesses like the Janus Twins
Playing Card Factory And Haberdashery and Priceless Egyptian Cat Statue Museum, so obviously hes
doing something right. Is it enough? Probably not, especially for a guy whose concept of realistic expectations
allowed him to dress as a bat and run around on gargoyles all night, but thats why hell keep doing it until he cant,
and why hell find another way to help after that.
Besides, punching the Riddler is its own reward.
Read More: Ask Chris #148: Batmans Happy Ending | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-beyond-happy-endingdark-knight-returns-dc/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #147: The Best Robin Ever

by Chris Sims March 29, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Who is or was the best Robin? What is the Best Robin moment in Comic Book History?
@danceformyhorse
A: Heres a little tidbit that probably wont shock anybody: I think about the Robins a lot. When you spend around
60% of your waking hours thinking about Batman, its sort of inevitable that youll eventually get around to his
sidekicks, and theres a lot there to think about. There are a ton of complexities and little bits of subtext with what
they bring out of Batman, but in this case, the answer strikes me as a pretty obvious one.
The best Robin is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Tim Drake. Deal with it, haters.

Dont get me wrong: Its not that I dont like the other Robins at all.

I think theyre all really great characters who bring something interesting to the larger mythology of Batman, and
Id even go so far as to say that theyre all necessary for building the version of Batman that we have now. That said,
when you look at each of those characters and how they function in their role as Batmans sidekick or, to be a
little less dismissive, his partner in crime-fighting Tims rank at the top becomes pretty self-evident.
For one thing, hes the only one of the Robins whos not, on some level, in it for themselves. All of the others are
motivated by very personal reasons. Dick Grayson essentially has the same defining tragedy that Bruce Wayne
does, in that he sees his parents murdered in front of him. The only real difference is that it happens in Haleys
Circus instead of Crime Alley, and even thats really just a convenient reason for him to already have the gymnastic
ability to swing around Gotham City without having to go tromping around the world for 20 years like Bruce did.
Hes ready to go from the moment hes introduced, complete with the same sort of training and, more importantly,
the same sort of motivation that Batman himself has.
The thing is, Dick Graysons major value as a character doesnt come from his time as Robin at least, not in the
grand, ongoing evolution of Batman that DCs been cooking up since 1939. He only truly becomes a great character
when we see how he grows up. Ive talked about this before, but the short version is that hes Batmans first and
greatest triumph against Crime. Hes proof that the idea of Batman works, because a kid whos put into the exact
same situation that Bruce Wayne was when his parents died doesnt have to go through it alone. Theres
someone there for him who can help him and provide him with the closure that Bruce never had, and that makes a
huge difference in his life. If Batman didnt already exist, Dick Grayson wouldve become Batman, but because
there is already that figure in place, he becomes something different.
Batman builds himself a family over his career, but he often does so at the expense of Bruce Waynes personal life.
Even if hes not fully consumed with the pursuit of justice, hes never going to settle down and get married, because
being Batman comes before everything else in his life. Dick, on the other hand, is consistently portrayed as a far
more easygoing, well-liked guy whos almost always surrounded by friends and teammates. Hes the dude
that everyone in the DC Universe gets along with and who almost got married to an alien supermodel. But while all
of that makes him a great character, and makes his relationship with Batman a pretty incredible dynamic (get it), it
doesnt really kick in until after he becomes Nightwing and shows how different he is from his mentor.
If Grayson represents Batmans greatest triumph, then Jason Todd or at least, the Post-Crisis Jason Todd, since
the original version was just Grayson with palette-swapped hair represents his greatest failure. Frank Miller had
set up that Something Terrible happened to Jason at some point on the road to Dark Knight Returns, and since late
80s Batman comics were trying so hard to be DKR that its kind of embarrassing to look back on them (see also:
late 90s DC Comics andKingdom Come), that idea was folded into the main line books. Unlike his squeaky-clean
predecessor, Jason was cast as a Troubled Teen in the pages of Batman, someone whod had a rough life with
plenty of tragedies and had a lot of anger at the world, even though it seems like nobody bothered to tell Mike W.
Barr, who was writing classic, relatively lighthearted adventures with a wide-eyed, pun-filled Jay Todd over
in Detective.
Either way, It was an interesting setup, with Batman clearly wanting to recreate the success (and familial
relationship) that he had with Grayson, and Jason wanting to vent his anger on the world in a way that would be, if
not righteous, at least more constructive than the life of crime hed been heading toward on his own.
In the run up to Death in the Family, Jason was shown to be a much more ruthless and pragmatic character than
even Batman. Batman #424, one of the very first comics I ever read, features Batman and Robin going up against
the drug-dealing son of a diplomat / 80s action movie coke dealer stereotype called Felipe. After Felipe beats his
girlfriend so badly that she kills herself (pretty heavy stuff for a comic I read when I was six), Batmans solution is
to work within the law, essentially having him deported back home in shame. If that sounds a little soft compared
to Batmans usual standards, it is conspicuously so, as its very obviously done more for the sake of contrasting it
with Jasons solution: straight up kicking that dude off a building to his death:

Death in the Family mightve made it official, but that right there is the moment that readers shouldve known
Jasons career as Robin was over. Its not that hes wrong or right Jim Starlin and Mark Bright cast Felipe as an
irredeemable and untouchable scumbag its that he doesnt work in Batmans world.

In a lot of ways, that version of Jason Todd was the voice of the sort of reader who always wants to know why
Batman doesnt just go ahead and do us all a favor by killing the Joker, something that was (painfully) literalized
when Judd Winick dragged him out of the grave 20 years later to put that question to Batman. The answer is
simple: Batman doesnt kill, period. Either you get it or you dont, and Jason Todd didnt get it so he had to go. Even
if that phone-in vote on whether to kill him had gone the other way, he was done as Robin, but that contrast, and
Batmans eventual rejection of simple revenge in favor of his established morality is a really interesting part of
those characters. Its the great Pyrrhic victory in his ongoing battle against the Joker.
Skipping ahead a bit, the other Robins are similarly self-motivated. That one kid who was Robin for a cup of coffee,
whats her name? Blonde hair, amazing costume. I want to say Stacy? Her brief tenure as Robin was all about
proving her worth, to the point where even her eventual death (usually best left forgotten) came as a result of
wanting to show that she was useful in her role. The same goes for Damian Wayne, a character who was entirely
built around a desire to prove himself. First, its just to show his worth to his father by replacing Robin and
becoming the favorite child, a pretty immature, bratty sort of motivation thats made threatening because hes a
spoiled brat trained by the deadliest assassins in the world.
And its worth noting that Batman does the absolute wrong thing when dealing with him:

He shouts and postures and tries to intimidate and terrify him into submission. In other words, Bruce treats
Damian like a villain, because thats the only way he knows how to deal with him. Genes or no, hes a product of
the League of Assassins, so when his first attempts to show him the wonders of the Batcave and introduce him to
the family fall completely flat the same things that had awed Dick, Jason, Stephanie, Tim, Barbara and everyone
else whod been down there he goes back to what usually works. And it fails miserably. Seriously, two pages
after all this shouting, Damian kicks the crap out of Robin and then cuts off a dudes head. Thats about as wrong as
parenting can go.
Its only when Bruce is out of the way and Grayson takes over as Damians mentor that Damian evolves, and again,
we see the success of that first Batman and Robin relationship. We know how Bruce dealt with someone who was
in the same situation that he was as a child and helped them grow, now we get to see how Dick deals with someone
whos like a young Bruce. Its only when that relationship comes into play that Damians desires go beyond proving
worthiness as a successor to his father and more to the higher cause of justice.

Thats the influence of Dick Grayson, The Batman Whos Good With People, and as a result, Damians not really ever
Bruces sidekick in the way that the others are. Hes Dick Graysons Robin, which makes that scene in Batman
Inc. #8 spoiler warning! so great, when they have their last great team-up with an artistic nod back to their
first adventure together:

Incidentally, in terms of costumes, Damian beats everyone else hands down, if only because of his lace-up wrestling
boots.
Now, at long last, back to Tim Drake.
Tims not in it for himself, and a lot of that comes from the simple fact that he doesnt need to be. When he first
appears, he doesnt have a tragedy that defines his past and drives him to seek vengeance. In fact, he has the exact
opposite: Its not really exaggerating to say that hes the single most privileged, well-adjusted character in the
entire Batman mythos. Hes rich enough to live more-or-less next door to Wayne Manor, he has two loving
(and living) parents. The one thing that drives him is that hes a kid who loves Batman.
In that respect, hes as much of a stand-in for the fans as Jason Todd was for that certain segment of readers, but on
a different level. Hes a guy who pays attention to Batman and how he works, almost to the point that trounces the
suspension of disbelief in a world where Batman was still supposed to be thought of as a possible urban legend
(despite, you know, being a member of the Justice League). In all honesty, hed make a lot more sense if we saw a
long box of dog-eared Batman comics in his bedroom.
Either way, hes studied Batman enough to the point where he realizes what we have (or what we shouldve,
anyway), which is that Batmans never been a solo act. Even if its not Robin, even if its just Alfred, or Jim Gordon,
or Lucius Fox, or Superman, Batman is someone who has people in his life that help him in various respects. Tim
Drake realizes this, and, knowing that Robin got crowbard to death, he steps up to fill that role.
His appearances spin out of a long game that started with Death in the Family, but its not a matter of co-opting
someone elses tragedy. He becomes Robin because of a desire to help Batman, and helping Batman is what
Robin does. Its purely altruistic, and because of that, hes dedicated to being Robin and filling that role in a way
that other characters arent. Hes driven, but not by tragedy hes just really nice, and hes driven because helping
people is the right thing to do. Its a very bright, unambiguous motivation in a franchise thats often defined by
darkness and brooding and murderous psychopaths, but again: Thats what Robin does.
If you go back to his debut as Robin, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle lay this out in the most literal, obvious way
possible, contrasting two panels. The first is Bruce Wayne, face covered in shadow, talking about how he watched
his parents die in an alley. The second is Robin cheerfully thinking about how f**king awesome it is to swing
around on a grappling hook:

Its a great scene, and it really does a lot to illustrate how those characters were meant to balance each other.
Of course, as time went on, that great concept went through some pretty rough times. Tim was orphaned one
parent at a time, including having his father offed by Captain Boomering in what is, amazingly, not the most glaring
example of missing-the-f**king-point that you can find in the pages of Identity Crisis. More recently, the New 52
reboot issued an edict that Tim Drake had never been Robin at all for reasons that are probably explained in a
bunch of Teen Titans comics that I didnt read, shuffling him off to be tied with Carrie Kelly for Best Robin That I
Guess Was Never Actually Robin. Comics!
As for my favorite Robin moment, man, that is tough. There are so many good ones to pick. Since I already brought
up Carrie Kelly, that entire sequence from when she jumps on the Mutant Leader and then her response when
Batman asks her name is about as perfect as comics get:

Outside of comics, Id be lying if I said that Robins Reckoning from Batman: The Animated Series wasnt one of the
best portrayals of those two characters in any medium.
For Tim Drake, though, my favorite example is relatively recent, involving Bruce Waynes return from THE OMEGA
SANCTION! THE DEATH THAT IS LIFE! in The Return of Bruce Wayne #6. While Damian may have been Dick
Graysons partner, Tim Drake never stopped being Bruce Waynes, and when Bruce gets turned into a timespanning weapon against life, he ends up being the only one who can talk him down:

In the biggest, goofiest, weirdest, most comic booky terms, thats what their relationship is. When everything is at
its worst, Batmans there to stop it. When everythings at its worst for Batman, Robins there to help him.
Read More: Ask Chris #147: The Best Robin Ever | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-robin-tim-drake-dccomics-ask-chris/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #146: Spoiler Warning!

by Chris Sims March 22, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: With regards to recent spoilers, from Marvel and DC, when was the first time you were spoiled on
something major? How did being spoiled affect your enjoyment of the story? @fixbane
A: Theres nothing that gets comics readers riled up quite like spoiling a plot twist before they get a chance to read
it, and theres a pretty good reason for that. The entire purpose of reading is to have an experience, to thrill along
with the narrative and feel the surprises and turns of the story along with the characters. Taking that away can
cheapen things, and in some cases, it flat-out ruins em. But on the other hand, its entirely possible to walk into a
story knowing exactly how it ends without hurting the experience at all.
I know that first-hand, because the first time I ever got spoiled on something, it was one of the biggest plot twists in
the history of comics: I got spoiled on the end of Watchmen. It happened when I was reading an issue of Wizard,
and its not really the kind of thing where I can blame them for ruining the surprise. This was, after all, 1995 or
something, and eight years is a pretty respectable amount of time to wait before you go around discussing the end
of a book that pretty much everyone reading comics had already read. I was too young to have picked it up when it
was coming out, so really, it was the first time Id heard of Watchmen at all.
For all of Wizards many sins, I have to credit it with introducing me to a lot of great comics when I was a teenager.
For someone whose local comic shop was really just a side business that supplemented a focus on used romance
paperbacks staffed by two scowling, middle-aged shopkeepers, it was really the only source of recommendations
that I had. This particular issue had one of those frequent articles about the Ten Greatest Graphic Novels Of All
Time, and when the entry came for Watchmen, this was the panel they used to illustrate it:

Uh spoiler warning, I guess?

Incidentally, if memory serves, Watchmen ended up ranking at #2, right behind another book Id never heard of
called The Dark Knight Returns. For that one, they pulled a panel of Batman kicking a dude in the stomach so hard
that it broke his back and another panel where he kicked Superman in the face while wearing boots with spikes on
the bottom, and 13-year-old Chris thought that was rad as hell. Without that article and those two images, its not
really exaggerating to say that my life mightve been completely different, with a job other than bitterly telling
people why they should and shouldnt like things. Thanks, Wizard!
Point being, the first time I ever even heard of Watchmen, it was in the form of a 200-word plot summary and a
panel that blew the Big Reveal. Still, it was enough to make me want to buy those books to see what they were all
about, and thats exactly what I did the next time I saw them in the store. I went intoWatchmen knowing full well
that Ozymandias did it 35 minutes ago, and it didnt change the fact that I loved every bit of that story.
Of course, it goes without saying that Watchmen isnt exactly your average comic book, but it does illustrate a point
about spoilers. I could tell you exactly how the plot resolves, that spoiler warning! Ozymandias killed the
Comedian and then threw a psychic squid at New York to end the cold war, and that Dr. Manhattan vaporizes
Rorschach to keep him spilling the secret, and I could even tell you that Lauries sleeping with Dan Dreiberg

and none of that would really change what you get out of reading Watchmen. All the plot beats and events of that
story are nothing without the craft that goes into it, and even if I told you about all that stuff the way #5 is laid
out with complete symmetry around the center spread and how thats actually a false midpoint for the story that
serves as a red herring, how Dave Gibbons was so consistent with his art that Dan has stains on his wall that are in
the same place for the whole book and its still not the same experience as reading it. Theres so much there to
get that knowing what youre in for doesnt take a whole lot away from the work.
It does, however, change the way that you read it, and theres a big difference between being surprised by a plot
twist and actively looking for the threads that are going to end up pulling it all together. Youre essentially doing
your second reading first, and when you have a book that can hold up to a second (or third, or fifth, or twentysixth) read, thats fine. But when its not, when the twist is the primary concern instead of what leads to it, the
experience suffers. A spoiler takes away the fun thrill of being surprised, and its frustrating when thats the
enjoyable part.
Its easy to say that a spoiler shouldnt matter because its the journey to whatevers being spoiled that makes
things worth it, and in some cases, thats true. It might even help if I tell you that (Spoiler Warning!)
Dumbledores going to die at the end of this book, and youre emotionally invested in that character, then theres a
good chance youre going to have a sense of dread that just builds and builds as the actual event draws closer. As a
reader, youre fundamentally a passive observer, and there are plenty of stories that start off by revealing a piece of
the climax and preying on that fact that theres nothing you can do to stop it from happening.

The thing is, superhero comics are weird. I mean, theyre weird in a whole lot of ways, but particularly in that
theyre oh brother, this is going to get pretentious but I promise theres a hair metal song later to make up for it
a long-form sequential narrative thats never really meant to end. The primary goal of almost every comic is to
get you to buy the next one, and the way to do that is to do something unexpected that makes you want to find out
whats going on. You have to hit those plot twists every 20 pages to keep readers interested so that they come back
next month, because if they dont, theres not going to be a next month for this comic. So as readers, were trained
from the moment we start reading to value that surprise because thats what keeps us going.

At the same time, superhero fan culture is built around knowledge to a

pretty huge degree. For whatever reason, a lot of us get into this stuff obsessively, poring over facts and issue
numbers so that we can know more and believe me, I am right there with everybody else. Thats one of the great
things about superheroes as a genre, that theyve flourished in these bizarre shared universes that are full of pieces
that get picked up, dropped, wiped out of existence, brought back, changed, and hammered together to fit. Making
sense of it all is (for me, anyway) one of the most fun parts of being a comics reader. Its why books like The Official
Handbook to the Marvel Universe and Whos Who were so popular, because they put all that stuff down in stone so
that it can be referenced. And then made immediately obsolete the next time that character shows up.
For some readers, having that knowledge becomes more important than reading the story, even if its just because
keeping up with everything is too expensive. How many people decide to catch up with plot summaries on
Wikipedia, or highlight reels made up of scanned panels on websites, or even just by reading reviews on Americas
Most Beloved Comics Websites? In the end, you end up with the same bunch of facts.
The thing is, when youre dealing with stories, knowing what happened is never as important as
knowing why and how. A great premise thats not done well is a bad comic, and a premise that sounds dumber than
a sack of doorknobs man dressed as bat punches clown can be amazing. If a storys not done well, then
theres no amount of surprise thats going to save it, and if its good enough, no spoiler is going to completely ruin
it.
Still a dick move, though.
Q: Is Iron Eagle worth watching? @splashpagefilms
A: Let me ask you a question, son. Can you listen to a song that rocks this hard and not think the movie its about is
worth watching?
Because if you can, you and I will never understand each other.
Q: If someone wanted to know how big a copy of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is, what would you do?
@daveexmachina
A: I would take a picture of it next to a second copy of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

Read More: Ask Chris #146: Spoiler Warning! | http://comicsalliance.com/watchmen-comic-book-spoilers-askchris-146/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #145: Looking Forward To Batmans Past

by Chris Sims March 15, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: With the announcement of Zero Year, is there really anything new that can be added to Batmans
origin? @nicknewt
A: Sure. If nothing else, Im really interested in finding out where Batman got his Batman-shaped knee pads, and
why he thought that little design choice would help him strike fear into the hearts of criminals. The better question
would be Is the market prepared for 11 issues about Batman considering a knee pad purchase.

Before I get too deep into this, theres a couple of things I want to get out of
the way. First, its rarely a good idea to speculate on whether a comics going to be worth reading months before it
comes out. As much as Im, you know, always 100% right about everything, judging a book by a teaser image puts
you on some pretty shaky ground. Second, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have really given me no reason at all to
doubt that they can tell a compelling Batman story. Theyve unquestionably been the most solid team of the DC
reboot, and even when Death of the Family skewed a little too far to the grotesque for my tastes, I still really
enjoyed it. Ive interviewed Snyder more than once, and every time, I come away thinking that hes a super-smart
guy who has put a lot of thought into how Batman and his world work.

That said, Ill cop to being a little leery about this one.
Its pretty easy to see why theyd want to do a new version of Batmans first year (or zeroeth year, I guess?).
Whenever something gets rebooted and the past gets wiped away, theres always the opportunity there to go back
and define a character in a way that you didnt have the chance to before which we know largely because this is
the fourth or fifth time DC has done it. The thing is, DC didnt really throw away all that past when they rebooted a
few years ago. A few comics did, sure, but Batman in particular, along with Legion of Super-Heroes and Green
Lantern, trundled along as though nothing had changed. Batman Incorporated especially just continued to build on
what Morrison had started back in 2006, which in turn was built on everything else hes written for DC, and
also the entirety of Batman for the past 70 years.
Part of me wishes that the New 52 had just been a clean break and that they just restarted everything all at once,
bringing everybody in on the ground floor of a DC Universe that was built today. Dont get me wrong, there are
plenty of reasons why they definitely shouldnt have done that Batman Inc was just picking up steam, Geoff
Johns had just spent the better part of a decade making everyone like Green Lantern again by having him fight
zombies and rainbows, and properties like Nightwing and Teen Titans dont really work without enough backstory
to allow for sidekicks but I still think it wouldve been a little more compelling than the weird these characters
have existed for five years that you havent seen setup that we got. I mean, honestly, would any of that have been
more off-putting than launching with Superman appearing in three different books set at different points in his
career? If youre gonna do a reboot, do a reboot.
If they had, Zero Year would seem a little more necessary. They didnt, though, and while they certainly changed
enough to make revisiting Batmans past a pretty interesting prospect (I seriously have questions about those knee
pads that need answering), its also pretty problematic.
The main sticking point is the obvious: Weve seen this story before. And not only that, but weve seen it in a form
that a) doesnt require a whole lot of updating, and b) makes pretty much everything else look second-rate just by
virtue of being one of the best Batman stories ever.

ComicsAlliances Joe Hughes referred to Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchellis Year One as the gold standard of
origin stories, and hes not wrong. Its one of the cornerstones of the DC Universe, and part of that comes from the
fact that its undeniably popular. If I had to guess, Id say its probably one of the widest-read Batman stories of all

time, up there with Dark Knight Returns and to be honest, I think its actually aged a little better. That doesnt
necessarily mean that nobody should ever touch Batmans early years again. As tempting as it is to say that
nobodys ever going to top Miller and Mazzuchelli, Im sure there was some dude in 1987 griping about how
unnecessary Year One was because Untold Legend of the Batman was already the perfect three-issue origin. It does,
however, mean that most of us have already been through the high points.
Its that popularity that actually presents the real problem, because Year One didnt just define Batmans origin for
the past 25 years. It was so popular and so influential on the character that it created an entire sub-genre of
Batman stories.

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sales Long Halloween and Dark Victory, Matt
Wagners Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk, Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnkes The Man
Who Laughs and a bunch of other stories are set in that Year One era. Hell, Legends of the Dark Knight was
originally launched to capitalize on Year Ones success by doing an entire ongoing series about Batmans early
days, there were Year One annuals for the whole damn DC Universe, and Robin and Batgirl got their own (really
good) Year One miniseries. And even if you get past all that, theres still Batman Begins, Mask of the
Phantasm, Batman: Earth One (if youre in the mood to read a version of Batmans origin thats genuinely terrible)
and countless other versions of Who He Is And How He Came To Be. If its a question of necessity, then I cant
imagine that Snyder and Capullo are going to manage to avoid retreading anything over the course of an elevenissue story.
At the same time, its like I said: Snyders a smart guy, and Im willing to bet that he has as much respect and
affection for Year One as the next guy, even if the next guy happens to be me. He says as much in the
announcement, going out of his way to talk about how he wants to build up the mythology rather than replacing
it, and focus on the parts we havent seen.
On the other hand, when he talks about showing us how Bruce became the Batman

or how he faced off with his first supervillain

or how he built the cave

its hard not to feel like weve seen that stuff before. Im a dude who loves to read about Batman, but the absolute
last thing I want to read is an eleven-issue (eleven issue!) Extended Club Remix of Year One outtakes.
But again: I dont think thats what were going to get. For all of my griping, Id be perfectly fine if Syder and Capullo
decided to spend the next year moving things forward or taking a break from the events to focus on smaller, tighter
stories that fed into their overarching storyline. Ive liked everything theyve done up to this point enough to give
them the benefit of the doubt. Batmans formative years mightve been done over and over and over again in the
past three decades, but I still think theres fertile ground there. Even if it kept the bathwater when it chucked the
baby out the window, the New 52 rebootdoes give an opportunity to change things, and if nothing else, Im
interested in seeing what they choose to keep and what they choose to mess with, and how it plays into their goals.
Knee pads aside, if we get three issues updating the origin of Batmans Robot Dinosaur, Ill be just fine.
Read More: Ask Chris #145: Looking Forward To Batmans Past | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-zero-yearscott-snyder-ask-chris-145/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #144: Battle Of The Battling Bowmen (They Battle) (With Bows)
by Chris Sims March 8, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Whos the better/more interesting/more important character: Hawkeye or Green Arrow?

@drawesome86
A: When youre dealing with a pair of second-stringers like these two (get it? Like bowstrings?), figuring out whos
more important can be a pretty tough task. Then again, one of those dudes was in a movie that made a billion
dollars, and the other has a show on the CW where he fights D-list Batman villains.

So yeah. I guess that settles that.

Really, though, Hawkeye and Green Arrow
make a pretty interesting contrast to each other. When you get right down to it, its pretty weird that the major
teams of the two superhero universes both have a dude running around in secondary colors trying to shoot people
with a bow and arrow, and thats before you get to the part where one of them occasionally has a big green boxing
glove at the end of his. Just going by superhero comics, youd think that being really good at archery was every bit
as common as a power fantasy at being able to throw a car or being invulnerable to injuries, and as weird as that
might seem, I guess that in a lot of ways, it is.
For both characters, and for most of the others that you see cropping up with similar motifs you know, Legolas,
Rambo, Hunger Games its all a big metaphor for skill. Aiming at something and actually hitting it, after all, is a
pretty difficult thing to accomplish, and the fact that bows date back to before recorded history and are pretty
common to almost every culture give them a nice appeal. Even more than that, though, they represent something

that other weapons, particularly guns, dont. Theres a whole set of heroic imagery thats tied up into them, and for
superheroes, its not exactly difficult to figure out where that comes from. But well get back to that in a second.
So lets talk about Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is one of those characters that I feel like Im a big fan of the very
first sketch I ever got at a convention was a headshot of Green Arrow by Phil Hester and Ande Parks but when I
actually stop to think about it, I dont really know if I actually like the character. There are definitely good Green
Arrow stories out there; Andy Diggle and Jocks Green Arrow: Year One was one of my favorite comics of 2007, and
did a great job of setting up different pieces of his story that would show up down the line. The thing is, I cant
really tell you anything about Ollie himself that I find appealing. He yells at Hawkman a lot, I guess? Thats pretty
appealing.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that when I say I like Green Arrow, what I really mean is that I
really, really like this guy:

Or, if were being honest about it, this guy:

Fun Fact: I am a dude who f**king loves Robin Hood. There are plenty of prototypes from which the modern
superhero descends, but for me, Robin Hoods the one who kind of has it all: The tragic origin, the arch-nemesis,
the secret headquarters, sidekicks he even has crazy retcons, like Maid Marian getting lumped in there to
replace his Golden Age Love Interest, Clorinda, Queen of the Shepherdesses. Hes one of the original outlaw
vigilantes, and there are bits and pieces of Robin Hood in the DNA of virtually every superhero, and not just the
obvious ones. There are connections all over the place for that guy, and hes my go-to example of a character who
works on the same kind of storytelling principles as superhero comics. I actually think thats one of the reasons
why Robin Hood himself has never really had a strong presence in comics when other public domain characters
(by which I mean Dracula) have: Weve seen what makes him a great character filtered down into others, just as
weve never really needed Sherlock Holmes comics when theres already a Worlds Greatest Detective whos native
to the medium.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to rectify that, I have a killer Clorinda, Queen of the Shepherdesses pitch ready to go.
Point being, most of my affection for Green Arrow is tied up in the idea that hes a modern-day Robin Hood, which
is one of those concepts thats so self-evident that it had to happen. Its one of the reasons why, personal politics
aside, I like the idea of Oliver Queen as the angry liberal whos always yelling about fat cats, since wanting to rob
from the rich and give to the poor is right in line with that idea.
The problem is that Green Arrow doesnt really live up to that premise all that often. Instead, since, you know,
robbing people with pointy objects tends to be a little more on the villainous end of things, hes usually just a
knockoff of Batman. Thats especially evident in the 50s when he was running around with an Arrowcar that he
and his kid sidekick kept in the Arrowcave honestly, the f**king Arrowcave but even the darker, grittier
version that Mike Grell introduced in 1987s Longbow Hunters followed on the heels of the darker, grittier version
of Batman that got started around the same time.
Stripped of that Robin Hood connection, theres not a lot of appeal for me, but in a conversation on War Rocket
Ajax a few weeks ago, Josh Williamson brought up the idea that hes the normal guy of the Justice League. Again,
thats a role that we normally think of Batman filling, but if were all honest, it doesnt exactly fit, if only because
Batman is super awesome at everything. Its kind of his deal. Green Arrow, on the other hand, is only really good at
that one thing he has the one fantastic skill that defines him, and hes otherwise kind of a mess of a person,
picking fights with Hawkman and Green Lantern and eternally screwing up his love life and ignoring his Troubled
Teen sidekick. It gives him an interesting character, even if its not the one that I personally want.

That brings us around to Hawkeye, a character that Ive never really had
much affection for at all. Part of that is just a result of me never really being a huge Avengers fan, but the idea that
Hawkeye filled that same kind of normal guy role always felt redundant. The core idea of the Marvel Universe is
that all the characters are, on one level or another, normal, flawed people underneath their powers. Even Thor
occasionally turns into a guy who has a bum leg (or a frog, or a space horse), so having a guy running around in
purple chainmail to hammer that point home never really seemed necessary.
There are, however, a few other elements to Hawkeyes character, and its pretty easy to see how they all work
together. Hes not just the normal guy, hes also a reformed villain, which makes him the Avenger with a criminal
record. That gives him something to prove, and puts him in a unique position of feeling like the other Avengers are
all looking down on him for his past, even though theyve accepted him (and gone through their own bouts of being
on the wrong side of the law).
When I asked Matt Wilson why he liked Hawkeye to begin with, one of the things he mentioned was that he argues
with Captain America, and it seems like thats where that idea has its roots. Hawkeyes a little shadier than
everybody else, which puts him in an interesting place and gives him a good viewpoint and a built-in setup for
conflict.
When you put those two ideas together, the normal guy and the Avenger with the shady past who makes a lot of
mistakes, and then you crank up normal guy to gets the crap kicked out of him on a fairly regular basis but never
quits, youve essentially got Matt Fraction and David Ajas current take on the character, and it all really clicks into
something that I like a lot. Ive compared Hawkeye to The Rockford Files before (as has Fraction, and probably
anyone else whos read it), but its a premise that really works: The ex-con who turned his life around and decided
to help people, and has to fight through incredible odds on sheer determination and the occasional sucker punch to
do so. Theres even a bit of the old Robin Hood stuff in there with the idea that Clint Bartons helping out his
neighbors with money that he literally stole from a bunch of deep-pocketed crooks early in the series.
So whos bettter?

Im reluctant to dismiss either one of these guys out of hand, because as Hawkeye proved Im really just one
good story away from liking them a lot. That said, Green Arrows a character that never really lives up to his
potential, while Hawkguy goes way beyond his.
Thatll all change when Clorinda hits the New 52, though
Read More: Ask Chris #144: Battle Of The Battling Bowmen (They Battle) (With Bows) |
http://comicsalliance.com/hawkeye-green-arrow-marvel-dc-ask-chris-144/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #143: Death To All Nostalgia (Except Mine)

by Chris Sims March 1, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Youve been talking a lot about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Twitter lately. I loved the original
Power Rangers as a kid, but that love is now ironic at best. It was a pretty terrible show in most respects,
but I have to give it credit for sparking my lifelong interest in superheroes. In fact, my love of the genre has
only grown with age, heavily influencing my pursuit of a career in writing. I appreciate the role the Power
Rangers had in that, but I cant enjoy the show the same way anymore. How do you reconcile nostalgia with
maturing tastes? Greg, via email
A: This is weird, but its almost like youre implying that the things I loved when I was twelve are not objectively
the greatest pieces of entertainment ever produced. Is that what life is like for people who were
into Transformers or Hawkman or something?Personally, I had it figured out at a very young age, but this is a
pretty interesting question that brings up some aspects of fandom that directly influence comics and the entire
culture that surrounds them. It might sound weird coming from someone whos basically been into the same stuff
since the age of 12 Batman, pro wrestling, Pokmon, cartoons about talking dogs that solve mysteries but
almost every time I find myself talking about nostalgia, its in the context of referring to it as the enemy of all that is
right and good.
That might not be fair. After all, nostalgia didnt write Superman: Earth One, so its not like it can be responsible
for every terrible thing about comics. Its pretty close, though.

Constantly focusing on the past and trying to dredge up the same story
elements again and again is one of the most efficient ways to produce a bad superhero story, because by its very
nature, youre chasing a feeling that youre never going to be able to capture. Youre just going to end up with
diminishing returns, because every time you find yourself reading the same story over again, it loses something.
How many times do we really need to see Supermans origin story, or Spider-Man lifting up something heavy
because he believes in himself, or Jean Grey losing control of the Dark Phoenix, or anything else that you really
liked the first time it came around? Serialized fiction thats never meant to end is already pretty repetitive by
nature, so drawing attention to it tends to be a pretty bad idea.
Quick sidenote: Remember that bit in Watchmen where theres a perfume called Nostalgia and the intricate crystal
palace created by a guy who has ultimate power over this superhero universe collapses when Laurie throws a
bottle of Nostalgia at it? There is a reason thats in there, and it aint because Moore and Gibbons were particularly
interested in subtlety.
But at the same time, nostalgia is tied up in the entire reason a lot of us like this stuff to begin with. Most superhero
fans were hooked when they were kids, and even if youre one of the few who came to superheroes as an adult, you
still have the one book that made you want to read more thats always going to have a special place in your
memory. Its there from a creative standpoint, too most people make the comics they want to read, and a lot of
that has to do with wanting to read those stories for a very long time, or wanting to use bits and pieces from your
favorites when you were a kid.
Its a whole big mess of tangled up emotions and tastes and memories, but that said, I dont think its actually that
difficult to strike a balance. It really just comes down to a few things.
First, you have to own what you like. Again, this is pretty easy for me to say since all I do all day, every day, is tell
people why I like things, and why they shouldnt like the things I dont. But at the same time, I dont really believe in
the concept of a guilty pleasure. If you like something, thats okay, and it doesnt really need to be qualified as
something youre ashamed of just because other people disagree. Theres plenty of pretty lousy stuff that I love to
pieces Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose being the most prominent example. Thats a terrible comic by virtually any
standard other than are there magic naked ladies in it, but I generally get a ton of enjoyment out of reading it and
hope it runs for a thousand issues.

A THOUSAND ISSUES.
That doesnt mean you should always blindly accept things. Unsurprisingly, Im a pretty big proponent of
examining the living hell out of the things you like to understand just what it is that makes them good, and you
should always be willing to re-examine your tastes as they change, or to find something that you didnt notice
before that affects how you feel about something. Well come back to that in a second.
It probably goes without saying, but the corollary to this is that sometimes, stuff from the past is really good,
entirely on its own merits without a drop of nostalgia added in. I love Silver Age Superman and Jimmy Olsen
comics, for instance, and someone once told me that I only liked them because thats what comics were like when I
was a kid. I grew up in the 90s, yall. The only way that makes sense is if Jimmy Olsen was skateboarding around
with a glowing eye, a metal arm, some ninja weapons and a a belt full of pouches (which, admittedly, would be
awesome). Anyway.
Secondly, understand that not everything is for every audience, and that youre not the same audience you
used to be. You mentioned not being able to look at Power Rangers the same way you did when you were a kid. Of
course you cant. Youre approaching it as a completely different person than you were 20 years ago, with a
completely different set of life experiences. Youre not the same person, and its not a show that was made for
someone whos where you are in your life.
That might seem like kind of a cop-out, and in a way, it is. The things we tend to celebrate for being genuinely great
are often the ones that transcend their demographics and appeal to different audiences, like Batman: The Animated
Series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure Time or Avatar: The Last Airbender. Even then, though, they
appeal to different people for different reasons. You get something different out of it depending on who you are,
and its okay for something to exist that doesnt cater to where youre at right now. The world dont move to the
beat of just one drum.
Put those two ideas together, and you arrive at our third point: Figure out what it was that you liked and go
from there. Going back to the Power Rangers, the reason Ive been talking about MMPR a lot is because I decided
to watch the entire show, from the beginning, and the reason I wanted to do that was because I watched some of
the most recent series and thought it actually had some pretty good stuff. Theres this episode thats all about a
monster who insults you and then turns your insecurities about yourself into explosions, and you find out that the
Yellow Ranger is immune because shes got the depression and always feels bad about herself.

Thats such a great, bizarre way of introducing those concepts into an action show for kids, and there were also
some neat ideas about how the world worked (gaps between buildings and cracks in the sidewalk being portals to
the netherworld), so I wanted to see if there were more episodes that played with ideas like that.
Obviously, thats a different approach to the show that I had when I was ten and just wanted to see robots doing
karate. I mean, I still want to see robots doing karate, but its not the only thing Im interested in. As an adult, Im
interested in how the stories work, how they dealt with the challenge of writing around pre-existing footage, and
figuring out how it all came together. It might be a pretty rough show in terms of acting and I couldnt care less
about the actual battles, but theres a lot there that still has interest, even if its from a different perspective.
Also, Bulk and Skulls theme music remains one of humanitys greatest accomplishments.
Which brings us to the last point: Theres nothing wrong with liking something just because you used to like
it. As much as I scowl about nostalgia ruining comics, its okay to have fond memories of something and to enjoy
the feeling that you get from it. It only really becomes a problem when it stands in the way of other things. When
the thing you like becomes an object of worship that has to be emulated at the expense of anything new or
different.
And before you say it, my reasons for wanting Batman to dress in his blue-and-grey costume are perfectly logical.
Hopefully, all of that helps you sort things out, but that first rule is really the only thing you need: Like what you
like. Or better yet, like what I like. Then well both be happier.
Read More: Ask Chris #143: Death To All Nostalgia (Except Mine) | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-143death-to-all-nostalgia-except-mine/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #142: The Case Against Cyclops

by Chris Sims February 22, 2013 11:00 AM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Why all the hate for Cyclops? @chrisfarnsworth

A: Because Cyclops is basically terrible.
Yeah, I know, thats exactly what I said about Aquaman. If I use it three times, though, it officially becomes a
running gag, and thatll come in handy the next time someone asks about Hawkman.

I dont know if its like this for everyone, but in my circle of friends, Cyclops is one of the most divisive, polarizing
characters in the history of comics. I know otherwise rational people who insist that hes not just the best X-Man,
but one of the best characters ever. And they stick by this statement, even when you remind them that Cyclops is
not Wolverine and therefore does not fight ninjas, like, all the time. Its weird.
Really, though, I can kind of see where theyre coming from. If theres one thing that should be evident from this
column, its that I have a pretty hard time imagining opinions that arent my own, but if I try really, really hard, I
can see the appeal that Cyclops could have to a certain kind of personality. At the very least, he makes for a pretty
interesting portrait of repression and duty: This is a guy who has to constantly keep himself in check because he

cant so much as look at something without destroying it. To make matters worse, this is a burden that was
dropped on him at a young age when his dad went off to space to become a badass mustachioed space pirate who
starjammed a catgirl on a nightly basis (which I think is the exact opposite of being repressed), leaving Cyclops to
get recruited by a weird old mind-reader (who, now that I think of it, also had an outer-space girlfriend) into a
secret paramilitary organization based around the idea that humanity at large was actively trying to kill him and
commit full-on genocide against his entire race, which turned out to be correct.
The X-Men are pretty intense, yall.
When you look at him as a character whos been under that level of pressure since he was a teenager both
externally in his role as the leader of the X-Men, and internally with the metaphor that comes from his powers
its easy to see Cyclops as the patron saint of people who feel the same kind of stress and opt to power through,
fueled by the knowledge that what theyre doing is both Right and Necessary. My pal (and former Dark Horse
editor) Rachel Edidin, probably the biggest Cyclops fan I know, summed it up in an interesting post about why
shes so drawn to the character:
He leads the X-Men not because he has any illusions about his skills or likability, but because someone has to. He
puts himself in the line of fire because thats what being responsible for people means, and makes decisions thatll get
him hated because theyre decisions that have to be made. He f**ks up and f**ks up and f**ks up, and apologizes, and
rebuilds, and learns, and grits his teeth and dives back in to f**k up some more.
He does this in hopes of building a world that will, realistically, have no place for him; leading or working under people
whose expectations for him are flat-out impossible to meet and who hold him accountable every time he fails to live up
to them.
And he keeps doing it.
And doing it.
And doing it.
I read that, and then thought about how I often find myself drawn to characters defined by their determination and
self-reliance, and then I told Rachel that if she loved Cyclops so much, maybe she should go marry him and have a
bunch of time-traveling babies with glowing eyes and stupid powers. Then she responded with this:

This is how most of my conversations about Cyclops go. You can see how this is a problem. But the thing about
Cyclops is that even if I agree with all that and see where hes coming from, hes still not Spider-Man.
That might not sound fair. I mean, there are plenty of comic book characters who arent Spider-Man, and at least
seven or eight of them are well worth reading about. But for me, Spider-Man deals with those same ideas of
perseverance under pressure in a much more interesting and elegant way, and his take on repression that the
mask gives him a false confidence that becomes real over time, giving him strength even despite a core thats
riddled with insecurities is something I have a much easier time relating to.
Thats not to say that Cyclops is intrinsically bad, or that Spider-Man has a monopoly on struggling against
impossible odds and haunting regrets in his personal life. Thats the classic Marvel formula for high drama
superheroics thats been kicking around ever since Ben Grimm watched his best friend get superpowers awesome
enough that he called himself Mr. Fantastic, while he himself was trapped in a powerful but misshapen body that

looked less like a person and more like some thing. He was the prototype of the Marvel Superhero, and while
Spider-Man perfected that formula, its worth noting that the X-Men were really the first attempt to apply this
dynamic to an entire group, classifying the whole darn team as a bunch of freakish outsiders.
Individually, though, the characters didnt have that element for quite a while. It was years before Jean Greys
powers would occasionally turn her into a space monster that ate planets, and Beast would mutate himself into a
form that better fit his name rather than just being a husky bro with big hands and feet, and Angel and Iceman
would have to admit that they were in fact part of the Champions. The only one of the original five who did have
that obvious, debilitating Marvel Curse was Cyclops, and even if it was just in the form of a pair of doofy glasses
that he had to wear, that gives him a deeper understanding of what it means to be a mutant. It makes him a natural
as a leader, and explains why hed be so dedicated to the cause.
But again, thats part of the problem for me. Ive mentioned before that for better or worse, what defines Cyclops is
that hes the X-Man whos an X-Man. Its all he has, its what he does, its the thing he puts ahead of everything else,
and that can go either way in terms of how he comes off.
On the one hand, you have those moments where that dedication makes him step up and take charge when nobody
else will, because it is Time To Get Things Done, and those are the scenes where Cyclops is great. The scene that
Chad Bowers, my writing partner, always uses to back up his assertion that Cyclops is the best X-Man is one of
those, from the Proteus story in Uncanny X-Men #127.
If youve never gone back and read that one, its awesome. Proteus, the son of Moira MacTaggert, has the power to
alter reality itself, and as you might expect, the X-Mens first encounter with him ends with the team getting a
pretty brutal defeat. Wolverine takes it the worst for a guy who doesnt trust anyone or anything other than his
own enhanced senses, having those senses be completely unable to interpret the world around him has left him
freaked right the hell out. Theres actually a panel where hes huddled up, shaking and stuttering, refusing to talk
about it, and that in itself is pretty remarkable, since its an artifact from the time before Wolverine was the
Ultimate King Badass of the Marvel Universe.
Cyclops decides that he needs to get everyone back into fighting shape, so he decides that the best course of action
would be to throw a cup of hot coffee into Wolverines face and pick a fistfight.

Over the next few pages, Cyclops just cold beats down the entire rest of the team by himself, making himself a
target in order to remind them of who they are and what they can do, and its awesome. Its one of the greatest
expressions of that core of his character, that he knows how unstoppable he (and the team) can be if they can allow
themselves to let go of their fear, the way he can finally let go himself when its time to get in a fight.

On the other hand, that kind of lockstep droning makes him an authority figure for the other characters to rebel
against, something that automatically makes him less interesting. That was pretty much Cyclopss entire deal on
the 90s cartoon (and the live-action movies, now that I think of it), standing around being the sensible TV
newscast voice of reason that could contrast with Wolverine growling death threats and blatant attempts at
girlfriend-stealing.
Theres a defining moment of this one, too by the same writer, even and running across this panel when I was
just starting to get really into the X-Men basically destroyed Cyclops as a character for me:

I remember reading through X-Men #1 and just stopping dead when I hit that panel. Up to that point, Id been super
into what was going on, the training exercise that pit the teams of X-Men against each other was extremely
compelling, and a great way to introduce the cast and their powers. Also, Gambit kissed a robot and then it
exploded in his face, and if I could change one thing about the 90s, it would be making that a recurring theme.
Gambit would be the dude who made out with exploding robots all the time, and wed all be better for it.
Its really neat, engaging action (for a ten-year-old, at least), but then here comes Teachers Pet to ruin our fun.
Yeah, Cyclops. He knows how dangerous his claws are. They are literally attached to his arms, genius, and
considering hes the best there is at what he does, I think its safe to say that he understands how to stab people
when he wants to. What are you the best at? Memorizing the X-Mansion chore chart? Get the f**k out of here.

From that moment on, thats the image of Cyclops that I have in my head whenever he shows up: The guy who
frowns at all the cool characters and tries to stop them from doing awesome things because the Professor
says and we have a responsibility and you cant just stab everyone and not now Jean I have to program the Danger
Room. And he kind of has to be that way, because there has to be someone providing the core of the team so that
everyone else can orbit around it and push away; Wolverine wouldnt be Wolverine if he didnt have Cyclops to
rebel against. Id just rather read about the rebelling than the guy who tells him hey stop that, its after 10 and we
have a noise policy here.
Also, jeez, look at that panel. That is a lot of words. If Id been a little older when I read this, I probably wouldve
come away from it thinking that I didnt like Chris Claremonts 90s dialogue, but I was still young enough to just
assume that Cyclops talked like a massive tool.
Fortunately, thats an assumption that has yet to be proven wrong.
Read More: Ask Chris #142: The Case Against Cyclops | http://comicsalliance.com/cyclops-x-men-wolverinemarvel-ask-chris-142/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #141: How Super Mario Bros. Works

by Chris Sims February 15, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Whats the deal with the Super Mario family of video games? Which of the games actually happened?
@pbarb
A: If you dont follow me on Twitter, then you missed a moment earlier this week where I chugged an extra-large
coffee and decided that it was time to figure out how the timeline of the Mario games worked. Well maybe

missed is the wrong word, but thats definitely a thing that happened.
To
be honest, Ive never really worried too much about whether or not the plots of the Mario games make sense. As
much as I love those games, storytelling isnt exactly their primary concern, and in terms of plot, they tend to limit
themselves to run left to right; save princess. The thing is, though, theres just enough there that makes them
difficult to figure out.
Well start with the basics, and the first obvious sticking point here is Super Mario Bros. 2. Its a pretty well-known
piece of pop culture trivia so bear with me for a second, but the sequel to Super Mario Bros. that we got here in
America wasnt intended to be Mario 2 at all. The original Mario 2 was basically just a handful of extra levels using
the same engine and graphics as the first game, but designed to be a lot more difficult in order to give players a new

challenge. The problem at least as far as Nintendo of America was concerned was that it ended up being way
too difficult for American audiences, and as a result, it wasnt released over here until 1993 as The Lost Levels.
Still, Super Mario Bros. was so ridiculously popular that it kind of needed some sort of sequel, so they took a game
called Doki Doki Panic (which had itself originally started out as a prototype for a vertically scrolling Mario game)
and changed the graphics around so that instead of a family of festival mascots, it was Mario and his pals. The thing
is, the gameplay was so different from Super Mario Bros. with a new emphasis on picking up enemies and
digging vegetables out of the ground to use as weapons, levels that could scroll to the left or the right and different
abilities for each character that it just felt weird. It needed some kind of justification, and the solution they came
up with was that in the end, it was all a dream.
It aint exactly Mass Effect.
The second sticking point is Mario 3, and youve probably heard this one, too, since its one of those blow your
mind fan-theories that floats around the Internet. At the beginning of the game, a curtain goes up, and you can see
the shadows of bushes and clouds against the background:

In the game itself, platforms are screwed into place or held up on wires, and the end of a stage comes when you
literally walk to the left where theres a different backdrop. The conclusion: Super Mario Bros. 3 is a play. Its a
stage performance and none of it is real which brings us back to the whole arent they all imaginary stories?
question, but again, bear with me.
Quick aside: As weird as it might sound, this isnt actually all that weird for an NES game. The first Castlevania, for
instance, ends with a pun-filled credit sequence listing all of the actors playing the parts of the monsters, but
nobody really goes around explaining how the increasingly complex continuity of a bunch of dudes destined to
eternally smack Dracula around with a whip is actually meant to represent a metafictional horror movie franchise.
Of course, with Castlevania, Christopher Bee as Dracula did not become a recurring gag.
So if Mario 2 is a dream and Mario 3 is a play, where does that leave the rest of the games? And what about
the Paper Mario series, which are all presented as storybooks, and sometimes as storybooks within storybooks?
And even if you get all that straight, how come these guys who are literally trying to murder each other most of the
time invite each other over for party games and go-karting? Its a tough nut to crack, but I think Ive figured it out.
First of all, Super Mario Bros. definitely happens. I dont think theres any disputing that. However, its not the
first to happen chronologically. That honor goes to Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island, which takes place when
Mario is an incredibly annoying little diaper baby:

This is important for a couple of reasons, namely that it explains why Mario and Yoshi are instantly bros when
Yoshi shows up in Mario World. If Yoshi was willing to put up with Mario even when the player was trying to figure
out how to chuck him into lava, then they have a connection that goes far beyond the average plumber and pet
dinosaur. More importantly, it introduces Shyguys into the regular Mario continuity in a way that traumatizes
Mario as a baby. Grim as that might sound, itll be important later.
So: Yoshis Island happens, then years later, SMB1. Peach gets kidnapped and taken to various castles, Mario runs to
the right, throws Bowser into lava a couple of times and saves the day. Then he comes home, goes to sleep, and
then has this bizarre dream where hes working through the stress of what he just did. Thats what SMB2 is: Mario
subconsciously dealing with all of his hopes and fears from the previous game.
In a lot of ways, Mario 2 represents an ideal world for Mario. Hes not alone on his mission Peach is there beside
him, and sos Luigi, whos no longer just a palette swap, but a distinct person with his own abilities. Anybody who
subscribes to the theory that Mario looks down on his brother just needs to take a look at this game and realize
that Mario, a character quite literally defined by his ability to jump, sees Luigi as someone who can jump even
higher. Even Toad, whos a constant source of frustration in SMB1, is now a valuable part of the team.
The whole game obeys a weird kind of dream logic, too, full of nightmare monsters like Phanto (that creepy mask
that would chase you when you picked up a key), potions that create doors to shadowy mirror worlds, and even a
you were there, but different version of Bowser in the form of King Wart. The key, though, is the Shyguys. Theyre
the villains in Marios nightmares because they were the things that scared him when he was a kid you could
even argue that creepy-ass Phanto is just Baby Marios exaggerated memory of the Shyguys masks.
Its worth noting that the idea that Mario 2 is influenced by Mario working through his childhood fears and
memories is actually supported by the (non-canonical?) comics that ran in Nintendo Power, where it was revealed
that as a kid, Mario would often go out and pick vegetables from a garden:

One of the other elements of Mario 2 is that it also features a curtain pretty prominently on the Character Select
screen. Why? Because Marios already thinking of the play that will become Mario 3.
This actually makes a whole lot of sense, when you consider that a) Princess Peach has her own loyal, adoring
subjects in the Toads, and b) their crowned monarch being kidnapped by a fire-breathing dragon monster and then
rescued by a plumber is probably the most exciting thing to happen in the Mushroom Kingdom in a long time. Its
natural that this is a story that the Toads would be telling each other, and that theyd want to hear more of, and
since the Mushroom Kingdom doesnt seem to have a whole lot of movie theaters, turning that epic adventure into
a play seems like a natural fit. They just need to make it a little more exciting for the stage.
When you get right down to it, thats really what Mario 3 is: The same basic story of Mario 1 (run to the right, save
princess), but embellished and expanded so that its a little less repetitive. You can see the Toad director and
screenwriter giving each other a sidelong glance as Mario casually explained So then I went to
the SEVENTH castle and she wasnt THERE, either, and deciding that what this story really needed was some
airships. So they threw some in, thought up a few exotic locations with more visual appeal, gave Bowser some
plucky henchmen and turned the Princesss kidnapping into a third-act plot twist.
Obviously, in order to make things exciting and (sort of) accurate, they got actual monsters to play the monsters,
and got Bowser to play himself, giving him a climactic battle scene that was way more exciting than the original.
That leads to the question of why theyd bother hanging out with the guy who just kidnapped their princess (let
alone play soccer and go golfing with him), and I think thats as simple as the Mushroom Kingdom operating on the
same kind of logic that Warner Bros. cartoons do. You know Sam and Ralph, the sheep dog and the wolf who clock
in each morning and try to kill each other til the work days over? Thats Bowser and Mario. Dudes just got a job to
do, and that job happens to be kidnapping princesses.
That would seem to hold up in Super Mario RPG, where Mario, Peach and Bowser all team up to save the Mushroom
Kingdom from an outside threat, which fits neatly into continuity between World and 64. From there on out,
everythings pretty straightforward.
It just sometimes happens in space.
Read More: Ask Chris #141: How Super Mario Bros. Works | http://comicsalliance.com/super-mario-broscontinuity-ask-chris-141/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #140: The Charming And Not At All Horrifyingly Dystopian World Of Pokemon
by Chris Sims February 8, 2013 2:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: If you can explain how the Pokmon world works without making it sound like a bizarre dystopia, I
would be very grateful. @HydrogenGuy
A: Oh, this is an easy one. See, Pokmon takes place in a world where young children are sent out to catch animals
and make them fight each other while being constantly in danger of being murdered by crimin wait. Did you say
you wanted me to not make it sound like a dystopia?
Okay, thats gonna be a little more difficult.The thing about Pokmon is that there are a million fan theories about
how that world actually works, and each one tends to be more depressing and chock full of Lovecraftian horror
than the last, and a lot of that is because those games are weird as hell. For reasons beyond the obvious ones about
all the children with pets that can shoot lightning and poison out of their faces, I mean. Theres the one about how
the game takes place after an apocalyptic nuclear war and all the Pokmon are mutated animals although how
that explains a sentient ice cream cone is beyond me or the various explanations for why your character is
always the child of a single mother, ranging from a recent war with heavy casualties to Red Sr. just cold stepping
out for a pack of cigarettes and a Super Potion and never coming back. For our purposes, though, Im just going to
stick with whats in the games, and maybe the anime.
Obviously, the major difference between the world of Pokmon and our regular old Bulbasaur-free Earth other
than the fact that its largely populated by Boys, Girls and Professors is that there are a bunch of weird-ass
monsters who can hide in tall grass despite being ten feet tall and literally on fire. This is, in fact, the core premise
of the entire franchise, and it raises so many questions that I dont even know where to start.
For starters, theres the raging debate over whether or not the Pocket Monsters are the only animals in the entire
world. Theyre the only ones you see (and are also the only thing anyone talks about, ever) but at the same time,
theyre described in terms of other animals, and the anime occasionally shows stuff like regular fish swimming
around in an aquarium. If they arent the only animals, then it raises the question of just what it is that sets
Pokmon apart from everything else. Like, can I battle against your Rattata with a cat? If I fight Team Rocket with a
beagle, is it eventually going to turn into a German Shepherd? And if they are the only animals, then what exactly
is everyone eating?
Seriously: Pokmon are at least somewhat sentient (Meowth can f**king talk and owns a hot air balloon shaped
like his own head, and if there are two more definitive qualities for determining a sapient being, Id like to hear
em) but at the same time, its hard to tell where the line is drawn. There is a Pokmon called Miltank, for instance,
that is raised as a dairy cow, to the point where you can buy its (extremely nutritious) milk from farmers for your
other Pokmon to drink. Are we to assume that there are also Miltanks out there that get bashed in the head and
ground up into hamburgers? Its worth noting that theres one Pokmon, Farfetchd, whose official description
refers to it being delicious in soup, and that carries its own side dish, so its at least somewhat canon that this totally
happens. You could make the argument that everyone in Pokmon is a vegetarian, but even that doesnt really
matter in a world where vegetables occasionally get up, wander around and start smacking things around with
Vine Whip. That turnip might have aspirations, man.

Of all the weird quirks of the Pokmon world, thats the one that I think has the firmest roots in sheer eldritch
terror. There are Pokmon that are trees, Pokmon that are rocks, Pokmon that are insects, candles, lamps, piles
of garbage, household appliances, giant germs that divide and replicate while floating in mid-air and every few
years, a couple hundred more are discovered that were maybe always there but we just never knew about.
Literally anything around you could be alive, sitting unnoticed in plain sight, and always, always watching.
Oh, and theres also one thats a mime that will come live with your mom while youre not home.

You know, just in case there wasnt enough sheer Freudian nightmare fuel hangin around.
Huh. I guess I kinda drifted back into dystopia there, huh? Okay, lets forget about the Pokmon themselves!
Theres plenty of other stuff going on in the world thats not existentially terrifying! Right? Theres gotta be
Oh, okay, how about this? The technology of the Pokmon world is actually pretty interesting. Again, its mostly the
same stuff that we have cars, trains, boats, TVs, the Nintendo Wii but there are also things that go far
beyond what weve got and into some crazy futuristic sci-fi stuff. Theres widely (and freely) available
teleportation, the ability to store living creatures in a computer system, instantaneous healing, medicine that can
heal poison, burns or paralysis just by being sprayed on the skin, and so on. Even the Pokball, the single most
widely used piece of technology in the games, converts a living creature into something that can be carried around
in a pocket. Thats pretty impressive technology, whether its the animes depiction of some kind of conversion into
energy thats stored in the Pokball, or the mangas version, where theyre literally shrunk down to fit:

Point being, all of these phenomenal bits of technology are built entirely around Pokmon: Moving them around,
keeping them healthy, keeping them organized so that its easy to get access to the ones you need for a particular
task. And it makes sense that they would be the very existence of Pokmon has shaped that world so that society
is largely based around what they can do. Those games are full of talk about how people work with their Pokmon
partners to accomplish things, and at the very least, having what essentially amounts to a bunch of walking
electromagnets and blowtorches probably made industry a hell of a lot easier to develop. If youre in a world where
Pikachu exists, then you dont really need to figure out how to generate electricity. You just need to figure out how
to work with Pokmon.
And that brings us to the idea of trainers.
This is one of the weirdest bits for a lot of people, in that the games are about kids who go out on a journey of self
discovery and/or fighting for money at the age of ten, completely free of adult supervision and any sort of formal
education. Its kind of like the Hogwarts problem, where Harry Potter and his pals go to learn about magic and
unicorns and flying broomsticks, but never take any classes that address, say, math or reading. Think about it:
Hermione Granger, the smartest person we see in those books, has a fifth grade education. Im like 90% sure that
she has never heard of Shakespeare or algebra, and would probably consider a semicolon to be some kind of dark
magic. But, you know, its also a book for kids, and nobody wants to read about Harry learning long division and
if they do, they can go write fanfic about it, featuring all the longing sighs that Harry and Draco exchange over the
numbers that are being split apart, only to keep them together. Harry Potter and the Remainder of Secrets.
Same goes for Pokmon. Its a game for ten year-olds, so its about ten year-olds and their adorable pet monsters.
But, if you really want to hammer it to fit some kind of logic, its pretty easy. Consider the amount of technology
that exists in that world, and how its all built around putting Pokmon to good use. Working with Pokmon is a
day-to-day necessity in that society, but you cant really teach someone how to cooperate with others, or apply
their knowledge in practical situations, or to be nice to pets. These are things you have to learn by doing.
As for the rest of the education, theres a way to explain that, too. We know from the games that people have
Training Machines, which are basically CD-ROMs with fighting techniques on them that instantly grant knowledge
to a Pokmon, but whos to say that theyre just for Pokmon? Why cant there just be a T.M. marked Long
Division that you pop in so you can learn that jazz Matrix style? Five years of that, and your book-learning is more
or less complete, and its time to get out there and figure out how to apply that knowledge. Once youve got some
experiences and know a little about how the world works, you can go back to studying and if youre named after
a tree, you might even become a Professor and spend your days unsuccessfully trying to determine someones
gender without resorting to a blunt, somewhat awkward direct question about it.
Of course, this would imply that kids in the world of Pokmon are better educated as a general rule than we are,
which is undermined more than a little bit by the fact that Ash Ketchum is dumber than a sack of hammers. Still, I
think that makes sense too if you were Ashs mom, youd be counting down the days to when you could shove
that kid right out the front door, too.
All of this brings us back around to the idea of Battling, and again, this is a major sticking point for people who like
to make the hilarious and not-at-all ancient observation that Pokmon is basically just a kid-friendly version of
cockfighting. But, unsurprisingly, I dont think theyre really looking at it the right way.

Pokmon battles arent the only way for a Pokmon to get stronger, theyre just mentioned as the fastest way, and
even then, dont really tend to be violent, life-and-death struggles. Instead, I think of it more like studying martial
arts. Its not fighting so much as its full-contact sparring, which again goes under that heading of learning-bydoing. Its practicing new moves, sparring, that sort of thing. Its based around fighting, yes, but as anyone who
studies martial arts knows, theyre about more than throwing a punch. Theres a discipline involved. And along
those same lines, there are the guys who just learn Pokmon battling and/or karate so that they can bully people
around, and theyre the bad guys that you occasionally have to have the real fights against. It all works, assuming
that youre willing to adjust the logic of it for the standards of a video game about sentient trees fighting whatever
the hell Diglett is.
So in that respect, its pretty far from the dystopia that it looks like at first glance. Instead, theres a story of people
learning to respect a natural resource, trying to understand how to best interact with the world around them, and
learning discipline and focus through practice. It makes a certain kind of sense, although its definitely not without
its quirks.
You know, like how a ten year old can wander around and end up catching the actual, literal creator of the
universe. That part that parts a little weird.
Read More: Ask Chris #140: The Charming And Not At All Horrifyingly Dystopian World Of Pokemon |
http://comicsalliance.com/pokemon-ask-chris-140/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #139: An Extensive Discussion Of Batman Punching Animals

by Chris Sims February 1, 2013 11:00 AM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: In the last issue of Batman, Batman punched a horse. Is there a list of animals that Batman has punched?
Would a shorter list be Animals NOT punched by Batman? What is the most awesome animal Batman has
punched? @CMehring
A: Oh, son. You have come to the right place. After three years of this column, youre probably already aware that
Im the Worlds Foremost Batmanologist, but if my studies of the caped crusader have a specific area of emphasis, I
can pretty much assure you that Batman punching animals is most definitely it.Now, look: Even though I might
not be a pet person (with the exception of certain Bulbasaurs), there are very few situations in which I would ever
condone violence against an animal in real life. If a bear is about to tear your head off, fine, punch it in the nose like
they tell you to on the Discovery Channel. Outside of that, the abuse of an animal, especially a pet, is one of the
absolute worst things a person can do. Were all clear on that, right?
Good, because in comics, seeing a superhero punch out an animal is literally one of my all-time favorite
things, ever.
From Punisher slugging a polar bear on down, it cracks me up every single time I see it and I have no idea why. Its
not like I have some animal trauma in my childhood that Im working through in comics or anything. I mean, Im
allergic to cats and dogs, but that doesnt really fill me with a desire for revenge as much as it fills me with a desire
for Claritin and a box of tissues. I even like going to zoos! But for some reason, whenever Batman has to fight an
animal, I get absolutely giddy over it. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I cracked open Batman #16 and
saw the panel you mentioned:

Seriously, not only does Batman stop a charging horse by punching it right in the face, but he hits it so hard that
they then become friends and re-enact Frank Frazettas Death Dealer on the very next page:

Bravo indeed.
But while this little instance of beast-fightin is the latest and arguably one of the greatest, its hardly the first. Hes
not the all-time champion of punching out fauna (that honor belongs to Conan the Barbarian, who is involved in my
single favorite instance of Man vs. Beast Combat in the entirety of fiction), but still. Batman has a long, long history
with this sort of thing, to the point where hes been punching animals almost as long as hes been punching
criminals. And it makes sense that he would, too.
The fact that Batmans an ordinary human being or, you know, a billionaire ninja with a photographic memory, a
butler and a robot dinosaur in his basement means that most of your more fearsome animals can actually

present a viable threat to him. In the DC Universe, that actually makes him pretty unique, especially when you
consider that Superman once wore an entire lion as a hat when he was having a bad hair day:

Batman, however, is still part of that grand pulp tradition of heroes who have to solve their lion-related problems
with uppercuts.
Plus, the sheer number of thematic villains Batman has to deal with on a daily basis pretty much guarantee that
hes going to be dealing with criminal animals (or crimanimals). When youre fighting people with names like
Catwoman and The Penguin, its basically a certainty that youre going to be locked up with a tiger or have to
deal with some kind of man-eating waterfowl, and those are just the obvious ones. When its basically your job to
hunt down a lunatic whos obsessed with Alice In Wonderland, youre almost guaranteed to end up running into a
giant caterpillar jacked up on PCP in the middle of a poorly tended hedge maze.
All of which is just to say that Batman ends up punching out a lot of critters, and that its established pretty early on
that this is kind of his deal. Bill Finger and Bob Kane start teasing it as early as Detective Comics #31 in 1939, when
Batman is faced with (and runs away from) one of Hugo Stranges gorillas:

Obviously, they were still working out the kinks the Batman of today has beaten more gorillas than I can count,
and I assure you, there is nothing I love doing more than counting the number of times Batman has beaten up a
gorilla. But as time goes on, he gets a little closer. Its only a few months later, when dealing with the Mad Monk,
that Batman has to take on a pack of wolves and disposes of them with some utility belt trickery:

Incidentally, when Matt Wagner redid that story as the awesome Batman and the Mad Monk in 2007, Batmans
response to the vampire wolves was a little more hands-on:

Thank you maam!

Back in the Golden Age, that level of onomatopoetic violence was still a ways off. We did, however, get one of the
most awesomely bizarre acts of violence the Dark Knight would ever perpetrate against an animal in Detective
Comics #43. See, back then it was customary for heroes to have a sort of calling card, and before he got the idea to
just leave notes on crooks with a little bat drawn on them, Batman apparently thought it would be a good idea to
send bad guys an actual living bat in the mail that would fly around when they opened the box

and then straight up kill it by throwing a dart at it through a window, which means that he was just hanging
around outside waiting for the postman to arrive. That is both super hardcore and completely insane, but you cant
deny that its pretty effective in terms of striking terror into the hearts of criminals. If someone did that at my
house, I would be f**king terrified. Sadly, for our purposes anyway, no punching was involved.
It got a little closer the next month in Detective Comics #44, when Batman made a giant housecat tap out to a
modified full nelson with body scissors

in a panel that was, of course, prefaced with Batman jumping onto its back while shouting Not so fast, pussy!
Along the same lines, 1941s Batman #5 saw Batman choke out a lion with a sleeper hold:

Again, theres a catch: Its actually just a witch shape-shifting into various forms.
But in Detective Comics #52 (June, 1941), it finally happens when a Yellow Peril villain decides itll be a good idea to
release the hounds:

BAM.
From that point on, theres no going back. Batman is a puncher of animals but to be fair, most of them are evil
animals, and that has to count for something. I dont think I actually have a comprehensive list handy, but I can
assure you that Batman has gotten into fistfights with dogs, wolves, panthers, lions, tigers, bears (oh my!), gorillas
(regular), gorillas (telepathic), gorillas (other), sharks, horses, crocodiles, at least one eagle, and I distinctly
remember an ostritch, although the issue number escapes me at the moment.
As for the most awesome, well, most people would probably go with a shark, whether it was the one he dropped
the elbow on in the 1966 movie or the one he jacked up with a chain in The Jokers Five-Way Revenge
from Batman 251:

My favorite, however, is from a different story, and while it may not actually have punching, missing the letter of
the question, I think it fits the spirit. It happens in Action Comics #465, in a story where Lex Luthor decides that the
best way to kill Superman would be to turn him into a child and then make him punch himself in the face until he
dies. This, for the record, is one of Luthors more successful plans:

Along the way, he ends up turning Batman and the Flash into kids too, for reasons that Im not going to get into so
that we wont be here all afternoon (too late). Point being, Superman demands that Tiny Flash and Lil Wayne
prove their identities before its actually them. For the Flash, thats as easy as just running at super-speed, but for
Batman, things are a little more complex, especially since being dropped back into a younger body has robbed him
of all of his training.
So what does Batman do to prove that hes the genuine article? Does he tell Superman something that only the two
of them know? Does he use his keen deductive mind to solve a puzzle? No.
He beats up a motherf**king bear.

Of all the amazing things on that page, the idea that beating up bears is just something Batman has a natural talent
for is only second to Lil Waynes Captain Morgan pose over a KOed grizzly. If I had a van, you best believe that last
panel would be airbrushed on the side faster than you could say Bronze Age.

Read More: Ask Chris #139: An Extensive Discussion Of Batman Punching Animals |
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Ask Chris #138: Ladies Night For the JLA

by Chris Sims January 25, 2013 11:00 AM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: In response to the all X-Women X-Men team: Who would you put on an all female
Avengers/JLA/Defenders/whatever? @WBXylo
A: Im sure Ive talked about this more than a few times in this column, but back when I worked at the comic book
store, one of our most frequent time-wasters was standing behind the counter coming up with different versions of
the Justice League. Still, in all the years I spent on the Justice League of Burt Reynolds Characters and the Justice
League of the McDonalds Menu, I dont think I ever came up with one that was all women. Of course, this is an Ask
Chris column, so if youre going to figure out a super-team, you must first invent the universe.
Nah, just kidding. Even Im not that longwinded. But you do need to figure out what exactly a super-team is.

Assuming that were not just going to go with a bunch of characters that I
like which would really just be Batwoman, Batgirl, Huntress, Oracle and oh, you know, whats her name, that
blonde kid who was Robin for a hot minute I think theres a pretty easy formula you can use to slap together a
team of super-heroes. You really just need to fill five roles: the Leader, the Brain, the Muscle, the Heart and
the Wild Card.

Theyre pretty much exactly what they sound like. The Leaders there to give orders, the Brain provides the
strategy, solves puzzles and figures out clues, and the Muscle hits things until they are in pieces too small to
continue hitting. The two that are a little more complex (but only a little) are the Heart, who provides some kind of
moral center or axis around which the team can revolve and be held together, and the Wild Card, who just needs to
be adaptable to different situations, whether through superpowers or just personality. Once youve got those, you
can add other people to keep things interesting, but thats the group thats going to make up the core. It goes
without saying that these arent strict rules or anything, but I think if you look at a lot of teams, youre going to find
that dynamic shaping how they work.
The 90s Grant Morrison/Howard Porter/Mark Waid era of JLA, for instance, was built almost entirely around this
model. Superman was the figurehead that could inspire and rally the others, Batman was the master tactician who
could direct his teammates like human-shaped batarangs, Wonder Woman was the Amazon warrior queen, the
Martian Manhunter was solidly at the core of the team (largely because his solo career never really took off), and
Flash and Green Lantern were able to pretty much be anywhere (with super-speed) and do anything (with his
magic space ring) to keep things interesting. Also, Aquaman was there, for what I can only assume were copyright
purposes.
It works for other teams, too, although most of the time, theres a little more of a grey area in the roles. In the
Avengers movie, its Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Black Widow (also I guess Hawkguy was there?),
but you can certainly make the argument that Caps a pretty central part of the team dynamic, and that Iron Man
and Thor arent exactly slouches in the blowing-things-up department, even though theyre not the ones who pick
up the bad guy and smash him into the floor until he cant stand up. You can even see the dynamic working in
teams that dont seem like theyd fit, like the Fantastic Four Reeds the Leader and the Brain, Bens the Muscle,
Sues adaptable powers make her the Wild Card, Johnnys on fire which looks pretty awesome, and the whole dang
team is the heart. There are different permutations all over comics, to the point where Wolverine has been known
to play every single role at the same time in various books.
For our purposes, though, Im just going to stick with that bunch of five and see what I can come up with. So lets
make ourselves a Justice League.
First up, our Leader:

I thought about this one for a while, because I really wanted to stay away from using actual regular members of the
Justice League, but when you get right down to it, Wonder Woman fits the bill better than anyone else. Ive never
really been a big fan of Wonder Woman as a character, but theres no denying that shes an incredible symbol, and

as someone who was raised as a warrior, she knows how to get things done. When shes written well, Wonder
Woman has that indomitable spirit, and thats the most important part of taking that role as a leader the ability
to get back up and take your stand when things are at their worst. Its what makes Captain America great in the
Avengers, and makes Superman such a great figurehead when hes in the Justice League. Shes a solid fit for the
role.
Next, the Brains:

And for that, Im going with Batgirl. When I was coming up with my team, another thing I tried to avoid was just
using direct analogues of the regular Justice League roster, and considering that Barbara Gordon was a full-fledged
member of the JLA as Oracle, Im snapping two of my self-imposed rules in half and leaving them by the wayside.
But really, thats exactly why I picked her. Ive written pretty extensively about the different aspects of her
character that I like and the incredible determination and aspiration at the core of it, but one of the things I really
like about her is that shes crazy smart and extremely analytical. Her whole gimmick of being a super-hacker
capable of finding, processing and coordinating any information you could ask for (you know, like a modern-day
oracle) is one of the few that actually became more relevant after it was introduced, and I love the idea of her doing
that kind of thinking and strategizing while also jump-kicking villains in the face. What can I say? Im a man of
simple tastes.
For the Muscle

Im going with Power Girl, and while I meant what I said about not wanting to go with analogues, I picked her
because shes not Superman. Same powers, same origin (most of the time), yes, but theres a completely different
motivation at play. At her best the sadly short-lived Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray/Amanda Conner solo run thats
easily some of the best work any of them have done Power Girl was able to shake off decades of bizarre and
confusing characterization and muddled back stories and just focus on fun.
Power Girl is, if youll pardon the expression, bigger than everybody else. Bigger emotions, which played to
Conners incredible facial expressions, bigger adventures, and bigger powers, the last of which led to her being
depicted as almost hilariously strong. Shes great.
For the Heart:

I knew from the start that I was going to use Big Barda in this team. The only question was what role I was going
to drop her in, because really, she could fit just about anywhere. Shes an established Leader as the commander of
Darkseids Female Furies and shes obviously physically powerful. Still, the more I thought about it, the more I
realized that none of those are really the reason I think shes such a great character.
All of that comes from her role in the Fourth World saga. Barda is born and raised on Apokolips, the world without
mercy, WHERE HOLOCAUST IS A HOUSEHOLD WORD!!, but she rises above all that because shes the first person
on that world to learn to love something. She rejects her training, her past and her position in the hierarchy
because she knows that theres a better way, and theres nothing thats going to keep her from it. Shell go through
whatever she has to, and if that unshakable attitude was turned towards whatever it was that this team was
dealing with which Im going to go ahead and say would be an all-villainess team led by Talia and Nasthalthia
Luthor it could provide a solid moral base.
Finally, the Wild Card:

Kate Spencer, better known as Manhunter.

I love this character for a variety of reasons, but chief among them is the original hook to her series, which is that
she raided the Supervillain Evidence Locker for her costume and equipment and ended up with a Darkstar suit,
Azraels gauntlets and the previous Manhunters staff. Thats such a great idea, and while her ongoing series didnt
do too much more with it than that instead opting to give her a well-traveled ex-henchman to supply her gear
there are so many places it could go. Id love to see a version of Kate Spencer that had a little more variety to her
equipment, surprising enemies with Freeze Rays or Weather Wands and turning the tables on them.
Plus, she brings the Wild Card aspect to the table in terms of personality, too, what with the fact that she straight
up killed supervillains in her first appearance. Kate Spencer dont shiv, yall.
So there it is, and as you might expect, I dont think the teams too shabby. Its a little heavy on the brute strength,
sure, but in the immortal words of Dr. Clayton Forrester, if violence isnt the answer, youre asking the wrong
question.
Read More: Ask Chris #138: Ladies Night For the JLA | http://comicsalliance.com/female-justice-league-ask-chris138/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #136: Supergirl, Krypton And How It All (Sort Of) Works
by Chris Sims January 11, 2013 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Chris, there have been a wide amount of versions of Supergirl over the years. Which is the best, which is
the worst, and what defines Supergirl as a character, in your opinion? Gabriel, via email
A: If youve read this column more than, say, once, youve probably already tumbled to the fact that I have a lot of
hard and fast opinions about most things in comics. Supergirl, however, is one of the few characters that Im
actually pretty conflicted about. I love so much about what she is and what she represents, but I cant shake the

feeling that she breaks some pretty important stuff just by existing.
When
you get right down to it, Supergirl is one of those concepts that pretty much had to happen, like the Royal Flush
Gang or the Wrecking Crew. A gang of villains based on playing cards or a group of super-powered construction
workers who just go around tearing stuff up are easy concepts that you can drop into virtually any superhero story.
Theyre visually interesting and inherently dynamic they just work, and Supergirls the same way. Shes a
teenage girl version of Superman with all of his fantastic powers, but younger, fresher and with the ability to
appeal to a different reader. Thats an idea that doesnt just sell itself, its blindingly obvious to the point where Im
always surprised that it took a full 20 years after Action Comics #1 for them to get around to actually doing it. I

mean, we had a super dog before we had a super girl, which is pretty much the history of gender dynamics in
superhero comics in one sentence.
But theres a good reason for the delay, too, and it all has to do with how Superman was built. One of the most
interesting aspects of his character and one that I think is genuinely important for making this godlike character
someone that we can relate to and sympathize with is that hes the Last Son of Krypton. Hes the only
surviving remnant of this civilization, and while hes embraced by Earth and accepted as one of us, raised by
kindhearted humans to be the most human of all the superheroes, mentally and emotionally, hell always have that
powerful sense of loss behind him. He needs to.
Peter Parker is an ordinary guy (brilliant, of course, but otherwise ordinary) and all it takes to change his life
forever is the loss of one person. Batman is an exceptional human being photographic memory, naturally
athletically gifted, crazy rich, dope car and for him, the loss of two people sends him down a path that I think we
can all agree is just a little extreme. But Superman? Hes far beyond us mortal men, more powerful than we can
even really comprehend. Hes bigger, and because of that, he needs something bigger looming behind him. So he
loses an entire world.
Think about that for a second: Every single culture, every achievement, every person on the planet Krypton, gone,
exploded into dust in the vacuum of space, except for one child. Ive never liked stories that treat Superman as an
outsider or work on the premise that he thinks of himself as anything other than Clark Kent from Smallville,
Kansas, because I think its just as important that he feels at home on the Earth, and that Supermans morality is
just an extension of Clark Kents, but thats still a powerful burden. Hes the last of his kind, and that knowledge is
part of the reason he wants to save each and every one of us. He knows how precious our lives are, because in a
way, were all the last of our kind. On Krypton, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent that tragedy, not with
all their science. On Earth, Superman can do anything, and what he does is keep us from the same fate as Krypton,
whether as a whole or individuals.
Thats why Ive always hated it when stuff from Krypton pops up in comics, and why I love the poetry of
Kryptonite. Theres something that just underscores it all by having the only remnants of Krypton be these little
chunks of death constant, tangible reminders of the fate that befell every single other person on his planet. And
its also why my favorite version of Krypton is the one that John Byrne cooked up in Man of Steel:

Its not the vibrant world of capes and insignias that we saw in the Silver Age. Its a place without emotion. Its a
cold world without love, where a husband never touches his wife, and because of that, its a dead planet long before
it explodes. Jor-Els achievement isnt building a rocket that can take his son to Earth, its that he cares enough to do
it, and the fact that his last act is to tell Lara he loves her, a spark of actual life right before its all destroyed is so
metaphorically perfect that it blows my mind every time I read it. It simultaneously makes Krypton a place that
youd never want to see restored or revived, but shows that for all its sterility, its still a world of people who had
the potential to feel and love and laugh, and that its those emotions that gave us Superman.

For me, thats the magic formula of Supermans heritage: Hes isolated as a Kryptonian, but accepted as a human.
He loses a planet, but gains another. If I had my way (and its pretty clear at this point that I dont), hed never
really know a whole lot about Krypton just enough to understand that he lost an entire world and that there was
a family and a history that hell never know. Anything more than that is just fetishizing the past, a trick that
superhero comics are particularly good at.

When you combine all of those bits and pieces into a whole, it shows
exactly why I dont like it when stuff from Krypton shows up in Superman stories. The Phantom Zone Criminals,
Kandor, the pets, and worst of all, the all-knowing floating Jor-El head that showed up in Superman: The Movie and
will not stop weaseling its way into comics, movies and TV shows they all run counter to that delicate balance of
isolation and acceptance. I like a lot of that stuff (you show me someone who doesnt like Krypto and I will show
you a heartless monster) but every time one shows up, it pokes a little hole in that aspect of Superman. They tie
him back to a dead world while isolating him from the one thats alive right now. Every time you see Jor-El and
Lara, youre seeing Kal-El the Kryptonian, not Jonathan and Marthas son who puts on a cape and goes out to help
people because he can.
Which, after a diversion thats lengthy even by my standards, brings us back to Supergirl.
Kara Zor-El breaks the isolation/acceptance balance more thoroughly than any other piece of Krypton thats
shown up, for the simple fact that shes Supermans equal. The Phantom Zone Criminals are disembodied bad
guys who are morally opposed to Superman and will never understand his altruism, Kandor is full of tiny little
people who have their own weird thing going on inside a bottle that theyre never going to get out of, and Krypto is
a flying dog. But Kara? Shes just like him. The same origin, the same morality, they even wear the same clothes so
that you know just by seeing her that shes a peer. And that changes everything.
Even if its just the two of them, Superman is no longer alone. He no longer has to carry that burden alone, which
means its no longer shaping his actions as strongly as it had before. It certainly doesnt take away Supermans
desire to protect Earth and its people, but still, it affects that side of his personality, drawing the focus back to
Krypton.
Its something that alters the fabric of the character, and if you go back and read her first appearance in Action
Comics #252, you can see Otto Binder and Al Plastino doing everything they can to minimize it:

Not only do they wrap Kara up in the civilian identity of Linda Lee and ship her off to an orphanage (one of the all
time greatest dick moves in the entirety of the Silver Age), but they also make Supergirl a secret weapon so that
Superman is free to ignore her for however long as he wants. They basically make her somebody elses problem
(although if memory serves, that somebody else frequently ends up being Otto Binder and Al Plastino).
By all of this logic, Supergirl should be something that Id be just fine without, but the thing is, shes a really great
character. And its all because of a few crucial differences between her and Superman.
The biggest one, and the one that I think makes her compelling in a completely unique way, is that shes
Kryptonian. For all intents and purposes, Clark Kent is an Earthman another thing Byrne did in Man of Steel was
make that a literal truth; he wasnt born until the Kryptonian Gestation Matrix that Jor-El rocketed to Earth
landed in Kansas who just has Kryptonian heritage and only learns of the tragedy of his past later, once hes old
enough to comprehend what it means. But Kara arrives on Earth as a teenager. She grew up on Krypton, or at least
a floating chunk of it. She knows the culture. She knows the history. She can sing Kryptonian songs. And then she
watched while the ground below her feet slowly poisoned her family.

That is bleak. Supermans connection to Krypton is a massive, vague sense of loss for a world he never knew, but
Kara was a witness to the destruction of her home planet on both a large and a small scale. Theres a darkness and
a sadness underneath the surface of her character that you dont see in a lot of comics, especially in 1959. And
because she was part of that world for her formative years, it makes her an outsider in a way that Clark, growing
up in Kansas with a pair of loving parents and friendly neighbors, never was. Her journey to Earth puts her in a
new place where she has secrets to guard, and thats genuinely interesting stuff. Shes like a prototype X-Man, but
in a world that would love her if they only knew she existed.
Dont get me wrong: Supergirl doesnt have to be dark or spend her time sulking around and crying about the sad
fate of Argo City, but it shifts her perspective. Shes Supermans equal in powers and morality, but they can
approach the world around them in different ways. Sueprman sees the world around him as delicate and fragile,
always ready to collapse if he cant stop it, but for Kara, shes the one in danger of losing everything for the third
time. Shes holding onto the world, and to Superman, because theyre all she has left. Its motivated by what she
wants for herself, but its not selfish. Its passionate, a different kind of love for the world thats rooted in loss
rather than the threat of loss, and thats a fascinating difference. The thing that doesnt work for Supermans
relationship to Supergirl, the fact that he finally has another connection to Krypton, works beautifully for
Supergirls relationship to Superman, because hes the only connection she has left.
So that, to me, is how Supergirl my favorite version, the classic Silver Age Kara Zor-El works. And like I said,
Im conflicted. I love everything about her character except how she breaks one of my favorite aspects of
Superman, but at the same time, that was already halfway broken anyway. So did we get more than we lost out of
that character? Maybe. Loath as I am to say it, Im not really sure.
Plus, I just like a lot of those old stories. Supergirl and Jimmy Olsen have a great connection in the few times they
interact, and she gets up to the single weirdest element of the Silver Age by dating her horse. She did not know he
was a horse at the time. Its complicated.

Read More: Ask Chris #136: Supergirl, Krypton And How It All (Sort Of) Works | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-supergirl-krypton-superman/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #135: Under The Hood

by Chris Sims January 4, 2013 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: I just watched the Batmobile documentary on the Blu-ray of The Dark Knight Rises. How important is
Batmans whip, really? @graemevirtue
A: Before I get into actually answering this question, I just want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that you
refer to the Batmobile as a whip. If any of you out there would like to draw a picture of Batman ghost-riding
through the streets of Gotham City, then please, by all means, you can find my email address at the end of the

column.
Anyway, the Batmobile is easily one of the most distinctive and
recognizable elements of the Batman mythos, but Ive never really considered it to be important to the character at
all. There are things that are truly necessary for the character that cant be taken away without altering it beyond
recognition the tragic origin, the bat imagery and reliance on fear as a weapon against crime, the status as a man
without super-powers who forges himself through sheer determination and there are elements that arent
strictly required but that add depth to the character Alfred and Robin as the surrogate family, the Utility Belt
that represents his preparedness, the wealth that allows him the freedom to fight crime as his full-time job but
of all the things that make up what we think of as Batman, the car is way on the outskirts of what actually makes up
the character.
When I did that in-depth breakdown of the opening to Batman: The Animated Series a while back, I spent a little
time talking about how the Batmobiles major contribution to the imagery set up in that perfect 57 seconds of
television is that it tells us Batman has a car. Because of that, we know that Batman needs a car, and that the one he
has is a custom job thats like nothing else on the streets. Theres a lot of subtext going on with the Batmobile it
reinforces the idea that hes a man of means, but not a man of superpowers and, to a lesser extent, that he is a dude
who is straight up obsessive about branding himself. He cant fly to wherever theres trouble so he has to drive, but
he still drives in the coolest car you can imagine, one thats distinctive enough that you know he wants people to

know who he is and what he does. Batman is a guy who wants Crime to know hes coming for it, and the Batmobile,
with its stylized frame and flaming jet exhaust, does a pretty good job of that.
But at the same time, its not really something he needs. All of those elements are introduced and reinforced in
better ways by other things that are part of those stories. Take the Bat-Signal, for example:

I love that goofy thing. Its exactly the kind of larger-than-life, bizarre superhero method of communication that
only makes sense in the context of superhero comics, but it also has so many subtle reinforcements of how Batman
works. For one, it shows both that hes an ally of the police, and that he deals with things that are so extraordinary
that even the way they communicate with him has to be strange. Thats one of the reasons Ive never really liked
the Bat-Phone hotline from the 66 TV show. Calling up Batman on the phone, even a special phone, is just so
pedestrian, especially when he cant be bothered to pick it up himself and has to have his manservant do it for him.
More than that, though, I love the (completely ridiculous) idea that the Bat-Signal is visible from the entirety of
Gotham City. Its the grandest possible version of that bit where he wants Crime to know hes after them, a literal
shining light in the darkness reminding everyone of his presence. Its almost mystical in how it summons him, this
huge, visible mark on the city that shows his protection over it, which brings us back to the branding and the
power of symbols thats such a huge part of how he works as a character. Its why I love that one scene at the
beginning of The Dark Knight so much, where the crook looks up, sees the Bat-Signal, and decides to just go inside
and not do anything illegal that night. Smart guy.
It does so much all at once, in such a weirdly elegant way. By contrast, the Batmobile is just a way to get him from
one place to another, a necessary element of living in a fictionalized version of New York that gives him a lot of
ground to cover. And even then, its probably the single least practical thing about Batman.
I am fully aware that superhero comics are about as far from reality as you can get, but the Batmobile stretches
credibility in a way that Boom Tubes and Helicarriers dont even get close to. The first time I went to New York,
there was a moment where I was walking through Greenwich Village, waiting for the traffic lights to stop so I could
cross the street, and I remember saying, out loud, Man, the Batmobile is bulls**t.
I realize this is a weird place to draw the line in a comic that involves freeze rays and a number of abandoned
amusement parks that no economy couldve ever supported, but seriously, have you seen the traffic in a big city?
There is no possible way that Batman could get anywhere in a car, let alone the kind of giant, jet-powered
monstrosity that he tends to roll around in. And where the hell is he going to park? Hed be better off investing in a
MetroCard.
And when he actually got somewhere like, say, arriving at police headquarters is he just going to leave the
Batmobile outside at the meter while he walks in and takes the elevator up to Commissioner Gordons office? And
then there are the other problems inherent in having a super-sweet car in a city thats pretty much defined by a
truly astonishing crime rate:

Once you start thinking about it, you cant ever look at it again without thinking of how impractical it is. And it only
gets worse when you compare him to other heroes.
Look at Spider-Man. One of the reasons hes such a great character is because, by accident or design, his powers are
perfectly suited for an urban environment. He can jump super high, climb up walls and swing between buildings.
Hes inherently dynamic within a world dominated by skyscrapers that rises up vertically as much as it stretches
out on land, to the point where there are plenty of comics that make a joke about it when he has to leave Manhattan
and go somewhere that doesnt have web-friendly flagpoles and scaffolding everywhere.
Thats why Ive always preferred to see Batman swinging through the city on his grappling hook, or even gliding on
his cape, Arkham City-style. Its more dynamic, and allows for those cool shots where hes silhouetted against the
moon, or for dropping onto rooftops and crashing through skylights, or best of all for those Jim Aparo stifflegged wrecking ball kicks. The alternative just leads to the thought of Batman being stuck in rush hour traffic,
something that likely sticks out because it happened in the very first issue of Batman I ever read:

That bit in the middle still cracks me up. Its not easy following the limo through that heavy Gotham traffic without
being spotted, probably because we are driving a blue convertible with gigantic fins and my face painted on the hood.
The Worlds Greatest Detective, ladies and gentlemen.
To be fair, the most recent model of the Batmobile, introduced by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely in Batman and
Robin #1, solves pretty much all of my problems with it because of one simple fact: It flies.

That one little addition cuts out all the problems with traffic and parking, with the added bonus of giving Batman a
platform from which he can make all those dramatic drops onto rooftops. Plus, I just love the design of it and how
its a smaller, compact vehicle that seems more like its built for a crowded urban environment. Its a huge contrast
to the design that had prevailed for the previous 70-odd years, the gigantic (and usually extremely phallic) tanks
and jet-powered battering rams. It left realism behind for something that actually felt more practical, and pretty
appropriate for a guy who owns a robot dinosaur.
Plus: Flying car. Awesome.
Still, more than anything else, the Batmobile has always struck me as set dressing, which leaves the question of
why its everywhere. Its huge in the marketing and in the toy designs, and like you said in your question, theres a
documentary about the live-action versions on a movie that has nothing to do with Batmobile History. So why is
something so unnecessary so prominent?
My guess? They just look cool.

Seriously: Theyre very visually interesting, especially because each design ends up being visually tied to a
particular era. The George Barris model from the 66 show or the crazy Norm Breyfogle spaceship-lookin thing
from the 90s, that Anton Furst design from Batman 89, the late 70s version with the bubble windshield, that neon
nightmare from the Schumacher movies they all tend to be very visually striking, and seeing them all lined up
together makes for a pretty interesting stylistic timeline of the Batman franchise. I dont even like the Batmobile
that much as a concept in the story, but I still like seeing different takes on it and the aesthetics theyre working
with.
So does Batman need a car? No, I dont think so. But hes had one for longer than hes had a sidekick or a butler, so I
guess its a pretty good thing that they look neat. Especially if anyone wanted to draw Batman ghost-riding the
whip. Hint hint.
Read More: Ask Chris #135: Under The Hood | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-135batmobile/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #133: The Best Christmas Movie Ever

by Chris Sims December 21, 2012 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Whats your favorite Christmas movie, and why? @adampknave

A: You know, after last weeks column, I just havent been feeling very Christmasy. Having to detail exactly why a
Batman Christmas episode was disappointing got me all in a foul mood, and for a while there, it didnt seem like
anything was going to fix my Yuletide season. I mean, even Brave and the Bolds Christmas epsiode is so awful that
it actually features Red Tornado, so there wasnt really anything to watch to get my spirit back. And then this
question arrived, and reminded me of something Id forgotten. You might even call it the True Meaning of
Christmas.

And that is the Christmas season is the time for Die Hard.
Like a lot of
people, I have a Christmas tradition built around watching Die Hard, but its also the culmination of a cycle of action
movies I watch on three major holidays: RoboCop on Easter, Road House on Thanksgiving, and Die Hard on
Christmas. And its a tradition that I started not just because I like those movies a lot although believe me, I
definitely do but because those films capture what those holidays mean to me in the secular, violent 80s action
movie way that I prefer experiencing.
RoboCop is, after all, a movie about death and resurrection. Its about a world thats fallen into wickedness and can
only be redeemed when a man of unimpeachable morality is destroyed by a corrupt government, and returns to

take the burden of defeating that corruption onto himself. And despite the legions of Mystery Science Theater
3000 fans who keep on telling me that Road House is for Christmas, it fits better with the mythology of
Thanksgiving. When Dalton comes to Jasper, its a new, untamed land that exists outside of his ivory tower world of
neon nightclubs and NYU philosophy degrees, and its only through unity and understanding with the people who
already live there that hes ultimately able to triumph.
Also, there are a lot of explosions. A lot of explosions.
And along those same lines, Die Hard is very much a Christmas story. Not THE capital-S Christmas Story with the
manger and the star and everything although if you really wanted to stretch things, you could make a case that
John McClane travels to the West in the company of the guy who gives him that advice about making fists with your
toes and Argyle, who certainly count as wise men but a Christmas story nonetheless. The character motivations
at the start of that story are as Christmasy as youre going to find.
Youve got John McClane, a tough New York Cop whos come to California to have a few laughs be reunited with his
wife and kids, who moved out so that she could pursue her lucrative career in whatever it is that the Nakatomi
Corporation actually does (finance? Lets go with finance). Their relationship is under considerable strain and
Johns certainly uncomfortable out in Los Angeles in the words of Joey Ramone, it just aint Christmas if there
aint no snow but gosh darn it, hes going to make it work and be together with his family on Christmas, and hes
going to do it with this gigantic teddy bear!

That is basically the opening to any Hallmark Original, folks. Real talk.
Of course, it doesnt really stay on that track long, what with the fact that he wanders into a crazy terrorist attack
thats actually a complicated heist involving the sidekick from Walker: Texas Ranger, but those themes of wanting
to spend the holidays with your family are pretty crucial to what makes Die Hard so great. Its not just that its a
beautifully executed depiction of a common man trapped in a small place against overwhelming odds, its that
theres a very simple, very human motivation at the heart of it. Hes not the revenge-crazed killing machine that
you have in John Matrix from Commando (a movie I have yet to find an appropriate holiday for, which is why I just
watch it all the time), to the point where the very first thing he does after things go sour is to try to call for help. At
the end of the day, hes just a guy who wants to go home to his wife and kids and give them that big goofy teddy
bear.
Hans Gruber is even a very Christmasy sort of villain.

For all his talk of exceptional thievery and reading Time Magazine, Hans is just committing the very Grinchly act of
stealing as much as he possibly can on Christmas. Hes even got his ersatz reindeer in the form of his eleven
henchmen, and I honestly wouldnt be surprised if his master plan was to get away with the stolen bearer bonds
and dump them off the top of Mount Crumpet.
Also, I think we can all agree that every Christmas movie has an Ellis.
The only thing this movies missing to really complete the metaphor is a stand-in for Santa Claus himself, but I
guess there just wasnt room in the plot for a jolly, portly, pastry-loving gentleman who rewards the good and
punishes the bad with small lumps of minerals.
Oh, wait a second.

Boom: You just got Claused.

Its worth noting that even beyond all the tinsel and mistletoe strewn about everything, Die Hard is just darn near
perfect. The way that the tension builds, the idea of Hans slowly discovering Johns true identity and his
relationship with Holly, the claustrophobic atmosphere of the unfinished floors that have a beautifully defined
sense of place and a connection to each other thats easy to follow, the increasing desperation on display from both
John and Hans as the story goes on and they each start running out of options, even the fact that the tension and
stakes theyre working with actually increase after the reveal that Hans & Co. arent actually terrorists. Its
unparalleled in terms of craft, which is why its still the standard for this kind of story a quarter of a century later.
And through it all, it still follows the traditional arc of a Christmas story. John McClane doesnt win through
overwhelming force, but through self-sacrifice (most notably of his feet) in the name of helping others. He
essentially learns the True Meaning of Christmas, which in his case involves throwing Alan Rickman out of a
building.
So when you settle in with your Its A Wonderful Lifes and Years Without a Santa Claus over the next few days, look
for what it shares with the greatest Christmas story of our time. And remember, as Hans Gruber says

Its Christmas, Theo. Its the season of miracles, so be of good cheer.

Q: Who is the best Christmas themed villain? @koltreg

A:

Q: Do you think that Santa Claus has super powers in the traditional way we think of them? @dangillotte
A: I dont think he was bitten by a radioactive reindeer or anything, but at the very least, hes definitely immortal,
so thats something. Im not sure if he has, like, super-strength or anything, but one assumes that toys for every
good boy and girl in the entire world are a pretty hefty load (one small villages worth, after all, requires the
strength of ten Grinches plus two to lift). Plus, theres all the stuff where he can see you when youre sleeping, know
when youre awake and determine your morality accordingly, and then all the more obscure bits about
resurrecting dead people and busting out of jail with the help of Jesus and Mary. So yeah, he has superpowers.
Otherwise, he wouldnt be in the Official Marvel Handbook!
Q: Which Superhero whos never had a Christmas Special most deserves one? @awa64

A: Most of the big names you could care to mention have been involved in some kind of Christmas story or another,
but the closest Jimmy Olsen got was that time he got hit with a ray-gun that made him super fat, and he had to wear
a Santa suit because its the only thing that would fit.

He really deserved better.

Q: What, in your opinion, is the reason why Batman would smell bad on Christmas? @Gavin4L
A: Judging by the comics I read, Batman tends to spend his holidays (and, you know, most days) running around,
escaping from deathtraps and punching out neer-do-wells before dragging them back to a mental hospital that
probably shouldve been shut down the second the state inspectors got a look at all those gargoyles hanging up in
the hallways. Thats sweaty work even if youre not wearing body armor and a cape, so I imagine it gets straight up
funky under there sometimes.
As for what the story is with a teenage boy producing an egg, man, your guess is as good as mine on that one.
Merry Christmas, Everybody!
Read More: Ask Chris #133: The Best Christmas Movie Ever | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-133-the-bestchristmas-movie-ever/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #131: Fear Of A Santa Planet

by Chris Sims December 7, 2012 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: My flatmate is scared of Santa and therefore Christmas. How can I help cure him? @charlie_en
Alternately,
Q: My flatmate is scared of Santa and therefore Christmas. How can I best capitalise on this fear?
@charlie_en

A: Charlie, I like the way you think.

My love of Christmas is so all-consuming that
Ive never been afraid of Santa Claus, but to be honest, I can see where your pals coming from. Even at the best and
most cheerful of times, Santa still sees you when youre sleeping, knows when youre awake and tends to offer up
vaguely threatening (but jolly) directives to be good for goodness sake, which is really just a nicer way of saying
or else. Also? He singlehandedly conquered the planet Mars. Put all that together, and youve got an all-seeing
planet-conquering immortal that judges your morality once the icy grip of winter has seized the land. He can be a
little intimidating.
And thats just the friendly, modern Santa Claus that we have now. It just gets worse when you start poking around
a little and find out that he was raised by a wood nymph on the milk of a lioness and earned his immortality by
going toe-to-toe with the demons that make children sin. And when you go all the way back to St. Nicholas of Myra,
patron saint of children, prostitutes and pirates? Things get pretty harsh.
Ill let comics writer and noted Santa Claus scholar Benito Cereno (The Tick, Hector Plasm, Invincible Presents Atom
Eve) explain:
Although through the influence of modern depictions of Santa weve come to view St Nicholas as a gentle, and
perhaps toothless, figure of kindness and generosity, the fact is, Nicholas of Myra was no joke.

He had a temper and would act on it when he felt his principles were being challenged. The earliest act of St
Nicholas that raised him to some notorietyif not fameis that at the Council of Nicaea, he walked across the floor
and cold punched the heretic Arius, who had dared to say that Jesus was the creation of the Father and not an
equal. Just clocked him, right in front of the emperor Constantine. Turns out it is illegal to punch someone in front
of the Roman emperor, so Nicholas was put in jail, the first of many instances in which he would do hard time.
(Dont worry; Jesus and the Virgin Mary came to him in the night, returned his bishop robes and freed him from his
chains. So those dudes are on his side; dont know if that changes anything for you.)
Also, there is historical precedent for that he knows if youve been naughty or nice thing. One of the most famous
stories of St Nicholas, and how he became the patron of children, is how he walked into an inn, asked for meat, and
then immediately revealed that the meat the innkeeper served him was the flesh of three young men the innkeeper
had murdered for their money. Nicholas turned the chops back into living boys (the power to raise the dead, not
too shabby), and turned the murderous innkeeper into his indentured servant until he had paid penance for his
crimes. That guy still follows Father Christmas around France, frightening children as Pere Fouettard.
And that was hardly an isolated incident. St Nicholas kind of wandered the earth punishing child murderers and
chaining them, putting them into Gods service. Sometimes these were humans, like Pere Fouettard, but more often
they were demons, like everyones new favorite Christmas lol, the Krampus.
Krampus was a pre-Christian minor Alpine fertility god (aka demons to the Christian church), who, displaced from
his shrines by the advent of the Christian faith to his region, got his revenge by eating children, until jolly old St
Nicholas showed up with the chains of St Peter and taught him a lesson.
This chaining of a demon would be impressive enough on its own, but the fact is, he did it over and over across
Europe and the Near East. Everyone knows Krampus, but other murderers and demons captured and put to service
by St Nicholas include Klaubauf, Pelzebock, Hans Muff, Hans Trapp, Schmutzli, Belsnickel, Bartel, Rumpelklas,
Bellzebub, Drapp, Buzebergt, and other variants, to say nothing of the innumerable nameless perchten that
accompany the Krampus himself on his runs.
If defeating human criminals and minor pagan deities in single combat isnt enough to show that St Nicholas is a
formidable foe, how about a for-real A-list Greco-Roman god? Nicholas spent his whole life in mortal combat with
the goddess Artemis, endlessly assaulted by her demons (or minor divinities) as he crossed Greece and Asia Minor
destroying her temples and shrines, in an attempt to keep the locals who had recently converted from backsliding
into their old pagan ways. Guess who won? (Hint: we dont celebrate Artemis in December.) Nicholas destroyed the
temple of Artemis so thoroughly that the foundations were ripped out of the ground, and the sound of screaming
demons brought awe to everyone in the area.
What Im saying it, Santa Claus aint nothing to eff with. But heres the good news: hes only out to punish the
wicked. As long as you can say your catechism, Im sure youll be safe.
Two things to add: One, I asked Benito to elaborate on The Chains of St. Peter, because that sounds pretty
amazing. In addition to informing me that it was, and I quote, a whole thing, he told me that they are in fact
the literal chains that King Herod put Peter into when he was imprisoned, which he got out of when an angel
helpfully showed up to bust him out of jail jailbreaks, it seems, are a recurring theme in the St. Nicholas canon.
Anyway, St. Nick got a hold of them and used them to bind demons into his service, which means that Santa Claus
literally commands an army of demons, most of whom have been defeated with his bare hands, to do his bidding.
Not exactly the workshop full of elves.
Two, Pere Fouettard, the cannibal that was running around France yesterday and whose name literally translates
to Father Whipper? He doesnt just carry around the switches to give naughty kids a swat, he also threatens them
with punishments that are specific to their sins, like cutting out the tongues of children who lie. And he may or may
not be the guy on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV.
So yeah, Santa runs with a pretty rough crowd.

At this point, you should have all the ammunition you need to further terrify your
roommate into doing whatever it is you want him to do. Too many dirty dishes stacked up? Hey, do you hear
chains rattling? I think I hear Father Christmas and Pere Fouettard up on the housetop. Is he a little late with his
half of the cable bill? Maybe a casual reminder that no prison can hold St. Nicholas, and that Kevin Sorbo himself
couldnt stop him from marching across the world, even before he had flying reindeer backing him up.
If, however, the Spirit of Christmas (and/or fear of being carted off to Hell by the Krampus) have moved you to help
him get past this fear, then I can probably help with that. The thing is, youre still going to have to confront
everything Ive talked about above. Theres really no getting around that stuff. But you have to give it a little
context.
As much as Santa Claus might pal around with demons and drop flying elbows on Olympians, its important to note
that hes doing it all for a good cause. Rather than just vanquishing the demons outright, he presses them into
helping him do something nice by dragging them around while he delivers toys to good children all across the
world. Considering that the alternative is, you know, being demons, Id say thats a step in the right direction. Much
like that scene in the Rankin/Bass Santa Claus Is Comin To Town special where he follows gonna find out whos
naughty and nice with a softhearted smile at the camera and well theyre all pretty nice, the whole thing is a
testament to some Superman-level optimism and a desire to look at the best in people. And really, even though he
has Krampus and the Whipper playing bad cop, I think its safe to say that hes mellowed out considerably in his
later years.
If, however, that still fails to convince your pal that Santa is someone to be trusted rather than feared, theres one
last fact you can drop on him to bring him around: Santa is a full-on, card-carrying member of the Justice
League.

Listen: If Batman says youre okay, youre okay. There is no further argument necessary.
In all seriousness, though, if you dont quite know the reason why your flatmate hates Christmas, have you
considered that he might actually be a Grinch? I dont want to stereotype or anything, but I have it on good
authority that you should check on his shoes to see if theyre too tight, or maybe try to bring up heart size in casual
conversation. If he lets it slip that his is two sizes too small, that might be a giveaway.
If that does turn out to be the case, then the solution to your problem is as easy as helping him commit a truly aweinspiring act of grand larceny on the nearest village and hoping he has a dramatically appropriate change of heart.
Of course, thats a pretty risky proposition outside of Whoville, most people tend to be slightly angry upon
waking up to find theyve been robbed, no matter how steeped they are in the Christmas spirit, and if they happen
to wake up while youre stuffing a tree up the chimbly, things are bound to get messy.
Best of luck not getting shot!

Read More: Ask Chris #131: Fear Of A Santa Planet | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-131-fear-of-santaclaus/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #129: Think Happy Thoughts

by Chris Sims November 16, 2012 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: As part of the online media, how in the hell do you stay positive about comics? Every other day is a
fiasco. @rusty_shackles
A: Hey, thanks! It really means a lot that you notice all the effort I put into keeping an attitude thats
Wait, did you say that I stay positive? Dude, have you even read my columns before?

Seriously, Rusty, we worked together long enough that you know full well
that Im the crabbiest dude around here, with the exception of David Brothers, who feeds on hatred and
disappointment the way that lesser men sustain themselves on food and water. Im lucky enough that my focus on
commentary and jokes means that I dont have to stay as steeped in the news cycle as others, and I still exist in a
pretty perpetual state of grumpiness.
The reason? Well, like you said, its one thing after another. If its not DC, its Marvel. If its not the publishers, its a
snide, confrontational and completely uninformative interview with somebody in editorial. If its not them, its a
creator that you (used to) like saying some dumbass nonsense that makes it hard to ever enjoy their work again. If
its not them, its the fans. If its not them, its a comic so mind-blowingly terrible and wrongheaded that you

wonder why you even bother reading these things, let along write about them. If its not any of that, its J. Michael
Straczynski. And if its none of those, then its some other damn thing in a litany of reasons to be pissed off at an
entire medium that crop up like clockwork.
Even beyond all that, when youre constantly surrounded by something, the shine tends to wear off a little. I dont
want to complain too much because I cant imagine anything that would make anyone hate me faster than whining
about how it sucks to sit around reading comic books and playing video games in a professional capacity, but when
you read comics, write about comics and then write your own comics all day, every day, its pretty easy to get tired
of them. Im always surprised at how relieved I am on those weeks where we dont record War Rocket Ajax,
because that means I dont have to scramble to read everything and figure out which ones I want to talk about on
the show by Thursday night.
So believe me, Im as much of a grumpus as anybody else. If, however, I wanted to shift that around to optimism, I
wouldnt have to look too hard for a reason.
Heres the thing: This is the best possible time there has ever been to read comics. As much as we might
romanticize how great it wouldve been to walk down to the newsstand and buy those Stan Lee / Jack Kirby Marvel
books in the 60s and pine for the Golden Age (you know, the 80s, when Simonson was on Thor and Ostrander and
McDonnell were on Suicide Squad), or even yearn to go back to the late 90s when the Justice League was still good,
those eras dont hold a candle to what we have today. And most of it has to do with the fact that all that stuff is still
around.
We have more access to great comics now than we ever have before, and thats not even getting into what were
seeing with webcomics and digital. All of those comics are still out there, and most of the best are easy to find.
Gripe all you want about how the shift in focus to the paperback and the bookstore market has led to overly
decompressed storylines and killed the monthly comic as a storytelling unit, but its also made keeping classic
stories in print not just viable, but one of the driving forces of the market.Kick Ass might be an unrepentant piece of
s**t, but if its unfortunate success has the side effect of getting me a cheap reprint of Aztek: The Ultimate Man, then
at least something good comes out of it.
Its not just super-heroes, either. You want classic adventure stories? You can head over to Amazon right now and
buy a ton of relatively cheap, great-looking collections of Herg, Floyd Gottfredson and Carl Barks without even
leaving your house. Prefer comic strips? Fantagraphics has 34 years worth of Peanuts in print right now. Hell, The
Complete Funky Winkerbean just got started this year, and while that may only be of interest to students of abject
suffering, its still a testament to how much of comics history is out there right now, available to dive into.
Its the same way with new stuff. Theres good stuff coming out from every major publisher, but even if youre so
frustrated that you end up chopping out the front half of the Previews catalog and chucking it into the fire, theres
enough great stuff coming out from indie and small press publishers that you could just read those and still fill
every month.

And when you do throw in the Internet and digital comics? Forget it. Weve
hammered this point ad infinitum here on ComicsAlliance, but its true: Theres an unbelievable amount of comics
out there and the barrier for entry is low for a creator and almost nonexistent for the reader, and the sheer variety
of whats out there is absolutely staggering. Want to read about wisecracking cats having bizarre, occasionally
surreal character-driven adventures? Say hello to the best comic of the 21st century. In the mood for high concept
action comedy with medical ninjitsu? It updates in full color three times a week. Do you want to read wordless
pornographic romance comics about Victorian robots? That is not just a thing that exists (NSFW), its also
really, really good.

The point of all this is that theres always something new out there to find and fall in love with. Comics are just
words and pictures that are put together to tell a story. Thats a big medium, and as easy as it might be to get burnt
out on superheroes or manga, or to get fed up with a particular creator or publisher, or even to be bummed out by
the direction of an entire industry, theres always going to be something out there to remind you why you love
them. Sometimes it might not feel like its worth the effort to go out there and find it when all you want to do is
forget about comics for a while and go play video games, but its always out there, whether its something new and
exciting or a classic comic that youve never read.
Its been like that with me plenty of times. I think its fair to say that I read more comics than a lot of people, but Ive
never run out of stuff that surprises me. More importantly, I never will. They could stop making comics now and Id
still be able to find stuff to get excited about for years. There are Batman comics and Jack Kirby stories that Ive
never read. There are entire genres that Im only passingly familiar with. I mean, I read comics for 25 years before I
read a Gottfredson Mickey Mouse story for the first time, and now theyre some of my all-time favorites and I
have 30 years of that guys career to get through before its all over.
Now, that said, constant unbridled positivity is for suckers and PR departments. There might be a ton of good stuff
out there, but the fact that it exists (and that its worthy of focusing on often) doesnt mean that theres not bad
stuff. That whole Rah-Rah-Team-Comics-Were-All-In-This-Together attitude is complete nonsense. Theres no us
just because we all like looking at pictures with words on them. Theres me and theres you, theres the creators
and the consumers, the businesspeople and the artists, the kids saving up their allowance and the guys signing
million-dollar movie deals, and theres a ton of overlap between those things. Weve all got opinions, and weve all
got perspectives that inform them, and thats a good thing, even when those opinions are about why something
sucks.
The fact that there are great comics out there doesnt mean that there isnt bad stuff, and the great books dont
somehow balance out the existence of the awful ones. Theres no equilibrium to be had here;
Simonsons Thor doesnt erase the existence of Kevin Smiths Batman and leave us with a perfectly neutral
bookshelf. As much good stuff is out there, there can always be more, and we can always do better.
A love for comics doesnt mean that you shouldnt be able to recognize when things are bad, or that you shouldnt
point out their flaws. Bad stuff should be called out so that its mistakes can be learned from and not repeated.
Unless its Superman: Earth OneVolume 2, a book where Superman passes out guns to revolutionaries and hangs
back while they violently kill people to overthrow their evil President, which should be taken out behind the shed
and buried like the embarrassment that it is and never spoken of again.

See? Not exactly positive. But I wouldnt have that kind of reaction if it wasnt for those books that make me realize
what this medium and its creators are capable of. Theres just no reason for them to be bad.
I guess thats kind of optimistic, if a hard-line low tolerance for anything thats not exactly suited to my taste can be
considered optimistic rather than a symptom of insanely pretentious narcissism. But its true: Even when Im
frustrated with comics, even when I hate them its because I truly believe that every single one of them can be great
in its own way. Thats about as positive as I can get.
Also? Thanks for putting media in quotes, you jerk. Like I dont have enough problems getting respect over here.
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Ask Chris #128: The Trouble With Demonic Cat Paintings

by Chris Sims November 9, 2012 12:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Is House the craziest movie ever or what? @pmihal

A: A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was gearing up to watch House (also known as Hausu), the 1977 Japanese
horror film directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, which is definitely not to be confused with the 1986 American horror
movie of the same name or the TV show about doctor mysteries starring Bertie Wooster. Ive had it for a while, but
on Halloween night, I finally pulled the trigger and watched it.
Now, I cant in good conscience say that its the craziest movie ever made. There may be something out there thats
a little weirder. The craziest movie I have ever seen in my life, though? Yeah, it takes that title hands down.

In terms of plot, House is a little difficult to describe. Thats largely because

according to the little booklet that comes with the Criterion editon it was partly inspired by conversations
that Obayashi had with his 11-year-old daughter Chigumi, who provided the collection of frights that he and
screenwriter Chiho Katsura built the script around. Once you know that, things start to make a little more sense, or
at least, you begin to understand why they dont. The bizarre logic and the strange, persistent and then style of
storytelling that makeHouse so interesting all have the distinct pattern of a conversation with a very imaginative
child.

The thing that makes House so fun to watch, though, is how good Obayashi is at translating that kind of storytelling
onto the screen in a way thats both compelling and genuinely creepy. The weirdness of House isnt just the
goofiness of random stuff happening (though theres plenty of that, believe me), its the threatening strangeness of
a world thats not behaving like it should. The rules go out the window because rules are what keep you safe and
understanding how something works is the first step to triumphing over it. If those rules are replaced with a childs
surreal ideas of scary things, then those attempts at understanding quickly devolve into desperation and futility.
Thats where House gets its scariness, even if its often trumped by the sheer oddity of the rest of the film.
Heres the broad strokes of the plot: Seven schoolgirls, all of whom have nicknames that describe their most
prominent personality trait, are part of a club thats gearing up to spend two weeks of their summer vacation in
some kind of training camp with their allegedly hunky teacher, Mr. Togo.

From left to right, theres Sweet, Kung Fu, Melody, Fantasy, Prof, and Mac, which is short for stomach, because
shes eating all the time. Way in the background, you can spot the very fashionable Gorgeous, the seventh member
of the group. Originally, shes going to be the only one who doesnt make it to the training camp since shes going on
vacation with her dad, but right before the last day of school, he brings home a lady and announces that theyre
getting married and she will be Gorgeouss new mom.
Considering that this is the first time Gorgeous has even heard of this woman, it seems like that relationship is
escalating pretty quickly. Gorgeous feels the same way, having never really gotten over the loss of her mother, and
she spends the night looking at creepy photos of her moms wedding and deciding that she hates her dad.

The next day, when Mr. Togo announces that hes going to have to cancel the training camp because his sister is
going to have a baby (they were going to stay at her inn, you see), Gorgeous decides to just bail out on the whole
vacation and relocate everyone to her aunts house out in the country. She sends a letter off to her aunt, who she
hasnt seen in ten years, and gets a response brought by a strange white cat reading Come to my house, Gorgeous.
Thus after a strange bus journey that uses animation, models, an appearance by pop band Godiego singing a love
song, the same white cat causing Mr. Togo to pratfall into an injury that keeps him from caching the bus and a
creepy watermelon salesmen, they eventually get to Aunties house.
And that, as you might imagine, is where the trouble starts.

See, unbeknownst to the girls, Gorgeous frail, elderly aunt is a monster, cursed and twisted by love and war. Before
she and her boyfriend could get married, he was drafted into the Japanese army during World War II and died in
the Pacific. Gorgeous aunt swore that shed wait until he came home, and slowly turned into a hellish nightmare
creature that can only survive by murdering young girls. By the time Gorgeous & Co. show up, shes weakened and
frail because shes already eaten every young girl in the village, but now her niece has just presented her with a
seven-course dinner to feast on at her leisure.
And feast she does, trapping the girls in the house and killing them one by one, starting by decapitating Mac when
she goes out to check on a watermelon. Whats weird, though more weird than the other stuff, I mean is that
the girls refuse to believe that anythings going wrong until the supernatural stuff hits critical mass. At first, its
understandable; they just assume Macs gone wandering off in search of food, since the only one to see her severed
head was Fantasy, whos defined by her overactive imagination. This is actually where we see the first bits of
Auntie reveling in cruelty, too, as she taunts Fantasy by chewing up eyeballs and disappearing into her broken
refrigerator when no one else is looking.

As the movie goes on, these girls shrug off a lot of weird stuff. At one point, Kung Fu is chopping wood in her
underwear (?) and gets attacked by flaming logs that jump up and try to bludgeon her of their own volition, and
she just brushes it off with a cheery maybe it was an illusion!
They even ignore whats going on with Auntie herself, which is a pretty great performance from Yoko Minamida.
She starts off in the wheelchair, wearing dark glasses to shield her eyes, but as the story goes on and she devours
the girls, we see her walking, then dancing, then climbing through the rafters, smirking at an audience that knows
full well that none of these girls are going to get out alive:

All of this passes without any of them noticing, except for Fantasy.
By the time they actually get wise to whats going on, its too late. Macs decapitated and eaten, Sweet is beaten to
death by animated bedding and somehow winds up ground into bloody bits in a clock, and in what is probably the
movies most memorable sequence, Melody is eaten by a piano. It starts with her fingers, which get chopped off,
prompting her to stare at them in psychopathic glee:

Its worth noting that none of these effects are particularly good, but theyre still effective. Obayashi spends the
entire first act of the movie emphasizing the fiction of the movie rather than trying to make things seem real. This
things loaded with matte paintings, models, dreamy frames around his shots and sets that are obviously sound
stages its a world where things that seem fake are the reality, so when there are obvious green screens and logs
being swung around on wires, it doesnt break the illusion. There is no illusion; the fakery just reinforces what hes
already doing.
Gorgeous ends up being taken over fully by Auntie, leaving Prof, Kung Fu and Fantasy to freak out over their
chances of surviving til the morning when they can run and get help. Prof has found Aunties diary and desperately
reads for a clue on how to defeat her, but as I mentioned above, rules are not part of this equation. They finally
figure out that Auntie and her white cat are one in the same, and when a portrait of the cat transforms into the
demonic image that Criterion chose for their DVD box (and an awesome t-shirt that unfortunately doesnt come in
my size), they decide seemingly arbitrarily that they need to fistfight a painting in order to defeat her.
It doesnt work. The painting just starts shooting blood out of its mouth, filling the house and sending the last girl
into the waiting arms of Gorgeous, whose body has been taken over by auntie. The teacher arrives and is
mysteriously (and inexplicably) turned into a bunch of bananas, and then theres one more shockingly tense,
creepy scene to close out the movie.
Oh, and did I mention theres an appearance by a pop band called Godiego, performing a cheery, upbeat love ballad
as the girls board the bus to their gruesome deaths?

Thematically, its a pretty tough movie to figure out. Ive been writing about it for quite a while now, and Im not
really any closer to pinning down the underlying themes than I was in the opening paragraphs of this column. It
certainly feels like something a kid would come up with in a conversation with her dad, from the universal fairytale
elements of evil old witches wanting to eat kids, and I think thats probably the reason that Gorgeous leads her
friends to their hellish deaths immediately after deciding to disobey her father, but beyond that? Its hard to pin
down.
Its the presentation, not the themes, that tend to stick with me, especially coming to it from comics. A lot of what
Obayashis doing here mimics things that you often see on the page. In addition to all the film tricks he does, like
overlays and one extremely disturbing sequence where Auntie enters a room and is shot in stop-motion rather
than naturally, youll get shots where hell isolate a single element of the frame in its own inset panel.

And when Gorgeous is taken over, theres another extremely memorable shot where pieces of her face fall off like
the shards of a broken mirror, revealing fire underneath:

Its got some of the most compelling visuals that Ive ever seen in a movie, and its easy to see how they could
translate to the page. Im pretty sure Ive seen distinctive bits and pieces that Obayashi used here crop up in Mail,

for instance, and considering that the movie was a hit in Japan when it was released and a pretty unforgettable
one at that I have to imagine its influence is pretty strong.
If you havent seen it, you can grab the DVD from Netflix or watch it on Hulu Plus, and Id highly recommend it. If
youre worried about spoilers, dont; I couldve written an article ten times longer than this one and still not
captured what its like to actually see this thing in motion. Its worth seeking out and watching.
Mostly because of Kung Fu.

Kung Fu is the best.

Read More: Ask Chris #128: The Trouble With Demonic Cat Paintings | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-128the-trouble-with-demonic-cat-paintings-house-horror-film/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #127: Assassins Creed

by Chris Sims November 2, 2012 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Why do you like Assassins Creed so much? What, in your opinion, makes the series so compelling?
@jordannwitt
A: Assassins Creed III came out this month, and even though I havent actually played it yet reliving the Attitude
Era in WWE 13 has been high priority here at Stately Sims Manor my love for the series is so intense that I
actually left the house to buy it on the day it came out. And really, if you know anything about the life of a freelance
writer, youll know that is high praise indeed.

As for why, Im not gonna lie to you, Jordan: Its mostly the stabbing.
In a
review of Fez, Matt Wilson wrote about how the driving force in most modern video games is whether or not its
fun to kill someone, and he mentioned that Assassins Creed does it better than most. Thats a very small part of the
point he was getting at, but hes not wrong: In a medium thats flooded almost to the point of being defined by
hitting buttons to make little imaginary dudes murder each other, Assassins Creed still stands out for just how fun
its made that.
Its hard to write about this without sounding like a complete and utter psychopath, but, well, here we are, with me
about to write about how great those games are at simulating blood spraying out of slit throats and the satisfying
crunch of a dudes skull when you cave it in with a battle-axe. Its true, though the different types of weapons are

all interesting and satisfying to use in their own unique ways, and while a lot of games struggle with contextsensitive actions, Assassins Creed nails it. They even managed to build a counter-based combat system thats not a
massive pain in the ass, and thats darn near miraculous.
The key, on that front at least, is simplicity. They made a game about Assassins in which there is one (1) button that
you press to assassinate someone. It plays out in different ways depending on where you are, and you can set it up
in different ways to accomplish different goals, but at the end of the day, thats how it breaks down: Push button,
kill dude. Thats all there is to it. Its the simplest thing in the world, but the fact that the actual method changes
depending on other factors and that you can change those factors by taking advantage of the equally well-built
movement system gives it a lot of depth.
Incidentally, thats why it was so darn frustrating when Ezio showed up as a bonus character in SoulCalibur V. I was
really hoping that Id be able to just parkour up to Ivy or Mitsurigi, hit one button and immediately stab them to
death, but doing anything in that game requires you to hit about eighteen more buttons than I have the attention
span for. Yes, it wouldve unbalanced things a little, but thats what happens when you put a guy who does nothing
but kill people into a game where the rest of the characters are concerned with ring-outs.
Its also worth noting that as a series, Assassins Creed is one that consistently showed improvement and refinement
of its core mechanics. I absolutely hated the first game to the point where I tapped out after about four hours and
never went back to finish it. It was just so unbearably slow, and someone on the team had the bright idea to make
guards get mad at you for moving faster than a narcoleptic turtle. Even with a plot that I was interested in, it was
too much of a trial to actually get to the good part, and once a game starts to feel like its putting obstacles in your
path that you have to deal with before you can start having fun, its not worth the effort. Assassins Creed II, though?
That thing played like a dream. They not only refined the controls, they went in and fixed all the problems that had
made Altairs adventures such a chore.
And it kept up. Brotherhoods introduction of the, uh, Brotherhood mechanic was pretty fun, and even
though Revelations threw in a bunch of complexities with the bombs, they didnt really get in the way of anything
else. Maybe theres even someone out there who wants to use things like stink bombs and strategy and not just
running straight into the bad guys and stabbing them, but I cant imagine why that would be. I couldve done
without the Tower Defense stuff, but Ive been a sucker for territory takeovers since GTA: San Andreas, so that
ones a wash.
So yeah: Clearly, I am into the stabbing. But as for what makes the games compelling in a way that others arent, I
have to admit that I really like the story, too.
Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that when I talk about the story of Assassins Creed, I dont mean this
doofus:

Thats Desmond, and even after ostensibly spending four (well, three and a half) games with that guy, I could not
possibly care less about him. For those of you who arent familiar with the storyline of Assassins Creed, you dont
actually play as Altair and Ezio. Instead, you play as Desmond in the present, who jacks into the Matrix and relives
his ancestral memories of his surprisingly murderous forefathers. Hes doing this because the Assassins are still
fighting the Templars who are Abstergo and they need the Pieces of Eden to find out about the aliens under the
Vatican and the Reapers are coming back and only Commander Shepard can stop them and a bunch of other
framing sequence nonsense that I cant be bothered with.
This dude, on the other hand?

Thats Ezio, and he makes the whole thing worth it. Therell occasionally be a glimmer of a cool idea in Desmonds
story, but because youre spending most of the time with the characters that are one layer deeper, theyre naturally

the characters that have more depth and that you can more easily identify with. As a result, Ezio Auditore Da
Firenze, the star of AC2, Brotherhood and Revelations, became one of my all-time favorite video game characters.
His character arc is one that I find incredibly fascinating, and while this might surprise you guys, its not because
hes a wealthy young man who watches his parents get murdered and then devotes his life to the cause of justice.
My affection for that character arc is well handled elsewhere, and in Assassins Creed, its actually a really small part
of what I like about Ezio.
Instead, its the idea of seeing him growing and changing as he got older that hooked me. His arc in the games takes
place over the course of 35 years, and they do a surprisingly good job of showing how much he changes over that
time. For a game so decidedly rooted in beautifully rendered murders, the things that really stick out for me are
moments like seeing Ezio as a young lover in ACII and not to get all Tumblr on everybody or anything, but there
is nothing you can tell me that will convince me he and Leonardo Da Vinci were not meant to be read as More Than
Friends. Then theres the moment where he gets his heart broken by Caterina Sforza in Brotherhood and tries to
play it off, an extremely brief, blink-and-youll-miss-it sadness that marks his transition from the passion of his
younger life into the obsessive devotion to his mission, or his return in Revelations as an older man struggling with
his weariness and whether hes past his prime. Admittedly, it doesnt quite address the fact that Ezios bones
should be ground to dust after 35 years of jumping off roofs in a time when medical science was more or less
limited to leeches, but still. Theres a consistent arc to it; you can see why the older Ezio is so blissfully oblivious
when Sofias inviting him to picnics and he just wants to talk about killing dudes. Hes not the younger man whod
pick up on her signals anymore.
The end of Brotherhood is meant to be this big shocking twist for the framing sequence, and again, it was set
dressing. I had no emotional connection to it. But Ezio? I could not wait to pay Ubisoft even more money to get the
little animated short film that showed how he ended up.
Beyond that, theres just a bunch of other stuff I like about it. As an extremely mild history buff, Im fascinated by
the way the games use real-life historical events as the basis of the action. Hearing that all of Altairs targets were
historical figures that actually had been assassinated or gone missing during the time period was originally what
drew me to the series, even if it wasnt enough to keep me around.
That honor goes to the way the stories veer off the rails of history into complete bat-s**t lunacy. The motto of the
Assassins the Assassins Creed, if you will that Ezio keeps wandering around telling everyone for three
games is Nothing is true; everything is permitted, and that seems to be the writing staffs guideline for dealing with
history. Theres just enough there thats based on fact to make you want to go out and buy some books about the
Renaissance, but when they get weird, they go for it in the most gloriously bizarre way that they possibly can.
In short, the history buff in me likes seeing Pope Alexander VI show up, but the fan of crazy high concepts loves
that you get into a fistfight with him where he tries to kill you with his magic Pope staff and then you go talk to the
aliens in the holodeck under the Vatican. Spoiler warning.
Theres also the goofy video game logic that creeps in every now and then, like how Altair is hailed as a brilliant
master assassin for taking four hundred years to come up with an idea like hey, maybe we should
carry two blades. Thats always fun, but all told, the gameplay, the strong characters and the storytelling make up
about 90% of what I really love about those games.
The other 10%? That one NPC who says Ive never seen a stranger man. Love that dude.
Read More: Ask Chris #127: Assassins Creed | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-127-assassinscreed/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #125: The Greatest Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons

by Chris Sims October 19, 2012 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions and as Halloween approaches, we make those questions spoooooky.

Q: What are the best monsters in the D&D Monster Manual? @doubting_tom
A: Around this time every year, I become slightly more obsessed with monsters than I am for the rest of the year,
but this question has taken things into a whole new direction. Its pretty standard to go through all the reasons why
Draculas, Wolfmans and assorted Frankensteins are interesting or relevant, but when you start talking about the
monsters that pop up in roleplaying games, theres an entirely different set of factors determining how they
interact and what they represent.
Mostly, its just that wizards are f**king weird. But Ill get back to that in a second.

Before we go any further, I want to own up to the fact that I dont actually
have a Monster Manual handy, so instead, Im going to be using the Pathfinder Bestiary. For those of you who may
not know, Pathfinder was the game that came out of D&D rebooting into its 4th Edition, essentially streamlining the
existing 3.5 system that traded video game-style simplicity for a more robust customization that allowed for you
know what? This may actually be too nerdy for the weekly Q&A column on a comic book news site. Just rest
assured that its basically the same thing and we can all move on.

The thing about monsters in an RPG is that they represent a completely different thing than their counterparts do
in virtually every other medium. The best monsters, the ones that we all remember and enjoy reading or watching
movies about, always tend to be very symbolic, whether its Dracula luring chaste young women away from their
stuffy boyfriends or zombies as a metaphor for the inescapable inevitability of death. In an RPG, they dont really
mean those things. Theyre reduced to a set of stats and abilities that are designed to give the players an enjoyable
and interesting challenge.
That might sound a little dismissive, but thats just a function of how the game works. A doppelgnger in D&D isnt
a weird, unsettling omen of death for anyone who sees it, its a challenge suitable for a party of four Level 3 player
characters. Its been stripped of its context so that you can drop it into a game of your own, and theres no intrinsic
meaning to it other than what the GM and the players assign to it, usually in the form of a plot twist about how the
local baron was actually dead the whole time! Even dragons, the iconic symbol of the entire fantasy genre, dont
really represent the ultimate foe that can be slain by warriors of uncommon nobility and purity of heart; theyre
color-coded and arranged into size categories so you know which ones you should be fighting at any given time.
Of course, that blindness to symbolism can have its downside, especially when you start considering that its a
pretty standard strategy to take an existing Good Guy race, give em black skin and declare them to be a wholly evil
population that should be wiped out immediately if not sooner. Seriously, did nobody stop for a second to think
through the concept of dark elves and realize that it was a little problematic?
Anyway, thats a topic for another time. What matters is that you have to take a different approach to thinking
about these things, and as mentioned above, there are factors to take into account that go far beyond any symbolic
intent that these creatures may have had when they were created. And the first one is that monsters
are everywhere.
Lets be honest here: In the real world, if you saw a two foot-tall green thing running at you with a butcher knife
screaming about how it wanted to feed your blood to Tiamat or whatever, you would lose your mind. In D&D and its
extended family of games, however, goblins are just something youre going to have to deal with if you ever plan on
going outside at all. And thats not just in those untamed wilds between the flickering lights of civilization, either.
Got a tree in your backyard? Chances are pretty good that theres a Dryad living there rent-free, assuming of course
that the tree itself is not actually capable of getting up and wandering around looking for something to punch,
which it probably is. Ever see an old trunk up in the attic? Well if grandma had class levels, that thing is probably a
mimic, just waiting for you to go up there looking for an extra blanket. Its a pretty nightmarish world of constant
danger, where you are no more than, say, ten minutes away from a giant brain with chicken legs trying to eat you at
any given time:

But at the same time, that dangers actually pretty easy to deal with. Your average farmer (6 HP at Level 1) is fully
capable of being stabbed right in the face with a dagger and cold walking it off, and thats before you even throw
adventurers into the mix. If even 1% of the population is devoted to wandering around killing green people for
money and it makes sense that they would be, since fantasy RPGs tend to have a pretty solidly murder-based
economy then a town with 200 people in it most likely has at least one person capable of literally resurrecting
the dead once per day.
As a result, you have to look at things a little differently than we do. Much like superhero comics, RPGs treat death
as more of an inconvenience than anything else. For a player character, its pretty easy to wander back from the
afterlife, and even if its not, you can just roll up another one and be waiting at the next tavern. Thats why the most
feared D&D monster isnt one thatll kill you, its one that goes after what really matters: Your stuff.
Thus: the Rust Monster. Better known (in my gaming circles at least) as the Dick Move.

Seriously, a vampire might drain your corpse of blood and resurrect it as an undead puppet, sent to battle the
friends that you once trusted with your life and force them to destroy your body, but a Rust Monster? It eats your
armor and your weapons! Do you have any idea how many home invasions uh, I mean, dungeon crawls you
have to go on to get a +2 flaming burst longsword? All that fun you had with your friends was all for nothin, man!
The Rust Monster also illustrates the third important factor in D&D monsters, which is that the world operates on
an extremely well-defined set of rules, and while nobody in the game tends to mention that, the people
designing it are extremely aware of that fact. Because of that, those monsters that are scattered all over the world
tend to operate on truly bizarre principles. The Rust Monsters entire strategy for survival is to stand around
waiting for someone to come along and hit it with a weapon, and I dont care how fast it can eat a broadsword, that
road leads to a mass extinction toute de suite.
The same goes for the aforementioned Mimic. It is a creature that somehow evolved to sit in forgotten tombs that
no one has ventured within for a thousand years, lined with sinister traps, disguised as a treasure chest in hopes
that someone will try to open it. That is seriously how that monster works.
Of course, evolution doesnt always have a hand in it, which brings us to the most important aspect of how
monsters developed. As mentioned above, wizards are f**king weird.
Not only does magic exist in the world of D&D, but its apparently been employed by complete and utter lunatics in
order to shape the very ecology of the world. And I know this because of The Owlbear.

The Owlbear is probably the second-greatest monster in the history of D&D, if only because it makes absolutely no
sense. As Rich Burlew pointed out in Order of the Stick, the premise of the Owlbear is taking a very fearsome, very
dangerous animal, the bear, and then combining it with a smaller, significantly less threatening animal, the owl.
The end result: Bear with feathers. Genius.
Its important to note that the Owlbear cannot fly. Its just a bear with completely nonfunctional, decorative
feathers, and it is genuinely heartbreaking that the person who came up with such a thing and then encouraged
millions of people to take it very, very seriously is not lauded as one of the true geniuses of our age. My favorite
part? That the actual, in-continuity reason for the Owlbears existence is literally I dunno, some crazy old wizard
did it. Really. I left the text in so you can see for yourself.
So, put all that together and what do we have? An extremely dangerous world where items are more valuable than
lives, that operates on a strictly defined set of rules, and that has been shaped by crazy people with access to
unlimited reality-altering magic. In a world like that, there can be no question of what is the greatest monster.
Its gotta be the Cube.

The Gelatinous Cube is amazing. If I had my way, Dungeons & Dragons would be retitled as Caverns & Cubes,
because some scaly, fire-breathing stack of nonsense has nothing on this thing. When you get right down to it, I
love it for the same reason that I love Jimmy Olsen, the character that could only exist in a world that had already
been defined by superheroes. Its the monster that could only exist in D&D, because it only makes sense in a world
that follows that kind of logic.
If youre not familiar with it, heres how the Gelatinous Cube works. It is, as you might expect, exactly what it says it
is: A 10 foot-tall cube made of a semi-sentient, self-propelling acidic ooze designed to patrol 10 wide corridors in
order to keep them free of dust, rodents, and the occasional adventuring party. And not only that, but its almost
transparent, so its a 10 tall mindless gelatin that can actually sneak up on you, and while its acid can dissolve
flesh, it leaves your weapons and armor clean and tidy so that it can deposit them later at a treasure horde.
This is soomething that can only exist can only have any sort of reason to exist whatsoever in a world in
which sprawling subterranean labyrinths designed to fit a grid system and owned by obsessive-compulsive neatfreak sorcerors are as common as, say, grass.
Its the wizardly equivalent of a Roomba. And that is fantastic in every sense of the word.
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Ask Chris #123: Mistakes Were Made

by Chris Sims September 28, 2012 12:30 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Whats the one thing about comics you have been wrongest about? @adampknave
A: Listen up, Adam: Just because you got your question answered in last weeks column, dont go getting all smug,
thinking you can just roll up in here casting aspersions on my character. Lets just get this out of the way right now,
for the record: I have never been wrong.
I have, however, been slightly mistaken.Usually, its because I tend to make snap judgment and assumptions about
things, which Im sure surprises everyone whos familiar with my work. The biggest one was when Kick Ass was
originally announced and I was initially really excited for it, because I assumed Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.
were going to get together for an over-the-top fight comic in the style of Wolverine: Enemy of the State (which is
still a high point of Millars career), rather than pandering to the lowest common denominator of bros with
expendable income and racist overtones that they ended up with.
There is, however, one opinion that I have on record that seems pretty dubious now that I look back on it. I actually
talked about it on last weeks episode of War Rocket Ajax, and it was one of the first in-depth comics reviews I ever
wrote.
Unfortunately, it was about how great Rob Liefeld and Jeph Loebs Captain America #1 was.

Complicating matters even further is the fact that I wrote this a) for a
school assignment where we had to write a five-paragraph essay defending a point of view, and b) as a rebuttal to
Kevin Smith, who gave the book a negative review during a guest spot onThe Anti-Gravity Room, a comics and video
game review show that used to air on the Sci-Fi Channel. If youre curious, you can watch it here with handy
Spanish subtitles thanks to the magic of the Internet. In my defense if theres any possible defense other than I
was 14 years old that I need to offer here Smith was reviewing an unfinished, unlettered preview copy, and his
argument included the phrase they took a superhero and made him a super-zero. So really, we were both on
some pretty shaky ground back then.
And the thing is, I really shouldve known better. I mean, the reason I was even into Captain America at the time is
because Id followed Mark Waid over from The Flash. Loeb and Liefelds run came hot on the heels of Waid and Ron
Garneys Man Without A Country storyline, which is unquestionably one of the underrated classics of the 90s,
clearly I liked some good comics at the time. Of course, I guess this was also the era where I considered Gen13 to be
the X-Men done right.
That original review has been lost to time, and the only things I really remember about it were that I thought it was
super-deep and symbolic that Loeb and Liefeld decided to set Captain Americas new origin in Philadelphia or as
I phrased it back then, his beloved Philadelphia because, you know, that was the nations first capital and stuff.
I should probably go ahead and say that 14-year-old Chris was pretty dumb about a lot of stuff.
Or was he? I mean, to be honest, Ive always just assumed that those Heroes Reborn comics werent very good, but I
havent actually gone back and re-read them in sixteen years. Maybe I was actually onto something way back in 9th
grade! Maybe Captain America #1 is an underrated gem that just gets a bad rap from the never-ending backlash
against the Rob! Maybe I was never really mistaken at all!
Theres only one way to find out.
Right from the start, things are not looking so good for Teen Chris. I had somehow completely forgotten that this is
a comic that opens with Jeph Loeb just straight up writing the Pledge of Allegiance in caption boxes over a
flashback:

Thats pretty rough, and even though this is an artifact from those crazy days when those Batman Halloween
stories with Tim Sale had us convinced that Loeb knew what he was doing, that probably shouldve been a sign that
we were eventually going to end up with stuff like Ultimatum.
As for the art Look. Im not the rabid Rob-hater that some people are, but Im not going to lie to you folks either:
There is some pretty dodgy art in this, and it does not take long to get there. Captain America looks bored out of his
mind standing there for his Joel Schumacher crotch close-up. And who wouldve thought that costume would look
so wrong without the A on his forehead? Besides Jack Kirby, I mean.

Once the Pledge has been recited and weve gotten through the morning announcements, the story kicks off with
Steve Rogers waking up with his wife and son. Really, thats a pretty solid everything you know is wrong! kind of
twist, even if anyone who has ever read a story before except my 14-year-old self, apparently knows exactly
how thats going to end up by the end of the issue. Spoiler warning: Theyre LMDs put there to reinforce Caps
delusion of a normal civilian life, which basically means that Heroes Reborn Cap definitely had sex with a robot at
some point.
Also, while some people jeer about feet and pouches, for me, the Robs signature will always be the way he draws
hair:

I dont even know what is going on with that stuff. Its like theres constantly a fan blowing from every conceivable
angle just off panel to keep it flowing in defiance of both gravity and the laws of man.
Anyway, after a truly horrifying cup of coffee

Steve heads off to work, and we run into the first major problem with this issue. For a Rob Liefeld jam, this thing
is slow. Usually, that guy has people parachuting into enemy bases and blowing things up by page three, but here,
its just one long interminable sequence of Steve Rogers going to work and telling his friends about these crazy
dreams hes been having until he eventually falls asleep for another flashback, this time set to God Bless America.
But hey, look! Its something good about this comic!

Rikki Barnes, a.k.a. Heroes Reborn Bucky! I mean, yeah, shes not really all that great here (or good at all), but, uh,
14 years later, shed go on to be pretty awesome as Nomad in a series that had a total readership of about six
people. Ask any of em, though, theyll tell you it was great. Sean McKeever and David Baldeon had the real 411 on
that one.
A few pages later, things finally start to get truly bizarre with the introduction of Master Man:

I try very hard to avoid all those clich jokes about feet when I talk about the Robs work, but man, that is definitely
a hoof at the end of Master Mans right leg.
Master Man (not to be confused with Master Mold, Master Pandemonium or Master P) is secretly leading an
organization called the World Party that, according to the news report heard on Exposition Radio earlier in the
issue, has opponents who claim they have ties to white supremacist groups. Just thinking out loud here, but when
the dude is up on stage with two swastikas on his chest, you can probably go ahead and refer to those claims as
facts.
For bonus creepy points, hes inexplicably running this whole thing out of an abandoned church. An abandoned
church with a basement that is fully armed with nuclear missiles.

This. Is. Amazing.

I honestly do not care that it makes absolutely no sense that at least five full-sized ICBMs are just sitting there at
the bottom of a staircase in a church that apparently leads to a cliff (?!), or that theyre just standing upright with
no apparent means to actually launch. It is too ridiculous not to love. Teen Chris had this part right.

Meanwhile, Cap meets up with an old army buddy from his secret past, Abe Wilson, who has had a hard time
finding him despite the fact that Cap appears to stand around eight feet taller than anyone else in the comic:

He hands over Caps shield, which shifts in size between frisbee and trash can lid from panel to panel. No
sooner is this done then a bunch of Nazis show up for no reason and blow up Abes house with an explosion so
intense that it turns the whole thing into a pile of little orange rocks. Fortunately for Cap, the shield protects him

from both explosions and tiny rocks. He breaks free with his clothes strategically torn to show off various kinds of
body hair, and cleans all the Nazis clocks for killing his new friend.

Sadly, Abe dies. Its all very emotional, although just what emotion, I couldnt tell you.
Thus, Cap is back, but before we leave, we take a trip to the Helicarrier to meet Heroes Reborn Nick Fury: Agent of
Heroes Reborn S.H.I.E.L.D., and oh dear God in Heaven what is going on with these two?

And thats where the first issue ends.

So yeah. I was really hoping something in there would help redeem that Freshman English paper, but there
aint no kind of good up in that thing. Ill just have to plead that I was young and didnt know any better, and point
out that I probably wrote that paper really fast after a weekend of playing Twisted Metal on PlayStation.
One other thing came out of the experience, though: When I suggested the topic of the paper to my teacher, he
rolled his eyes and told me hed let me get away with it this time, but that I really did need to grow up and stop
writing about comic books if I wanted to get anywhere in life.
Read More: Ask Chris #123: Mistakes Were Made | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-123-mistakes-weremade/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #122: The Legion of Super-Heroes

by Chris Sims September 21, 2012 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Please tell us which version of the Legion of Super-Heroes is best and why the Legion is awesome.
@adampknave
A: Whats the best Legion? Easy: the one that showed up on Smallville, of course. Next question.I kid, I kid. But the
question of ones favorite version of the Legion of Super-Heroes is a deceptively complex one. Its not just a matter
of team line-ups or creative teams, but the actual directions and themes explored by the franchise. The Legion has
been relaunched and repackaged more than anything else in the DC Universe a universe where the line-wide
reboot has become the go-to move and each time its based on different ideas of what these characters mean,
and what the future looks like. As much as they might be in the same continuity, the original Legion has a
completely different set of ideals that its exploring than the Dystopian Five Years Later Legion of the 80s, and
when Mark Waid and Barry Kitson threebooted the Legion in 2004, their stories were a reaction to a completely
different environment in comics than when they rebooted it the first time ten years earlier.
And because each version of the Legion is so thematically different than the others, the question of which ones
your favorite has a lot to do with which of those themes you find appealing. For me, theres no question, and Im
sure this wont surprise anyone: I love the original Silver Age Legion.
Part of that comes from the same reason that I love a lot of Silver Age books, in that its just full of bizarre
kookiness, with a sci-fi setting that allowed the creators to ratchet the weirdness up even higher than they did in
the regular line back in those days. Theres one story in the 60s where someones spying on the Legion and they
cant figure out who until they realize that theres a tiny little man living in Sun Boys ankle who was surgically
implanted there by one of their enemies when Sun Boy went to the dentist, and its hard to say if that was actually
the craziest thing they ever did in those stories.

But more than that, theres an optimism to it.

When I talked to him about writing the Star Trek / Legion crossover, Chris Roberson told me that one of the things
that attracted him to both franchises was that they both showed an optimistic future, and hes right. When you
think about the time when the Legion was created in 1958 and those years in the 60s when they grew in
popularity, that was the same time when people were building fallout shelters in the back yard and teaching school
kids to duck and cover under a school desk in the event of an atom bomb. Nuclear war wasnt just a possibility, it
was seen as something that was pretty muchinevitable, and that was reflected in the fiction of the time. This was
the dawn of the post-apocalyptic story, with increasingly grim visions of the future based on the destruction that
wed already seen.
But with Silver Age comics in general, and the Legion in particular, it was different. I imagine that the Comics Code
and a desire to not get any irate letters from parents about terrifying their children with visions of nuclear
holocaust were as much a motivating factor as any bright-eyed hope for the future when creators like Otto Binder
and Jerry Siegel approached it, but the fact remains that they showed us a future that was thriving.
The Legions 30th Century wasnt quite a utopia, but it wasnt a wasteland either. It was a glimpse of a future where
everything worked out okay, with a galaxy of strange aliens from even stranger worlds united behind Earth. Well,
okay, admittedly, they were less strange aliens and more a bunch of white people and one green dude, but the
sentiment was there. The very existence of that art deco skyline of the 30th century was a sign that we as a
civilization had made it through, even when it was under attack by computer robots.

Theres actually a story from 1964 the first appearance of Dream Girl, if you want to look it up where a few
Legionnaires take a one-panel field trip to a world that actually has been destroyed in an atomic war, but for them,

its a strange historical curiosity that theyre viewing from the outside. Its a might have been and not a definitely
will.
Of course, the fact that things worked out okay was to be expected. Even though we were in danger here in the real
world, the Legions future was descended from an Earth that had Superman protecting it, which points to another
great element of the team. They have that same aspirational element to them that I love about characters like
Robin and Jimmy Olsen, but its applied to an entire universe. The existence of the Legion is predicated on two
different ideas about Superman. The first is just that Superman is there to make sure that their future exists, and as
simple as that might sound, the fact that we see the end result of what he does makes his struggle in that NeverEnding Battle against evil mean something. A dystopian future means that he failed somewhere along the line and
that in the end, all of his good works didnt matter. A future thats bright and united, however, means that all of
those times he saved the world from Luthor or Brainaic actually counted for something, that there was something
out there to make it worthwhile.
And the second is that its those battles, and Superman specifically, that inspire the Legion to form and use their
powers to do the same thing he did. Its a pretty strong recommendation for his character that his legend and his
accomplishments last for the next thousand years, and it lends a power to the mythology of Superman. It
immediately puts him in the ranks of Hercules and Robin Hood, these figures that we still talk about a thousand
years (or more) after they first entered culture. It just does it in a way that we dont have to wait around to see if it
actually works out that way once 2958 rolls around.
Just as important as that, though, it casts the Legionnaires themselves as fans. Just like Jimmy Olsen, it brings the
idea that the readers themselves could be part of the story to the forefront, with the added wish fulfillment of
granting them super-powers and sending them off on their own adventures. Its something that Waid and Kitson
touched on in their Threeboot Legion, going as far as to have the characters actually sitting around reading Silver
Age comics and drawing inspiration from the adventures there to escape from the boring repetition of their world.
Which, incidentally, may be a metaphor for what was going on in the rest of the DC Universe at the time. Who
knows.
Anyway, that ties in with yet another element that I find really appealing, that springs right from the fact that
theyre so readily identifiable to the readers: The Legion are a bunch of kids. There are later versions where the
same characters have grown up, but for me, that doesnt work as well at all. It breaks one of the best metaphors of
the entire franchise, that theyre children, a group that symbolizes the future, who also literally represent the
future. Theyre the ones looking around at their world with fresh eyes and going Hey, we should all just be like
Superman. Adults with the exception of those who sit around thinking about funnybooks all day dont think
like that, but kids do, and the Legion are a bunch of kids who actually have the power to make that work.
Incidentally, I feel the same way about the X-Men not that there should never be grown-up X-Men, but that there
should always be some kind of emphasis on young characters and the school. The metaphor of evolution and the
newer, younger species arriving to possibly replace the old is just too good to pass up.
Speaking of the X-Men, I think its fair to say that thats a franchise that owes a lot to the Legion, and not just
because Dave Cockrum originally designed Nightcrawler and Colossus as Legionnaires before they were rejected
and sent packing across town to Marvel. Because it was set in the future and not bound to the rest of the DC
Universe, the Legion was free to build its own continuity, and it took a path of change and dynamism that you
didnt usually see in the Silver Age. Things didnt always end with a return to the Status Quo. Lightning Lad died,
came back, lost an arm, and had it replaced. New members joined. Prospective members were rejected and formed
their own teams. A third of Triplicate Girl was killed off permanently and she returned as Duo Damsel. Things
changed.
But the most important thing that the X-Men and most other comics about teenage superheroes lifted from the
Legion is that for the first time, kids with super-powers acted like actual kids. And by that, I mean that they
were massive jerks to each other.

And I love that about them.

I wrote about this once for a book of essays on the Legion called Teenagers From The Future (available now in
finer bookstores everywhere, tell your friends), but it really just boils down to this: When adults are jerks to each
other, theyre just jerks, but when kids are jerks its because theyre kids. Kids make up weird rules about things
and get unreasonably angry when someone breaks them. They form clubs with bizarre secret rules that they take
too seriously until they forget about them and never bring them up again. Theyre dicks to each other for no
discernible reason.
And that is exactly how the Legion conducts itself.
Maybe the best example of this is the occasional recruitment drives, which are literally just stories where
characters like Matter Eater Lad and Light Lass (she makes things less heavy!) sit around and tell other superpowered youths how much they suck:

I spent a good chunk of my youth attending public school, so I can go ahead and confirm that this is exactly what it
would be like if teenagers actually had super-powers. He can avert nuclear war, but even Superman cant make
kids stop being jerks to each other.
And they were jerks. Their very first appearance is based around going back in time to play a prank on this guy that
they idolize, and it just builds from there. At least one out of every three stories is some variation on that theme,
and they get weird with it. The first time Supergirl meets the Legion, they dont let her join because exposure to
Red Kryptonite has made her over 18 for like an hour. Keep in mind: this is a temporary condition and they
are time travelers. And occasionally, they just turn on each other, living out a kids idea of gender relationships:

Theres a lot of Legion runs that I love, but that original has never been topped for how much it appeals to me,
which might seem a little weird when you consider that I got into it around 2006 at the age of 24 after never
reading a Legion story in my life and not when I was the age where I actually shouldve been identifying with these
characters. But theres something there that I cant deny the appeal of, that combination of hopeful optimism and
kids being jerks, of Silver Age weirdness and emotional authenticity, and the pasts idea of what the future could be
if we all made it through
Read More: Ask Chris #122: The Legion of Super-Heroes | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-122-the-legion-ofsuper-heroes/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #121: Continuity And You

by Chris Sims September 14, 2012 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: How important is continuity? Should stories strive to maintain the timeline or is it okay if not everything
lines up? @drawesome86
A: It seems like I get some variation on this question a lot, and not surprisingly, its one that Ive given a lot of
thought to over the years. Continuity as a concept is both extremely important and extremely polarizing in the
world of superhero comics. There are people who think of it as something to be embraced and revered, and those
who see it as a set of shackles that we all need to get past for the sake of new stories, and to be honest, I dont think
either extreme is entirely wrong.
Because heres the thing: As a friend of mine put it, continuity is just a big word that means sh** makes
sense. Thats really all there is to it, and because of that, the idea of a continuity-free story is a myth. It doesnt
exist, because the moment you have a second issue that follows from the first, or a second page, or a second panel,
you have continuity. All it means is that things move logically in a sequence of events.
So in that respect, the part of your question about maintaining the timeline is one that I definitely think is
important. It all comes down to internal consistency: No matter how fantastical your story is, consistency within
the logic presented by the world around your characters is the only thing that really makes it possible to become
invested in it as a reader. You have to be able to believe that things matter and that these conflicts have
consequences. If things dont have some kind of logic, if they change from panel to panel or page to page for no
discernible reason, or because someone changed their mind halfway through a script, then you dont have any
reason to believe the consequence of the hero losing would be any different than a win. Things without a solid
continuity a solid internal logic dont feel like they matter.
Thats not always true, of course Axe Cop is incredibly enjoyable, and its based entirely on subverting your
expectations by throwing any semblance of logic right out the window. Thats where the comedy comes from,
distilling it down to the form of a story, but with events that play out on a scale of sheer weirdness that you get
with a hero who kills every bad guy on the planet with poison in one night. Then again, Axe Cop is not a character
that its really easy to sympathize with and relate to, and most superhero stories arent exactly structured like Axe
Cop. If nothing else, most mainstream comics writers dont have the excuse of being seven years old.

The point is, all continuity is just a fancier term for that logical consistency. But at the same time, thats not really
the capital-C Continuity that people tend to mean when they talk about comics. That Continuity is the seventy
years of stories that form the basis of modern superhero comics, full of minutiae and details that have been
obsessively catalogued by fans who write blistering reviews on the Internet (and before that, to letters pages)
about how this issue is a fail because, um, actually? The Thing and Ghost Rider met in Marvel Two-In-One #8, so
maybe you should get your facts straight or die in a fire.
Thats the Continuity people tend to not like.
But when you get right down to it, its really the exact same thing, just on a much larger scale. Thats where the
problems come in, but in all honesty, the fans arent the ones to blame for it, because theyre not the ones who
decided to put numbers on the covers and assure people that these things were meant to be read in sequence as
part of a larger, cohesive universe. Its the companies that did that, and if that universe is going to be a selling point
which it is, because otherwise they wouldnt be able to tout stories that were going to Change The Universe
Forever then making sure it feels like a universe, with consistent logic across the board, is part of the
responsibility that goes along with that.
Ive yammered on and on about the illusion of fiction before, but the short version is that continuity is what allows
you to suspend your disbelief and believe in what youre reading. The more cracks you have, the easier it is to see
through that illusion. Once youve done that, you just dont care.
Its one of the reasons Ive been having such a hard time caring about most DC comics lately, even the ones I liked
when we read the entire line last year. DC as a company has ditched their continuity so many times over the course
of their publishing that smacking that reset button has become their go-to move every time they start lagging
behind Marvel in sales. If the people who publish and sell the comics are willing to just throw everything under the
bus as stuff that no longer matters, then why should I bother when they tell me this stuff does? And whats to stop
them from declaring that their current line is equally pointless whenever the next regime rolls in with a mandate to
boost sales? Im sure that theres the potential for everything to shake out and give us some great stories, just like
the DC Universe that I fell in love with when I was younger that came out of Crisis and Zero Hour, but right now,
were still too close to it for me to see it as anything but an annoyance.
Also, it doesnt really help that their flagship title is hot garbage.
Dont get me wrong: Im usually of the mind that the creators should be the main draw, and there are a few current
DC comics that I like in spite of the company seeming to be dead set on making me forget that I ever liked their
stuff, because those creators are doing genuinely good work thats engaging and exciting. But character and setting
are extremely important elements in any story, and when the characters feel like retreads and the setting is a
universe thats muddled and confused, youve got an uphill climb to create an appealing project.
And thats one of the biggest problems with that Capital-C continuity. Its not just a matter of facts, its a matter of
taste. For something thats been created and enjoyed by so many different people over the years, the idea of

continuity is something thats weirdly personal. The decisions about what counts and what doesnt are so closely
tied into a specific persons taste on every level. Creators write stories that they think are good, editors suggest
changes to get rid of the stuff they dont think works, and even we the fans form our own mental lists of what
matters to us.

We all construct a personal continuity that doesnt always match up with

the official version. A few days ago, someone asked me if I was reading every current Batman title, because as
you may have heard I like Batman a lot. The answer is no, Im really just reading Batman and Batman
Incorporated. Those are the two I like, and the others dont really interest me, so as far as Im concerned, they dont
really count. For me, the specific details of Batman in a given month matter a lot less to me than the way
overarching themes shake out over the long term, and how specific issues add to and reinforce those things. But
thats just me.
Because there are so many stories that approach things from different angles by different people living decades
apart, there are conflicts of all sizes in the Continuity. With contradictions, everything cant count, so everyone
tends to build their own personal continuity, and a lot of the conflict between readers and creators arises from the
fact that everyonesis different. Batman throwing a car battery at a guy matters a lot to me because it was in my
favorite comic when I was six, but theres a pretty good chance that nobody else actually cares. If you write a
Batman comic that contradicts Batmans battery-chucking ways, I guarantee you I will write a pretty angry review.
Also, lets be honest, if you write a Batman comic that somehow manages to contradict his battery-throwing ways,
youre probably doing it just to piss me off.
Another example: Kelly Sue DeConnick, who actually said the phrase Continuity is the devil when she was a guest
on War Rocket Ajax, has also said that in her run on Captain Marvel shes going to pretend like that whole crazy
nonsense with Marcus never happened. I am 100% okay with this, but comics being what they are, Im sure some
dude is sitting around reading Captain Marvel and wondering why they havent gotten around to talking about that
weird-ass baby that Carol Danvers gave birth to and then space-married.
And it gets even more complex because the same kind of elements that seem important for one character might not
be for another. Just look at Captain America: Anyone who says that its not important for Cap to be rooted in World
War II is wrong. Theres no other event that would shape him the same way, nothing else that would match the
poetry of a super-soldier created to face the greatest threat the world had ever seen, who vanished and then reemerged at the dawn of the modern Marvel universe when his country needed him the most. There are themes
there that this specific piece of his origin reinforces; Joe Simon and Jack Kirby defined that guy with the very first
image of him, where hes punching Hitler right in the face.
But what about the Punisher? Is it as necessary for him to be rooted in the Vietnam war? There are a lot of stories
a lot of good stories that have unambiguously placed him as a soldier during Vietnam, but there are plenty of
other stories also good that violate that by showing him as being far too young to have served in that war. So
does it matter more that he served in Vietnam specifically, and that hes now pushing 70? Or does it matter more
that he served in a war, and came back to find the peaceful life he fought for taken away from him by unchecked
violence?
Greg Rucka would say the latter. Ive never spoken to him about it, but judging by his work on the character, Garth
Ennis might say the former. But both of them have written good comics about the character, and whats more,

Frank Castle himself still feels like the same person across both. Theres a consistency and a logic to what he does,
even when the details might not match. Both writers may have started from different premises, but they were able
to synthesize what they felt mattered about the character, and omit the stuff they didnt think worked, and because
theyre working with a pretty high level of skill and talented collaborators, they end up with good comics.
You cant ignore Continuity in superhero comics. If you do, all youre doing is creating a new Continuity that
someone else is going to have to decide whether to ignore or not, and you also run the risk of just telling the same
story over and over and over again, like all the endless permutations on Claremont and Byrnes X-Men that have
cropped up since, or how everyone who writes Superman seems to want to do a General Zod story, even if it has
nothing to do with the one that just happened two years before. But at the same time, its not a set of shackles. Its a
foundation to build on.
Of the two options you presented, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. Nothings ever going to line up exactly if
youre working on a character on the scale of Superman or Batman or Spider-Man, but its every bit as important to
make sure that youre doing something that makes sense, both for the characters themselves and for the universe
in which they live. Sometimes, that means addressing the fact that theyve done things in the past, and sometimes it
means not getting bogged down by it, heaping so much pointless minutiae into the story that you lose sight of what
that story actually is.
In the end, thats what continuity really is: Not messing it up. And that can be a lot harder than it sounds.
Read More: Ask Chris #121: Continuity And You | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-121-continuity-andyou/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #118: Whats So Great About Jimmy Olsen?

by Chris Sims August 24, 2012 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Why do you consider Jimmy Olsen one of the best characters in comics history? That might have
sounded kind of derisive or snarky, but Im genuinely curious to hear your take on the character.
@jameymcdermott
A: If youve been reading this column for a while, youve probably seen me mention that the three greatest comic
book characters of all time are Spider-Man, Batman and Jimmy Olsen. Most people tend to at least see where Im
coming from with the first two, but that third choice tends to raise a few eyebrows. I stand by it, though: Jimmy
Olsen is one of the greats.
Why? Because hes the kind of character that could only exist in super-hero comic books, and embodies the

ideas behind that universe in a way no other character does.

That
might seem a little counterintuitive when you consider that comics arent Jimmys native medium. For those of you
who arent aware, Jimmy Olsen is basically his generations Harley Quinn, but without the legions of cosplaying
SuicideGirl fans: He first appeared on the Adventures of Superman radio show as a minor character with an
annoying catchphrase (Super-Duper!) so that Superman could have the occasional conversation with someone
who wasnt Lois Lane, and proved to be popular enough among fans that he made the transition back into the
comics.

Thats where he really became his own character, especially once he got his own series in 1954. The very existence
of that comic is one of my favorite things about Superman, because there was a time when that dude was so
popular that a guy was able to get a comic that lasted 163 issues more, if you count its transition into Superman
Family in 1974 just by virtue of being Supermans Pal. And it makes perfect sense that it would, too, because
Jimmy Olsen is one of the most perfect wish-fulfillment characters in comics history.
The most perfect, of course, is Billy Batson, the little kid that says a magic word and turns into a super-powered
grown-up who still thinks like a little kid and has a talking tiger for a best friend whose bright orange hair, green
jacket, red bowtie and tendency to be written into wacky adventures by Otto Binder might seem a little familiar.
But while Captain Marvel was a literalized power fantasy for kids, Jimmy Olsen takes a completely different route
to wish-fulfillment: Hes the original Mary Sue.

Jimmys basically a kid hes usually referred to as a teenager, even

though he has his own apartment and no parents to speak of until around 1969, when you find out his dad is Silver
Age Indiana Jones but hes got a cool, grown-up job and hes so awesome that Superman is his best friend! Not
Batman, not Wonder Woman, not those jerks in the Legion of Super-Heroes, but Jimmy Olsen, a regular kid just like
you.
Its something that I think a lot of people can intrinsically relate to. Everyone has a desire for approval from the
people they respect, and when youre a kid, those people tend to be the authority figures in your life. Parents,
teachers, older brothers and sisters, those are the people who you want to look at you and say hey, good job, and
its very easy for Superman to become a fictional surrogate for that role. Not only is he the most powerful person in
the world, but hes also the actual best from a moral standpoint, someone who only uses his powers for the benefit
of others. Hes the ultimate authority figure.
Im pretty sure thats why he spent so much time back in the Silver Age pulling those elaborate pranks on Jimmy
and Lois in order to teach them lessons about relatively minor character flaws. If you look at it from the standpoint
of someone for whom rearranging planets is as easy as walking down the street, it makes a little more sense than
the idea that hes just some weird alien sadist. Theyre practical lessons meant as moral instruction, delivered in a
memorable way on a scale on par with what hes able to do, and sometimes that means forcing your best friend to
marry a gorilla.

I didnt become a big Jimmy Olsen fan until I was in my 20s, but his aspirational role for kids is definitely one I can
relate to. Surprising no one, Batman was my hero when I was a kid, but as Ive mentioned before, I never really
wanted to be Batman. I wanted to be Robin, because thats who gets to hang out with Batman. It wasnt until I got
closer to my teens that I really started to identify with the heroes mainly Spider-Man and the X-Men, which are
almost scientifically designed to appeal to the melodrama of your teenage years. As those characters show us,
being the hero comes with a lot of responsibility. Youre always having to go and fight crime and use your abilities
to help others, and even at the best of times, that can be a real drag. The sidekick, though? Thats just far enough on
the sidelines that you get all the fun and none of the worry. Sometimes you get beaten to death with a crowbar, yes,
but for most of it, the responsibility lies with someone else, and you just get the benefits.
Which is exactly how Jimmy Olsen works. He has adventures. Hes been to space. He occasionally gets superpowers, but only long enough to have fun with before they fade away. He has his own fan club, which is a pretty
amazing example of his status as an aspirational character. Hell, he went back in time and brought down the
Nazis from the inside!

He was also Marco Polo in a past life. Seriously: Jimmy Olsen had a lot going on in the 60s, and that adaptability is
another thing that makes him so great.
Which brings us back around to the idea that Olsen is a character that could only exist in super-hero comics. That
might seem obvious, what with the fact that hes a supporting cast member in a super-hero comic, but other
prominent characters arent quite as tied to the medium. Superman didnt need super-hero comics, as evidenced by
the fact that super-hero comics didnt actually exist when he was created. Batman and Robin were directly
descended from the pulps, and probably wouldve worked just as well there if Bob Kane had actually been able to
string enough words together to form a dime novel.
Olsen, however, is one of the earliest characters who emerged into a fully-formed universe, and experienced that
universe by the rules that werent created for him. Hes a normal guy who operates in a world built for Superman,
and the way that all plays out is fascinating.
But more than that, he had to exist not just in comics, but in Silver Age comics specifically. He needed to be shaped
by a world that had that kind of, for lack of a better word, purity in its intentions and boundless imagination that
still rigorously adhered to its own bizarre logic. I wont say that Jimmy Olsen stories are the best of the Silver Age,
or even the most evocative of what made storytelling in that era so distinct the Weisinger era of Superman and
those early Legion of Super-Heroes stories are both more likely candidates for that but as a character, hes
certainly the most pure product of his time.
You can see how those ideas all fit together in the way that Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen plays out as a series. At
first, theres an attempt to build Jimmy as a standard hero. Hes essentially played as What if Clark Kent didnt
have super-powers, to the point where hes even given his own sidekick: Jumbo Jones, the portly pilot of the Daily
Planets Flying Newsroom:

But as the series goes on and Otto Binder replaces Jack Schiff as the go-to Olsen writer and infuses the series with
more of that Captain Marvel-style weirdness, things take off. Jimmy becomes a character unto himself, and
Superman starts taking more of that authoritarian role. You even start to get beautiful metaphors that blend with
the tapestry of the larger Superman mythos.
The very idea of Jimmys famous Signal Watch, for instance, isnt just a nice storytelling tool to bring Superman in
at a moments notice (though it certainly makes things more convenient). Its also a powerful metaphor that shows
the modern Lex Luthor argument about how Supermans presence on Earth is stunting humanitys growth as a
species to be the lie that it is. The watch gives Jimmy Olsen the ability to literally summon Superman to solve any of
his problems, but he doesnt rely on it for the simple reason that if he does, we get a boring story. Instead, Jimmy is
built to understand, as we all should, that Superman is there to do the things we cant, and with that understanding,
hes inspired to do his best to solve everything, pushing humanity to the limits of what it can achieve, before
Superman gets called in.
Thats a beautiful aspect of Supermans character, the inspirational aspect of his role as an authority figure, thats
often lost in more recent attempts to make him relatable or less perfect or f***ing unreadable, which
unfortunately seems to be the goal most of the time. And its one that Jimmy, as a stand in for the reader, brings out
in a way thats both easy to understand and fun to read.
In a lot of ways, Jimmy Olsen is the Silver Age, all of its excesses and strange rules and metaphors and inspirations
brought together in a perfect snapshot of the time. And that might be why creators in other eras have such a hard
time working with him, even in a genre thats steeped in nostalgia.

You can see a lot of that evidenced by Jack Kirbys run on the book. I was
talking to Benito Cereno the other day about where to draw the line between the various ages of comics, and I told
him that for me, you can make a clean break between the Silver Age and the Bronze Age right there in October of
1970 and Kirbys debut in Jimmy Olsen #133.
Dont get me wrong: I like those comics a lot, but theyre not really Jimmy Olsen stories. Theyre Kirby stories, and
Kirby seems supremely unconcerned with Jimmy Olsen as a character and far more interested in those big ideas
that dominate his work. As a result, Jimmys barely more than a background character to the adventures of the
Newsboy Legion clones, the Hairies, the Weirdies, the Wild Area, Transilvane (the planet so evil that it has devil
horns), Darkseid and, of course, Goody Rickels. Jimmys just sort of along for the ride, a bit player whose name just
happens to be on the cover because Kirby told DC hed take their worst-selling book and make it their best.
And the thing is, as soon as Kirbys pencil touches the paper, the Jimmy that was is pretty much done. Even after he
leaves and Jimmy goes back to adventuring in the days of Marco Polo, he feels like a different character, existing in
a different kind of world.Once Kirby has arrived, theres just no going back to the Silver Age.
In that respect, Jimmy Olsen works as a microcosm of comics as a whole. Kirby (and Stan Lee, and Steve Ditko, and
John Romita, and so on) changed super-hero storytelling on a fundamental level with what they did at Marvel in
the 60s, and after Kirbys arrival, DC pretty much spent the rest of the 70s catching up. Thats kind of what DC
does. ONeil, Adams, Englehart and Rogers restructured Batman into the form that we know him today, ONeil and
Bates took Superman into different kinds of stories, the Justice Leagues adventures got bigger and more
threatening under Conway, Dillin and Perez, and so on. By the time they restructured the universe in an attempt to
make it more modern in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Jimmy Olsen was basically tossed out of comics with the exception
of an occasional IP-servicing appearance; he didnt have the romance aspect that kept Lois Lane as a thriving
character, and everything that made him great didnt fit with attempts for more realistic stories.
And why should they? He doesnt live in the real world. He lives in a world where his best friend is a flying alien
who can juggle cars. He lives in a world where lightning strikes and nuclear meltdowns tend to create wisecracking
do-gooders and not just third-degree burns. And for a world like that, no matter what era those stories are set, hes
the perfect character for it.
Read More: Ask Chris #118: Whats So Great About Jimmy Olsen? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-118whats-so-great-about-jimmy-olsen/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #117: Why I Hate Video Games

by Chris Sims August 10, 2012 1:30 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: What do you have against video games? You use even highly acclaimed ones (like the Arkham series
and Max Payne) as a watchword for bad storytelling, with no further explanation evidently needed. Why
the hate? Ben, via email
A: Ive gotten a lot of Ask Chris questions over the past few years, but I think this is the first one Ive been
absolutely mystified by. I mean, usually when people are mad at me because I hate something which is often
its an opinion that I actually have. You might as well ask me what I have against pro wrestling and why I seem to
hate this Batman guy so much.
Then again, its not like Im short of opinions on how bad storytelling can wreck a video game. And that, Im sure,
surprises no one.I dont get to talk about video games too often here at CA unless theyre tied into comics my
glowing, three-years-too-late review of the glorious 50 Cent: Blood On The Sandwas literally a Valentines Day
present from former editor Laura Hudson but Ive written a lot about them elsewhere, and Im fascinated by
how storytelling works in the medium and how its tied to the development of technology. I first got an NES when I
was five, and just in the 25 years since, theyve gone from the simplest possible plots like go right, kill bad guy,
save princess and/or world to complex, sweeping narratives with multiple outcomes determined by decisions
that are made by someone completely separate from the creators. Thats pretty amazing.
As obvious as it is, thats the element that really defines video games: Interactivity. Even the simplest game with
the simplest story is built to give the players a level of agency that nothing else can do. When youre describing, for
example, a Batman story to your friends, its always about how Batman beat the Joker; theres a level of detachment
to the events even before you get around to discussing the creators. With video games, its I beat the Joker.
I saved the princess. I got to level 19 before the stupid computer stopped giving me long pieces. Even if its
someone elses character, youre the one having the experience, and because of that, the audience is a necessary
factor in completing the story.
But thats also where a lot of the trouble comes in.
Ive never done it, but I imagine creating a video game is monumentally difficult, because there are so many
different aspects warring with each other for importance, and if any one of them goes bad it can tank the whole
thing. The most important part of any game is gameplay you have to be able to actually play it to get anything
else out of it, after all but as technology has advanced to allow for more complex storytelling, thats often just as
important. Thing is, when your story requires the audience to actively participate in its completion, theres often a
built-in conflict between what makes a great story and what makes a great game.

Which brings us to the Arkham games, specifically Arkham City. I actually love that
game back when it came out, I wrote what I thought was an overwhelmingly positive review of it with a couple
of complaints about dialogue but the story that youre playing through in it is an absolute mess. It might
actually be one of the best examples of how gameplay can be at odds with storytelling, starting with the way that
both Arkham City and its predecessor, Arkham Asylum, have the annoying tendency to ramp up the drama by
having the bad guys just straight up slaughter all the good-guy NPCs. Since a good portion of the game is built
around challenging you as a player to save people, the fact that they just end up dying anyway lessens those
accomplishments, making them seem ultimately pointless.
In a lot of ways, it also suffers from some of the same problems that I have with Hush. Mainly, it also includes Hush.
But more than that, both stories try to be too much at once. They throw in every villain they can fit, which just ends
up making things muddled and lessening their dramatic impact. The climax, for example, involves a sequence of
something like five separate fake-out moments, where each big reveal is even more improbable than the last. And
thats after you spend the entire game fighting a whole roster of super-villains. It doesnt focus on anything enough
to make one moment seem more important than the last, and frequently makes absolutely no sense.
But its still a great game, and again, its that gameplay/storytelling conflict that saves it. As a Batman fan, I want to
see all those bad guys show up on my TV screen, and as someone who likes playing the game the actual act of
pushing a button to make Batman punch a dude in the face I want to fight a bunch of different bad guys in
interesting environments. Its fun. Does it make sense for there to be an entire bizarre steampunk city underneath
Gotham City? No. Does it make sense for the city to have walled off a museum full of exhibits and left it to be
overrun by criminals? No. None whatsoever. But, it makes for a very interesting place for Batman to swing around
and do karate, so Ill roll with it because its fun.

The same thing happened with Arkham Asylum, too. The Joker as a character isnt really a physical threat. He exists
to challenge Batman on a mental and moral level, because Batmans always going to win in a physical
confrontation. Side note: Remember that scene in The Dark Knight where Batmans trying to beat information out
of him in the interrogation room and the Joker is taunting him by telling him you have nothing to do with all your
strength? So great. But unfortunately for the storyline of Arkham Asylum, playing out a moral victory is actually
pretty boring. Press A to be a better person might work in your quirky XBLA puzzle-platformers (more on those
in a minute), but Arkham Asylum was built around combat. Its an entire game about making Batman beat the living
hell out of people in ways that are fun to watch, but because its all building to a conflict between Batman and the
Joker, they have to do something to cap it off.
So they have the Joker turn himself into a big strong monster and then Batman beats him by punching him with a
punch that is also a bomb.
That is dumb. That is dumb as hell. That is, like, Axe Cop levels of did a five year-old write this?
But (much like Axe Cop), its also pretty fun. It makes for an enjoyable experience, if not a great story, and in those
games, the story is very clearly a secondary concern thats just there to provide a reason to get form one set-piece
to another. In that respect, its fine, but it aint exactly a narrative triumph.

It can go the other way, too. Im a huge, huge fan of the Phoenix
Wright games, but when you get right down to it, theyre barely even games. Most of the interactivity is limited to
pushing the next button to manually advance the story and occasionally guessing as to which piece of evidence
needs to be presented, to the point where I think Capcom couldve saved us all a lot of time if theyd just put those
things out as illustrated novels instead. But then, I love that story so much that Im willing to jump through
whatever hoops they put in front of me to get more of it and when the same developers created Ghost Trick, they
managed to hit that sweet spot of gameplay and storytelling a lot better.
Sadly, games that are good enough to make up for their flaws tend to be few and far between. For every game thats
so fun to play and has such a great aesthetic that you stop caring whether or not anything youre doing follows any
kind of logic at all (Bayonetta) or that are compelling enough to make you want to keep going even though it
crashes and corrupts your save file all of the God-damned time (Fallout: New Vegas), theres one where the
disconnect between storytelling and gameplay wrecks the entire thing.
For me, the most recent example of the latter is Braid, the critical darling from 2008 that I only got around to a few
months ago. I. Hate. That. Game. Not because of the gameplay, which was, for the most part, extremely clever,
elegant and fun to play, or because of the difficulty (although I did think that sections of it went well beyond
reasonable and into intentionally frustrating), but because of the story that was built inextricably into the
whole experience.
On one level, I respect what game developer Jonathan Blow was doing with it. The new trend of retro-styled puzzle
platformers seems to be the product of a desire to get back to that go right, beat bad guy, save princess era where
the focus was on gameplay with a minimum of storytelling, to the point where theyre recycling a lot of those old
tropes, both ironically and sincerely. 2010s Limbo, for example (another game I just got around to and thought
was fantastic), is built entirely on gameplay and aesthetics, with a driving plot thats pretty much just find girl.
The idea of breaking down and examining the symbolism of the platform genre and what it means by
actually using all that stuff, the language of video games thats been built out of princesses and monsters and
literally overcoming obstacles between you and your goal, is great. But then Blow went and told a story
thats absolute bullsh**. Its muddled, the foreshadowing thats put in doesnt make sense, theres no unifying
logic to the symbolism, and the actual story elements that are given to you are the most trite and contrived things

this side of a first-year creative writing class. I seriously didnt know that a video game could actually be smarmy
before I played that thing, but here we are.
And because the story is so intwined (or braided, get it?) with the gameplay and what makes Braid so distinct, I
cant separate the two. I cant divorce the bits that I enjoyed from the bits that I didnt, because theyve been built to
support each other.

Its even worse because I got into Braid because I liked Fez, a game that
pulls the same trick of having a deceptively simple mechanic (you rotate the world to see four 2D sides to a 3D
environment) (also you can jump) (thats pretty much it) backed up by elegant, frustrating, compelling and
ultimately rewarding storytelling better than anything else thats tried. I realize that Im the one playing them out
of order Fez was only released this year, four years after Braid was such a huge success but still, Braid
definitely suffers by comparison.
And that finally brings us back around to the games that manage to do a great job combining storytelling and
gameplay. Theres the Mass Effect series, which I loved from start to finish, but also made for a truly fascinating
conflict between the audience, which had been incredibly involved in the completion of the story, and the creators,
who were ultimately the final arbiters of what that story was. Thats a game thats just full of insanely well-done
character work and interesting world-building, to the point where they actually created an entire race of sexy blue
doe-eyed space-bisexuals that were genetically driven to spend a third of their lives as go-go dancers and somehow
made it not the dumbest thing Ive ever seen.
Fallout 3 is another great one, particularly those early levels where youre dropped into an openly hostile
environment and have to scrounge for what few bullets you can find and often find yourself running from
something that will most definitely kill you with a feeling of genuine desperation. Plus, its got a gorgeous and
evocative aesthetic, both visually and musically, and gives you major choices that affect the world around you in a
way that a lot of games only flirt with.
And believe it or not, I really, really like the storytelling in Ezios arc of Assassins Creed. I only made it about an
hour into the first one, but AC2 fixed virtually every problem I had with the gameplay, to the point where it was an
absolute joy. Brotherhood in particular did a great job with theming, so that everything the gameplay allowed you
do to parkouring all over Rome and stabbing dudes was tied in with the story they were telling. I still could
not care less about Desmond, though, even if the idea of playing a video game about a dude playing a video game is
pretty hilarious.
Also? Lollipop Chainsaw. No joke.
And before anyone asks, first-person shooters make me dizzy, so Ive never played Portal, though I understand its
fantastic. Youll just have to hear how great it is from literally every other person on the Internet.
The one that really stands out for its treatment of storytelling and gameplay, though, is Red Dead Redemption,
even though I havent played it in a while.

The amazing thing isnt that it perfectly blends those two elements, but that it keeps the conflict between them, and
uses it to draw you deeper as a player. Its something that Rockstar experimented with in previous games. Theres
a great bit in Bully where the villain taunts you for wasting time on mini-games like bike races while he was off
consolidating his evil plan, and Grand Theft Auto IVs Niko Bellic is such a defined character that its actually
difficult for me as a player to rationalize doing everything that used to be fun about GTA, like driving over
pedestrians and blowing things up. The thought that popped into my head while playing was Niko wouldnt do
that, but Im literally the person controlling what Niko does and doesnt do.
Incidentally, for all the explosions murders, you go to Saints Row The Third, the single greatest video game in
human history. But that masterpiece is another column.
In Red Dead Redemption, the developers at Rockstar not only created that same conflict by putting the desires of
the player at odds with the desires of the character, they put the focus on it. All John Marston wants to do is go
home to his family, so in theory, I should be doing a speed run of that game to get him home as fast as possible.
Instead, theyve given me a gigantic open world of side-missions and collectible nonsense to explore. Thats what I
want to do, so, sorry John. Were doing what Chris wants to do, because you do not have an XBox controller in that
holster.
Thats pretty standard stuff, but then, the game actually takes it a step further. You get to the point where
Marstons goal is achieved and hes reunited with his family, but the game doesnt end. Its entirely possible to just
turn it off and stop playing right there, and if you do, John Marstons story has a happy ending. Its entirely up to
you, because again, youre the one with the controller. But because the game is telling you that you can continue,
the desire of the player is to do just that, even though anyone with even a passing familiarity of how storytelling
works knows what happens if you keep going once you get past the happy ending.
The whole thing is brilliant. Not just because its a well-written story with good characters, but because it uses a
level of interaction, choice, and completion on the part of the audience to tell that story. You dont get the on-screen
choices like you do in Mass Effect, but youre complicit in every step just by virtue of playing. Thats what makes a
great video game story, and its the same thing that makes a great comic, or a great film, or a great song: Doing
something thats impossible in every other medium, no matter how simple or complex, and doing it well.
So trust me: While there are definitely a bunch of em that I dont like, I do not hate video games, especially not
the Arkham series. As for Max Payne, I played it when it came out and thought it was fun and pretty goofily overthe-top. The only time I can find that Ive mentioned it on the site was when I clowned David Uzumeri for
comparing it to The Dark Knight, and you know what?
I stand by that one.

Read More: Ask Chris #117: Why I Hate Video Games | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-117-why-i-hatevideo-games/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #116: How To Talk To Your Kids About Hush

by Chris Sims August 3, 2012 1:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: Thanks to his appearance in LEGO Batman 2, my children are asking me to explain Hush to them. How do
I do this? @jason1749
A: Im not a parent, and its pretty rare that Im called upon to answer a question about raising a child, but I can
definitely understand the problem youre facing here. No father should ever have to explain a terrible Batman story
to his child. But sometimes, I guess it just cant be avoided, and when your kids find out about Hush, its up to you to

take responsibility.
As much as I enjoyed the game, I have to admit that it
was pretty irresponsible of Travellers Tales to include Hush as a playable character. I mean honestly, what kind of
message does that send to our kids? That starring in one of the most overrated comic stories ever printed is
something to be applauded or, even worse, emulated? Its no wonder these kids today are in such dire straits if
thats the kind of message theyre getting from so-called family friendly entertainment. Im not usually one to
romanticize the past, but it really does make me long for the good old days where Batman games were built around
more respectable characters, like psychopathic mass-murdering clowns, horrifically scarred schizophrenics or
kleptomaniac dominatrices.

But I guess whats done is done. As much as wed all like to protect children from knowing that Hush exists, he
does, and they were bound to find out sooner or later. It may actually be better that it happens this way. You have
the chance to be involved, and the last thing you want is for your kids to be learning about Hush on the street or,
God forbid, from Jeph Loeb and Jim Lees original story. That said, it does present quite a few problems, and for
most of it, youre going to be on your own. I do, however, have a few tips.
[Editors' Note: We probably don't even have to say this, but please do not follow Chris Sims's advice for raising your
children. He does not have great ideas about parenthood.]
First of all, dont lie to your kids. As tempting as it might be to avoid a tricky subject by making things up, the
trade-off is potentially losing their trust when they inevitably find out the truth. Theyre young now, but in a few
years, theyll be coming home with questions about all kinds of comics, and you need them to be able to trust you
when you tell them things like there are only 12 issues of Watchmen, no more.
Besides, pretty much anything you make up about that dude is going to sound way better than he actually is.
Seriously, if you tried to explain Hush just by looking at him and his goofy outfit of constant facial bandages and
Gambit-esque collar-popped trenchcoat?

You would most likely end up with Hush is a hard-boiled private eye who is also a pharaoh, preserved through the
art of mummification and animated by an ancient curse, and that actually sounds pretty awesome. Theres no way
your kids arent going to want to find out more about that guy, and down that road lies only misery.
At the same time, you dont really want to tell the whole truth, either. Presumably, your kids curiosity is a sign that
they like Batman, a very natural and healthy opinion to have. But at such a young age, affection for Batman is a very

delicate balance, and if you actually tell them that Hush is an evil super-surgeon who hated Batman because
Batmans dad accidentally didnt let Hush kill his own mom, and so Hush decided to get his revenge through a
combination of plastic surgery, neurosurgery, whatever kind of doctoring it is that fixes up a mute hunchback,
dressing up as a dead Robin and whispering menacingly for an entire year, all while actually just sidekicking for the
Riddler? Theyll probably run screaming from the entire franchise, and with good reason. And thats before you get
to the story where Hush performs plastic surgery on himself (?!) to look just like Bruce Wayne and then literally
steals Catwomans heart from her chest and keeps it in a jar for a few weeks, which for some reason does not kill
her at all because he was able to build Apokolips-level technology in his spare time:

When youre dealing with a stack of hot garbage like that, full disclosure really isnt going to help matters. If thats
the case, then youre going to have to figure out how to tell them just enough to satisfy their curiosity, but not so
much that they realize the depths of awfulness that were dealing with here. Its a very delicate balance, and its
going to be tough to pull off.
My advice would be to keep it simple. Leave out the patricidal origin, the stuff with Harold and Two-Face, the Jason
Todd fake-out, and pretty much any details of Hush that were done better in other comics by which I mean all of
them. Go ahead and ditch the Heart of Hush part, too; as resoundingly stupid as that story was on the page, a
quick summary sounds a little too much like Crank 2 Starring Catwoman, which would be fantastic. Also, if you
havent already, let your kids watch Crank 2. Its a very educational film.
[Editors' Note: Again, Chris's advice on parenting should not be taken by anyone, ever.]
Depending on how inquisitive they are and whether youre at a point in the game where you can just move on to
explaining Ras al-Ghul or Killer Moth, you might be able to get away with something as simple as Hes an evil
doctor who worked as one of the Riddlers henchmen for a little while.
If you can pull it off, there are a lot of advantages to going this route. For one thing, its mostly true! Hush is, in fact,
an evil doctor, and not only does that give you an out for explaining those dumb bandages on his head (youre on
your own for the trenchcoat), but evil doctors show up in comics by the truckload! There are like twenty-six of
them in that game! Lumping Tommy Elliot in with a bunch of interesting characters in the same line of work makes
him a lot less distinctive. Plus, that phrasing shifts the focus away from Hush and onto the Riddler, who is
awesome.
Really, its all in your delivery. You may want to practice with a spouse or another adult that you can trust with a
sensitive subject like Hush. Be prepared to handle any follow-up questions, and if it comes down to it, you may just

have to break down and have a frank discussion with your kids about bad storytelling and what happens when
melodramatic pastiches go wrong.
In the end, theyll thank you, even though they may not like learning that Hush exists. Lord knows I didnt.
Read More: Ask Chris #116: How To Talk To Your Kids About Hush | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-116how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-hush/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #115: Whats Up With The 90s?

by Chris Sims July 27, 2012 2:30 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: What are your thoughts on 90s comics? @philjacke

A: It feels like Ive said this before, but this may in fact be the single vaguest question Ive ever gotten for this
column. Lets be fair, though: I tend to like the ones that allow me to do a little interpretation. That said, Im half
tempted to just say The 90s: Ten years during which a lot of comic books were released, a lot of them were good, a
lot of them were bad.
But that doesnt quite cover it.

In comics, the 90s were a time of incredible, sweeping change and

upheaval across every aspect of the industry, the likes of which really hadnt been seen since Stan Lee and Jack
Kirby sat down and came up with the idea of super-heroes with problems inFantastic Four thirty years earlier. You
can argue for days over whether those changes were good or bad and which ones were which but they were
there, and they were huge. It was a weird time, and even looking back from 12 years after the end of the decade

(and 22 from its extremely turbulent beginning), its hard to pin down a lot of why things happened the way they
did.
To really get a handle on it, though, you have to understand what came before. The 80s, after all, were no slouch
themselves in terms of change and upheaval, and a lot of what came after can be traced to a few key events from
that decade. Obviously, there was the maturation of comics with titles like Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. I
use the scare quotes because while those two books were certainly well-done and interesting in and of themselves,
an overwhelming amount of the comics they inspired were anything but. The imitators learned the wrong lessons,
and instead of creating stories that treated their subject matter with intelligence and craft, which is a difficult
matter requiring a great deal of skill, the knock-offs tried to recapture the things that were easy, like cussin and
violence. They were exactly the same kind of escapist power fantasy that they were pretending to rise above, just
wrapped up in cheap, meaningless exploitation and sold to the audience as something that wasnt for little kids
which in itself is the most immature, teenage motivation something can possibly have.
But regardless, books like Watchmen proved on a widespread pop cultural level what most creators and fans had
always known: That super-hero comics could have value beyond just being disposable entertainment. But while
that simple, revolutionary idea caused a huge change for comics, Id argue that those early years of gritted teeth
and pouches that always come to mind when someone says The 90s were even more influenced by something
else that happened the previous year: The Black & White Boom.
The B&W Boom played out like a smaller-scale test-run for what would happen in the 90s: An explosion of smallpress, creator-owned and often non-super-hero comics that would run its course before collapsing, leaving only a
few survivors to go on to greater success. As you might expect, it had its roots in the push for independence and
creator rights that got started back in the 70s (which itself was rooted in the treatment of creators at the major
publishers in the 60s, which exacerbated problems that started between publishers and creators back in the 40s,
which really got started with the pulps and newspaper strips in the 30s, and so on) and led to some of the
cornerstones of independent comics, like Matt Wagners Mage, Dave Sims Cerebus and Stan Sakais Usagi Yojimbo.
But the most important title to come out of that era, and maybe the single most important title in all of modern
comics, was a joke that two guys came up with at their kitchen table that went on to become the most popular
thing in the entire world: Kevin Eastman and Peter Lairds Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

As I understand it, TMNT was originally the product of Eastman and Laird making fun of all the goofy stuff that was
popular in comics at the time teenage mutants in X-Men and ninjas in Daredevil and man. Watching their joke
about what it took to be popular in mainstream comics grow to become an omnipresent multinational mass-media
powerhouse that eclipsed the stuff it was parodying, and spawned its own legion of imitators? That had to be
pretty weird.
But weird or not, it was a huge deal. Within five years, Eastman and Laird had achieved commercial success on a
level that the creators they grew up idolizing never had, and they did it with a property they owned. They werent
just making some massive corporation rich off their work (though they were definitely doing that), they were
making themselves rich with it, too.
Can you imagine being a young creator coming up in the late 80s, knowing you want to work in comics and
suddenly seeing these two dudes making millions off a comic they created with no publisher, no editors and no
company? Seeing two guys who owned their creation after hearing horror stories about Bill Finger, who died in
1974 without ever getting to put his name on Batman, a character he co-created? Can you imagine what an
influence that would have on how youd decide to pursue your career?
Because I bet this dude can.

In any discussion of the 90s, its inevitable that youre eventually going to get around to Rob Liefeld. The Rob is
like a walking zeitgeist for the era; depending on who you ask, hes its greatest success story, its worst villain, or its
most harrowing cautionary tale, but just about everybody agrees that hes emblematic of the time. Its at the point
where his personal art style is visual shorthand for 1990 1995. And when you start looking at how things
connect you can get a much better sense of where hes coming from.
But well get back to the Rob in a second. For now, theres another element of TMNTs massive success that shaped
his career, and the entire industry in the 90s: Collectibles. The single worst thing to ever happen to the comics
industry.
Comic book collecting had always been a part of comic book fandom, but before the 90s, it tended to be a
secondary hobby to actually reading the damn things. That was actually the original motivation: In the years before
you could stroll into your local bookstore and pick up a phone book-sized slab of reprints (and well before you
could download a run of copies as a torrent, for the more piratical among you), collecting comics was the only way
to get all the stories. Obviously, the stories that introduce elements that become prominent parts of the stories or
issues that had better stories become more sought after because of what they represent to the ongoing saga. And
just as obviously, you want to be able to read your comics, so it helps if they dont have missing pages or crayon
markings or whatever, so a copy in better condition is more valuable than one thats been trashed.
But by the 90s, there was a shift to the idea of the comic as a collectible in and of itself, a physical object completely
separate from the stories they contained. TMNT makes the perfect example: by 1989, it was a massive worldwide
success, but the initial print run that kicked everything off back in 84 and was therefore a pretty important
comic book was limited to an initial print run of only 3,000 copies. Thats rarity. When theres an audience out
there of millions upon millions of kids begging their parents for anything and everything related to the franchise
(yours truly included), thats demand. Throw that in with the newly minted direct market of comic book specialty
stores that cater to comic book readers and collectors (another catalyst of the 80s and 90s thats way too complex
for me to get into at this point), and you have the beginning of a money-making machine thats built
on collectibility, rather than story content.
Thus, the entire cottage industry within a cottage industry springs up thats built entirely around the idea of
creating scarcity. Its essentially a game of how much are these suckers willing to pay, with the answers codified
for the marks in the last ten pages of Wizard, or its slightly more respectable cousin, theOverstreet Price Guide. Or
as I call it, Satans Bible. Seriously, if we get nothing else out of digital comics, please let it be a stake in the heart of
the collector and a burial at the crossroads.
The idea of comics as collectibles over comics as stories was a crucial element of the 90s, and it almost ruined
comics forever. But at the time, all it meant was money. Fueled by stories of how Action Comics #1 and Detective

Comics #27 had undergone a 1,000,000% increase in value on their 10-cent cover prices, customers were buying
up stacks of whatever they thought might be hot so that they could bust em out 20 years later and send their kids
to college. Meanwhile, retailers were ordering millions of copies to keep up with that demand and hedging their
own bets with boxes of X-Force #1 (polybagged with a trading card!) in the back just in case they did take off. And
all those millions were being funneled straight up to the publishers and, because of the way rights, rates and
royalties had been restructured back in the 70s and 80s, the creators.
Clearly, this is a pretty sweet deal for the guys at the top of the pyramid, which is why DC and Marvel went out of
their way to cultivate collectibility in what they were doing. The stories they produced in the 90s reflected this
approach, whether it was Marvels move to publish Collectors Item First Issues with series like X-Men, SpiderMan, X-Force, and pretty much every comic with the word Punisher in the title, or DCs bright idea of killing
Superman, which produced one of the best-selling comics of the modern era.

In retrospect, its pretty clear to me that this was probably a terrible idea
and not just because it was a story where Superman and a giant bone monster in green bike shorts punched
each other to death. Its great that they sold a million comics and bought Dan Jurgens a solid gold statue of Booster
Gold or whatever, but they also had a truly massive amount of media coverage that told people that
Superman was dead, and lured them into a shop where they bought a comic that if they bothered to actually
pop open the polybag and read it ended with Lois Lane cradling Supermans lifeless body. In real life in most
fiction that tends to be the end of things. They told the biggest potential audience they had ever had that
Superman was dead. Dead. Which, to rational people who are not familiar with how comic books work,
means there will be no more Superman stories so it is completely unnecessary for you to ever return to
this shop and buy another one of these.
I swear to you, I started working at a comic book store ten full years after Superman died, and not a month would
go by where someone wouldnt wander in and express utter shock that they were still making Superman comics
because he died back in 94. And this was while there was a TV show about that dude every Friday night. They
killed their own brand recognition in their primary medium.
But for the purposes of this column, the point is that it sold at the time, and ended up becoming the go-to sales
tactic for super-hero comics. Because of that, we saw the rise of the event comic, the emphasis on Important
Comics that Changed Everything (and could therefore be valuable in some vague, nebulous future that never got
here), and on the Superstar Creator, who could make any book more important just by being there.
Which brings us back to the Rob. And to Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and the other artists who came up at
the time, but mostly the Rob. Those other dudes have fans and detractors, the Rob has ardent defenders declaring
him the heir to Jack Kirby and bloodthirsty haters calling for his severed head on a pike. Reactions to his work tend
to be a little more extreme which I imagine suits him just fine.

I realize this isnt the way that its supposed to work, but the older I get, the more I like Rob Liefeld. Im the first to
admit that I dont care for his art, but the more you think about the climate that he came up in, the more you kind of
understand how he got there.
A while back, I wrote about something Liefeld wrote on his website about dealing with criticism, and one of the
things that stuck out was when he talked about his frustrations over an editor reminding me that I didnt deserve
my success because I hadnt earned it yet. On one hand, I see what the unnamed editor was getting at, that the
success wasnt just because of his art. It was a product of the time, the end result of the machine that Ive been
talking about for this entire column.
But on the other hand, the concept of unearned success is a pretty nebulous one to pin down. The very fact that it
was a success means that something earned it. Something in his art spoke to people, even if it was just convincing
them that Wizard was right and this was a safer investment than gold. And if nothing else, Liefeld proved that it
wasnt a fluke when he was even more successful at Marvel with New Mutants and FIVE MILLION COPIES of XForce #1, and then with Image. There are a ton of arguments about why that doesnt or shouldnt matter
artificially inflated sales from speculators, boxes and boxes of unsold copies littering comic book stores across
America, the fact that its kind of a mess to actually read but those are immaterial. The fact is that Rob Liefelds
art sold millions of comic books and made him a financial success.
Again, Im more a fan of Liefelds in concept than in practice, but try looking at it from his perspective: That dude
was a millionaire, in his early 20s, from making comics. People can tell him that he sucks and cant draw feet and
that pouches are dumb and that sword blades dont work that way and that guns do not typically rest on top of the
fist, and for at least a couple of those, theyd be right, but he has hard evidence that hes doing something right.
How much constructive criticism are you going to take when youre making millions doing it your way?
As hard as it might be to accept, history has smiled upon Rob Liefeld. Just look at what hes done with that fame,
and the collaborators hes managed to work with or bring onto his comics over the years: Joe Casey. Joe Keatinge.
Brandon Graham. Ross Campbell. Tim Seeley. Alan Moore. And, you know, Jeph Loeb, but nobodys perfect.
Anyway, if TMNT #1 was the most important thing to happen in comics in the 80s, then the formation of Image is
unquestionably the most important event of the 90s. The fact that they were able to leverage that machine that the
major publishers had created to make them Superstar Artists who created Important Comics and come out of the
gate with creator-owned books that however briefly and for whatever reason matched the sales of their
corporate counterparts? That was a huge proof-of-concept for the very idea of independent comics. It doesnt really
matter if they were good a couple of em are downright unreadable they showed it was possible. They
showed that they were just as good at making collectibles as the major publishers, and at the time, that was even
more important than making better comics that would come later.
If those people hadnt done those books in that way and made those numbers, would creator-owned comics even
seem remotely as viable today? Im not sure. I doubt it. I certainly doubt that there would be a major comic book
publisher as prominent that did nothing but creator-owned books.
Obviously, that machine and the success that it built didnt last. Thanks to a combination of Turok #1, Deathmate,
Supermans mullet and an entire legion of people somehow waking up and realizing that theyd been sold a fourcolor bill of goods with these collectible comics, the bubble burst. Independent publishers folded by the dozens,
comic book stores that sprung up around the boom were shuttered (leaving the average American something like
70 miles away from a shop), quarter bins were choked with comics that used to be hot, and Marvel Comics
Marvel f***ing Comics, the people who own Spider-Man went bankrupt.
It wasnt sustainable. Generally speaking, the business model was built on chasing something that had really
happened by accident, rather than on focusing on crafting quality. Thats not a knock against those comics okay,
it kind of is but when the art form is so secondary that youre actually telling people not to read their comics lest
their greasy sausage fingers cause a crease that knocks it down to VF-, its pretty clear that youre selling something
thats completely divorced from content. That tends to catch up with you, because the entire idea of collecting is, at
its heart, that people want good comics. If Dr. Fantasticos first appearance is ultra-limited and chromium
enhanced, but nobody actually cares, its literally not worth the paper its printed on. And yet, the mentality
persists, even today.
But while the Rob and the speculators might be the popular image (no pun intended) of the 90s, theyre really only
half the story. As much as Liefeld is the poster boy for the 90s, theres another contender for that title, and one that
might be a little unexpected given the eras reputation: Mark Waid.

See, that same machine that prized Important Stories and Superstar Creators also had an emphasis on New Stuff,
and since super-hero fans tend to run screaming from anything new like its made of flammable bubonic plague, it
tends to be New Stuff thats already tied in with Old Stuff. After all, the only thing with more potential value than a
death is a First Appearance. Thats why you get things like X-Force, a new take on an established franchise. And
why Mark Waid was the perfect writer for the era.
In terms of pure skill, Waids light years ahead of most other comics creators, but hes also a guy with an intricate
knowledge and respect for past continuity who doesnt mind doing new stuff with it. In a way, his run on Flash with
the late, great Mike Wieringo is just as much of an archetypical 90s book as Youngblood. It takes familiar elements
that fans already knew, but presents them in a different way that feels exciting and fresh.
Thats actually Waids specialty as a super-hero writer, using that stuff from the past but with an eye towards
looking forwad. Hell, hes even the guy who wrote Kingdom Come, a commentary on the 90s that actually came
out in the 90s, a throwback designed to show that those older charactrers had value even in a market that as
dominated by well, by Rob Liefeld characters. Theres a reason Magog looks just like Cable but with a dumber hat.
It wasnt limited to Waid, though hes one of the most prominent examples, and Flash really set the tone for the DC
Universe at the time. James Robinson and Tony Harriss relaunch of Starman is built entirely around offering a new
take on Golden Age characters and their legacies that would appeal to new readers. Morrisons JLA was an attempt
to go back to the original idea of DCs biggest characters (and Aquaman) on a single team that had been subsumed
by the more down-to-Earth take of Justice League International and its team of B-listers. They were old ideas, just
taken in a new direction.
In fact, that was a goal that a huge chunk of the 90s were built around. Its why there are so many legacy characters
that cropped up in that era, like Kyle Rayner or Connor Hawke people were looking for new ways to capitalize
on those existing concepts. It wasnt just at DC, either. Ben Reilly and the whole Spider-Clone fiasco were, at heart,
just dredging up a piece of old Spider-Man continuity and seeing if there was something new to do with it.
Of course, that eventually led to the 2000s trend of too much emphasis on the past, reaching back to wipe out the
changes so that everything can be put back just so. But thats another column. For this one, thats the 90s: A lot of
comics came out, a lot of em were good, and a lot of em were bad.
Read More: Ask Chris #115: Whats Up With The 90s? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-115-whats-up-withthe-90s/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #114: The Dark Knight Returns

by Chris Sims July 23, 2012 2:00 PM

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and
opinions. Thats why each and every week, we turn to you, to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he
responds to your reader questions!

Q: So youve talked a lot about Batman, but I havent heard much from you about Millers Dark Knight
Returns. Is DKR awful or great? Parody or serious? Is its vision of Superman atrocious or a reflection of
Batmans paranoia? @Poormojo
A: I have to say, you are probably the only person in my entire life who has claimed to not hear enough from me
about The Dark Knight Returns. Usually, people have trouble getting me to shut up about it. But, since this seems

like a pretty good week to talk about final Batman stories, lets get to it!
Unsurprisingly, DKR is one of my all-time favorites, although Ill admit that it seems like the older I get, the less I
like it. There are a lot of factors leading to that, not the least of which is the fact that Ive read it over and over and
over again since I picked up the 10th Anniversary paperback when I was 14, and that kind of familiarity tends to
dull the edge, especially when youre chasing the thrills that came along with something you first experienced as a
kid. But there are others, too, like Millers return for an underwhelming sequel which certain Davids here at
ComicsAlliance will defend to the death but the worst offender has always been imitation.

I still hold DKR itself as a masterpiece, but the themes and imagery that Frank Miller, along with Klaus Janson and
Lynn Varley, used to such great effect in their four issues have essentially become a building block for virtually
everything that came after. It changed the character forever, in the way that the best comics tend to do,
influencing everything from the way Batman interacted with other characters to the way he looked. And in the
process, as much as I hate to say it, there are a lot of ways that it kind of ruined Batman.
See, heres the thing about DKR: A lot of people see it as a companion piece to Millers other groundbreaking work
with the character (alongside the incredible David Mazzucchelli), Year One. They view them as the Alpha and
Omega of Batman stories, a beginning and an ending that every other Batman story can (and must) fall
between. David Brothers even wrote a very compelling piece about this idea, and even managed to fit All Star
Batman & Robin in there somehow, and at first glance, it all really makes sense. But, at least in the way I look at
things, thats only half right.
Year One and The Dark Knight Returns are bookends, but not to each other. Theyre in the other order: DKR is the
ending of everything that came before it, and Year One is the start of something new, the version of Batman that we
have today.
Its almost exactly the same setup that you get from Alan Moore and Curt Swans Whatever Happened To The Man of
Tomorrow clearing away the Silver Age so that John Byrne can start fresh with Man of Steel, except that Miller
orchestrated it all himself. The publication dates even match up, with DKR being released first, kicking off during
Crisis in early 1986, with Year One debuting in Batman the following year. Thats part of the key to really
understanding DKR.
And thats why I made the comment about DKR ruining Batman. When you look at them in that order, you can see
the folly in trying to match them up as one single, overarching framework for Batman. Even though theres some
thematic carryover, like Sarah Essen showing up in DKR and then being introduced as a love interest for Gordon
in Year One, it just doesnt work. Despite that, there was a wave of stories that followed focused on progressing
Batman ever closer to the hulking brute that we see in DKR, hammering him to fit into a series of diminishing
returns meant to echo that groundbreaking series and, Im sure, its sales. The most notable offender is Jim Starlin
and Bernie Wrightsons the Cult, which goes to truly hilarious extremes that involve modifying the Batmobile into a
monster truck thats a little closer to DKRs Bat-Tank and then justifying it by creating the riots that Miller
mentions in an off-hand line, but its far from the only one. Its a meme in those books that continues even today,
and it can even be done well, like the implication at the end of Scott Snyders run on Detective Comics that the
actions of James Gordon Jr. (an often-overlooked piece of Year One) will result in the rise of the Mutant Gang
from DKR. Its something thats been ingrained over and over into the franchise over the past 25 years.
But it doesnt really work, because what makes DKR great isnt that its a logical progression. Its the opposite, and
thats the other part of understanding the story. Its meant to be a contrast. And specifically, its meant to be a
contrast to this:

Maybe not the television show specifically, but certainly that era of Batman. Miller says as much in his introduction
to the 10th Anniversary edition, and its really the Rosetta Stone that lets everything fall into

place. DKR isnt just about Cranky Old Batman coming out of retirement and being Batman again, its about Batman
coming out of retirement and being very, very different than what we know.
Just look at the first things he does when he comes back: He throws batarangs that stab into his enemies arms
instead of conking them upside the head, and kicks a dude in the spine so hard that hell only probably walk
again:

Its brutal stuff, and its exciting and the reason that its exciting is that its different, especially if the image of
Batman that you have in your head is the bright, cheery, non-spine-injuring Batman of the 66 show. That shock,
that contrast, is what sets the tone for the story, that were seeing a Batman and a Gotham City that have changed.
Theres a reason that when Bruce Wayne finally puts on his costume and comes out of retirement, its this costume,
the bright, blue-and-grey suit with the bulky utility belt thatd be right at home around Adam Wests waist

and why Batman eventually works his way backwards into the darker, sans-oval black-and-grey costume that
evokes the more ruthless, Shadow-esque early stories of the Golden Age.

Ive talked before about how the idea behind Batman is very much a childs fantasy, and one of the things that
makes DKR such a good read (beyond just being a great comic produced by creators at the top of their game) is
how Miller explores the idea of what happens to that childhood fantasy once youve grown up and the answers
arent quite so simple. At the start of DKR, Bruce Wayne isnt just retired from crimefighting, hes actually a
failure. For all the sacrifices that he made during his years as Batman, he didnt really end up making anything
better and in fact, things in Gotham City are actually worse than they used to be, with roving gangs of
sociopathic murderers dropping bombs into mothers purses replacing the outlandish heists and thematic
robberies that he, and we as readers, viewers and fans, are used to.
Theres a hopelessness at the core of DKR, but its a hopelessness thats very compelling, and thats defeated in a
very optimistic way. Theres something we can all identify with in the idea that the things you did as a child like,
say, swearing to make war against all crime and evil-doers are silly and ultimately pointless, but that theres still
a core of truth an nobility to them. As the story goes on, its revealed that the solution to Batmans problem wasnt
to give up on those childish fantasies and stop being Batman because he grew up, but to keep going and spread
those dreams to others. Boiled down to a purely symbolic level, its essentially a book about how its okay to still
really like Batman when youre about to turn 30, like Frank Miller was when he wrote it and like I am as I write
this.
Looking at it that way, you can even forgive the pretty atrocious characterization of Superman. Thats something
else Ive written about before, how frustrating it is to see Superman reduced to a mindless government stooge, but
symbolically, it works. Superman represents authority, the kind thats approved by grown-ups as a role model, and
the kind that you have to rebel against if youre going to make your own way. Their entire battle at the end of the
book is beautiful in how much symbolism Miller works in there it was only a few years ago, around my four
hundredth read-through, that I realized what it meant that Batman was literally hitting Superman with the
entirety of Gotham City when he plugged into the lamppost.
That, incidentally, is another thing that DKR ruined about Batman: Everyone wants to recapture the feeling of that
scene, but nobodys even come close to building something so meaningful, something that felt so fresh, because
wed already seen it here first. Instead, its just one pale imitation (lookin at you here, Hush) heaped onto a pile
until it all feels cheapened. Believe me, I never, ever need to see those guys fight again, unless its Superman
casually backhanding Batman through a mountain.
Anyway, even characterizing it as an ending to Batman doesnt quite do the story justice. It ends with Batman
rebuilding his legacy, continuing on, going back to that never-ending battle. Its extremely optimistic far more so
than the end of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, an interesting inversion of how those two characters
tend to be categorized. Thats what makes it such a great ending, that its not one, because these stories never
really end.
Instead, they just begin again, which is where Year One comes in. We see what happens to Silver Age Batman,
closing out his career with a reminder that hell always be out there fighting against evil, and then we get the setup
of something new. The entire point is to leave it open-ended, and compared toDKR, the Batman of Year One is
surprisingly mellow. Theres an incredible contrast between DKRs first outing as Batman, marked by thuggish
brutality, and the first strike we see in Year One, where Batman ends up having to drop his tough-guy persona to
keep from accidentally killing the criminals he ambushes on the fire escape. Theres a softness there, a return,
however mixed it may be with the overt violence of Batman, to the childish idea at the core. He wants to fight crime
without actually killing anyone.
Needless to say at this point, Ive thought about The Dark Knight Returns a lot. For me, thats how it all fits together.
Of course, I also consider to be DK2 to be fan-fiction, so take that as you will.
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Ask Chris #113: Just What IS A Super-Hero, Anyway?

by Chris Sims July 6, 2012 1:30 PM

Q: Kinda simple, but how would you define the term superhero? @the3rdwall
A: You call that one a simple, but trust me, its one of those questions that only gets more complicated the more you
think about it. After all, as narrow as it might look from the outside, the super-hero genre encompasses a lot of
stuff, and trying to find some kind of unifying theme that runs through everything is pretty tough.
Ive been turning this question over in my head for a while now, and Im tempted to just go with the old Supreme
Court definition of pornography: Ill know it when I see it. Of course, thats not exactly a scientific classification, so

we can probably do a littlebetter.

Part of the problem is that it can be really
difficult to separate the ideas that really matter from all the window dressing that theyre wrapped up in. A lot the
things we imagine as archetypical when we hear the word super-hero capes and tights, flying around and
lifting cars and all that, arent really defining elements. Theyre really just visual signifiers, and more than that,
theyre visual signifiers of one character, Superman, whos standing in for the rest of the genre. It has to come down
to the themes and motivations behind all that stuff.
But then it gets even more complicated when you consider the ways the genres been twisted and turned over the
past 75 years. Its impossible to argue that characters like Captain America or Spider-Man arent super-heroes, but
what about the X-Men? They wear costumes and fight bad guys, but theyre less rooted in going out and fighting
crime than they are in being a sort of paramilitary strike force designed to protect their race. Is Wolverine a superhero? Hes on a team with Thor and Captain America, so he should be, but is there anything beyond a costume and

a codename that unifies him as a character with, Superman? And what about the Punisher? Hes a guy who wears a
costume with a big emblem on it and he definitely fights bad guys, but are those elements enough to lump him in
with Thor and say these guys belong to the same archetype because they happen to live in the same universe?
Snake-Eyes has incredible abilities and fought a sinister mastermind who wore a mask (a few of em, actually), but
does that make G.I. Joe a super-hero book, or is it just an amped-up military fantasy? How about Hellboy? Hes got
powers, fights bad guys, all that stuff.
Like I said, it gets pretty complicated. And if you expand the definition past just the mags you can pick up down at
your local comic shop every Wednesday, it gets even worse. Sailor Moon definitely seems like a super-hero, but
what about Goku? And how about Dr. McNinja? Hell, Scott Pilgrim head-butted a guy with telekinesis so hard that
he turned into spare change. Is that enough to get him dropped into the Super-Hero category?
Its a tough nut to crack.
For me, it often does just come down to how their stories feel. When I reviewed Archies Mega Man comic a while
back, for instance, I referred to it pretty definitively as a super-hero comic, because thats what it felt like. All of
those elements that you pick up on without even thinking about them were in place, from the costume to the
codename to the morality to the fact that he was fighting to protect people against thematic super-villains. Those
are all pretty recognizable as elements of the super-hero story.

But then, that also owes a lot to the medium. The dominance of superheroes as a genre have shaped the language of
American comics in a way that its almost impossible to escape from, particularly if youre reading an action or
adventure story, and Ian Flynns work on Mega Man reflects that. If you break down the structure to its most basic
elements, the stories hes telling in that book just read a lot like, say, a 70s Spider-Man comic. It hits the same kind
of notes as it tells its story, and does so in a similarly dynamic way. They share a language, and seem to be built on
the same underlying foundation.
Because of all that, I was pretty comfortable referring to Mega Man as a super-hero comic, and looking back, I still
think that holds up. But as a contrast, look at a very similar character, who appears in a very similar style of comics.

So lets talk about Atomic Robo. When I asked co-creator Brian Clevinger
whether hed classify Robo as a super-hero, he was pretty adamant that he wasnt, and instead claimed that Robo
was straight up pulp. But the thing about that is super-heroes as a genre are also descended pretty directly from
the pulps. Ive talked about this before, but Batman in particular was a pretty shameless riff on the Shadow for
those first few years, until he finally made a transition into becoming his own character towards the end of 1940,
and hes not the only one. In the same way that there have been a ton of action movies over the past 25 years that
have basically been Die Hard in a _____, a huge percentage of early super-heroes were just Doc Savage but ____.
One guy even managed to rip off the poor dudes Fotress of Solitude, and got away with it.
So as distinct as super-heroes as a genre eventually became, citing a pulp influence doesnt really draw that much
of a line in the sand, and Robos full of elements that look like they belong in a super-hero book. Clevinger tried to
argue that Atomic Robo wasnt a codename his exact words were its whats on his tax forms but really,
its got the same adjective-noun construction that everybody in the Legion of Super-Heroes got saddled with. Plus
hes super-strong, durable, has fantastic technology. Robo even fights a Nazi brain in a robot body, and if that aint a
sign of super-heroism, then nothing is.
And yet, even with all that stacked against him, Clevingers right. Atomic Robo doesnt feel like a super-hero comic.
It feels like pulp adventure thats usually more in line with Indiana Jones than Spider-Man albeit Indiana
Jones starring an indestructible super-robot. So clearly, authorial intent has something to do with it, though if
you asked me how to present a story that had a bunch of super-hero elements that didnt feel like a super-hero
comic, I wouldnt even know where to begin. Thats a problem for an installment of Ask Brian.
What Im trying to get at here is that I dont think there is a hard and fast definition of super-hero. But there
are a few characteristics that seem to be pretty common, and that I think you can apply across the board.
In his very funny Super Villain Handbook available now at finer bookstores everywhere War Rocket Ajaxs
Matt Wilson does a very nice job of defining what separates a super-villain from an everyday crook. The dividing
line there was theatrics, and I think the same holds true for super-heroes. There has to be some kind of sense of
grandeur to it.

I do think costumes and codenames are a definite aspect of it, although

that doesnt necessarily mean capes and tights. It means there needs to be a distinctive look for the character,
whether its Batmans cape and cowl or Captain Americas blue scale mail or those sweaters and black leather
jackets that the X-Men wore under Morrison and Quitely, or even something like Hellboy and John Constantines
signature trench coats. They need to be visually different than a normal person. The same goes with the names,
even if theyre using the one thats on the tax forms.
Its also pretty crucial that they have abilities far beyond those of a normal person, even if they arent
outright super-powers. Even characters like Batman and the Punisher, who dont have super-powers are still
defined by being way more determined and/or pissed off than any real person could ever sustain, even before you
get to stuff like a lifetime of combat training and a family fortune.
And because they have those abilities, they need to be called on to do things that no one else could possibly
do. The threats that they face should be on a level thats somewhere beyond realistic, because the characters
themselves have abilities that are beyond realistic. Even those early Superman stories where hes punching out
slumlords and abusive husbands things a real person could probably do, if they didnt mind a hitch in the Big
House for assault are really just allegories for stopping those problems as a whole. The enemy they face,
whether its a concept or an organization or a person, needs to be something that none of us would have a chance
against, even if theyre things that exist in our world.
Those pretty much take care of the super aspect, but the hero part is where it gets a little more abstract.
To me, its very important that super-heroes lives up to that title; as obvious as it sounds, they need to be heroic.
There has to be an aspect of their character where theyre putting some kind of moral or ideal above
themselves, with an element of sacrifice or altruism as the motivation. And that ideal can be as vague or
specific as it needs to be. Superman wages a never-ending battle against evil and Batman fights crime. Spider-Man
wants to use his powers to help people. Those are all pretty nebulous goals, and theyre also perpetual. The X-Men
want to stand against oppression of mutant rights and stop other mutants from abusing their powers in a way
thatll get them all killed by giant purple robots. Elsa Bloodstone has a duty to fight monsters. Sailor Moon wants to
punish the Negaverse in the name of the Moon, whatever the hell that means. These are much more narrow goals,
but still valid.
And one of the reasons it gets pretty murky at this point is because it really comes down to what you consider to be
a worthwhile ideal. The Punisher is probably the perfect example of this in comics, but even if youre of the mind
that hunting down criminals and killing them is okay and the best Punisher stories, particularly Garth Enniss
run, do a lot to make you want to see the bad guys taken down Id argue that you can never really put him in that
category, because his motivations are purely selfish. Theres no altruism in a character like Frank Castle. Theres
not really a desire to save people, the guy just wants revenge. Wolverine, whos frequently lumped in with the

Punisher as one of the more violent heroes in comics, actually stands in contrast. Hes very frequently motivated by
a moral code.
But a lot of that relies on a subjective interpretation, both on the part of the creator and on the reader. And its also
worth noting that context is as important as authorial intent any protagonist created in a super-hero universe is
pretty much going to default super-hero unless proven otherwise.
Again, those arent set in stone. Im sure there are characters that youd never think of as super-heroes Harry
Potter springs to mind pretty readily as one who fits those rules but seems off about it, even if hes part of that
same adventure story tradition. Still, those threads seem to tie in as many characters as I can think of, from
Superman and Batman to Spider-Man and Sailor Moon and Dr. McNinja. More than likely, though, its like I said:
Youll know em when you see em.
Read More: Ask Chris #113: Just What IS A Super-Hero, Anyway? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-113-justwhat-is-a-super-hero-anyway/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #112: Where Were You On The Night Batman Was Killed?
by Chris Sims June 29, 2012 1:00 PM

Q: Whats the story behind the cool cover to Batman #291? @phillyradiogeek
A: Normally, I prefer to take on questions that allow me to yammer about themes and elements of the fictional
tapestry and why Batman rules to questions about the events of a specific issue, but this is an interesting case for
two reasons. For one, while its not an important story in the context of the character, it is a pretty significant early
example of how comic book storytelling developed. And for another, youre right: that cover is awesome.If youre
not familiar with the issue, here it is in all its Jim Aparo glory:

Its a pretty striking image so striking, in fact, that DC used it as the cover of the relatively recent Strange Deaths
of Batman paperback, when it was reprinted in collection of stories where Batman did not in fact die as a tie-in to
Batmans more recent non-death in Final Crisis. Uh, spoiler warning, I guess? I mean, I dont think anyones going
to be too shocked to find out that Batman didnt actually die in 1977, but you never know.
So considering that Batman doesnt die in pretty much every other Batman comic, what makes this one so
interesting isnt the story, its how that story is structured. Where Were You On The Night Batman Was Killed,
by David V. Reed, John Calnan and Tex Blaisdell kicks off in this issue as a four-part epic one of the earliest
examples of the long-form, multi-issue story that would become the standard a few decades later.

It definitely wasnt the first. Ive written before about how the modern long-form style of comic book storytelling
has its roots back in what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were doing on Fantastic Four, but this story was coming during a
transitional period where that was becoming the standard for comics. Marvels style of ongoing soap operatic
adventures had revolutionized super-hero storytelling, and while DC had hung on to their classic Silver Age style of
eight-pagers with the occasional Three-Part Novel, Complete In This Issue for a while, they were rapidly moving
that way, especially in the Batman titles. In 1976, they even hired Marvel writer Steve Englehart, and while he
worked on an awful lot of DCs titles, his run on Detective Comics with Marshall Rogers where they created an
ongoing thread that tied a together a years worth of stories is probably his most famous work.
Where Were You, though, is a little different. Even though its designed so that each part has a more-or-less
complete story, theyre all united by a highly focused theme that makes them a single story. But for David V. Reed,
even this wasnt exactly brand new territory. The previous year Reed had written another multi-part story called

Underworld Olympics 76, in which a bunch of international crooks went to Gotham City and started competing
in organized heists with points in order to determine who was the best at crime. Unsurprisingly, doing this in
Batmans hometown didnt work out too well.
But while Underworld Olympics just feels like a longer version of a Silver Age story, Where Were You reads in a
lot of ways like a blueprint for the modern event. Its built around the (alleged) death of a major character, all of his
major villains are involved, there are guest stars, and it probably goes on a little longer than it should.
As for how it all works out, thats actually pretty interesting too.

The story opens with the premise that Batman has been killed which for 1977 is a pretty bold move and
instead of being about tracking down the culprit so that they can be punished for their crime, the premise is that
everyone wants to take credit for it because whoever can claim they killed Batman will be a pretty big deal. As a
result, all of Batmans foes get together at a rich crooks estate so that they can hold a trial and determine who the
real guilty party is.

As much difficulty as I have believing that Signalman is an illustrious cut-throat

thats a pretty great setup.

Its essentially a reverse murder mystery. Each suspect presents their story of how they killed Batman, and the
prosecution played, of course, by Two-Face then finds the contradiction in their story that proves that
they couldnt have been the actual killer. Its the same sort of detective story setup that weve seen, but shown in a
way that adds and twists just enough to the existing formula to make it feel interesting, and provide some really
cool moments where we see how each villains opposition to (and hatred of) Batman is a little different. Theres a
lot of personality on display that makes for a great read.
Unfortunately, Calnan and Blaisdell arent quite up to the task. They manage to pull out some really solid stuff from
time to time, and Im particularly fond of Catwomans bereaved widow act in the first part.

but theyre remarkably inconsistent. Beautiful panels with great acting and detail are right next to stuff that looks
like it was done as fast as humanly possible to meet a deadline, and the overall effect is jarring. If this story had
been drawn by Aparo or Rogers or Ernie Chan, theres no doubt in my mind that itd be remembered far more
fondly as a classic of the era.

Also, Calnan and Blaisdell tend to give Batman these odd-looking bunnyrabbit ears that do him absolutely no
favors.
They do have their moments, though, and so does Reed, especially in the third issue. The first two are formulaic to
a fault, involving Catwoman and the Riddler both telling stories that hinge on a fact that they get wrong, like
Catwoman claiming that she booted Batman off her floating jaguar cage and left him to drown, Titanic style, when
in fact the wood that the cage is made of is too dense to float. But in that third one, Lex Luthor shows up, and things
get awesome.
Luthors story is great, largely because its a Superman story that just happens to involve Batman: Using maser
beams fired from space, he rips Supermans mind out of his body and puts it into Batmans obliterating Batmans
mind in the process, and then takes advantage of Supermans disorientation tobeat him to death with his bare
hands. Its brutal stuff thats a great reminder of how Lex combines his scientific knowledge with that base, jealous
savagery born from his hate.
And rather than being based on an obscure factoid, the solution to Lexs story is actually a twist in the classic
style: Superman and Batman just switched places and made Lex think he was winning while they were busy
laughing their asses off at him:

The expressions in that panel, Superman barely keeping himself from cracking up while Sweaty Lex works so
hard to do some killin? Some of Calnan and Blaisdells best work.
The other thing that makes that issue great? The outfit Lex wears to the trial:

Son is fierce.
I mean, theres also the fact that Lex considers doing the impossible and actually murdering Batman to just be an
insignificant consequence of his real plan. Thats the perfect summary of his character: for him, its entirely about
beating Superman, and if he has to make Kill Batman step one of that plan, then by God, hes going to do it. Mostly,
though, its the outfit.
Needless to say, the person actually did commit the murder is the Joker, needlesser to say is that the victim wasnt
actually Batman at all, and needleast to say, Two-Face is actually Batman in disguise. So why the bizarre, extremely
improbable (even for Batman) facade? Its all revealed in the fourth issue, where things actually get a little
disturbing.
The way it goes down is that the Jokers getting ready to pull off some crime when due to the insanely high
crime rate in Gotham City Batman stops another, completely unrelated crime in the exact same place, without
ever noticing that the Jokers hiding nearby watching it. The next night, the Joker goes back to finish his job, only to
find that Batman made it there before him. Then, the Joker manages to win the ensuing fight, and then he melts
Batmans face.

Its shockingly graphic and, if you happened to be a kid reading Batman comics at the time, I can see it being
genuinely terrifying. And on that front, it actually goes hand-in-hand with what follows.
But since thats not Batman, the question is who exactly that was, and it turns out that thats what prompted the
entire story. With all of the ersatz Batmans identifying features eliminated, the only way to find the killer was to
pretend that it was the real Batman, and prompt whoever the killer was into showing himself instead of letting
someone else take the credit. Hence, the false report of Batmans death, the trial, and Batmans dedication to
making sure he got the actual killer.
And the reason he does all this is that its very personal:

All of that stuff, the price of Batmans heroism, the guilt that he feels for being personally responsible for the victim
showing up at the scene of one of his exploits, the lengths to which hes willing to go to make sure that this person
isnt just another (literally) faceless victim, the desire to make sure he has theright killer theyre all very modern
ideas. This story may not be as well-known as anything by Englehart and Rogers or ONeil and Adams, but its just
as much of a turning point in how Batman was presented. Theres a transition even in the story itself, from the
simple whodunnit format of the first two stories to the Silver Age grandeur of Lex Luthors issue, to the creepy,
horrifying and exaggerated scenes of the Joker.
So thats the story behind the cool cover, and like I said, its a nice example of how storytelling was evolving.
Unless, of course, you meant that you wanted the story behind the Superman movie contest, in which case as
Matt Wilson was kind enough to point out the guys who won ended up playing football players at Smallville
High.
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Ask Chris #111: Arcade and Why Success Doesnt Make a Villain Credible
by Chris Sims June 22, 2012 2:00 PM

Q: Youve mentioned Arcade a couple of times in your articles. Ive always thought of him as a very
ineffectual villain since, to my knowledge, his traps have never killed any heroes in the history of comics.
This is a character I just cant take seriously. Hes fought everyone, but he never seems like a credible
threat. Im interested in your perspective on him, since you seem to like him. E., via email
A: Like him? Im not even close to kidding when I say that Arcade is one of my all-time favorite villains. I love that
guy, to the point where Im on board for pretty much any appearance he makes, no matter who draws it or what
book its in. Gambit and Wonder Man team up to take on Murderworld? I am there.

But youre right about his abysmal track record when it comes to actually getting the job done. The thing is, killing

super-heroes is definitely not what makes a great villain.

In fact, when I
tried to think of great villains who actually had managed to kill off super-heroes, I ended up pretty much drawing a
blank. My first two thoughts were the Joker and Baron Zemo, but Jason Todd and Bucky Barnes didnt exactly stay
dead though admittedly, they made a better go of it than most. Death in comics being what it is (or rather, what
it isnt), the only one I can think of who actually managed to permanently off somebody was Black Mask, and of the
two he managed to kill (Orpheus and you know, whats-her-name, that blonde kid who was Batgirl for a hot
minute), only one of them never made it back.
And really: If were living in a world where Black Mask is the most credible villain in comics, then I dont even
know what to believe anymore.
But really, the win / loss record doesnt matter. Villains, after all, arent really made to succeed; if they were, theyd
be protagonists. The villain is just there to provide an obstacle for a hero to overcome, and the best villains arent
the ones who rack up a massive body count, theyre the ones who make the most interesting obstacles.
The great thing about the Joker, for instance, isnt that he kills people, its that he does things in an interesting way
thats fun to read about, and those interesting things just happen to occasionally involve mass murder. Anyone
could write a story where the bad guy kills a bunch of people. Its as easy as typing Villain X kills like four hundred
dudes onto a piece of paper, and its just as easy to type Hero A punches out Villain X because hes stronger than
ten Gokus. The tricky part is making the reader care about all that stuff, and the only way to do that is to make the
things they do interesting.
Remember that issue where Dr. Doom shot the Baxter Building into space? Nobody died in that comic, but its one
of the most memorable moments in the characters history, mostly because he was shooting an entire building into
space. Hell always have that on his resum, and if anyone ever needs to know a great Dr. Doom moment, that ones
going to be up there with the time he invented time travel in order to steal Blackbeards pirate treasure. Its an
inherently interesting visual, and a compelling problem for the heroes to solve. He doesnt need to kill anyone to

prove hes serious, because hes going for something bigger than that. In fact, whenever a villain actually is
established on panel as a killer, its usually done as shorthand to show how tough he is, rather than having any sort
of meaning on its own.
To use another one of my favorites as an example, lets talk about the KGBeast. Ten Nights of the Beast is a fourissue story, and over the course of those four comics, the Beast kills something like a hundred and twenty people,
blowing up airplanes, poisoning an entire banquet and even just straight up hacking people to death with an axe.
Its certainly meant to establish him as a credible opponent for Batman, but its not what really makes the story, or
the character. The moment that you know that the Beast is a serious customer isnt when hes killing someone else,
but when he chops off his own hand (which, incidentally, was completely unnecessary) rather than being taken in
by Batman. It shows the extremes to which hes willing to go far better than the scenes where he hacks his way
through a nameless extra.
I admit that Id be lying if I said that the crazy amount of murder he pulls off in that story wasnt one of the reasons
I liked the character so much, but its less that he was killing them and more that hes killing a ridiculous number of
people, while also wearing a luchador mask and a singlet with an ab window. It all just contributes to how overthe-top he is, and despite Starlin and Aparos best efforts at making him scary, that action movie murder spree that
he goes on always hit me as more funny than genuinely threatening.
At the same time, I definitely understand your desire for a credible threat. We need to believe that the heroes are in
danger in order to become invested in the story, and when a bad guy repeatedly fails, it does undermine the drama.
Its actually addressed in one of the more recent Arcade stories, Paul Tobin and David Baldeons Avengers Academy
Giant-Size #1:

Comics have a tendency to go for grandeur, on both sides of the story. You get taglines called The Earths Mightiest
Heroes or The Worlds Greatest Detective, and in order for the characters to live up to that kind of hype, they
need to face enemies that are, at least in theory, able to challenge them on that level. We all know that a regular
assassin wont present a challenge to Batman or Captain America, so instead, were told that theyre fighting the
worlds deadliest assassin or the most lethal martial artist alive. And then said the villains lose or, on a
good day, they just dont win and now the one thing that defines them is diminished.
Arcades as much a victim of that as anyone else. When hes introduced, its as an assassin who commands a million
dollars per kill, and thats in 1978 dollars. So when he consistently fails to do so, even with assurances that
Murderworld is killing enough people off-panel to keep him financially solvent, he does lose a little something. The
story that were told doesnt match up with the story were actually reading. Its one of the reasons that, as much as
I love the character, Im actually perfectly fine when he doesnt show up all that often. If a villain is a constant
presence, then hes usually a constant loser. They need to recharge to keep that illusion of being a threat.
But in the end, the success is far less important than the style, and that finally brings me back around to why I like
him so much. Part of it is that hes one of the first super-villains I ever read a comic about when I was a kid, thanks
to a paperback reprint of Chris Claremont and John Byrnes Uncanny X-Men#123 and #124.

This is still one of my all-time favorite X-Men stories, and the panel above really captures it all: The bizarre
deathtraps that the team was facing including Colossus being brainwashed into dressing like Soviet Super Mario
punctuated by a dude who is laughing his ass off at how silly it is. Just the fact that Arcade is a guy who doesnt
hate his enemies, and isnt grimly determined to carry out the contract for murder, but that hes mostly just doing
it because its fun. Which it is.
And then theres Murderworld itself, the Theme Park of Death, which is just genius. Like a lot of the things I love in
comics, its brilliantly adaptable. It makes perfect sense for it to be different every time you see it, and because its
already based on amusement parks, and since they tend to have rides based on any theme you can imagine, you
can design a deathtrap around anything, and it will still make perfect sense. Plus, Arcades detachment from a
personal vendetta against the heroes means that hes one of those characters who can show up anywhere, at any
time, to fight anyone.
That helps mediate the importance of his losses, too. Since hes themed around games and a crooked sense of
sportsmanship, his characterization lends itself pretty well to taking his inevitable defeat in stride. For Arcade,
whether or not the fight is interesting is far more important than the outcome.

And in that respect, hes a lot like the reader.

Read More: Ask Chris #111: Arcade and Why Success Doesnt Make a Villain Credible |
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Ask Chris #110: The Best Imaginary Story

by Chris Sims June 15, 2012 3:30 PM

Q: Which of the Big Two has the best imaginary stories (What If, Elseworlds, Intercompany Crossover,
etc.)? Which book was the most satisfying or actually made sense to occur? Which is your favorite? Sam,
via email
A: Ive always been fascinated by the idea of the Imaginary Story, because in my experience at least its
something thats always seemed unique to super-hero comics. Maybe its just a matter of living now instead of a
thousand years ago, but you never really hear legends about Robin Hood or Hercules being divided up into the
ones that count and the ones that dont, even if they both had their fair share of retcons. With comics, however,
theres an entire list of completely fictional, made-up stories, and then stories that are somehow even more
made up than the others.

When you get right down to it, thats pretty weird.

But as weird as it is, its a
pretty interesting side effect of how comics developed into being these massive, intricate universes that dozens of
people are constantly developing, all at the same time. That aspect of super-heroes is what sets them apart from
any other genre in any other medium, in that DC and Marvel produce multiple serialized narratives that are meant
to form one coherent whole. Nothing else even comes close to doing that on that scale.
So What it really comes down to is continuity, and while thats a word that people tend to either roll their eyes at or
salivate over, all it really means is that things continue logically from one piece of the whole to the next and its a
crucial part of any kind of serialized fiction. Look at Sherlock Holmes: He dies at the end of The Final Problem, so
when he shows back up in The Adventure of the Empty House, theres some explaining that needs to be done to
preserve the validity of the stories. Things need to make sense, at least internally, or its impossible to genuinely
care about the characters. After all, as much as you might like Daffy Duck, youre never going to really worry about
him after you watch him survive a point-blank shotgun blast from Elmer Fudd. And for a character based around
slapstick comedy, thats fine.
In an adventure story, however, where the hook is based on the idea theres some kind of danger for the characters
or their world, we have to be able to believe the risks. We all know intellectually that there are no real
consequences for fictional characters because theres nothing in there thats real to begin with, but we pretend we
dont because thats what the authors telling us. The problem is that the authors constantly being cross-examined
as we read, and the more cracks and contradictions show up in the story, the more we see the fiction for the
elaborate lie that it really is. Were pretty much trained to do that from the moment we start interacting with other
people, and its not something you can really turn off.
Like said, it happens in any kind of serialized fiction, from novels to TV to movies, but in comics, its being done on
a much larger scale, so the lie is a lot more elaborate. And honestly, comics readers tend to be a lot more forgiving
of the small stuff than they get credit for. Its when the inconsistencies are impossible to ignore that it creates a
problem, like that time back in the early 2000s when Superman was fighting a completely different General Zod
every year and never stopped to go hey, its pretty weird that these guys all have the same name.
Added into that complex continuity is the fact that super-hero comics arent really designed to end. As I
mentioned last week, theyre designed to be self-perpetuating story machines, so while theyre supposed to build

on the stuff that came before, theyre not supposed to ever build too far. There are two conflicting forces, both
pushing from opposite ends to keep super-hero stories suspended in a second act that never ends. And nowhere
were those forces more prevalent than in DCs Silver Age.
The goal of most Silver Age stories was ultimately to be entertaining while keeping the status quo blissfully intact.
If were honest, not a whole lot has changed on that front, but back then, it had to be done in a very compact format.
You had around eight pages or occasionally a Daring Three-Part Novel that clocked in at 24 if you had
something to really explore that had to end with things exactly the way they were when they started, minus a
few crooks that had been sent off to jail. As much as I love that era and the creativity that fueled those stories, its
pretty easy to see how restrictive that could be. So naturally, they turned to the Imaginary Story to get out of them,
if only for an issue at a time.
One of the interesting things about the Silver Age Imaginary Story is how often it allowed the creators to have the
one thing they could never have in the main line, even with Red Kryptonite, Multiple Earths, robots, hoaxes, and the
other storytelling McGuffins that they always used: Closure. So many of these things are rooted around finally
bringing things to an end. The comic above, in which Superman is split into Superman-Red and Superman-Blue,
ends with both Supermen getting married to Lois and Lana, respectively, and they throw in Jimmy Olsen and that
hateful monster Lucy Lane for good measure:

Its the ending everyone wanted to see but they could never actually do. And when it comes to the endings they
could never really do, nothing but nothing beats 1961s The Death of Superman.

I love this comic. Its easily one of the single best issues of the era, because Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan are doing a
comic that feels like it could happen, just as much as anything else that happened in the book. The only twist is that
the villain wins, and even then, Supergirl shows up at the end to set things right, before flying off to continue
having adventures in memory of her cousin. If it wasnt for the blurb on the cover and the text at the beginning, itd
be easy to believe it as the story where Supergirl took over the title.
And that opening is a work of art all its own:

That line about how this story may actually never happen, but then again may is the one that Alan Moore paid
tribute to in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, but even though thats a pretty dark story, the cheery
way that Moore uses it and the addition of but arent they all? makes it seem almost whimsical. Here, though? The
emphasis on that last may makes it a threat. Its a warning that this might just be how Superman dies.
The storys great too. Its perfect in that Supermans downfall comes directly from his willingness to believe that
the most evil person in the world can change, and its Luthor at his brutal best. It revolves around one of those
beautifully grandiose plans in which cure cancer is step one, and the actual murder is horrifying, a slow,

gruesome affair played out over three pages (an eternity in Silver Age time), with Luthor forcing Supermans
friends to watch. And the way hes presented afterwards, utterly remorseless, reveling in what hes done, is one of
the most genuinely sinister moments in the characters history.

Its so brutal that Siegels narration even returns at the end to comfort the reader and remind them that there
wasnt really a fictional gruesome murder in their fictional stories and that Superman will be back next month

but even then, he allows for a chance, even a small one, that this might just be how it all ends for Superman. So
great.
Its really interesting to me that the era of the Imaginary Story came to a close with Crisis on Infinite Earths, which
was essentially a large-scale admission that it was all made up and it could be added to, subtracted from and
rebooted as necessary, which led to a style of storytelling that was more geared towards longer form stories and
continuity that was built around a constant state of change. And its worth noting that when that era came to a
close, its passing was marked by two of the most famous Imaginary stories of all time: Whatever Happened to
the Man of Tomorrow and The Dark Knight Returns, both of which were the endings that their star characters had
never been able to have before.
Its also worth noting that in the Modern Era, the Imaginary Story was replaced by its old rival storytelling
technique, the Hoax. When you think about it, the Silver Age Death of Superman was a story about the actual
death of Superman. He doesnt come back at the end. He is an ex-Kryptonian. He has ceased to be. But the Modern
Age Death of Superman, the big fight comic from 1994 about the monster in bike shorts with bone claws, isnt
about Superman dying at all. Its about Superman being punched into a coma and everyone going oh hes dead! so
that they could sell a jillion comics polybagged with armbands, with every intention of bringing him back a few
months later with a mullet. Its a hoax, as is virtually every other death in super-hero comics. That doesnt
necessarily make them less enjoyable, but it does put that elaborate lie I mentioned above under a lot of stress.

As for Marvels What If comics, Ive never really been a huge fan of those. They have a similar focus on closure, to
the point where the answer to almost every question in the Marvel Universe that starts with what if is
everyone would die, but for some reason theyve never really hooked me.
I think what it comes down to is that the Marvel Universe has always seem less bound to a particular status quo
than DCs. It feels more fluid and willing to shift and change as the stories interconnect, so finding out what it
would be like if things were different doesnt require a separate story. You just need to wait around a little, and all
that stuff will happen:

Plus, Ive never really forgiven What If for What If The Punishers Family Hadnt Been Killed, in which the
Punishers family gets killed anyway. Thats not how it works, guys!
That one where Conan gets stuck in the 70s and walks around with a leopard on a chain like the Cimmerian Tony
Montana, though? That ones awesome.

Read More: Ask Chris #110: The Best Imaginary Story | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-110-the-bestimaginary-story/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #109: The Movie Industrys Kill-Happy Super-Heroes

by Chris Sims June 8, 2012 12:30 PM

Q: Why is it when superheroes are translated to movies or TV, no killing seems to be the first thing out
the window? @jason1749
A: Ive reviewed a lot of comic book movies here at ComicsAlliance, and the casual attitude towards super-heroes
killing is one of the things that always gets on my nerves about the translation to movies. Its hard for me to get
past even in a movie like Captain America where its arguably justified by the war-time setting, and
for Batman 89 or Superman II, its the breaking point that completely ruins the movie.
As for why, it really just comes right down to the differences between comics and movies, and how theyve evolved

in pop culture.
I think the problem has its root in the fact that The Hero
With a Code Against Killing is really only a common element in super-hero comics. In other media, adventure
stories tend to be a lot less strict about their heroes morality. Even the pulps, from which super-hero comics were
directly descended, were defined by characters who were prone to blowing away their enemies with smoking
pistols and the occasional zeppelin.
But even though the pulps were a profound influence, comics evolved differently. Ive gone into this before with a
specific focus on Batman (surprise!), who essentially started out as a Bob Kane and Bill Fingers fan-fiction for the
Shadow. The dark costume, the millionaire secret identity and the pistols that he packed in those early
appearances are all there, to the point where Clark Savage (The Man of Bronze!) and his Fortress of Solitude are
actually not the most blatantly lifted elements that formed the foundations of the DC Universe. As comics moved

into their own direction and the heroes solidified into unique creations, though, one of the elements that came to
define the genre was the code against killing.
A lot of people who havent actually read a lot of Golden Age super-hero comics tend to assume this was the
sinister, meddling influence of the Comics Code. That was certainly a factor later on, but its not the case at the
beginning. Batmans change from gun-toting vigilante to non-killing super-hero actually hit the comics a full ten
years before the Code was put into place. Its more likely that it was just a shrewd business move to appeal to a
younger audience and to reassure the parents who were actuallybuying these things that their characters were
solid, upstanding role models and not a filthy commie plot to corrupt Americas youth.
Theres another good reason for it, too. Unlike most other genres in other media, super-hero comics arent
generally designed to be finite. Even when they are, thats no guarantee that someone wont eventually try to wring
a little more cash out of them by exploiting the property anyway, but thats something you can read about
elsewhere. The point is, a successful comic isnt usually supposed to end. Unless its specifically built with an
ending in mind, its supposed to keep going for as long as people want to pay money to read it. And when your
protagonist kills his enemies, its pretty difficult to have a recurring villain.
Regardless of why it was introduced, comics embraced the idea of heroes that didnt kill and made it work
phenomenally well. Batmans entire story evolved over the past 70 years to be a rejection of and a battle against
murder, and hes not the only one to have that sort of development. Its a particularly strong element of Supermans
character as well, and its one of the key factors that makes him heroic. Even if you dress him up in a friendly
costume and give him a nice smile, the idea of an all-powerful alien being coming to Earth and throwing his weight
around is inherently frightening. If he kills people even bad people then that sets him up as someone who
considers himself to be above us, willing to make the decision to dole out punishment as he deems necessary, and
he becomes downright terrifying. He becomes an executioner, something to be feared. But if his character is built
around a rejection of killing, a code that shows that he respects life, that immediately recasts him as a protector and
a guardian, someone whose presence is comforting and reassuring.
Once it was a part of Batman and Superman, it became a standard part of the genre. Most of the more violent
characters of the Golden Age didnt last, and the ones that did were toned down by the Comics Code. It was even
refined for the Marvel heroes when they hit in the 60s. Spider-Man is, after all, a character who is explicitly
defined by the desire to use his power responsibly to keep people from being killed. I mean, theres not even a
metaphor in that one; its written right there on the page. Even later, when protagonists who did kill were
introduced, like the Punisher and Wolverine, they were often defined by being exceptions to that rule.
Heres the thing, though: Thats only true in comics.

Movies are a completely different beast. For one thing, theyre built differently. Even the ones that are made with a
sequel (or trilogy or saga or whatever) in mind tend to be geared towards telling a complete story in and of
themselves. Theyre crafted to include a sense of finality that leaves the audience satisfied, and unless the story
involves ghosts and the busting thereof it doesnt get much more final than death.
Thats especially true of Action Movies, and thats where you really hit the snag. Even now, when Batman and the
Avengers are making literal billions of dollars at the box office, super-heroes arent as defined as a film genre as
they are in comics. Instead, theyre just a subset of the Action Movie genre, which has its own language and
conventions and tropes, just like super-hero comics do. And part of that language is that, more often than not, the
bad guys die at the end.
A lot of times, thats how you know the movies over: The good guys win because the bad guys die, and usually a lot
of smaller, less important bad guys die along the way. Its not a bad thing, either. For me, its every bit as ludicrous

to imagine Batman gunning down his enemies as it is to imagine John McClane not killing Hans Gruber and his
band of exceptional thieves. Indiana Jones is no less heroic because he shoots that dude with the sword in the
marketplace. Theres nothing about their actions that conflicts with how theyre created, and the world in which
they live.
The problem is that thats not how most super-heroes are built. Its a world that theyre brought into, and more
often than not its by people who want to make a action movie rather than a super-hero story. Thats also why
elements are changed in the name of making things more appealing to a wider audience, which has been trained to
recognize the standard elements of an action movie rather than the standard elements of a super-hero comic. And
that, of course, usually just means dumbing things down and trying to make things that were designed for a neverending series fit into a very finite structure. Thats why you get stuff like the Joker being the guy who killed
Batmans parents in Batman 89. In an Action Movie, the hero has a personal vendetta that can only be settled by
killing his enemy, so Batman and the Joker end up with a relationship thats exactly like the one John Matrix and
Bennett have in Commando.
Still Jeph Loebs finest work, by the way.
With all that said, its not always a bad thing when a super-hero kills in a movie. The one movie that really does it
well? Iron Man.

I really love the scene where Tony Stark builds his armor and goes to hunt down the terrorists who imprisoned
him at the beginning of the film, because it manages to work in the context of both the traditional Action
Movie and the traditional Super-Hero Story. Its a great bit of classic revenge film thrown in there, the culmination
of Stark clawing his way out of being imprisoned and returning to overwhelm them with his technology, in the
form of a machine that he built specifically to kill people. Thats what the Iron Man armor is at that point, and why
its outfitted with face-seeking missiles. Its a very brutal, very personal conflict. In an action movie, this would be
the climax.
But its not. It happens right in the middle of the movie, because Tony Starks story in that film isnt based around
revenge. Its about his transition from being the kind of self-obsessed narcissist who wants revenge into being the
kind of hero who will sacrifice himself for others. His journey isnt a quest for vengeance, its becoming someone
who wants something more than that.
Whats really brilliant about this scene and the way Jon Favreau presents it is that we get there before Iron Man.
We see these dudes raiding a village and taking kids away from their parents, so we have a context that casts them
unequivocally as bad guys. But Tony Stark only has the context of hisexperience, and the fact that theyre messing
around with his stuff. At that point in the movie, he doesnt care about rescuing the civilians; its just a nice
coincidence that they happen to be in danger when he shows up to kill the bad guys. But at the end of that movie,
we have a Tony Stark who actually canlook beyond himself. Thats how the storys told, and it works really well.
Unfortunately, most other super-hero movies dont have that level of craftsmanship behind them, and most other
comic book characters arent former weapons manufacturers who lend themselves pretty well to that concept. But
hey, its a start.

Read More: Ask Chris #109: The Movie Industrys Kill-Happy Super-Heroes | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-109-the-movie-industrys-kill-happy-super-heroes/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #108: The Trouble With Gunsmith Cats

by Chris Sims June 1, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Tell me something about some manga that youre into. @hermanos

A: When I put out the call for Ask Chris questions this week, ComicsAlliance contributor David Brothers popped up
with this one, and even though its not actually a question, it got us talking. See, the first thing that popped into my
head when asked about a manga that I like was Kenichi Sonadas Gunsmith Cats.
And the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about that was that when you get right down to it, that

comic is problematic.
Dont get me wrong: Gunsmith Cats is hands down
one of my all-time favorite comics. Sonada is an absolute master of storytelling, and any artist with designs on
doing sequential action could do a hell of a lot worse than to study his work to see how he pulls it off. His fights are
unbelievably fluid, and hes one of the only people in comics who can pull of a car chase thats thrilling and
cinematic, something most other artists have written off as impossible.
And as a writer, his character work is pretty solid, too. The stars of his stories have clear motivations and defined
personalities that seem almost effortless in how quickly theyre established. Id even go so far as to say that Rally
Vincent is easily one of my favorite female leads in comics. Shes sharp, competent, fun to read about, and even
with Sonadas considerable emphasis on sex, she even has the remarkable (for comics) tendency to dress halfway
practical for running around shooting things.
Of course, she also ends up losing her pants through a variety of circumstances on a surprisingly regular basis, and
she has an unfortunate tendency to be mind-controlled and temporarily enslaved by the occasional lesbian

dominatrix, so maybe shes a little more dubious than I thought when I started that last paragraph. But well get
back to that in a second.
If youre not familiar with it, the back covers of Dark Horses omnibus volumes describe Gunsmith Cats as a comic
about two teen girls running a weapons shop in Chicago but they have a side business as bounty hunters!

The two girls in question are the aforementioned Rally the brunette, whos really into guns and Minnie-May
Hopkins the blonde, whos really into explosives but that summary doesnt quite cover it.
What Gunsmith Cats is really about is exactly three things: Guns, cars and pretty girls in elaborate hosiery. On
Twitter, Bryan Lee OMalley referred to it as being pure id, and hes not wrong. The entire series is based around
Rally running around in her underpants, getting into illegal road races in her 67 Cobra and elaborate shootouts
that put John Woo to shame with their creative staging and innovative gun trickery. Gunfights arent just limited to
people shooting each other, although they definitely do that a lot. Rallys signature trick is blowing off a bad guys
trigger finger, but theres also a great scene where a dude grabs her from behind and she fires off two shots,
angling her gun so that the spent cartridges burn his face. Its pretty awesome.
But what really marks the book and in a lot of ways, what makes it great is Sonadas downright fetishistic
attention to detail. Its not just on the hosiery, either, although the fact that he never passes up a chance for an
upskirt shot makes it abundantly clear that he slaves over those particular details as well. Its the exhaustive
research that goes into the guns guns and cars around which the series revolves. Nobody drives a car in Gunsmith
Cats, they drive a 1967 Shelby Cobra GT500 or a BMW 2002. Nobody uses a gun, they use a 9mm CZ75 or a .45 Colt
Lawman with a 4 Bull Barrel. And Sonada draws them all with a staggering amount of accuracy.
Of course, that level of attention to detail occasionally gets in the way. As much as its in character for Rally, a
professional gunsmith with an orgasmic attachment to firearms, to spent a whole hell of a lot of time talking about
the pistols shes selling

it stretches things a bit when people start critiquing each others choice of sidearm during a shootout.
Admittedly, Ive never actually been in a shootout, but I have sincere doubts that the parties involved usually spend
a good amount of time debating whether a smaller grip is worth the tradeoff in magazine capacity.
But at the same time, thats kinda what I love about this book. I mean, Im a guy who loves Punisher Armory, a comic
book published by Marvel that was pretty much nothing but 32 full-page advertisements for guns, knives and body
armor as narrated by one of their most popular characters every month. As much as Im leery of them in real life
the result of a childhood spent reading Batman comics, Im sure I find guns to be pretty fascinating, and getting
information about how they work mixed in with a big action story is a pretty good way to go about it.
No kidding: if you ever hear some guy at a comic book or anime convention opining on how walnut is
unquestionably the best wood for pistol grips, I will guarantee you he learned that from GSC.
Plus, the fact that Sonada strives for realism (or at least a semi-plausible action movie facsimile thereof) makes it
absolutely fantastic whenever Bean Bandit shows up.

Bean, alias Road Buster, is an earlier creation of Sonadas; Gunsmith Cats is actually a spin-off, with Rally Vincent
created as a bounty hunter trying to track him down. Hes a transporter, and probably one of the most over-the-top
action characters ever created.
Seriously, this dude is like the Dolemite of manga, always punching through bulletproof glass, cutting shotguns in
half with a pocketknife, or catching a rocket-propelled grenade bare-handed while driving down a highway at
200 miles per hour in his custom-built car.

He then threw it back at the guys who shot it at him, at which time everyone exploded.
Every time he shows up in a story thats even slightly based on reality, its like Chev Chelios from Crank kicked his
way through a wall and busted into an episode of Law & Order. Hes great.
So then, whats the problem? Well, its not emphasis on sex, at least not entirely. I mean, for one thing, its pretty
difficult to get worked up about Rally having her skirt cut off by a plucky young lady with a switchblade and having
to run around in her unmentionables when shes also shooting people in the head all the time, with the
accompanying bloodspray. Every single aspect of this comic is overblown and fetishized, so if the violence doesnt
bother you, the sex probably shouldnt either.
And for another, for all of his upskirt shots and fetishized chapter breaks, Sonada actually does do a pretty solid job
of presenting a cast of women that are well-rounded characters. Heck, as long as you dont discount conversations
about guns, this thing passes the Bechdel Test every single time.
The problem, in a word, is May.

As much as everything in this book might be exploitative on one level or another, but with May, it hits critical mass
in a pretty uncomfortable way. It starts with the fact that her two defining characteristics are that a) at the age of
17, she looks like shes 12, and b) shes constantly super-horny. And thats not me making an aesthetic judgment,
either: Those are both plot points, brought up by other characters and used in the stories on a pretty frequent
basis.
Its a bit of a warning sign, but, you know, whatever. Then you get to the part where you find out that shes an exprostitute, which might give you pause, but hey, this is technically a crime story, and thats not unheard of in the
genre. In fact, its nothing you havent seen already if youve read Batman: Year One.
And then you meet her boyfriend, Ken. Who is 35.

And then they start talking about how their relationship started four years ago, which, for those of you who dont
want to do the math, means that he was 31 and she was 13. And yet, no one in this entire comic thats chock full o
cops ever once goes hey, thats a little f***ed up.
This is not a one-time bit, either. Its a recurring subplot throughout the series that goes to the point of the two of
them getting engaged, which is about when I decide that maybe I should never, ever, ever read this comic in public.
Its the sort of thing that you find yourself gritting your teeth and reading as fast as possible because you want to
get back to the other, non-Nabokovian elements of the series, but it derails the whole thing. And since everything
else in the comic is fetishized, from muscle cars to hand grenades to stockings to pistol grips, its impossible to view
it without that lens of over-the-top exploitation that Sonada spends so much time crafting. The more it comes back,
the more it derails the whole thing.
On the other hand, it did result in what has to be the single most hilarious Parental Advisory sticker placement in
the history of comic books:

Win some, lose some, I guess.

Read More: Ask Chris #108: The Trouble With Gunsmith Cats | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-108-thetrouble-with-gunsmith-cats/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #107: My Favorite Super-Hero Wedding

by Chris Sims May 25, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: What is your favorite superhero wedding of all time? (Im pretty sure youre either going to go with Reed
& Sue Richards or Big Barda & Mister Miracle but I look forward to your answer nonetheless). K.D., via
email
A: If youre a regular reader of this column, youll probably be aware that telling people that theyre wrong is one of
my greatest joys in life. This time, though, its a little bittersweet, because you are severely overestimating my

tastes.
If youd asked about thebest, then as you suspected the title
wouldve unquestionably gone to Reed Richards and Sue Storms wedding in Fantastic Four Annual #3. Like
most of the things that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did in their run on FF, that one set the standard that everyone else
would spend the next fifty years trying to live up to.
Its still one of the biggest bang-for-your-buck comics of all time. As befitting their status as the center of the Marvel
Universe, the Fantastic Four had a wedding that involved everyone. The idea that Dr. Doom would read about Reed
and Sues nuptials in the paper and get so mad at the possibility that his nemesis was going to have a nice, happy
day that he got everyone from the Mole Man to Hydra to the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android to go ruin
things is pretty close to being the ultimate example of a super-villain dick move. And it just gets bigger and bolder
on every page as Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Avengers, the X-Men, Dr. Strange and pretty much every other hero in
the Marvel Universe show up to help out. Its not just the template for the big super-hero wedding, its one of the
first real capital-E Event comics. And its great.

Plus, Lee and Kirby showing up to be labeled as wedding crashers and kicked out of their own creations wedding
is probably the most purely Marvel Comics moment that has ever happened.
But as much as I love that issue, and as much as Id say that its objectively the best wedding story in comics, its not
my favorite. That honor such as it is actually goes to another story, and in my head, Im pretty sure that its
not very good. I dont care. I love it anyway.
Its X-Men #30: The Wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey.

Im not even gonna try to lie on this one: My attachment to this issue is based entirely on nostalgia. See, this was the
first back issue I ever bought.
I was in 7th grade, and as you might expect from the fact that I was twelve years old at the time, I loved the X-Men.
And from the fact that this story takes place in 1994, you can probably also guess that, like a lot of people my age, I
got pulled into the franchise by the cartoon that was running on Fox Kids. Originally it was just something to watch
while Batman: The Animated Series wasnt on, but I was right in the target demographic for that stuff to grab hold
of my imagination like nothing else.
I mean, have you seen the X-Men? This one dude has knives coming out of his hands, and this other dude? He
touches stuff? And then it explodes. Obviously, it was the best thing that had ever happened, and the paperback I
picked up at a middle school book fair where they fought Arcade (another life-long favorite) pretty much cemented
that idea in my mind. But for whatever reason, I never really had that many X-Men comics until I was older.
Im not really sure why. If I had to guess, Id say it was because I was growing up in a relatively small city in South
Carolina that only had one comic book shop, one of those storefront jobs that popped up during the boom with a
slightly off-model painting of Punisher and Wolverine on the window and most of the floorspace taken up by used
romance paperbacks. Could be that they just sold out before I got there.
Whatever the reason, the only X-Men comics I can really remember were the giveaways from Pizza Hut which
were awesome, but thats another column and a copy of Uncanny #303 that I got from a board game. But
somehow, whether it was from reading about it in Wizard or hearing people talk about it at school, I knew that XMen #30, which Id missed when it came out a few months before, had the wedding of Scott and Jean, and that this
was A Big Deal. So clearly, I had to have it.
When I couldnt find it at the store, I ended up buying it from a classmate who soaked me for six bucks three
times the cover price! But it was the first time Id ever had that fun of hunting down a book, and when I read it
which I did, over and over because I only had six comics with my new favorite characters in them I loved it,
despite its shortcomings.

And folks, they are short.

While Lee and Kirbys wedding story is action packed from the first page, Fabian Nicieza, Andy Kubert and Matt
Ryan offer one up thats soaked in drama so melo that it might actually be in a coma. I mean, this thing opens up
with a full page letter from Wolverine explaining why he wont be attending.
Incidentally, Logan waxes a little poetic in his letter to Jean, claiming that she and Scott go together like fire and
ice, because one cant exist without the other. Wolverine may be the best there is at what he does, but
apparently what he does doesnt involve writing metaphors.
Even beyond that, though, this is a comic that is very much Of Its Time, which is readily apparent from the fashions
on display. Im pretty sure that Jean has taken Mary Jane Watsons wedding gown and decided that it would be a
good idea to add Moon Knights hooded cape, but Ill be damned if I even know where to begin talking about
Rachels mini-dress here. That thing has a five-level bow. The mind boggles.
Speaking of Rachel Summers, its worth noting that the guests of the Grey-Summers wedding include two of the
bride and grooms children from alternate dystopian futures.

Of course, Scotts first wife, the clone of his second wife from whom Im not sure he was ever actually divorced,
declined to attend. And if those two sentences dont pretty much sum up the X-Men of the 90s, then Im not sure
any two could. Maybe I shouldve thrown a focused totality or two in there to be sure.
The entire issue feels like an exercise in somehow trying to be even more interminable than a real-life wedding,
and on that front, Nicieza and Kubert succeed with flying colors. But there are a few moments that stick out.
For instance, when Jean lifts Professor X out of his wheelchair with her powers so that he can dance with her:

Its actually a pretty sweet moment, and a nice touch on the part of the creators. Except that when Jean starts to lift
him up, Professor X has a momentary freak-out about how the wedding guests who dont already know are going
to find out that theyre mutants.
Seriously, guys? The Beast is there. He is in that panel. And he is not the only dude with blue skin at this wedding. And
also Rogue grabbed the bouquet by flying. And then Gambit exploded all the groomsmen so that he could get the
garter. Im pretty sure the cat has shredded that bag to confetti by now, son.
The one that really sticks with me, though, is the first dance of the Bride and Groom, played by Lila Cheney who
you know what? Just wiki it, well both be happier that way.

The song, as mentioned in the panel above, is One, and thats a little piece of trivia that was burned into my mind
from reading this comic over and over as a kid. Here, have a listen:
Nice tune. Very appropriate for a wedding rooted smack dab in 1994. But the thing is, when I was 12, I didnt listen
to U2. I had no idea what that song sounded like.
But I did listen to Metallica, and they had a song called One. So for me, the first dance of Scott Summers and Jean
Greys marriage, the haunting melody, both sad and uplifting at the same time, has always been this (and skip to
4:30 for the really romantic bit):
You have to admit, it fits the description.

Read More: Ask Chris #107: My Favorite Super-Hero Wedding | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-107-myfavorite-super-hero-wedding/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #106: The Best Marvel/DC Crossover and Superman as a Christ Figure
by Chris Sims May 18, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Of the long history of DC/Marvel crossovers, which one is your favorite? @JohnDudebro
A: Back when I was growing up in the 90s, inter-company crossovers happened a lot, and despite the fact that
youd think it would be a no-brainer to have Batman and Wolverine hang out for a few pages debating the merits of
a mask with ear-points, the vast majority of them were pretty terrible. Even when I was a kid, I remember thinking
that Marvel vs. DC, the series that was billed as the book that was going to settle every schoolyard debate, was
complete nonsense even if it did give us the surprisingly fun Amalgam comics that predated the Internets love
of mash-ups. The disappointments just completely overshadowed the few that were actually well-done.
But of the ones that were good, there are definitely a couple that are downright great.If I had to pick the best,
theres no question: Kurt Busiek and George Perezs JLA vs. Avengers wins that competition hands down:

Released in 2003 after years of being pushed back, JLA vs. Avengers was the exclamation point at the end of an era
of crossovers or maybe the tombstone. By editorial edict, Marvel and DC havent collaborated on anything since.
Still, if this was the last one that we were going to get, they went out on the highest note possible.
Its one of the few blockbuster comics I can think of that actually lived up to the hype and expectations, and in a lot
of ways, it even surpassed them. Busiek and Perez had four forty-eight page issues to work with, and considering
that Perez can do more on one page than most artists can do on four, that gave them a ton of room to do exactly
what a crossover should do.

The two teams fight each other, team up, fight each others villains, play with each others toys, and the attention to
detail is insane. Not only did they include every Avenger and every Justice Leaguer, but they had every version of
every character from every era of both teams, building a plot around combining universes and breaking time itself
so that everybody gets at least a panel to show off while still telling a story that makes sense.
There are so many great details, from the fact that DCs Earth is bigger because of all the fictional cities to the way
the characters react to the actual underlying moral structure of their rivals worlds. And the storys great, too. Its
patterned after equal parts Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Avengers/Defenders War, and draws on a dozen other
stories to make the biggest possible love letter to the history of super-hero comics. Theres just a joy to it, and you
can tell that Busiek and Perez are writing and drawing ideas that theyve been wanting to do for years, motivated
by the fact that theyre fans of the stuff theyre working with.

It delivers, too. Its a book that gave the fans all those big moments they wanted to see, and because of that palpable
enthusiasm from the creators, it doesnt just feel like theyre pandering. You get that shot of Superman holding up
Captain Americas shield and Thors hammer and it feels like more than just a nifty pin-up. It feels like they earned
it.
And it also has this, a panel I didnt even realize I wanted until I actually saw it:

In short, its good stuff. But its not my favorite.

That honor goes to Len Wein and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopezs 1981 Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk:

Originally printed in the giant-sized treasury format as DC Special Series #27, Batman vs. Hulk is a slightly smaller
affair than what JLA vs. Avengers, but the thing that pushes it over the top for me is Garcia-Lopezs amazing art.
Hes one of my all-time favorites, especially when he draws Batman. Seriously, just look at this page:

Theres a reason they let that dude draw the model sheets for the entire company.
Garcia-Lopez is at the top of his form in this book, and it kills me that I only have the normal-sized reprint from
1995, because the work hes doing here is just flat-out beautiful. Not just in the traditional comic book sense, either,
although he excels at that; theres a part where the Joker gets the reality-warping abilities of the Shaper of Worlds
and Garcia-Lopez shifts into doing Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso styles on pages that are mind-blowing:

The whole books full of pages like that, and its a joy to just look at.
Thats not to sell Lein Weins script short, either. I love those captions in the image above about how Batman is
neither demon from hell nor avenging angel, and he fills his script with great moments. My personal favorite: he
Hulk chucking a car at Batman and Batman deciding that the best course of action is to jump straight through the
windows like a vigilante Duke of Hazzard:

And then he uh hugs the Hulks leg for a minute.

Okay, so maybe theyre not all great moments, but its still a beautifully drawn, well-crafted comic that works way
better than youd expect from two characters so utterly different from each other.
Q: Superman as Jesus analogue: yea or nay? @MagicLoveHose
The idea of Superman as a Christ figure is the herpes of pop culture criticism. No matter how hard you try to get rid
of it, it just wont go away.
Its a popular interpretation, but the thing is, it just doesnt work. As I understand it, the entire deal with Jesus in a
nutshell is that he was the Son of God, divinity made flesh who was sent to Earth in order to instruct us as a teacher
and then sacrifice His life, redeeming the whole of humanity for its sins through His suffering on both a literal and
metaphorical level. Theres a little more to it, of course, but for more details, you can check out around 90% of the
rest of Western art and literature.
Supermans story, on the other hand, has nothing to do with any of that. The core of his character isnt about
sacrifice or redemption at all, its about having power and choosing to use it for the benefit of everyone rather than
just using it for yourself. The comparison seems to be entirely based on the idea that Supermans a really nice guy
who came from somewhere up in the sky. Thats about where the similarities end.
Jor-El is not Space God. He doesnt send Superman to Earth for our benefit, he sends Superman to Earth because its
the one place in the universe where his son can survive and thrive. Hes protecting him, not sacrificing him, and

humanitys need for someone to fight robots and Brainiacs doesnt even cross his mind. And, to paraphrase Grant
Morrison, Im pretty sure Heaven didnt explode shortly after Jesus was launched down to Bethlehem.
Supermans morality isnt divine or innate, either. Its not something that he was born with, and its not something
that sets him apart from humanity. Morally speaking, anyone can be as Good as Superman; the only advantage he
has is that he was brought up by a couple of really nice farmers. Hes an aspirational figure rather than a
redemptive one, who shows us that we all have the ability to use our talents for good, we just have to choose to do
so.

Thats not to say that Superman doesnt believe in redemption or that Jesuss followers dont or shouldnt attempt
to emulate Him. Theres a lot of overlap, and theres certainly been an influence built into Superman over the years,
but they dont line up. Their stories are built around completely different things, trying to accomplish completely
different goals, and hammering Superman to fit a Christ Figure framework is a recipe for disaster anywhere
outside of a freshman year term paper.
Theres a view thats almost equally popular built on the idea that Superman represents Moses, but I dont buy that
one either. Superman, the way I see him, isnt meant to be a stand-in for any Biblical figure. Hes meant to be
Superman.
Q: whatcha wearin @metrokitty
A: Oh, you know.

The usual.

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Ask Chris #105: Batman, Die Hard and Super-Heroes Favorite Movies
by Chris Sims May 11, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Batman outs himself as a Die Hard fan when he delivers a warning on the bodies of the downed
Hyperclan members in JLA: New World Order. What are some other heroes favorite movies? Morgan, via
email
A: Brace yourself, Morgan, because I think this is going to be the first time Ive ever said this in this column: Thats
an aspect of Batman that Ive never really thought about. But, and this ones almost as rare, youre totally
right.To be fair, Batman has a long and proud history of terrorizing criminals with notes. In fact, one of the weirder
parts of his M.O. in the Golden Age was to pack up a dead bat and mail it to a crook to strike a little terror before he
crashed through the window and started punching people in the face. It only happened a few times before it was
phased out, presumably because a) shipping dead animals to ones enemies was a little too morbid as Batman
moved away from his pulp influence and closer to the burgeoning super-hero genre, and b) even the children that
were reading comics in the 40s had a hard time buying the image of Batman standing in line at the post office,
tapping his foot impatiently with a cardboard box that smelled like a rotting animal tucked under his arm.
Still, that scene in New World Order which is unfortunately not a comic about the Justice League battling
Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash definitely feels like it has a Die Hard influence to it. If you
havent seen it well, if you havent seen Die Hard, then you need to not be doing anything other than
watching Die Hard right now. If you have time to read this column, there is nothing you could be doing right now
that is more important than watching that movie. Trust me, the Internet will still be here when you get back.
Either way, heres the shot in question:

And heres the scene from JLA #3, by Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and John Dell:

Quick aside: I doubt itll surprise anyone to learn this, but thats one of my favorite scenes in comics. When DC
relaunched the JLA as the Big Seven team, featuring their most powerful, popular characters and Aquaman,
Morrison was faced with a pretty interesting problem. This was, after all, the first time in the post-Crisis DC
Universe that Batman had been on a team with characters like Superman and Wonder Woman, who, at least by the
logic that gave us Power Rankings on the backs of trading cards, were punching pretty high above his weight
class. Its the same old problem that you get with puttinganyone on team with Superman, really: How do you justify
a normal guy with a belt full of boomerangs and smoke bombs hanging out with a dude who can lift mountains,
take an A-bomb to the face, fly around at the speed of light, and shoot lasers out of his eyes?
Well, if youre Morrison and Porter, you pit the team against a team of alien super-heroes who spoiler warning
for a comic that came out fifteen years ago! who turn out to be White Martians, which means theyve got all of
Supermans powers plus they can shape-shift, turn invisible and read your mind. Then you have Batman, the
Worlds Greatest Detective, take out four of them by himself because he put the clues together and figured out what
they were, and therefore their one weakness. It set the tone for the rest of Morrisons run and Batmans role in it.
Hes not on there because hes good at fighting or because hes rich, because that stuff doesnt matter when youre

next to Superman or Wonder Woman or a guy who can make whatever you need by thinking into a ring. Hes the
smart one. Hes the Worlds Greatest Detective.

But to wrench things back to Die Hard, it makes perfect sense that Batman
would be a fan and not just because its the single greatest American action movie ever made. Die Hard is, after
all, the story of a normal man a normal man with training, but a normal man nonetheless doing what he can
against impossible odds to protect the innocent, against an exceptional thief with a deceptive and elaborate plan
relying on theatrics and misdirection. Hes helped by one honest cop, but hindered by other police officers and law
enforcement agents who are incompetent, corrupt, or otherwise incapable of dealing with criminals operating at
this level. And despite suffering through some pretty brutal injuries, his determination drives him to succeed by
crawling through air vents, terrifying the bad guys, and, most importantly, dealing with being outnumbered and
outgunned by outsmarting his enemies.
And at the end? Not only does the good guy beat the criminals, but in doing so, he gets back the family that hes
separated from at the beginning of the movie. If thats not Batmans idea of a happy ending, then I dont know
what is.
As for other characters favorites, there are a few I can think of. Superman seems pretty obvious:

There is no way that Clark Kent doesnt absolutely love The Wizard of Oz. Its the story of a kid from Kansas who
gets flown to a strange land where the people view her as the Other, initially fearful of her ability to effortlessly,
accidentally defeat a great evil. But by doing her best to help the people she meets, and by standing up against

someone who would hurt others, she wins out, and gets the greatest reward of all: Returning home to her family
and the people who love her. Theres even a scary bald dude who lives in a city of glowing green crystals.
At the very least, Superman has brought down the house at JLA Karaoke Night with Somewhere Over the
Rainbow, and given the color scheme of that movie, Im pretty sure its why he decided to wear a blue costume
with red boots.
Spider-Man was a little tougher to figure out, but eventually I hit on one that made sense:

Even though the science nerd in him would cringe every time someone said the word gigawatts, Im pretty
sure Back to the Future would be one of Peter Parkers favorite movies. Mostly, this one just comes down to the
same reasons everybody else loves it. Its a great movie, sharp and funny with fantastic dialogue. For Peter, though,
theres a little more to offer. Its pretty obvious that the quippy teenager encourages the nerd to stand up to the
bully that makes his high school life miserable, but more than that is the idea that Marty gets to go back in time and
not only fix things for his family, but he saves Doc Brown arguably more of a father figure than George McFly
from being shot and puts everything right. For a guy whose entire motivation is based around a mistake he made in
his past, that idea would hit home pretty hard.
Seriously: Peter Parker sheds a single tear whenever he sees a DeLorean. Put that in the Official Handbook.
The Thing was another character that came to mind, but figuring out his favorite film was a lot tougher than the
others. Beauty and the Beast is a little too on the nose, and I dont think hed dig sitting around for two hours
watching a monster turn back into a handsome man, even if there were catchy songs by Angela Lansbury involved.
But eventually, this one popped into my head:

I cant really back this one up with any sort of deeper meaning or support from the text, but it just feels right that
Ben Grimm would be into Kellys Heroes. I mean, have you seen it? Its great. Clint Eastwood leads Telly Savalas,
Don Rickles and Donald Sutherland (as a World War II hippie [?!]) across enemy lines to steal a cache of Nazi gold.
Its amazing.
There are a few others Hal Jordan is definitely a dude who has never taken Top Gun out of his DVD player but
those four are the ones that feel the most right to me. Good call, Morgan!

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Ask Chris #104: The Most Versatile Villain in Comics

by Chris Sims May 4, 2012 1:00 PM

Q: Before you have spoken at length about how you believe Batman (for DC) and Ben Grimm (for Marvel)
are the most versatile heroes in their respective universes. But both of them are heroes. So, in your expert
opinion, which villains are the most versatile, and can be put against virtually any foe and be
entertaining? C. (via email)
A: For a hero, versatility is one of the things that can push them over the edge from good to great. One of the great
things about a character like Batman someone you may have noticed Im pretty fond of is that all of the
different interpretations you get over 70 years are all equally valid, as long as they stick to the same core idea of
what makes him a unique character. You can chalk up part of it to simple longevity and the fact that hes been done
in multiple styles, but the end result is a character that lends itself to fresh, interesting ideas.

For villains, though, its a little different.

By and large, heroes tend to be more versatile
than the villains they fight, for the simple fact that they fight a lot of villains. Nobody wants to read about the same

fight in every issue of a comic, but if Batmans name is on the cover, he pretty much has to show up in every story.
So you end up with one hero (or one team of heroes) and a lot of different villains, just to keep things interesting.
Take the Joker, for instance. Hes been around almost as long as Batman, and hes been through just as many
different versions. You can use him in stories that cast him as a comedic foil for Batman, a genuinely sinister villain,
a complete and utter lunatic, or any of a dozen other interpretations. Grant Morrisons take even went so far as to
cast the Joker as someone whos constantly reinventing his own personality, taking the chaotic aspects of the
character to the next level by building it directly into his character. It makes every version equally valid, so on one
level, hes just as versatile as Batman.
But on another, hes also locked into one specific conflict. Hes built to reflect aspects of a single character, so the
further he moves away from that character, the less impact he has on someone else. Thats not to say that
you cant do a good Joker story where he switches to fighting another hero they even gave him his own ongoing
series back in the 70s but its never going to have the same impact as his conflict with Batman does. And more
often than not, even the stuff that doesnt directly involve Batman is still based around the idea that his conflict
with Batman is the Jokers driving force.
That doesnt make the Joker a bad character, either. Youd be hard pressed to argue that he wasnt one of the best
villains in comics, and hes certainly one of my favorites, but hes built for a particular orbit The same goes for other
great bad guys like Lex Luthor, or the Red Skull, or even Magneto when hes in one of his more Evil Mutant
moods. They all represent very specific ideas that are keyed to very specific heroes, and while they certainly can
provide interesting conflicts with other characters, its not what theyre best at.
But there are villains who have that versatility as part of their character, and its worth noting that between the
two biggest shared universes in comics, you tend to find more of them at Marvel than DC.

Even when I was a kid, I was never a big fan of the whole Marvel vs. DC debate. Both
universes have their strengths and weaknesses, and thanks to the talented people that have worked at both
companies over the years often the same people, sometimes even at the same time theres nothing
intrinsically better about one universe than the other. Or at least, there wasnt until about nine months ago. But
there is a big difference in the underlying structure of how those universes work.

With DC, the characters are often built in a kind of isolation. Theyre all meant to exist on their own, complete with
their own domains that they rarely stray from. Metropolis and Gotham City could theoretically exist just fine
without their most famous residents ever meeting, and it wouldnt really change the way those characters operate.
And really, thats just fine, because if you start applying any kind of logic at all to the fact that these people live in
the same universe something I dont recommend you do all that often you start to wonder why Superman
doesnt just shut down Ras al-Ghuls entire operation over his lunch break.
The Marvel Universe, on the other hand, is much more tightly knit. Its creators decided to base so much of what
they were doing in the same area,even unified a ton of their characters by giving them the same thematic source
for their powers The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Hulk and even the original idea behind the XMen all draw from that classic fear of the Atomic Age, radiation. The fact that they were created to be more flawed
and heavy use of scare quotes here realistic even puts them closer together in terms of what they can and
cant do.
As a result, the Marvel Universe feels like it has a lot more interchangeable parts than their Distinguished
Competition. When DC characters show up on each others doorstep, its usually A Big Thing, but when Tony Stark
drops by the Baxter Building to see what Reed Richards thinks of his latest technological McGuffin, it all just seems
pretty natural.
All of which is to say that the Marvel universe lends itself pretty well to villains who can show up and present a
challenge to any hero. Which is probably why they have the most versatile villain of all time: Dr. Doom.

Dr. Doom is arguably the greatest villain in comics, and while he certainly has a set of arch-enemies in the Fantastic
Four, hes evolved into the kind of villain that can menace an entire world of heroes. And I think a lot of that comes
from the fact that hes essentially built like a hero.
When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Doom way back in Fantastic Four #5, they established him as someone
that was operating on some pretty varied arenas:

From that first story, we knew that Doom was a brilliant super-scientist, a sorceror who dabbled in the forbidden
art of black magic, and although the word Latveria wouldnt show up for a while the monarch of his own
country with all the resources that entailed. Those three factors alone make him a great fit for all kinds of varied
stories, but it gets even better once you realize that for all his mastery of cosmic forces the dude built a time
machine he was still focused on a very petty act of revenge against someone who slighted him years ago.
So not only does he lend himself to a variety of stories just by virtue of his abilities, but his plans can be as grand or
as petty as the story demands. Hes not solely focused on destroying Reed Richards, or even on his lust for power.
Once the question of why he was trying to reach the netherworld is answered and you learn that he was trying to
rescue his mother from Hell, an whole new layer is added to his personality, and the fact that he blames Richards
for his failure feeds into the ego that drives him to be the force that he claims to be.
He developed the potential to be anywhere. His machinations are so complex, and his talents so varied, that he can
believably fight or team up with virtually any hero or villain. The scientific aspect can bring him into conflict with
characters like Iron Man or lead to stories of harnessing incredible cosmic energies like the Silver Surfers, the
mysticism can make him a foil for Dr. Strange, the fact that hes the head of a foreign country can bring
international intrigue and S.H.I.E.L.D. into the mix, and the overwhelming power that he possesses makes him the
perfect character to show up and test any hero that crosses his path.
Like, say, Squirrel Girl.

Because thats the other thing about Dr. Doom: He is inherently hilarious. Hes a big guy in metal armor with a
goofy metal mask that runs around in a green miniskirt and a cape, referring to himself in the third person and
building time machines so that he can get his hands on some pirate treasure.
And yet, none of that really detracts from how menacing he is as a villain. He can be as silly or as serious as the
situation demands, because he has that history of being played as both. Even that Squirrel Girl story treated her
defeat of Dr. Doom as a Pretty Big Deal, to the point where Dan Slott essentially made beating up enemies that
shouldve been way above her weight class Squirrel Girls super-power.
The end result is a villain who can be great in everything from this

To this

To this

And as long as the core of his character is respected, it all feels equally valid. Of course, its also worth noting that
Im a pretty big fan of Arcade, but cmon: A villain who was designed to show up out of nowhwere and take any
hero to a gigantic deathtrap in the form of an amusement park? Theres no explanation necessary on why thats
genius.
Q: Is there a reason you hate Red Tornado besides the fact he is a robot that cries? EamonnGlenn
A: Isnt that enough?
Q: Any plans to celebrate FCBD this year? boydstep
A: Yes, actually! Ill be appearing up at Ultimate Comics in Durham, NC alongside my writing partner Chad Bowers
and a bunch of people that are way more famous than we are, including Chris Burnham, Joe Keatinge and Brian
Clevinger. If youre in the area, swing by to get some free comics and say hi!

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Ask Chris #103: Batman Learns To Be a Detective and Its Actually Pretty Dumb
by Chris Sims April 27, 2012 11:30 AM

Q: Which superheros superpower origin (how she or he got abilities) is your favorite? @cabinboy100
A: Origins are always pretty interesting, but focusing on the particular mechanics of how someone got their powers
or abilities makes things a little trickier. I mean, really, if youve read this column before, it shouldnt come as much
of a surprise that my all-time favorite origin story is Batmans, thanks to all that stuff about childhood fears and
determination that Ive been through before, but when it comes to how he actually became a vigilante? The dude

just does not measure up.

I know a lot of people are keen on it, but for me,
the part where hes traveling around the world learning how to do karate and throw little metal boomerangs is
easily the least interesting part of Batmans story. It just doesnt matter. You dont gain anything by actually
presenting that stuff that you dont already have by just saying and then he went around the world and learned a
bunch of stuff. Batman, like Sherlock Holmes before him, is the kind of character capable enough at what he does
that if you know something, its pretty safe to assume that he knows it too. If he needs to know an obscure tidbit or
the counter to a rare kung fu style for the sake of a story, then he does. Spending time justifying it just detracts
from the adventures hes having now that should be the focus.
Case in point: 1955s When Batman Was Robin from Detective Comics #226. This was actually one of the
most influential stories on me when I was a kid, in a roundabout kind of way. The events were recapped in about
two pages in Untold Legend of the Batman the comic that introduced me to Batmans history and set me on the
path of professional Batmanology and they always stuck out for being one of the single weirdest parts of his
origin. But there, at least, Len Wein and John Byrne tried to make it all make sense in the context of the larger
origin story.

The original story by Ed Hamilton, Dick Sprang and Charles Paris, however, has no such concerns. It starts with
Batman getting a package in the mail. Or rather, Bruce Wayne gets a package that turns out to to be for Batman,
making it clear that someone is fully aware of his secret identity:

The person in question turns out to be Harvey Harris, an ace detective that Bruce Wayne idolized as a boy and, as
it turns out, the person who trained him the fine art of sleuthing.
Quick sidenote about Harvey Harris: He turns up again in a post-Crisis story of Batmans training years by Mark
Waid, Brian Augustyn, Val Semeiks and Michael Bair that I actually like a lot because its about Batman being a
complete badass and fighting the KKK 1989s Detective Comics Annual #2 but Ive always thought he had the
potential to be a much bigger piece of the DC universe than he ever actually was. I mean, he was the guy who taught
the Worlds Greatest Detective, and with all the stories that flashed back to the past in books like Starman or JSA,
youd think he wouldve come up more. But then, I guess thats what happens when your first appearance starts
two days after you die.
Uh. Spoiler alert?
Anyway, Batman realizes the package is from Harris because it has a return address clearly stamped on the
label contains an old Robin costume from long before Dick Grayson took up sidekickery. Brucie, you got some
splainin to do.
Cue flashback, where we learn that Bruces hero worship of Harris was so strong that he decided to ditch his maid
and butler and go learn how to be a detective. And he decides this, of course, because his parents are on vacation.

For those of you keeping score at home, this is the moment that this story starts to go completely off the rails. Its a
story of Batmans origin that actually takes place while his parents are still alive, to the point where you could read
this entire thing and never realize that hes Batman because his parents were murdered. Im not sure if thats a
weird mid-50s Comics Code thing where they were leery of talking about, you know, a kids parents being shot
down in cold blood in an alley, but the overall effect is weird. Even the 66 TV show threw a line about his parents
in the first episode just to get it out of the way, but here? Nothin. Bruce Wayne really wants to battle lawbreakers when he grows up, and while I guess thats a pretty admirable trait, he doesnt actually have much a
reason for it. Hes essentially just learning to be a detective for the hell of it.
The catch is that for some reason, he doesnt want Harris to know who he really is, presumably because hes
planning for his future as a masked vigilante well before he has any reason to do so. So to that end, he decides on a
disguise, and we get a panel that almost collapses under the weight of its own innuendo:

Weve all been there, right? In the privacy of our own rooms, just you, a fanciful costume, and the glue from our
model airplane? Just me? Best to move on.
Because this is a comic drawn by Dick Sprang, Young Bruce ends up impressing Harris by dropping a giant novelty
bell onto a thug that was setting up an ambush. Harris is so impressed, in fact, that he agrees to teach Young Bruce
who he has nicknamed Robin due to Bruce being as brilliant as a robin redbreast in that costume, because of
course he has the ins and outs of crimefighting.
But while the teaching is going on, Harris is trying to get some deductions of his own:

Im completely not all that famliar with the Sea Scouts this may come as a surprise considering how much of my
youth was devoted to comic books and video games, but I was never much of a joiner so in my head, Batman
learned how to box by spending some time with the Sailor Scouts instead. Say what you want, but a miniskirt and
tiara would be a step up from that Robin costume.
From here, the story shifts to Harris and Lil Wayne tackling a case together. And in order to show us this thrilling
chapter of the Caped Crusaders origin, they have chosen quite possibly the worst crime they could fight: A bunch
of rich old white dudes with collections of expensive but ultimately useless things are being threatened for
protection money.

Not to get too proletarian here, but when your driving conflict is that your butler is too old to serve as a guard,
meaning that youll actually have to spend money and hire a guard rather than jetting off to Sweden for a rare 19th
century stopwatch, its pretty hard to feel sympathy. Just sayin. And it only gets worse, when one of the collections
that Harris is staking out turns out to be Thomas Waynes coins. At this point, It is seriously a slightly more actionpacked installment of Richie Rich.
Eventually, though, Bruce and Harris prevent the revolution from happening and everything works out more or
less okay for the Establishment, give or take a few model riverboats. Thus, after exactly one case, Bruce is an expert
detective with confidence that hell be able to keep his secret identity.

OR IS HE?!
See, as it turns out, his deception wasnt quite as solid as he thought, as revealed from beyond the grave!

Yes, Harvey Harris knew all along, he just let Bruce think that he didnt. Because building up the confidence of an
eight year-old is always better than, you know, giving him a tip that might help him avoid being instantly murdered
should his secret identity ever get out when hes a vigilante.
Now, I realize that none of this actually answers the question you asked, but it does point to what I think is a key
point. A lot of the time, the best origins for super-powers or abilities are the ones that are the simplest, or the most
vague. Radioactive spider. Earths yellow sun. Training. Hell, Marvel has made made millions, if not billions of
dollars over the years just by figuring out that the word Mutant means that you dont have to explain their
powers at all. They dispense with the detail so that you can move directly into the action.
There can definitely be great stories about someone figuring out the where and why of their powers, but for each
one of those, you get the story above, or, say, mystical spider-totems. A story where trying to explain and fill in
those gaps actually makes things worse.
That said, theres one super-power origin that hits that balance perfectly. My favorite: Iron Fist.

That dude bear-hugged a dragon until it died and then got mystical kung fu powers from its immortal
heart. That is rad.

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Ask Chris #102: Supermans Terrible Villains

by Chris Sims April 20, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: With which character is there the greatest gulf between the quality of the hero and that of their
villains? @JammyNorman
A: After last weeks column about the Riddler, Ive gotten a lot of questions about villains, but none had the precise
grammar of this one. Plus, its a pretty interesting subject. I mean, Batman and Spider-Man both have a lot of truly
awful villains, but there are so many great ones and pretty good B-listers that they end up with a pretty solid
average. But when you get right down to it, theyre the lucky ones.
And the best hero with the worst villains? Theres no question: Its Superman.Despite the impression you might
have if youve read the reviews of Smallville and the Superman films that Ive written with David Uzumeri, I
actually do really like Superman. Hes one of those perfect concepts that has with a few notable exceptions
been refined over the years into something thats truly great and inspiring. Theres a beauty to the concept at the
core of his character thats undeniably appealing, and theres a reason he was the template for the super-hero
thats going to outlive us all just as surely as Robin Hood and Hercules and King Arthur have.
Normally, this is where Id spend a thousand words explaining why, but fortunately for all of us, Grant Morrison
already summed it up in one sentence:
Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down.
The thing is, though, that Supermans one of the few characters that actually lives up to his the promise of his
concept more often than he doesnt, at least when you look at the character as a whole. As much as a lot of readers
look down on those classic adventures from the 50s and 60s for their lack of sophistication, a reliance on
gimmick-based storytelling and other assorted concerns, there are more truly great stories in that era than any
other time.
I dont say that out of any kind of ironic love of those stories and their tendency for goofiness, either. Anyone who
makes a list of the greatest comic books ever printed and doesnt include 1962s The Last Days of Superman, in
which Superman discovers that he has 30 days to live and does his best to make the world a better place before
hes gone, is just objectively wrong.

Also, on the subject of old-fashioned goofiness, that message stays there, written on the moon for the rest of the
Silver Age. It is one of my favorite things about comics.
The villains, however, just dont measure up.
Thats not to say that Supermans enemies are all bad. There are two or three that are really solid, but once you get
past those, theres a whole lot of nothin. But lets start with the good ones and see what we have to work with.

Lex Luthor is, in my mind at least, Supermans only genuinely great enemy. Hes one of the best villains in comics,
and not just because used to be so evil that he lived in an underground lair called The Nefarium. In the same way
that Superman was built and refined to be everything that was good about people as my pal Chad Bowers put it,
hes the one guy in the world who has X-Ray vision but doesnt use it to check out girls Luthor is every awful
emotion that we have personified.
Hes jealous. Hes petty. Hes hateful for no reason, and in dedicating his life to destroying someone so altruistic
shows us that hate is self-destructive. The best summary of his character is that hes a guy who could cure cancer
or save the world, but he never will. Hes too consumed with himself to even spare a thought to help another
person.
This, incidentally, is one of the reasons that Ill always think that John Byrnes post-Crisis on Infinite Earths revamp
of Lex as a businessman is such a great idea. In a world without Superman, thats exactly what someone like Lex
would do. In becoming the richest and most powerful person in business, he has essentially conquered the world,
in a way thats both more subtle and effective than conquering people in green and purple armor ever was.
His wealth and power make him untouchable in a way that is, as much as I dread applying this word to superheroics, realistic. One of the many great moments of genius in Man of Steel is that the moment that kicks off their
enmity, the one moment that makes Lex hate him enough to devote all of his considerable genius and fortune to
Supermans utter destruction, is that Superman makes him spend one night in jail.

But what really makes Lex great is how, like all great villains, he provides a contrast with the hero. When you think
about it, its actually really tough to get behind Superman as a concept. Hes an alien being with powers and
abilities that none of us could ever even comprehend having, and if its not done perfectly, his uncompromising
morality can easily come off as preachy or false. But if you take someone who has the desire to help everyone
coupled with the ability to actually do so, the qualities that we most admire in humanity, and then contrast him
with a normal human being with a complete lack of empathy, someone wholly consumed by hate, it says
something.
Superman shows us that an alien can be just as human as anyone else. Lex Luthor shows us that a man can be a
monster.
Thats why Luthors the perfect villain for Superman, but once you get past him, you start to run out of options
pretty quick. Brainiac is a solid choice with a lot of great potential and some really interesting gimmicks, someone
who reflects the more sinister side of alien civilization. Hes completely divorced from humanity, and his desire to
keep living beings as pets and experiments in their bottle cities is a beautiful way to highlight the fear that comes
along from Supermans power and the constant worry that hes Not One Of Us. Bizarro is another one with
potential, great to play for laughs or as a genuinely creepy threat who shows the danger of Supermans powers
without his mind and morality to guide them. Mr. Mxyzptlk follows along the same lines, but with the malicious
streak of a child who burns ants with a magnifying glass guiding him. Metallo is uh hes kind of a robot? Thats
pretty cool, right?
But where do you go from there? Toyman and Prankster just dont fit. They feel like third-rate knockoffs of
Batman villains even though they were both created in the early 40s, well before most of the characters they seem
like copies of. Terra Man isnt nearly as awesome as a time-lost cowboy trained by aliens to raise a ruckus on

Earth should be. Mongul is a second-rate Thanos, who was himself a second-rate Darkseid, making him a
knockoff of a knockoff. And while Darkseid is a fantastic villain, giving Superman a foe whos the literal
embodiment of evil is actually a little redundant when hes already got Lex Luthor.
It actually gets worse when you hit the modern age, too. Conduit? Bloodsport? Yikes. And the worst of em all
is Doomsday.

Ive written before about how I actually hold Bane in pretty high regard, but his fellow poster-boy for the 90s is
pretty awful. Bane is constructed to reveal something about Batman, to show his limits and the flaw in his
character that results from what should be his greatest strength: his dedication to his mision.
Doomsday wears green bike shorts and punches Superman until they both die.
He also has bone claws, which I think makes him the literal embodiment of the 90s. I seriously have no idea why
anyone would bother to bring him back, but I guess when youre the bad guy in one of the best-selling comics of all
time, you tend to garner fans just by default.
Theres also a wild inconsistency among Supermans foes, and that doesnt just result from DCs tendency to freak
out and hit the reset button whenever the opportunity presents itself. There have been a handful of different takes
on Brainiac over the years, and if youre a fan of General Zod, Ive got good news: Between 1995 and 2010, there
were five completely different versions of the character. The bad news? None of them were very good.
So the question, then, is why? Why does one of the greatest heroes of all time have such a lousy set of villains?

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Superman was forged with a very different storytelling style than other
heroes. In the formative years of the 40s, all the way up through the 60s and even the 70s, Supermans stories
just werent focused on individual villains.
In creating a character that was supremely powerful, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster as well as later creators like
Otto Binder, Ed Hamilton, Cary Bates, Elliot S! Maggin, and so on gave themselves a pretty interesting problem.
When you have a character that you continue to establish as unbeatable, then trying to introduce a character that
you portray as being able to beat them just doesnt work. They ring false, even in a comic where the reader is asked
to believe in an alien who can fly around and shoot laser beams out of his eyes.
So with the exception of Luthor, whose own criminal genius advanced to keep pace with Supermans increasing
powers, the stories never seemed all that concerned with bad guys. Rather than villains, the emphasis was on
challenges, on trying to trip up the Man of Steel with convoluted plots and schemes from villains and friends alike.
If you read those comics, the villain youll see most often will be a bunch of nameless gangsters who manage to
stumble on some Kryptonite and hatch a plan to use it, and the joy isnt seeing Superman bash them about the head
and shoulders like it tends to be with Batman, its watching Superman think his way out of it.
It certainly led to some pretty ridiculous stuff, but there was also an incredible level of creativity among those
creators that makes their work a joy to read. And in the process, they showed us what it was like to have a world
with Superman in it. The Superman comics of the 50s and 60s show a world that has no real villains for Superman

to fight because hes pretty much won. Hes fixed everything, to the point where he now has time to screw around
in his Arctic bachelor pad, writing in his giant diary and playing pranks on Jimmy Olsen to teach him instructive life
lessons.
You could say that it really just points to one of the great truths about Superman, which is that his real enemies
arent people, or aliens, or monsters, or anything else that can be punched out. His enemy, his only true enemy, is
evil. And against evil, Superman always wins.
Then again, if youre going to say that, you could also say that Batmans only enemy is the concept of Crime, and
that dude still manages to punch out a murder-clown on a monthly basis.
Q: What lessons can we all learn from Sailor Moon? @franzferdinand2
A:

Read More: Ask Chris #102: Supermans Terrible Villains | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-102-supermansterrible-villains/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #101: The Riddler

by Chris Sims April 13, 2012 12:30 PM

Q:

A: Huh. Probably shouldve seen that one coming.I love the Riddler. Generally speaking, I love most of Batmans
villains; one of his greatest strengths as a character is that he has what is unquestionably the single greatest gallery
of foes in comics. Most other super-heroes are limited to a few genuinely great bad guys to play off of while the rest
of their time is spent punching out the Trapster or the Toyman or whatever. With Batman, though, its one classic
after another. The only one who even comes close is Spider-Man, but even Batmans second-tier scrubs are more
entertaining than anyone elses.
I mean, I realize that Im the only person who has a deep and abiding affection for the KGBeast, but even without
him, youve got The Joker, Catwoman, Ras al-Ghul, the Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Deadshot, and
the list keeps going from there. Theyre so simple in concept that theyve become archetypes, built around
streamlined visuals and super-powers, but still hold their own as complex characters. Even Bane, the poster boy
for the pre-fab Event Villain, is actually pretty well-crafted. And the Riddlers right there with best of them.
And yet, its been my experience that a lot of readers dismiss the Riddler outright, often because they see him as a
goofy product of a bygone age. For them, the Riddlers just another gimmick for writers to hang their puns on. They
think hes corny, and to be honest, theyre not wrong.

My old pal Dave Campbell even went so far as to coin the term The Riddler Factor to describe the magic
combination of circumstance and McGuffins put into place so that a story about an otherwise lame villain can fill up
an entire comic. For him, there was no reason in the world that any story involving the Riddler should last more
than, say, half a page of Batman punching him in the face and throwing him back into Arkham. He is, after all, just a
guy in a suit.
But thats the thing about the Riddler: Hes not just a guy in a suit. Hes a genius in a suit.
One of the recurring themes in this column that pops up whenever I write about Batman which, as regular
readers will no doubt be aware, is pretty often is the idea that Batmans presence causes a fundamental change
in Gotham City. Ill keep it short this time, but by virtue of his existence as the hero that he is, Batman essentially
ends Crime as we know it, and the only way that Crime survives is by evolving into something else. Criminals
become Arch-Criminals. Bad guys become Super-Villains.

And the best super-villains, of course, are the ones that reflect something
about the heroes they battle, which is why its a good thing that Batman has become a pretty complex but very
well-defined character over the past 70 years. Batman has a desire to create order in a world that took his family
from him by random chance, which is how we get the Joker, a smiling murderer who gleefully spreads death and

chaos. We get Ras al-Ghul, a mastermind with a lifetime or more accurately, lifetimes of training who wants
to create his own brand of order through methods that are so extreme that they can only be called genocide, to
show us the moral structure that Batman has to operate within.
But as much as Batmans a crimefighter and an adventure hero, its every bit as important that hes The Worlds
Greatest Detective. And thats where the Riddler comes in.
See, part of the reason that Crime has to evolve is because if it doesnt, the stories are really boring. A comic where
Batman is just beating up carjackers or drug dealers might be viscerally satisfying for the many ways in which you
can watch him just straight up wrecking dudes which is, in fact, the premise of about 80% of
Rocksteadys Arkham games but the stakes arent there. It certainly doesnt warrant dressing up like a Dracula,
anyway.
But at the same time, if your goal is to make your character a detective, to the point where you put him in about
900 comics with the word Detective right there on the cover

then thematic super-villains cause a problem of their own. Seriously, when murder victims show up with big
Joker smiles on their faces, you dont have to call CSI to figure out who youre dealing with. Even the occasional
fakeout story just reinforces the pattern. Also, lets be honest here: Picking up a scrap of cloth at a crime scene and
going hmm is fine, but nobody actually wants to see Batman doing lab work for any amount of time longer than a
montage. So how do you get around it?
You create a villain themed around mysteries, puzzles and clues. You create someone specifically built to challenge
a detective. And that is the genius of the Riddler.
Batman has a compulsion. Well, maybe thats not the right word for it, but hes certainly driven, not just to fight
crime, but to solve mysteries, to find out who the bad guy is so that he can deal with them and make people safe
again. And the Riddler has a compulsion that plays off of that beautifully. He creates mysteries, but theyre never
the kind that you get from other crimes. In fact, the two most important questions in the traditional mystery story
who and why are always answered for you whenever youre dealing with the Riddler. Its always obvious
when hes involved because he wants recognition for what hes doing, and as for his motive, its simple. He wants to
beat Batman.
So the mystery becomes twisted into a challenge, and no matter what the stakes are in the scheme itself, the stakes
of the challenge are always as high as they can possibly be for Batman. If he cant outwit the Riddler, then it shows
that Batman can be beaten. It shows that crime can win.
Thats why I love the Riddler, because hes not just testing the man, hes testing the myth. Hes testing the entire
persona that Bruce Wayne constructed when he decided to put on a mask and become something more than a man.
If the Riddler succeeds, then we all learn the one thing that can truly destroy Batman: The idea that he can fail.
Which, incidentally, is one of the many, many reasons why Hush is such an awful story.

I dont want to spend any more time on this than I have to, but the entire idea of the Riddler being the mastermind
behind this dumb nonsense plot is quite possibly the low point of the characters history and considering that it
had to contend with Jim Carrey shrieking Joygasm! on the set of Batman Forever, thats saying something. The
entire story is just a highlight reel of stuff you remember seeing elsewhere Batman fights Superman, just like
in The Dark Knight Returns! And then he fights Ras al-Ghul with a sword, just like in the ONeil/Adams issues! And
then he thinks about killing the Joker, just like in Death in the Family! stapled together in something that goes
beyond rehash and actually makes those comics worse. It is a comic that you can only truly enjoy if you have never
read another comic book in your life.
Its not very good is what Im getting at.

Even the inclusion of the Riddler as a mastermind is a swipe at the character. Its meant to be a big reveal because
youd never expect the Riddler to be behind such a wicked awesome plot to kill Batman because hes such an awful
villain, ha ha. And then it goes a step further by completely misreading his character during the big reveal.
The Riddler doesnt care about secrets. If he cared about secrets, he wouldnt leave mash notes at the scene of his
crimes letting everyone know that he did it. The only thing he cares about is proving that hes smarter than
Batman, that he can outwit the Worlds Greatest Detective. If he discovered Batmans greatest secret, he wouldnt
sit on it in order to increase its theoretical secrecy value, hed shout that sh** from the rooftops so that everyone
would know he won.
Instead, Batman tells him youre not going to tell anyone my secret because nuh uh! and then punches the Riddler
in the face. Because, you know, thats a great way to ensure that someone doesnt immediately set out for revenge.
Storytelling, everybody!
Seriously, it is the worst. And unfortunately, that kind of story tends to be the exception rather than the rule, and
its easy to see why. The idea of a person who exists only to destroy Batmans self-made mythology is great, and
theres a lot of potential to it, but thats a really difficult conflict to write. As a result, stories tend to either fall into
using the Riddler as more of a prop than a character Dark Knight, Dark City being the prime example of that
or into playing up the gimmicks rather than the conflict they represent.

Its the latter that the 66 TV show went with, but Frank Gorshins
portrayal elevated every one of his episodes into something incredible. But the influence he created there the
way hed effortlessly transition from manic and giggling to cold homicidal rage with a single word, the outlandish
plots, the sheer style that he brought to the role would end up being passed down to the modern portrayal of the
Joker instead. Compare Gorshins Riddler to Mark Hamills Joker on The Animated Series and youll see what I mean.
As for the twist Paul Dini introduced to the character during his run on Detective Comics, during which the Riddler
reformed and used his notoriety to gain fame as a private detective, I really liked it. Its perfectly in keeping with
his established goal of proving himself to be better than Batman, but by twisting it around so that now theyre in
direct competition. Batman, in order to maintain his myth, now has to outwit the Riddler and another criminal at
the same time so that he can solve the cases first. Its a great idea that adds a layer of personal frustration to what
Batmans trying to do so that things dont get too effortless, and shifting the Riddler over to a supporting role
solves the problem those readers I mentioned earlier had with his inherent goofiness.
Plus, it dealt with all that idiocy from Hush by saying that Riddler got hit in the head and forgot it all, which is as
complex an explanation as that story deserved. The only thing that was really wrong with it was how the Riddler
tended to fall for the red herrings or pursue the wrong leads a little too easily. It never felt like their competition
was even remotely close, although I guess you have to expect that sort of thing when the other character in the
equation is the undisputed Worlds Greatest Detective.
If you really want a great Riddler story, though, pick up Puckett and Parobecks The Last Riddler Story
from Batman Adventures #10, in which the Riddler gives himself one last chance to outwit Batman, or else hell
retire from crime. Its hands-down the best take on the character that Ive ever read.
So thats the Riddler: A character with an incredible amount of potential that doesnt always get the chance to shine
through, who can only exist because Batman is who and what he is, and by challenging him, brings out an
important aspect of Batmans character that also doesnt always get the chance to shine through. And by doing so,
makes him better.

Read More: Ask Chris #101: The Riddler | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-101-theriddler/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #100: The One Hundred Question Spectacular

by Chris Sims April 6, 2012 4:00 PM

This week, we reach a milestone. With this column, Ive written One Hundred Installments of Ask Chris plus
the occasional fill-in or terrifying gypsy curse. So to celebrate, Im doing away with my usual longwinded format
and going the distance and answering One Hundred Reader Questions in a single column!
Lets get to it!1. If you could have 100 of any one thing other than wishes or Batmen, what would you want
100 of? @tobascodagama
A: Id say winning lottery tickets, but Ive read enough stories with ironic twist endings to know that theyd
probably end up getting me into a hundred Shirley Jacksons The Lotterys or something, and unless this years
Hunger Games are being competed via Super Smash Bros. Melee, Im not really suited for it. So Ill just go ahead and
go with hundred dollar bills.
2. Best Punisher artist? 616Earth
A: Im a huge Steve Dillon fan, especially with the way he draws Franks permanent scowl, but Mike Zecks
definitely up there too, particularly the covers where he went with a huge, over-the-top Mens Adventure style.
They both draw a Frank Castle who looks like he will just destroy you and not think twice about it.

3. What comic book character do you think represents the biggest waste of potential? spudsfan
A: Hands down, Nyssa al-Ghul, the daughter of Ras al-Ghul that was introduced by Greg Rucka and Klaus Janson
in Batman: Death and the Maidens. The idea of Ras dying and being replaced by someone even more sinister who
was motivated not by twisted altruism but by pure hate and a desire for revenge, and who lacked Ras's respect for
Batman was a great setup, but nobody ever did anything with her. She was introduced, she took over for Ras when
he died, and then she died off-panel as the result of a car bomb a car bomb! in an issue of Robin to explain
why Cassandra Cain was leading the League of Assassins.
4. How did Reed Richards become such a dick? bojak90
A: Considering that literally everyone in the entire world is significantly dumber than he is, I think Reed is
remarkably patient.
5. The Terminator, Deathstroke the Terminator, or Terminator X? Noah, via email
A: Neither Deathstroke nor the T-800 can yell with his hands.
6. Why on Earth isnt Untold Legend of the Batman still in print, being given away on Free Comic Book Day,
air-dropped over elementary schools like propaganda leaflets, anything to get it into the hands of kids? If
its not the official textbook of Intro to Batmanology 101, it ought to be. Jeff, via email
A: I agree with you 100%.

I love Untold Legend of the Batman. In fact, if you look back at any of the Ask Chris columns where I talk about
Batmans origin which would be, you know, most of them the panels I use to illustrate it usually come from
that comic. I had it in a few different formats as a kid including the first issue that came with an awesomely
melodramatic audio version on cassette tape and even though it dabbles in wierd Silver Age continuity like
Bruce being raised by Joe Chills mother and wearing the Robin costume as a kid, its one of the major reasons why
I learned to love both Batman himself and learning things about Batman.
I had the Mass Market Paperback version pictured above, too, and while I know it was in print as recently as a few
years ago, Ill never be able to figure out why Untold Legend and Elliot S! Maggins Superman novels, for that

matter isnt one of the books DC keeps around just to give kids a cheap way to get hooked on Batman. It
certainly worked on me.
7. If you had free range to make the next Batman cartoon, for kids, what would it be like? Style, villains,
friends etc? thenoirguy
A: Honestly, Id like to see something along the lines of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Inc., or even Avatar: The Last
Airbender. Not in terms of wacky plots or talking animals, but in the way that its structured so that the individual
episodes are adventures that build a larger, season-long mystery. Id love to see something with the aesthetics and
sophistication of Batman: The Animated Series and the willingness to draw from continuity and introduce new
characters that you got with Brave and the Bold, used in a setting where Batman would be uncovering a massive
plot by Ras al-Ghul or Rupert Thorne or the Joker for an entire season.
8. Who has more followers on the DCU equivalent of Twitter: Batman, Superman, Joker, or Luthor?
asrivkin
A: Im going to go with the Joker on this one, but I feel like his account would be a lot like @Horse_ebooks, in that
youd mostly just see retweets from people letting you know to stay the hell away from Downtown Gotham tonight.
9. What is the most ridiculous example of a guest star in comic history? ubertenorman
A:

10. What do you consider the best of the titles Kirby created for Marvel in the 1970s upon his return to the
company? I read the whole Machine Man recently and was mightily impressed; I had to switch my vote
from Eternals. Fred Van Lente, via email

A:

11. Has any superhero ever popped a boner during a fight? kthorjensen
A: As much as I hate to admit it, Tarots Boy Friend Jon Webb (alias the Skeleton Man) actually does qualify as a
super-hero, and Im not even kidding when I say that popping boners at inappropriate times is basically that dudes
signature move.
12. Which was better: ROM or Micronauts, and why? adampknave
A: Ive actually never been that into the Micronauts, but I have no hesitation in going to ROM. I love that Bill Mantlo
was able to take a toy that had so little backstory that even its ads were like uh, you can pretend hes from space?
and managed to craft 80 issues of pretty solid comics that ended up adding a lot to the Marvel Universe.
13. If you could travel through the internet to punch people, would you use that power? Koltreg
A: Constantly.

14. Do you think todays readership would be into a comics crossover based somewhat on the film
classic Point Break with say a Hulk or one of the Thunderbolts in the Johnny Utah role? Asking for a
friend. Jeff Parker, via email
A: I can think of one reader who would definitely be into that, especially if the Ex-Presidents were actually the
Continui-Teens.
15. In light of hitting the century mark yourself, which comic has had the best run, solely on issues #1#100? yusaku777
A:

16. Since youre hitting the milestone of 100 Ask Chris articles, what is your favorite thing to come out of
Milestone Media?
A: The fact that theres a character named Nun of the Above. That is genius.
17. Which movie that Laura Hudson forced you to review do you resent her most for? blackwelloab
A: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Dont get me wrong, Breaking Dawn was no picnic, but I knew I could at
least have fun writing about it. Transformers, on the other hand, was just soul-crushing in how stupid, awful, and
downright insulting it was.

18. In the trend of Marvel Apes and Zombies, what should the next alternate universe consist of? Koltreg
A: Ive said it before: I would write Marvel Dinosaurs for one dollar.
19. What is the best single issue youve ever read? XEYeti
A:

20. Favorite voice of Batman: Adam West, Olan Soule, Kevin Conroy, Bruce Greenwood, Rino Romano,
Diedrich Bader, Jeremy Sisto, Billy Baldwin, or Ben McKenzie. (I picked only the major voices, not Gary
Owens or Michael Ironside from Tales of the Dark Knight or other smaller appearances) Thom Zahler, via
email
A: Kevin Conroy, without a doubt. Were best friends, you know.
21. Given that his is your unique field of expertise: which superhero has the life most suited to a porn
parody?
A: Its tempting to say Daredevil, but since most pornographic films Ive seen dont end with someone being
stabbed with a sai or hauled off to a mental institution, Im going to go with Nightwing.
22. What comics are your comfort reads? RaeBeta
A: Surprising no one, I tend to read a lot of Archies when Im feeling down, or head back through
the Achewood archives. Ray buying Airwolf is surprisingly inspiring.
23. Who is your favorite comic character who is regularly written with an accent and why? dbed
A:

For obvious reasons.

24. Im a teen librarian at a very small library, and Im trying to build a semi-decent graphic novel
collection. Ive been buying some of the obvious choices but I only recently realized we have absolutelyzero
books featuring the Caped Crusader. Now, Id love to go out and buy every collection of Batman ever
printed, but being at a small library, Ive got a similarly small budget. So I ask you: I can only buy, lets say,
three print collections of Batman comics. Which three do I buy? Ted, via email
A: Year One and Dark Knight Returns are probably the two most obvious must-haves, but that third slot is a little
trickier. Assuming that the aforementioned Untold Legend isnt available, it might be nice to go in a completely
different direction with something like the DC Comics Classics Library collection of the Silver Age Batman Annuals,
just to cover the whole spectrum.
25. Which major crossover event did the best job of legitimately making its host comics universe better?
jaygarmon
A: Invasion! is probably my favorite event book of all time. Its Bill Mantlos only major work for DC, and that thing
gets knocked out in three eighty-page giant issues, with some great tie-ins in books like Animal Man, Suicide
Squad and Justice League International. It really helped to solidify some of the cosmic aspects of the DCU that had
only really been seen in Legion of Super-Heroes, and the Gene Bomb gave them a convenient way to drop
metahumans into their stories in the same way that mutants made things convenient for Marvel.
26. Okay, which pony is who in the JLA is obvious, but which is which of the Metal Men? paulsmoffett
A: Twilight Sparkle is Gold, Rarity is Platinum, Rainbow Dash is Mercury, Applejack is Iron, Pinkie Pie is Lead, and
Fluttershy is Tin. Obviously.
27. Which G.I. Joe is the most bad ass among those who are not either a Ninja or a Pro Wrestler?
mikepankowski
A:

28. If Batman was sent forward in time to a grim future where there is only war, what would he do?
Kieron Gillen, via email
A: From what Ive seen of Warhammer 40K, it appears that hed immediately start hot-gluing skulls to every
available surface.
29. What flowers would Batman give to someone on a date? Maxy_Barnard
A: Fun Fact: Flowers have all kinds of different meanings, and while there arent any that mean justice,
Rhododendrons apparently mean beware. Given his flair for the dramatic and his luck with women Im
pretty sure Batman would be handing out all kinds of warning bouquets.
30. who is the best at robot Benito Cereno, via email
A:

31. Best Magical Girl? HydrogenGuy

A: Despite the fact that this I think this is the first time its come up in this column, I dont think it will surprise
anyone to learn that there was a time in my life where I was a pretty huge fan of Sailor Moon. A reincarnated future
space princess who was also way into sleeping in, eating a lot, and making questionable hairstyle
decisions? Thats a heroine I can identify with.
32. Ditko or Romita Sr.? franzferdinand2
A: Romita.
33. What is the most mainstream character you care the absolute least about? malpertuis
A:

34. Have you ever gotten bored with Batman? kellytindall

A: Ive definitely been bored with Batman stories before, but never with the character. Ive never thought that there
wasnt something new or interesting that you could do with him.
35. What was up with Nocturna and the balloon? Kelly Sue DeConnick, via email.
Ah, Nocturna.

For those of you who arent familiar with Nocturna, she was the central figure in a (way-too-)long-running story
known as the Pre-Crisis Jason Todd Custody Battle. She can be pretty accurately described as a hot-air balloon
enthusiast and alleged vampire, and honestly? That is probably the most baller description anyone in a
Batman comic has ever had and when you consider that it stars a billionaire ninja vigilante, thats saying
something.
As to why Nocturna was so into balloons, to the point where she essentially floated straight out of continuity in
1985, Id guess that it probably just boils down to the fact that owning a custom hot-air balloon is one of the
raddest things you can do. Just ask Team Rocket.
36. What are your feelings toward Moon Knight? tjones0928
A: Ive never really been all that into him. No particularly strong feelings one way or the othe.
37. If you had a time machine, what would you tell Young Chris Sims as he prepares to start up his blog?
MagicLoveHose
A: Dude, get in. Were gonna go punch Hitler.
38. Are there any vegans in comics and are they as over as Daniel Bryan? Yes Yes Yes! or No No No?
Team_Hellions
A:

39. They say every writer has a Batman story in him, and I doubt youre the exception, so, whats YOUR
Batman story? Vonice
A: I actually do have one surprise! but while Ive pretty much given up on ever working for DC, I still plan on
keeping it to myself just in case. Find me at a con where I will definitely be drunk, though, and youll probably hear
it before long.
40. Which Street Fighter character is your World Warrior Spirit Totem and why? Jim Zub, via email.
A:

41. Mark Hamill as Crybaby Clown in Mystery Inc., greatest role ever?
A: Id say thats probably Hamills second-greatest role. The first, of course, is Skips from Regular Show.
42. If Alfred threw a pizza party the nights the Waynes died, would there be no batman and as a result no
criminals he made? rusty_shackles
A: Wait, do you mean if hed thrown a pizza party so that the Waynes could hang out at the Manor rather than
going to the movie and getting shot, or do you mean that Bruce comes home having just witnessed his parents
murder, and Alfreds all Cheer up, Master Bruce! Ive got pepperoooooniiiiii! Because, and I am 100% certain that
this is the first time in my life I have ever said this, that is not the appropriate time for a pizza party.
43. Which would win in a race, the Batcopter or Moon Knights Mooncopter? joshua_hough
A: Airwolf.

44. Would you rather live eternally as a Muppet or live for 5 years with the powers of Superman? Koltreg
A: Just so If its the choice between eternity as a literal puppet or five years of being bulletproof, flying and shooting
lasers out of my eyes at anyone who sasses me, Ill take the latter every time.
45. You have one game to play for the rest of your life, which would you chose of the following: Banjo
Kazooie or Donkey Kong Country?
A: Believe it or not, Ive never actually played either of those games. Id go with Donkey Kong Country, purely on
the basis of really liking that one song from Super Smash Bros.
46. Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter?
A: Street Fighter with no hesitation. Ive always hated Mortal Kombat for its cheap gimmickry, goofy photo-based
graphics and reliance on spectacle to mask inferior gameplay. Yeah, thats right, I said it. Suck on that, 1994.
47. Twisted Metal or Mario Kart? Jarrett Williams, via email

All right, now were getting somewhere. These are two games Ive had a lot of fun with over the years, and I like
them both a lot. Mario Kart is probablymore fun, but Twisted Metal has a bit more depth to it that might give it a
little more longevity if its the only game I can ever play. If its the original versions of each game, though not,
say, Mario Kart DS or Twisted Metal Black I think Id have to go with Mario Kart.
48. Tarot /Power Pack teamup Good idea, bad idea, worst idea ever?
A: To be honest, I can think of no more appropriate crossover subject for everyones favorite Witch of the Black
Rose than a bunch of kids who were given their super-powers by a magic talking pony from space.
Well. Maybe appropriate is the wrong word, but Id definitely read it.
49. What is the secret to destroying Curt and Chris once and for all? Koltreg
A: Curt is weak to Bubble Lead, Chris is weak to Leaf Shield.
50. Who had the best 100th issue? Punisher, Batman, and Spider-Man? sequentialmatt
A: Lets check here Punisher #100 is a Chuck Dixon joint that involves Big Frank making some pretty dubious
choices regarding shooting a gangster because gasp shes a pretty lady! So that ones out. Amazing SpiderMan #100 is pretty solid, but its also a book where the last-page cliffhanger is Peter Parker moping because hes
suddenly grown four new arms, so that one gets knocked down to a B-.
Batman #100, however, features this:

I want to go to there.
51. Youve been asked to create a Marvel version of Composite Superman. Which two heroes, & which
teams powers? JHeaton416
A: Well, Marvel already has the Composite Hulk, and that was pretty amazing. But if I was going to do something
more along the lines of the bright green half-Superman/half-Batman who had the powers of the entire Legion of
Super-Heroes, Id probably go with half Spider-Man, half Daredevil, with the powers of all of the X-Men. Thatd be
about as ridiculous as giving someone five different versions of invulnerability, right?
52. Who could Batman never beat? Who would always theoretically have his number? MatthewElmslie

A: As much as people love to see it because they loved it so much when they read Dark Knight Returns when they
were 15, I never want to see Batman beat up Superman again. Its happened so often at this point that its lost
all of its impact, and its just ridiculous. And the weird thing is, the people who love seeing it are often the same
people who say that what they really like about Batman is that he doesnt have super-powers and hes just a
normal guy. So yeah, I would be perfectly fine if we spent the next twenty-five years reminding everyone that
Superman can move at the speed of light and smack you across the room with his eyelashes, even if you have a
butler and a basement with a dinosaur in it.
53. What erotic film parody would you rather watch/review: Justice League Detroit or Great Lakes
Avengers? LenSnark
A: Man, that is tough. On the one hand, Lexi Belle as Squirrel Girl is a casting decision Ive wanted to see since they
started making those things. On the other, Vibe is way more suited for pornography than he is for super-heroism. I
think Id have to go with the GLA, if only because Evan Stone would make a truly fantastic Mr. Immortal.
54. You have to wear any superhero costume for rest of your life. Which do you choose, considering
comfort and social embarrassment? SchnoodleLad
A:

55: If you had to nominate five series for the Eisners; Best New Series category, which five books would you
nominate? Joe Keatinge, via email
A: If Im drawing from the list of potential nominees that the Eisner Awards passed on
which, Aquaman excepted, I actually thought was a really strong crop of new comics I wouldve gone

with Daredevil, La Mano Del Destino, Wolverine and the X-Men, Snarked and Skullkickers. My vote woulddve gone to
that last one there are six pages in #6 that really put it over the top.
56. Youve mentioned comics learning the wrong lesson from Watchmen. What do you think is the right
lesson? MagicLoveHose
A: The right lesson from Watchmen is that you can do a sophisticated, complex story involving super-heroes
without having to simplify or dumb down the concepts. You can do a compelling narrative that deals with those
familiar themes that doesnt come down to one guy punching another and calling it a day. You can take what you
like about existing elements and change them to do something new. You can do it with a definite ending, in a way
that you dont get from titles that, by their very nature as serialized stories, have to continue. And you can do it all
with a high level of artistic consistency and craft.
57. Are there any big two German characters that are neither nazis nor terrorists?
A:

58. Please explain Kang the Conqueror to me. tjones0928

A: Hes a time-traveling super-villain from the future descended from both Dr. Doom and Reed Richards who is also
occasionally a pharaoh in ancient Egypt, and the pharaoh and the conqueror have met and hate each other, and he
is a member of The Council of Cross-Time Kangs, a collection of interdimensional versions of himself, one of
which is a sexy lady who once destroyed the Avengers by seducing Dr. Druid. Pretty simple stuff, really.
59. Who is more worthless and why- The Vision or Red Tornado? adamrjones24
A: The Vision is just a character that I dont particularly care for. Red Tornado is quite posisbly the worst thing that
has ever happened to DC Comics. Even Batman: The Brave and the Bold couldnt make that dude not be awful.
60. What comic were you most surprised you liked? Christopher Hastings, via email
A: Planet Hulk. I remember going into that thing thinking it was just another boring retread and that it was insane
that they were spending over a year on it, but it turned out to be both a great story in its own right, and led to a lot
of other great stuff, too.
61. Which super team is David Bowie most likely to join? Koltreg
A: The X-Men, of course. You gotta make way for the homo superior.
62. Whats the best/worst memory you have of the Ultraverse? pbarb

A:
63. If there was a comic book version of an E! reality show, who would it star and what would be the
concept? Team_Hellions
A: Im honestly surprised that this hasnt already been done as a Booster Gold story. I can already see Kevin
Maguire drawing the confessional scenes with the rest of the JLI.
64. Favorite Batman utility belt item? ASaltzberg
A: Batarangs! I will always love that, even at his darkest / most grim / most realistic, Batman still carries around
little metal boomerangs shaped like his own logo that he uses to bonk crooks upside the head. The more you think
about it and I have thought about Batarangs a lot the more amazing it gets.
65. Dear Friend Chris, If you were a cartoon character, what would your one set of clothing look like, and
what would your catchphrase(s) be? Ming Doyle, via email
A: Whenever my friend Catie Donnelly draws me, she almost always puts me in jeans and a Batman shirt, which is
pretty accurate.

The only exception was when she drew in a shirt with a dinosaur on it that said DINOS!, which was equally
accurate. As for a catchphrase, Id probably go with saying that things are not very good.
66. Are you going to do an interview with the Route 29 Batman? drmagnificent
A: Only if hes willing to tell me that I am Batmans best friend.
67. When cats? talestoenrage
A: No, werewolves.
68. Best villain hideout in comics? Drew4484
A:

69. Who has the best facial hair: the wizard Shazam or Jack Knight Starman?
A: Man, Jack Knights little 90s hipster goatee is nowhere near as awesome as the flowing face-forest grown over
meticulous centuries at the Rock of Eternity. In fact, the original meaning of the Z in SHAZAM was for the beard of
Zeus rather than the power.
70. Hey, Sims. Does this taste weird to you? Chris Roberson, via email
A: Apparently Chris Robersons well-documented fear of spoiled food has gotten so bad that hes asking people
hundreds of miles away for confirmation before he has a snack. The three-day-old salsa is fine, Chris.
71. Whos your favorite third string Batman villain? KGBeast is first tier. MK2Fac3
A: Youre goddamn right he is. Anyway, I dont know if this guy is even good enough to qualify for third string, but I
love the hell out of Johnny Karaoke:

Created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake in the otherwise pretty awful Batman #660 to be Laura Hudsons
new favorite Character, Johnny Karaoke was an assassin who killed his targets with a sword that was also a cane
that was also a microphone, while singing. Despite holding an MBA from UCLA, he pretended to not speak English
that well because he thought it was hilarious, and led a team of lady kung fu assassins called the Geisha Grrls.
He died literally one issue later. He is the best, you guys.
72. Youve arrived in Video Game Land. You do the only sensible thing and introduce the people to pro
wrestling. Who do you book? id0ru
A:

Mexico?
73. if batman was gay for a dude would it be superman? curtofranklin

A: According to an overwhelming amount of evidence presented on Fanfiction.net, it would be Miles Tails

Prower. Im Im not sure how accurate that information is.
74. Would you rather dress up as Witchblade, Tarot or Starfire? Maxy_Barnard
A: Assuming that I wouldnt be held responsible for anyone who was traumatized by actually seeing me in it, Id
totally go for Tarot. Seriously, have you seen that thing?

Itd be worth dealing with whatwould definitely be the most uncomfortable experience in my life just to figure out
how those boots were supposed to work. And sometimes you need the support that only a pentagram bra strap can
provide.
75. Clowns or Sharks? Greg Rucka, via email
A: Sharks.

76. Would you cosplay as Aquaman if Laura Hudson went as Mera & the other CA staffers went as sea
creatures? LenSnark
A: If Laura dressed as Mera? Probably not. If, however, Caleb dressed as Mera and Laura had to walk around a
convention dressed as Aquamans octopus pal Topo, however, I would definitely do it.
77. Who is your favorite Intercontinental champion whos never won the World title? Neiliocentric
A:

78. How much does Batman know about magic (across all media)? CUnderkoffler
A: I get the feeling that Batman would be a lot like Conan the Barbarian in this respect. Hed know a lot about it
because he lives in a world where magic actually exists as an undeniable fact, but that he doesnt have the natural
talent that hed need to actually use it. As a result, the fact that its one of the very few things he cant do, as well as
the fact that it can literaly change reality and cause the otherwise impossible to happen would lead him to mistrust
it as a general rule.
79. Favorite webcomic (that you dont help create)? DukeSquiggles
A: Achewood, Dr. McNinja and Order of the Stick are too close to call.
80. do you like pizza Benito Cereno, via email
A: YES.
81. do you like cantaloupe or do you agree that it is terrible Benito Cereno, via email
A: It is basically the worst. It is the reason that I will never order a fruit salad, because I dont even want to run the
risk of having it ruin a perfectly good slice of apple.
82. Who is the best businessman, Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, or Norman Osborn?
A:

83. Best Bioware romance? MagicLoveHose

A: Not gonna lie, Im a pretty big sucker for Shepard and Liara in Mass Effect.
84. Best Bioware bromance? MagicLoveHose
A: Garrus is, of course, the winner spoiler warning, but shooting outer space beer bottles on the overpass
in Mass Effect 3 was one of my favorite video game moments ever but Varric from Dragon Age 2 comes pretty
close, if only for his amazing Scarface-esque solo mission.
85. Joker the Batman villain v. Joker the pilot: who wins? catiemonster
A:

Im pretty sure that the super-villain who has fought Batman and killed like a million people could take a guy who
can get his arm broken by a stiff breeze.
86. That new Batman Birth of the Demon TPB: worth reading? PaulFORegan
A: Definitely. Thats a great story, and the hardcovers been out of print for years.
87. Did you know that Hunter Clark is, like, the coolest guy ever? Jarrett Williams, via email
A: I did, because I own a copy of this print that he drew:

88. please discuss why Stacy X was an awesome character david_wolkin

A: No.
89. If you talk about Lexi belle then YOU CAN TALK ABOUT STACY X david_wolkin
A: All right, fine! What do you want to know?
90. everything david_wolkin
A: Stacy X was, as you might expect from the initial, an X-Man But not the Wolverine / Cyclops / Nightcrawler
kind of X-Man. She was more on the level with guys like Maggot and Marrow. She was introduced by Joe Casey and
Tom Raney in Uncanny around the same time that Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely were on New X-Men, and her
deal was that before she joined the team, she was a prostitute who worked at a mutant brothel called the X-Ranch
(hilarious) but never actually had sex with her clients, she just used her mutant pheromone powers to send people
into spasms of wait for it ecstacy.
She later quit the team, leaving behind, if memory serves, a video of herself doing jumping jacks in the nude while
taunting Iceman. Then she lost her powers, then she joined the New Warriors, then she died, then she apparently
came back last year in a scene where she was having a three-way with Chambers ex-girlfriend in an effort to, I
dont know, trap Magneto or something? Believe it or not, Wikipedias tendency for alarming specificity in these
matters isnt really a help here.
So there you go: Two paragraphs of information on Stacy X, which is about three more paragraphs than anyone
actually needs.
91. Explain and explore the dynamics of modern myth and the heros journey, the mono-myth in the
writings of Joseph Campbell, as a cross-cultural phenomenon that today stems primarily from comic

writers, with emphasis on reflections of the American world view. Please do this in seven words or less.
Paul Tobin, via email
A: Just read The Great Outdoor Fight already.
92. Where would you rather go to school, Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or Xaviers school
for gifted youngsters? EamonnGlenn
A: Hogwarts. Not only does the Xavier School have a mortality rate slightly higher than setting yourself on fire, you
also get to be yelled at by Alan Rickman, and thats a lifelong dream of mine.
93. What is Ric Flairs kissing technique? bad_dog_smell
94. Apart from the obvious answer, who is the best and/or most versatile character of the Silver Age?
Benito Cereno, via email
A:

95. Which of the Riverdale Gang would you take into the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2? kenlowery
A: Dilton to handle the tech, Sabrina to reinforce the force fields. Jughead, of course, would lead the B-squad, and
Moose would guard the survivors on the way back to the ship.
96. Ben Grimm wrestlingawesome? franzferdinand2
A:

97. Whats been your happiest or most satisfying moment at ComicsAlliance? Laura Hudson
A. Finishing this column. Second to that, talking to Adam West about how much I love Victor Buono as King Tut was
pretty awesome, and getting an email from Al Milgrom about how much I loved U.S. 1 was great too, because Im
sure that doesnt happen every day. Running into Dwayne McDuffie at San Diego and having him tell me he enjoyed
a column I wrote about race in comics was probably the biggest highlight, though.
98. You have to assemble a super team consisting solely of grotesque stereotypes, preferably racial, but
gender-based stereotypes will be acceptable IF and only if they are particularly egregious and backwardslooking. Are you a bad enough dude to assemble a team of super-racists? GO. Matt Fraction, via email
A: Hoo boy.
Hoo boy.
Okay. I can do this. Chop Chop from the Blackhawks, the witch doctor who sent Bombi the Zombie after Scrooge
McDuck, uh Ebony from The Spirit Egg Fu No, I cant. I give. Im tapping out. Thanks for ruining everything,
Fraction.
99. On a scale of one to ten, where one is a great idea and ten is a pit of despair, how good an idea was Ask
Chris 100? Maxy_Barnard
A: After that last question? Probably like a 9, 9.5.
100. After 100 Ask Chris articles are there any questions you were really hoping we would ask you but they
just didnt come up?
A: A few weeks ago, I was talking on Twitter about how, contrary to popular belief, the Riddler is one of the best
and most underrated Batman villains of all time, but nobody ever asked why.
Oh well. Theres always next week!

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Ask Chris #99: Tarots Redeeming Qualities and Hobo Batman

by Chris Sims March 30, 2012 1:30 PM

Q: I assume you were tricked into reading Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose but you keep reading it! What the
qualities that keep you coming back? @InhabitantJ

A: Believe it or not, I started reading Tarot of my own free will.

To be fair,
though, my friend Scott who at the time was reading almost every comic in Previews every month was the
one that convinced me to check it out. His rationale was that if you wanted to really understand comics, then you
had to read the best thing that was coming out and the worst thing, so youd have context for why the good things
were good. For him, Tarot fit the bill for the latter, and that was a hard point to argue. Admittedly, this was
before the Justice League relaunch.
But the thing is, I really enjoy reading Tarot. I dont think its good, you understand the writings not great, the
art frequently goes in strange directions, there are typos in the lettering and the books sexual politics are suspect
at best but I never want it to not be coming out. I genuinely hope it runs forever. And if I had to point to why,
Id say that its because there are things in that book that I have never seen anywhere else.
Super-hero comics can be pretty repetitive, and Ive been reading them for about 25 years and doing very little
else for the past seven or eight. Ive seen a lot of stuff happen over and over again, whether its an homage, or a
reference, or just a retread. Thats not necessarily a bad thing if there was only one story where Batman fights

the Joker, wed be missing out on some pretty great comics but how many times have we seen Supermans
origin over the past decade? And how many times did wereally need to?
Tarot, however, does not have that problem.
For instance, in my years of pretty much constant comics reading, I have never seen anyone else refer to a womans
breasts as goblins.

I have also never seen any other book feature a villain who had an octopus tentacles (and beak) emerging from her
vagina to defend a horde of pirate treasure.

Nowhere else in my entire life have I seen this:

Granted, I didnt actually want to see any of those thing (okay, maybe the last one), but the fact remains. Say what
you want about Tarot, but its pretty surprising.
Q: Has Batman ever been destitute, and if so, did he make a good hobo? @thehorseman
A: Unlike Iron Man, who has bankrupted his company and lost his fortune three or four times at this point, Batman
has never really not had his money. That said, there is one short-lived instance of vagrancy that comes to mind,
from Batman #678 and Grant Morrison and Tony Daniels Batman R.I.P.
R.I.P. is unquestionably one of the greatest Batman stories of the past 20 years, and this particular issue takes
place at Bruce Waynes low point in the story. Its a pretty complex setup, but the short version is that Dr. Hurt has
created a psychic trigger that turns off Bruce Waynes personality and jacked him up on weapons grade crystal
meth before tossing him in a dumpster to roam around Gotham City. This course of action definitely raises a lot of
questions, chief among them being what kind of weapon actually runs on crystal meth?

Fortunately, the Batman thinks of everything, and was able to use a Backup Personality that he created years
before all this (!) in order to come back and thoroughly demolish the Black Glove. It does, however, take him a little
while to mentally reboot, and while he does, he wanders across Gotham City with Honor Jackson, a homeless man
who may or may not be a figment of his imagination and possibly a ghost. Seriously, some people actually dont like
this story. I have no idea why.
Point is, even when Batman doesnt know hes Batman, hes still Batman, as evidenced by the fact that when hes
assaulted by a couple of street toughs, he not only snaps out of his Weaponized Crystal Meth Haze long enough to
Batman the hell out of them

he also uses his Worlds Greatest Detective skills to figure out that its totally weird for him to be homeless:

Then he builds a device that can take over Arkham Asylums security out of a broken transistor radio, digs himself
out of his own grave, and punches out a helicopter.
So yeah, Im going to go ahead and say that he was probably the best hobo.

Read More: Ask Chris #99: Tarots Redeeming Qualities and Hobo Batman | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris99-tarots-redeeming-qualities-and-hobo-batman/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #98: The Best and Worst of Lois Lane

by Chris Sims March 23, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: What is your favorite Lois Lane story? Least favorite? @FellAndTerrible

A: Whenever I talk about the Superman family, I usually go straight for Jimmy Olsen, but I like those old Lois
Lane comics just as much. In fact, I think Silver Age Lois has a pretty unfair reputation among a lot of readers. The
view most people have of her is a swooning trouble-magnet who was always trying to trick Superman into
marrying her, but that wasnt really the case. She was in danger a lot, yes, but that was because she was a daring
reporter, and there are plenty of stories where she outright refuses to trick Superman, because she just wants to
show him that he can finally tell her he loves her without having to worry that shell be killed by his enemies.
Theres a fearlessness, dedication and nobility to her character that often gets glossed over in favor of easy jokes
about how kooky old comics were.
That said, if Im honest with you, my favorite Lois Lane story is probably the one where she gets shot with a
laser beam that makes her really fat.

I almost wish it didnt, but I cant lie: That opening panel cracks me up every single time I read it. Just the very
idea that Superman, who can lift a car with one hand, would feel the need to actually tell a woman shes quite a

load while pretending to be out of breath is the most hilarious dick move that guy has ever pulled, and thats
saying something.

Originally printed in 1958s Supermans Girl Friend Lois Lane #5, The
Fattest Girl In Metropolis is about one gorilla short of being the Silver Agiest story of all time. It has everything
else you could possibly want, including a convoluted and completely insane plot to catch a crook, Superman
casually ruining someones life and then being immediately forgiven, and of course, the almost mandatory Bizarre
Transformation. Seriously, you couldnt go two weeks back in the 50s without somebody turning into a lion or, in
the case of Supergirls pet horse, turning into a human who starred in a rodeo.
But thats another column. Point is, this storys great, and a lot of that comes from the fact that Otto Binders script
was drawn by the always amazing Kurt Schaffenberger. Ive mentioned this before, but while Schaffenberger may
not get the (justifiable) attention paid to Curt Swan, he is hands down my single favorite DC artist of the era. His art
is just beautiful, with fluid lines and incredible facial expressions. Swans Superman always had an air of
confidence, but Schaffenbergers frequently looked exasperated and bewildered by what was going on around him.
And for good reason.
Which brings us back to The Fattest Girl in Metropolis. As the story begins, Lois is her usual slender self, out for a
drive one night when she runs across the murder of a man with the ballerest name of all time:

If Swag Swanson doesnt manage to make it back to comics with DCs relaunch, then I dont even know why
were reading comics anymore.
Anyway, the killer turns out to be so average looking that hes virtually impossible to describe, meaning thatLois
wont be able to identify him unless she actually sees him in person. And when she tells the police this, the officers
response is, I kid you not, Well, if you run across [THE MURDERER] again, notify us immediately.
Thanks for the tip, officer. Very helpful.
But life at the Daily Planet goes on, and after snagging the front page with her story of how she cant possibly
describe this murder she saw, Lois is sent to cover a fantastic new invention from one of Metropoliss many
crackpot scientists:

You can probably see where this is going.

Sure enough, Lois has plumped up like a Ballpark Frank. Its at this point that the story just goes all-in on this
premise, with Binder taking the opportunity to refer to Lois in captions as the Pudgy Planet Reporter, the
Rotund Reporter, and my personal favorite, Lois Chubby Lane. Seriously, that one is in there.
For his part, in the scene where Lois calls up the scientist to see if he can cure her, Schaffenberger draws Loiss
apartment to feature a framed portrait of Lois herself hanging above her phone, so that you can contrast her usual
appearance with her current state on the off chance that you forgot what she looked like on the previous page.
My favorite example of how ludicrous things get, though, is where Lois goes to pick up a new dress:

The Fat Girls Shoppe. I honestly dont know if thats the worst name for a business, or the best. Say what you
want, but the proprietrix of the Fat Girls Shoppe is owning it, you know? Good on her.
Thats just the beginning for Lois, as things just get progressively worse with an intensity thats only rivaled by the
darker episodes of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia. First, she tries to keep Superman from noticing her weight
gain, only to find out that shes been suddenly transported to a world that operates on Looney Tunes physics. Even
more than usual, I mean:

Keep that fourth panel in mind, because Ill be coming back to it in a second. For now, though, get ready for the
kicker: All of this is happening on Loiss birthday.

That is fantastic.
Even though she tries to keep herself hidden from Superman, Lois ends up saving his life and revealing herself. At a
wedding where shes acting as a bridesmaid because of course she is Lois discovers that the ring is actually
Kryptonite when her Kryptonite-Detecting Charm Bracelet (introduced exactly one page beforehand) goes off.
Thus, her secret has been revealed and she thoroughly humiliated in front of the man she loves. Ha-ha!
In order to distract herself from her sorrows, Lois heads out to cover the opening of a nearby carnival
(newsworthy), where a leering barker tells her she only needs to pack on a few more pounds before he can offer
her the job as the resident Fat Lady. And this brings up a pretty crucial element of the story, which is that with the
exception of the neighbor who told her to check out the Fat Girls Shoppe, every single person in this story is a
horrible person to Lois Lane. Superman, the carny, Otto Binders captions, theyre all just insanely mean.
Well, maybe not everyone. Im sure Jimmy Olsen meant well when he offered her the extra-strong chair to sit in.
The average-looking murderer, on the other hand, has no such noble intentions:

Fortunately, as is so often the case, it turns out that Supermans been following Lois to protect her. But more than
that, its revealed that hes actually the one who sabotaged the growth ray in the first place! See, since Lois could
only identify the killer if she actually saw him, Superman needed to think of a way for her to recognize him without
being spotted herself. Clearly, this was the best solution:

Ah. Mazing. And its worth noting that I knew you wouldnt consent if I told you, but it was for your own good is
still in the top three creepiest things Superman has ever said.
Thus, Superman reverses the ray and zaps Lois back to her normal size, but not before she stuffs herself with the
biggest dinner Clark Kents paycheck can buy. But theres one more thing to mention before we move on.
Remember that panel I told you to remember above, where Superman told her that she was quite a load, without
realizing that he was talking to Lois? Well it turns out that since he arranged the whole thing, he did know it was
Lois! That line is mean enough, but when he knows its her, its just astonishing.How in the hell does that help his
plan?! Hes just being a jerk for no reason! The f***in nerve of that guy, I swear.
Its probably what I love about this story.
As for my least favorite, well, that dishonor would probably go to Mindy Newell and Gray Morrows two-issue Lois
Lane mini-series from 1986. Its essentially a long-form PSA about missing children, and while its heart is in the
right place, the execution leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Dr. Scott, a noted PSA comic enthusiast, has whats probably the definitive
write-up of it over at Polite Dissent:
As this mini-series starts, Lois is feeling low. She has recently bungled a major interview, and her reputation at the
Daily Planet has never been worse. In the midst of a dinner date, she notices police cars tearing down the road and she
ditches her date (and borrows his car) to follow them. She ends up at a crime scene where the body of a murdered
little girl is pulled from the harbor. At that moment Lois Lane, prize winning journalist, has an ONISGS (Oh No, I
Suddenly Got Stupid) moment and suddenly realizes that there are missing and exploited children out there, and all
too often they turn up murdered.
[...]
The big shocker of the book comes near the end of the story, at a police press conference that Lois and Lana are
attending. As the police are discussing a dead body that has been found, Lana gets nauseous and bolts from the room.
Lois follows her. In the conversation that follows, we learn a little secret: While Lana was in Europe, she got married
and had a son. This child was kidnapped by an Italian terrorist group who sent Lana a little memento her sons ear
before ultimately killing him. To this day, Lana keeps her sons ear in her safe deposit box. So not only did Lana have a
marriage and child in her past a family that has never been mentioned before or since but she keeps her dead sons
ear (which she describes as a dried piece of skin that looks like an apricot) at her bank.
Did I mention what an enjoyable comic this was?
So yeah, not exactly the laugh riot I was hoping to end on, but there you go. They cant all have fat-rays.

Read More: Ask Chris #98: The Best and Worst of Lois Lane | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-98-the-bestand-worst-of-lois-lane/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #97: The Best and Worst of Wrestling Comics

by Chris Sims March 16, 2012 12:30 PM

Q: Whats the worst wrestling comic youve read? Whats the best? @chudleycannons
A: I thought about saving this question for a few weeks until this years WrestleMania rolled around, but today is
3/16, and Ask Chris logo artist Rusty Shackles has declared it to be Stone Cold Steve Austin Appreciation Day. So
lets step into the squared circle of wrestling comics, and rest assured that well be seeing the Texas Rattlesnake

before its all over but probably not in the comic youd expect.
Up until
recently, The Last Shoot from Spider-Mans Tangled Web #14 wouldve taken the top spot more or less by
default. Dont get me wrong, its a great comic, with a script by Brian Azzarello and Scott Levy (better known to
wrestling fans as Raven) that tells the other side of Peter Parkers encounter with Crusher Hogan in his very first
outing as Spider-Man. If youve never read it, its the story that explains why Crusher Hogan was offering a cash
prize for anyone who could last three minutes in the ring with him, and while that sounds like exactly the sort of
thing that wouldnt require an explanation at all, its done amazingly well. Theres this great aspect to it about how
the world changes when super-heroes come along, and whether you need a guy who knows how to grapple when
anyone who wanders into a science exhibition can walk out with the proportionate strength of a spider.
Its actually my favorite thing Azzarellos ever done, a short, taut thriller that somehow manages to make a lastminute twist out of something thats been part of comics for fifty years.
But for a while, it was also one of the only comics about pro wrestling that was actually any good at all. Fortunately,
thats no longer the case. The last few years have seen a sudden crop of really excellent wrestling comics.

The most prominent, of course, is Jarrett Williams Super Pro K.O.!:

I love this comic. Williams has this incredible style thats like Osamu Tezuka and Bryan Lee OMalley had a baby,
and then raised it on a steady diet of early 90s WWF. Its expressive and exaggerated and kinetic, and the fight
choreography is unbelievably good. He even builds the lettering, captions and sound effects into the pages, so that
it all creates a single, beautifully crafted whole.

But its more than that, too. SPKO has an energy to it that Williams puts into every page, with a knack for character
and this pure, unironic love of wrestling thats contagious. Wrestling in SPKO is a world full of athletes and
brawlers, tough veterans and eager rookies, heroes and villains. Its what you thought pro wrestling was when you
were a kid, but better. And with slightly more DragonBall Z haircuts.
Theres also the great La Mano Del Destino, by J. Gonzo:

When I first saw this one last year, I called it thrilling luchador mysticism, and thats about the best three-word
summary I can come up with. At the center of the story, theres this idea that theres a long Meso-American history
of masked warriors who battle each other on grand stages of good and evil that has culminated in lucha libre.
Around that, Gonzo has this story done up with this great retro-60s aesthetic thats equal parts super-hero epic,
wrestling action and kung fu movie, particularly when its revealed that the main character has to defeat an entire
army of rudos in order to weaken the diabolical mastermind that holds his promotion in a Satanic stranglehold:

You can even read the first issue for free online, and its something I highly recommend.
If I had to pick an absolute favorite though and believe me, its a tough choice Id probably end up going
with The Legend of Ricky Thunder, by Kyle Starks.

This is another one that you can read for free Starks has the entire story available as a webcomic at his site, and
it is amazing. As you might expect from the title, it tells the story of Ricky Thunder, a small-time superstar with a
mullet that qualifies as genetically perfect wrestling hair whose world gets shattered when he learns that the
results of his matches have been predetermined.

And then the aliens show up, and it turns into a match to save the world from complete annihilation. Things end up
looking pretty grim for Ricky, but fortunately, the ghost of Benjamin Franklin shows up to help him through the
rough times:

And those are just the absolute highest of the highlight reel that is this comic. Starks takes the standard beats of a
wrestling match, from Ric Flairs knife edge chops to Hulking Up, and then throws in some of the funniest dialogue
Ive ever read for good measure. When Ricky tells his alien opponent that the weiner dog is in the dang snake
hole, for instance, it is somehow hilarious and undeniably badass, and Starks even managed to make a Chuck
Norris joke that was actually funny in the year 2011. Its like the Danny McBride movie that somehow never
happened.
As for what would be the worst, well theres certainly a lot of competition.

The obvious choices would probably be the WWF comics from the 90s that
were produced by Chaos!, the company best known for Lady Death. The centerpiece of their line was a comic
starring the Undertaker that operated on the premise that whenever he wrestled, he was actually fighting demons
that only he could see, sending them back to Hell with his signature Tombstone piledriver. If you want to be
charitable, you could call that interesting, but it was also completely unreadable, and so were the comics based on
Mankind, Chyna, the Rock, and of course, Stone Cold Steve Austin.
But the thing about those comics is that of course they were awful. They were published by Chaos!, and putting out
a comic that was actually good wouldve broken their eight-year streak of pure, uncompromising awfulness.
Those arent the only contenders, though. There was Nash, the mercifully short-lived comic from Image that was
extremely loosely based on Kevin Nash but set in a post-apocalyptic future. Then there was the Ultimate
Warriors Warrior, a perennial favorite of Worst Comic of All Time lists and a fascinatingly awful depiction of
narcissism and complete lunacy, in which the fact that the title character/writers arm tassles talk to him isnt even
close to being the craziest thing. Honestly, though, they dont come a lot worse than 2010s WWE Heroes, a book
that just flat-out refused to make sense on any level.
Still, theres one awful wrestling comic that will always have a special place in my heart: World Championship
Wrestling, a twelve-issue epic published by Marvel in 1993:

In what is quite possibly the single most Southern thing I have ever done in my life, I picked up most of the issues
of the WCW comic at a bait shop when I was ten years old. I ended up reading them over and over, and as much as I
loved pro wrestling, it wasnt because I thought they were any good. It was more along the lines of being a kid who
really liked comics who somehow find himself on a fishing trip, which meant I pretty much read the only thing I
had handy.
But even then, I knew they were terrible. #11 has what still reigns as the gold standard of an artist just not giving
a f***, when Ron Wilson drew a man looking at himself in the mirror and decided to go with a completely different
facial expression for his reflection:

To its credit, WCW was actually a pretty accurate comic book translation of what wrestling fans saw on the screen,
lousy art aside. The characters were the characters, good guys and bad guys who were in full ring attire at all times,
and the story focused on Sting, WCWs top babyface, as he tried to gain the World Heavyweight Championship
despite the machinations of bad guys like Stunning Steve Austin and his long, flowing blonde hair.
Or at least, thats what it was for the most part. Occasionally, it would veer into straight up Marvel Super-Heroes
territory, like that time Mick Foley tried to blow up a cruise ship with a bundle of dynamite.

The driving conflict of the book was even weirder. It focused on a mysterious wrestler called the Ghoul, who
tormented Sting through a series of increasingly complex machinations that, at one point, even involved bashing
him in the head with a shovel in order to give him amnesia, so that he could dye his hair black, turn evil, and stomp
on a sick childs birthday cake. Originally, the Ghoul was revealed to be Ravishing Rick Rude, but in true
wrestling and comic book fashion, it turned out that was just a fake-out.
The Ghoul was actually Crusher Craig or was he?! a creation of the comic who was said to be Stings trainer,
whose legs were broken when he was teaching Sting the secrets of his finishing move, the Scorpion Death Lock,
and who had entered into a Faustian bargain with the Devil in order to get his revenge.

Its not that its crazy that makes that part so bad, its that theyre totally stealing the Undertakers gimmick.
So yeah. It is not very good, even if it does have the truly mystifying element of having fictional jobbers specifically
created for the comics so that it could introduce wrestlers in squash matches. And also, theres this:

Read More: Ask Chris #97: The Best and Worst of Wrestling Comics | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-97-thebest-and-worst-of-wrestling-comics/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #96: Why Spider-Man Is The Best Character Ever (Yes, Even Better Than Batman)
by Chris Sims March 9, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: When rating heroes you put Spider-Man above Batman but you write way more about Batman. Doesnt
Spider-Man have as much depth? @ilionblaze
A: Dont get me wrong: Batman is my favorite character. As the last 95 installments of this column will attest, I
probably spend more time thinking about Batman and how he works and what he means than anything else. Just
going off of personal preference, I love Batman more than well, more than most other things in the world, period.
Spider-Man just happens to objectively be the single greatest comic book character ever created.They actually
make a pretty good contrast to each other, and it all starts with the idea that Batman is very much a childs
fantasy. Thats not a bad thing, either.
Every now and then someone will ask me just why it is that I like Batman so much, and the best way I can put it is
that theres this pure, beautiful idea at the center of his character. Bruce Wayne has this perfect life until crime
takes it away from him, so he decides right there that hes going to end Crime by himself. The fact that hes a
child when this happens is a crucial part of the story, because if he was older, hed realize the inherent flaw in that
plan. Hed understand that the world isnt a fair place, and that sometimes bad things happen to good people for no
reason, and that theres not much anyone can do about it. Only a child would think it was possible for one man to
end crime, but because hes a child, thats exactly what he decides to do.

And the best thing is, he does it! A lot of people show Gotham as this crime-ridden urban nightmare, but as far as
Im concerned, theres no one getting mugged in Gotham City. Theres no carjacking or guys robbing banks with
shotguns. Why? Because Batman showed up and ended that. Its the reason that scene in Year One where he tells
the gangsters that theyre done is such a great moment, because hes right. Theres no more room for them in
Gotham City, because what you and I know as Crime here in the real world cant stand up against Batman.

If Crimes going to survive against Batman and it does, because if it doesnt, we dont have any more Batman
stories it has to become something else, which is exactly what happens. People dont get mugged in Gotham City,
they get mind-controlled by the Mad Hatter or dosed with Joker Venom or thrown into an elaborate deathtrap.
Nobody robs a gas station, because theyre too busy going after the priceless Egyptian Twin Cat statues at the
museum. Crime in Gotham City operates on a whole other level than anything wed recognize.
And its like that because one child had the determination to forge himself into a weapon against evil. Its a
beautiful, beautiful idea, and I will never not love that. But its also a childish one, largely because he conveniently
had everything hed need to accomplish it, like being naturally athletic and handsome and having a photographic
memory and a billion dollars and a mansion full of secret passageways and a butler.

Alfred might actually be the single best example of how much of a childs fantasy Batman really is. Hes a parental
figure who specializes in patching up his scrapes and bruises and making his favorite dinner, but Batmans actually
his boss, which means that he can stay up as late as he wants and he doesnt have to wash behind his ears if he
doesnt want to, so there. The only thing that even comes close to that is Captain Marvel Shazam Captain Marvel, a
little kid who can turn himself into the kind of all-powerful being that every kid imagines grown-ups are, and then
does all the stuff that kids want to do. He flies around, thumps a sneering bully on the head, and then makes friends
with a talking tiger.
And again, thats not a flaw in those concepts. You can still use them as the core of very, very sophisticated and
entertaining stories, for an audience of any age. That adaptability is one of Batmans greatest strengths as a
character, but at their heart, Batman and Captain Marvel and Superman are what kids imagine adults to be, and the
kind of adults kids want to be.
Spider-Man is different.
If Batman is a childs fantasy, then Spider-Man is very much rooted in being a teenager. When were first
introduced to Peter Parker in Amazing Fantasy #15, hes an outsider who feels isolated from everyone around him.
Hes miserable and resentful, but not because of some sort of defining tragedy, but because thats how you feel when
youre a teenager. When he gets the one thing he wants the power that makes him stronger, faster and more
popular than anyone else he promptly screws up and loses one of the only people that truly cared about him.

It doesnt really read like a super-hero origin, or at least, not one that you wouldve expected in 1962. Theres no
triumph, no Batman posing on the rooftop, no Superman performing herculean feats, not even a vow to use his
powers to benefit mankind like you got with the Fantastic Four. Instead, the last panel of Spider-Mans first
appearance is a teenager walking alone down a dark street, crying because his uncle died and its all his fault.
Its actually structured less like a super-hero story and more like a horror comic, right down to the ironic twist
ending and the fact that it has a moral. The only thing that really separates it from the kind of story you wouldve
found ten years earlier in Tales From the Crypt is that Peter Parker comes back for more stories.
But he never really loses that edge of tragedy, and a big piece of that comes from the fact that Spider-Mans story
doesnt romanticize the death of his parents in the ways that other heroes stories do. Superman, for example, is
an orphan, but the death of Jor-El and Lara doesnt really matter in the grand scheme of things; he even gets a
second set. The death of Batmans parents is a tragedy, and it has to be horrible in order to be the catalyst for what
sends him on the path to spending his entire life fighting crime, but its also something that frees him. Its what
gives him his fortune, and gets him out of school so that he can travel the world learning to be awesome. It frees
him from family responsibilities, at least until hes ready to start building his own family as an adult.
Batmans family dies, but he bounces back. There was nothing he couldve done to stop them from being killed
again, because he was a kid so he makes himself into someone that could, and does it for others instead.

Spider-Man never gets over it. He never goes back to life as it was before Uncle Ben died. There was something
he couldve done to stop it, but he chose not to. Now, he does anything and everything he can to keep it from
happening to anyone else. Its an atonement, but no matter what he does, itll never be enough. Hes not
determined, hes driven.

No matter what happens, no matter what it costs him, Peter Parkers going to help people to the best of his abilities,
because he knows the price of not doing it. Im not one of the extremely vocal fans of Tom DeFalco and Ron
Frenzs Spider-Girl series, but theres one aspect of it that they nailed: Peter Parker gets his leg blown off and cant
be Spider-Man anymore, so he becomes a police scientist instead. He never stops helping people and protecting
them, because he cant. Theres no quit in him. Action is his reward.
Its also another aspect of Spider-Man as a teenage fantasy, too. Peter Parker can never get over that death, because
when youre a teenager, nothing ever feels like youll get over it. Everything is important, everythings the end of
the world. And those ideas come together particularly well in the character of Aunt May.
Youd think Spider-Man would be lucky to still have one of his parental figures, and on one level, he is. But on
another level, hes burdened by it. Hes not only the reason that Aunt May was left alone when Uncle Ben died, hes
also suffering from the fear that hell lose her, too. I once wrote that the genius of Batmans parents dying was that
it was a fear that almost everyone can relate to on a primal level, but Spider-Man goes one step beyond because for
him, it could happen all over again.
And just like before, it could be his fault. That gimmick in the early days where Aunt May would die of fright if she
ever found out Peter was Spider-Man might seem a little heavy-handed, but its brilliant in that it sets up an
impossible choice. If he keeps being Spider-Man, he could lose Aunt May just by the act of existing, but if
he doesnt keep being Spider-Man, people get hurt that he couldve saved.
So he has to be Spider-Man, because he knows for a fact that he can help people, and that fact makes the decision
for him. Its another piece of that sacrifice, that atonement, but its also an incredible illustration of the pressure
that hes under, and how he just has to carry on, dealing with the things that he can control.
And how does he do it? By creating a better version of himself.
Batmans essentially Batman from the moment his parents die, he just needs to go learn kung fu and how to be a
detective. But at the start of Peter Parkers story, hes not a hero hes not even close. Hes shy and hes an outcast,
and while those things arent really his fault, they lead him to become pretty vindictive:

Hes arrogant, too. When he builds his web-shooters, his boasting is downright super-villainous:

Hes vain. Hes shallow. He only wants to benefit himself, so he uses these phenomenal abilities hes gotten to go on
TV and do tricks for an audience.
When Uncle Ben dies, he pays for all that and sets off on a mission to do better and part of that is that he
basically starts pretending to be this quick-witted, fast-talking hero who was the complete opposite of his own

personality. Its worth noting that one of the very first plot points in the series was that Flash Thompson, the bully
who hated Peter Parker, was literally the president of Spider-Mans fan club. Even today, theres a recurring idea
among Peters friends that you cant rely on him for anything, but Spider-Mans always there to save someone who
needs it.
Peter Parker has too much guilt, too much responsibility, too much to worry about with Aunt Mays health, no
money and a scholarship that hes hanging onto by a thread. Peter couldnt handle the pressure that he was under,
so he created someone who could. He creates the kind of person who wouldve stopped that robber before he killed
Uncle Ben. The kind of person who can crack jokes under pressure, because hes so confident that he can conquer
his problems that theyre just something to make fun of. He creates Spider-Man to be the person he wants to be.
Even the name points to that idea. Peters young when he gets his powers, but he gives himself an adults name.
Hes a boy pretending to be a man, but over the years, we watch as he becomes that better person for real. Because
thats what you do when youre a teenager you start figuring out who it is that you want to be, and you start to
become that person.
But at the same time, you dont really relate to adults. Theres this sort of mutual mistrust between the generations,
and Spider-Man reflects that beautifully. Adults arent aspirational figures for Spider-Man, theyre adversaries.
Theyre the teachers who can turn on you and make your life miserable with a bad grade.

Theyre the scientists who created atomic weapons and led you to spend the next 50 years getting taught how to
duck and cover in the event of a nuclear war.

Theyre your friends parents, who seem nice but end up hating your guts for reasons youll never really
understand.

Theyre the adults that seem to just hate you for no other reason than youre young, even when you try to do the
right thing.

Those first 200 issues of Amazing Spider-Man a run thats downright shocking in how good it is are
essentially teenager problems on a super-heroic scale, both literally and translated into the metaphor of the superhero adventure story. It was done so well that it was a blueprint for virtually everything that came after, in the
same way that Fantastic Four #50 was a blueprint for the Big Event. If youve read Invincible, or Nova, or Blue
Beetle or Darkhawk, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or any of a hundred others, then youve seen that blueprint dusted
off and adapted. Those things exist because of Spider-Man.
That said, theres nothing thats inherently better about a teenage fantasy as opposed to a childish fantasy.
Theyre both great in their own ways, and they can both be bad in their own ways, too. What it really comes down
to, though, is the message. The kind of fantasy that you get with Spider-Man allows you to deal with a message
thats a little more complex, and over the past 50 years, thats exactly what the people who work on those books
have done.
Im a firm believer in the idea that super-heroes teach you things, and its usually a pretty simple lesson. Superman
teaches you to be nice and to be a good person, because thats the way you make things better for everyone.
Batman teaches you that if youre determined enough, and if you try your hardest, one man can change the world.
Those are great guidelines, not just for storytelling, but for life.
But Spider-Mans lesson is a little less sugar-coated, and a little more human.
Spider-Man teaches you that youre going to screw up. Its going to happen, and its going to be bad. Youre going to
make bad decisions and its going to feel like theyre going to crush you. Its going to hurt.
But Spider-Man also teaches you that the only way to get through it is that you never, ever quit. Its not easy, but
even if it seems impossible, you can beat anything that stands in your way. You can become the person you want to
be.

Thats why hes the best.

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Ask Chris #95: Hey Dr. Doom, Whats Another Word For Pirate Treasure?
by Chris Sims March 2, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: What is the most ridiculous, outlandish plot a super-villain in comics ever had to take over the world?
@Wowmonstershow
A: With the exception of Cobra Commander, people who are actually set on world domination tend to come up with
plans that at least have something that at least seems like it could work. I mean, Ras al-Ghul once tried to get
people to worship him as a cult leader, but he did it by building an orbital death laser. Even if the whole cult thing
didnt work out it didnt having one of those is essentially its own reward.
That time Dr. Doom sent people back in time to get pirate treasure, on the other hand, is just weird.

It happened way back in Stan Lee and Jack Kirbys classic Fantastic
Four #5, and there is nothing about this story that isnt completely bizarre. Honestly, the fact that such an
undeniable cornerstone of the Marvel Universe is this strange really explains a lot about how it works now. If
youve ever wondered where the logic came from that allowed the Punisher to be turned into a Frankensteins
monster until he was healed up by a gemstone that used to belong to an immortal caveman who fought Godzillas,
just keep in mind that this story came out only a few months after the one where the FF defeated an army of alien
invaders by making them read comics and then turning them into cows.
What really makes this one notable, though, is that its Dr. Dooms first appearance. Hes easily one of the five best
comic book characters ever the other four being, in order, Spider-Man, Batman, Jimmy Olsen and the Thing
and whats really interesting to me is how much of what defines him is already in place in this issue. There were

plenty of stories that followed that added to his character, but the grandeur, the power, the obsession, the plans
that dont quite make sense but are still deadly to his enemies, its all here. Virtually everything youd say to
describe Dr. Doom except the word Latveria is in this comic.
In fact, most of its on the very first page:

Its not exactly subtle about it, but that one image gets across a lot of information. We know that Dr. Doom is a
master of both science and sorcery, and also that hes into books that have the titles written on them at unusual
angles. We know that hes obsessed with the Fantastic Four, at least to the point that hes made custom action
figures of them that are slightly too large for the chess board that he got out to illustrate his point about how
theyre pawns. And most importantly, we know that he talks to himself, about himself, in the third person. These
are defining traits.
Incidentally, I really wonder whatever happened to his pet vulture. I dont think you ever see it again, and thats a
shame. Vulture von Doom wouldve made a great villain for the Pet Avengers.
And the information just keeps coming when Doom heads over to New York and throws a net over an entire
building, an act that is truly amazing in the amount of sense it doesnt make. And the best part is that Reed Richards
sees this, and basically just says Oh yeah, I went to college with this guy.

I honestly love that Dooms entire origin is presented as a flashback that takes up a little more than half a page, as
though its something that were expected to already know and just need a quick refresher on. But really, even in a
column where I spin simple questions off into thousand-word tangents, nobody needs me to tell them that Lee and
Kirby were pretty good at making comic books.
Were here to talk about the utter lunacy of his plan, and the first sign that things are going to be awesome: Dr.
Doom kicking it on a throne with his pet tiger.

First of all, Dr. Doom has a pet tiger. Second of all, he is using it to keep the entire Fantastic Four at bay, as though it
presents a legitimate threat to someone who can set his own body on fire and fly. Third, Dr. Doom has a pet tiger.
Where are all these pets coming from? And where did they go?
But theres no time to discover the strange fate of Hobbes von Doom, its time to get down to business:

Heres the thing: Ill buy that he can build a time machine with no questions at all. The thing I have trouble figuring
out is why Dr. Doom got four other people to go back and get the treasure that he wants. At this point in the story,
the dude is clearly capable of getting things done himself, so why not just pop back to the 1700s and get the
treasure himself?
I guess the most likely explanation is that kidnapping your college rival and forcing him into your actual working
time machine is the mad scientist equivalent of showing up to your high school reunion with a supermodel and/or
astronaut, but my theory is a little more practical. When you think youve invented a time machine, the only way to
really test it is for someone to go in there and see if it works. Yes, Dr. Doom is arrogant, but hes not stupid, so
pitching his arch-rival in there to see if it works just makes sense. Even Doc Brown put a dog in the DeLorean,
which, now that I think of it, might explain where all those pets ended up.
As for why he wants it, this isnt just Blackbeards Treasure; its Blackbeards Merlins Treasure, a bunch of magic
gems (and according to Kirbys art, at least one tiara) that will somehow render their owner invincible. Because
thats what you want to send your worst enemy to get, right? Something that will make its owner invincible? Of
course it is.
So back to the past they go, and while the time machine is a fine example of Latverian craftsmanship that works
like a charm, they immediately run into a problem:

Unless they want to screw up the timeline and have a whole bunch of pirates after them, this has suddenly become
a stealth mission, and that really introduces a thrilling aspect to the story. How are they going to get by without
being seen, especially when their powers are so visually flashy? It presents a great puzzle for Reed to figure out,
and one that could be destroyed at any second by Johnnys impulsiveness or Bens temper, adding an element of
danger to it.
Or they could just find a gigantic bundle of pirate disguises in the next panel. That works too.

Reed and Johnny are able to disguise themselves pretty easily, but because hes a big orange rock monster, the
Thing requires bit more effort. He gets a wig, a fake beard, an eyepatch, the whole nine yards, and its so convincing
that when they stop into a nearby tavern to see if they can figure out where Blackbeards holed up, a few of the
locals mistake them for pirates and give them some drugged grog so that they can pressgang the FF into service on
their pirate ship. And in the craziest turn this storys taken yet, it works. Grog 1, Cosmic Rays 0.
Once they wake up on a ship, though, it doesnt take the FF long to beat up the pirates and get control, and, being
the heroes that they are, they immediately attack the nearest ship and allow their men to slaughter everyone
aboard. And in the process, Bashful Benjamin J. Grimm

becomes the ever-lovin blue-eyed Blackbeard.

Going back in time and finding out that you were the person you were going back in time to find is the oldest trick
in the sci-fi writers toolbox, but in this case, having the legendary Blackbeard turn out to be an orange rock

monster sort of ignores the fact that there was, you know, a real guy who actually existed. But at this point, we are
far beyond the use of facts.
By definition, anything they find is now technically Blackbeards treasure an awfully convenient development
so they grab the first chest they find, dump out the (presumably) magic jewels, and fill it up with heavy chains so
that they can trick Dr. Doom. They do and it does, but because this is 1961, theres still time for one last deathtrap.
They get out of it and try to capture Dr. Doom, but because hes Dr. Doom, he flies away on his jetpack and yall can
run and tell that.

He didnt want that castle anyway. Jerks.

Ive mentioned before in my discussions of Cobra Commander that you can tell how awesome someones master
plan is by how many impossible things they have to do just to get to something that shouldnt be all that hard, so
lets review Dr. Dooms to see how it stacks up:
Step 1: Build a time machine.
Step 2: Capture the Fantastic Four.
Step 3: Send the Fantastic Four back in time to get magic gems that make whoever owns them invincible. (NOTE: In
order to do this, they will most likely have to fight the owner of these gems.)
Step 4: Take the gems that make their owner invincible away from their new owners, the Fantastic Four.
Step 5: Jetpack.
Seems like kind of a long shot to me, but to be fair, Dr. Doom was a master of science and sorcery who owned a
helicopter and a tiger. You dont get to that point without taking a few risks.
Q: Whatever happened to Dave Campbell, of Daves Longbox fame? Anthony, via email
A: For those of you who might not be familiar with him, Dave Campbell was a guy who got into blogging about
comics around the same time I did, and he was known for doing breakdowns of old issues that were way, way
funnier than mine. Needless to say, I had to destroy him.
Fortunately for you, Anthony, I kept his email address after I destroyed him, and asked him for a brief update on
what hes been doing since he finally dug himself out from under that pile of early Image books I dropped on him:
After retiring Daves Long Box, Dave Campbell became the Pet Blogger for ABC.com.

Disillusioned after Lance Bass failed to win the Fall 2008 Dancing with the Stars competition, Dave quit blogging
and hit the open road with nothing but a backpack and a dream, hoping to rediscover himself and the real America.
Today, Dave wanders the backroads and city streets of this great land wearing a seasoned leather bomber jacket
and old blue jeans, helping widowers and farmers in need.
Or those last two sentences could be bullshit and Dave is actually one of the writers of Write More Good, a
contributor to @FakeAPStylebook, and a Marketing Big Shot for videogame developer ArenaNet, makers of the
upcoming Guild Wars 2. You make the call.
Thanks, Dave! Although you left out the part where I still have more hair.

Read More: Ask Chris #95: Hey Dr. Doom, Whats Another Word For Pirate Treasure? |
http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-95-hey-dr-doom-whats-another-word-for-pirate-tre/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #94: Eighty Cents Worth of Punisher

by Chris Sims February 17, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: I bought Punisher (the first ongoing) #44-53 for 80 cents this week. Did I get a good deal? @boydstep
A: Out of all the questions I got this week, this was the only one that combined two of the things I love most in this
world: The Punisher, and oddly specific but ultimately insignificant dollar amounts. Clearly, you brought this
question to the right place.Under normal circumstances, Id say you got your moneys worth just by virtue of
getting ten comics for less than a buck, but these in particular are a special case. Mike Barons run on Punisher had
always been about putting Frank Castle into almost-believable situations that had been ripped from the headlines
(or at least his local video store in the case of the stories that were pretty directly inspired by Class of 1984), but
that last year is all over the map in terms of quality.
Fortunately for you, Im both a guy whos read every Punisher comic and someone who essentially sits around
reading comic books for a living. As a result, Ive developed a complex rubric for determining the actual worth of
comic books thats way more accurate than any printed price guide could ever hope to be. The way I see it, we can
look back over the issues you picked up and determine whether Id pay to read them again, or if Id actually have
to charge for the hassle of slogging through em. At the end of it, if the bill comes out to less than eighty cents, then
youve made a bad deal.

For starters, we can go ahead and throw #48, 51, and 53 right out of the running. The first two arent
necessarily bad, but theyre about as generic as you can get with Punisher stories. They both operate on the
premise of just putting the Punisher into different locations a snowstorm and Chinatown, respectively and
then seeing how that works out for 22 pages. Heres a hint: Frank kills everyone else in the book, because hes the
one who gets to come back next month.
#53 has a little more going for it, but its also the first part of the seven-part Final Days story, in which Frank gets
his face cut up by Jigsaw in prison and then gets stitched back together by a heroin-addicted prostitute who used to

be a brilliant surgeon who experimented with using melanin in her procedures, thus leading to the issues where
the Punishers skin was dyed black and he teamed up with Luke Cage in Chicago.

Now those issues are definitely your eighty cents, but without the rest of the story, theres no real reason to jump
into the first part.
Running Total: $0.00
With those knocked out, we can start in with #44, and I hate to break this to you pal, but we are off to a pretty bad
start. This one focuses on what was then the hot news item that was flag-burning, and its probably the single
weakest issue of Barons otherwise pretty solid run. If nothing else, it has not aged well, probably because its about
Frank teaming up with a rapper named Arc Light to fight a bunch of rednecks who are mad at him for burning a
flag as part of his act, and includes a lengthy sequence where the Punisher talks about how this newfangled rap
isnt music.

48 Hours, this thing aint. Thats gonna knock a few buck off the total right there, and it only gets worse when Frank
starts explaining why hes not racist:

Barons run is full of some pretty great dry humor he often finishes up panels on these weird anti-punchlines
that are occasionally downright bizarre but that particular gag falls pretty flat on its face. Id want five bucks for
getting through that thing again.
Running Total: -$5.00
Sadly, #45 isnt a whole lot better, though it does have one of the greatest cover gags in Punisher history:

The premise of this one is that theres someone killing cabbies, so the Punisher has Microchip trick out a taxi so
that he can go undercover. Its a neat idea, especially when the Punisher gets into a high speed chase with this
pickup truck full of crooks who have no idea why this super-taxi is trying to murder them. Unfortunately, the whole
thing turns into the story of a woman whos killing cabbies for revenge because she had to walk home one night
and got raped, and it is rough.
Even with the good cover, itd take at least a couple bucks before Id read it.
Running Total: -$7.00
Things are not looking so good for your financial acumen right now, but dont fret, because this next story is where
things start to pick up again. First of all, its got the insanely over-the-top cover blurb IT WAS FROZEN IN THE
PAST. IF IT THAWS, THERELL BE NO FUTURE! and Id drop four bits just to find out what the hell thats all about.
Then, it turns out that its about the Punisher stealing an airplane that crashed into a glacier while it was carrying
the prototype of a Nazi particle beam.

Thats the thing about 80s Punisher. With the Garth Ennis era of the 2000s, Frank Castles focus was narrowed
back to his war on organized crime, but back then he was basically a globetrotting adventurer who went anywhere
that he thought someone might need killing. The character was much more influenced by Mens Adventure Novel
characters like Mack Bolan, and this is a prime example.
Its definitely worth a buck, maybe a little more for the Punisher blasting Nazis with a particle beam and the truly
hilarious fact that Baron left the door open for a sequel by mentioning a second plane rigged up the same way in
the last panel.
Running Total: -$5.75
Youre still in the hole, but things are looking up, because these next two issues are one of my favorite parts of the
entire run. Any creator can take the Punisher himself to the extreme, but Baron and Hugh Haynes take the actual
concept of a gun over the top by having the Punisher fight a Middle Eastern country with a cannon thats 40
meters long.

That was not a typo. He fights the entire country.

Seriously, this thing is awesome. Its the closest comics have ever gotten to that feeling of finding a fuzzy VHS tape
of the greatest straight-to-video action movie ever made, and it just keeps getting crazier as it goes on. Every twist
takes it to new heights, like how the guy running the gun is the same dude that killed Franks last remaining
relatives in a previous story. Frank eventually frees himself from the giant cannon with the help of his diamond
manicure a set of super-sharp fake fingernails that have been abandoned in recent years, though I cant imagine
why and then decides that he cant very well run around killing people without a giant skull on his chest.
So of course he just does the sensible thing and greases up for combat.

How in the hell have there been three live-action Punisher movies and none of them have included this scene? And
incidentally, I have no idea whats supposed to be exploding in that second panel. Presumably the Punishers skill
at greasing his chest was just so overwhelming that things spontaneously combusted.
These are easily two of the most enjoyable Punisher comics of the era, and theyd be a bargain at two bucks each.
Running Total: -$1.75
Lets skip ahead a bit to #52. Once again, we have a pretty phenomenal cover, this time by Mike Harris and Rodney
Ramos:

Those babies crack me up every time I see this comic, especially the one that Franks just dangling by the foot while
he shoots at somebody. Hes just so darn happy.
Unfortunately, the story doesnt really live up to the promise of the cover, but heres the thing: It should. This is,
after all, the story of the Punisher fighting a woman who is not only kidnapping babies to sell to rich people,
but who is also a former luchador.

I have been waiting my entire life to see Frank Castle hulk up and power out of a Fujiwara armbar, but it just
doesnt work in this issue, and the fact that Lupe speaks with an accent that even Chris Claremont would think goes
a little too far doesnt really help matters either.
Its not quite as bad as the flag-burning issue, but itd take about a buck for me to get past that hilarious baby on the
cover.
Running Total: -$2.75
All right. We are down to the wire here, and youre still in the red. Theres only one thing that can help you now:
The double-sized Punisher #50.
And this is a comic where Frank Castle invades Biosphere-2 to kill an evil scientist/architect who uses a deadly
buzzsaw yo-yo to murder his underlings.

Ridiculous location pulled directly from a newspaper the creator was reading at the time? Thats worth a buck.
Completely insane super-villain weaponry? Thats worth a buck. Hell, Id pay a dollar just to read about a guy with
that hair.
Throw in the fact the Punisher kills this dude by snapping his knee and then leaving him to drown when a nearby
dam bursts, and that the last page includes a line about how this didnt result in any innocent people being killed
thanks to the Emergency Broadcast System, and youre looking at a comic thats giving you at least $3.60 worth
of enjoyment.
Running Total: $0.85
So there you go, Jeff: Actual, mathematical proof that your eighty cents were well spent. The numbers dont lie, and
now you can rest easy knowing that you got more enjoyment out of these comics than the one (1) crunchy taco that
you couldve bought instead.

Read More: Ask Chris #94: Eighty Cents Worth of Punisher | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-94-eightycents-worth-of-punisher/?trackback=tsmclip

The Ask Chris Valentine Special: Batman vs. the Pickup Artist
by Chris Sims February 10, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: How would Batman have foiled The Art Gallery Scheme? @NielJacoby
A: Ah, Valentines Day, a time when ones thoughts turn inevitably to the complex art of love and dating. Well, thats
how it is for most people, anyway; I tend to just think about Batman, no matter what day it is. With this question,
though, I can do both at the same time, because the infamous Art Gallery Scheme is not some daring heist in
Gotham City.
Its actually an elaborate scam set up to woo a lady, as envisioned by that douchebag Mystery.For those of you who
may not be familiar with Mystery, he refers to himself as a Pickup Artist, which basically means that he dresses
like Dragon*Con threw up on him and tries to lure women into bed through a combination of stage magic and
psychological manipulation. Throw all those factors in together the flamboyant costuming, the ruthless
methods, the card tricks, the fact that his name is Mystery and hes basically the closest thing the real world has
to one of the Arch-Criminals from Batman 66.

As I understand it, his methodology basically involves drawing as much attention to yourself as possible hence
the heavy accessorizing and a hat collection that truly boggles the mind and then playing a conversation like a

poker game. You watch for tells that let you know if youre on the right track and you bluff to make it seem like
youre bringing more value to the table than you actually are. Usually, that bluffing just takes the form of subtle
insults that chip away at a ladys self-esteem until shes vulnerable enough to be led like a scolded puppy into night
of regrettable passion.
And then theres what I have dubbed The Art Gallery Scheme, a con so sinister, time-intensive and Machiavellian
that its like a deathtrap the Riddler would build if he was trying to bang a sorority girl.
I saw Mystery lay this plot out one night in a video when I fell down a YouTube hole while trying to get the terms
right for a joke about kids Halloween costumes, and it is complex. It requires months of planning, at least two
accomplices, and a serious financial investment, all geared towards creating a total work of fiction, and it starts by
going to a bar.

But not just any bar. This bar is central to the scheme, so it has to meet a few criteria. Obviously, it needs to be
frequented by a a large number of women so that its a target-rich environment, and it needs to be close to your
home within a short walk is preferable. Mystery advises moving if there isnt a suitable place nearby.
Incidentally, the reason it needs to be near your place is so that you can get women to go there witih a minimum of
trouble, but also make them feel like they have the option of returning to a more public place if for some
reason they feel the need to escape on foot. Mystery spends a lot of time talking about comfort-building and
giving tips like leave the door open so she doesnt feel trapped, and honestly? If you find yourself constantly
having to go out of your way to assure someone that youre not luring them into a creepy sex trap, you should
probably rethink the decisions that have led you to this point.
The most important thing this bar needs to have, however, is a bare wall, because this is where the plot begins.
See, while youre introducing yourself to the staff at the bar in order to build up your reputation, you tell the
manager or owner that youve noticed they dont have any art hanging up. You also tell them that it just so happens
that youre an artist (this is a lie) and that if they let you hang up a few of your paintings in the bar, youll cut them
in for 20% of the profits if any of them sell.

Mystery presents this as such an irresistible deal that every barkeep in

America will jump at the chance without even seeing your alleged art. As a result, he doesnt really cover what you
should do if they refuse, or if they start asking questions like Why do you want to display your paintings in a dark
barroom, so I assume you just abandon the plan, move to a new city, change your name, buy an even dumber hat
and start over.
The next step is to paint a few pieces of art, which as we all know is easy as pie.
Once thats done, you just take them to the bar to hand them up as per your arrangement, but there are two
additional tricks you need to pull before this phase is over. First, you price the paintings ridiculously high, say,
$7,500. Second, and this is key, you mark one of them as sold. The reason for that is so that you can start things
rolling the next time youre stalking prey chatting up ladies in the bar. You just have Accomplice #1 point out that
one of your paintings sold, so that you can direct the womans attention to the painting and its inordinately huge
price tag. Congratulations! You have now constructed an elaborate web of lies and planted the idea that you are an
artist whose work commands a princely sum in the mind of a young lady.
Now, thats more than sleazy enough to warrant a mention, but thats just Phase One. This is where things start to
get really crazy.
In Phase Two, you rent out a storefront. According to Mystery, you can do this for as little as $600 a month a
mere pittance and once its rented, you just paint all the walls white. Then, you just paint a dozen more pieces,
frame them, hang them up, paint up some signage. You now the proprietor of your own Art Gallery.

Now, the next time you and the Target are hanging out at your creepy sex lair, you get Accomplice #2 to pose as
your Promoter and arrange for an event at your gallery that you can bring the girl to. You have now upgraded
yourself to successful artist.
And the thing is, at this point in the con, youve essentially become an actual painter. Youve certainly put in the
work. I mean, producing enough paintings to fill a storefront gallery takes some time, and when you add in the
money youre paying for canvas, frames, rent, the wine and cheese youre serving at the events and the flyers
youre printing up to validate your story, theres a ton of overhead involved in this thing. I mean, Ive been thinking
about this for months and I cant figure out any possible way that it doesnt end with you bringing in at least a
safecracker and a getaway man to turn it into a heist and recoup your losses.
I mean, hell, youre already acting like a super-villain. You might as well stick that gallery next to a bank and start
building the frames out of C4 to blow the vault.
I want to stress that this is actually something one person told other people to do in order to get laid (NSFW
language, skip to 7:50 for the scheme unless you want to hear about how we all need to be googlable and have a
MySpace with pictures). I only wish I couldve come up with something this amazing, but this level of dastardly
plotting is far beyond my areas of expertise.
Which brings us to the question of how Batman would deal with it. Well, as we all know, there are enough thematic
criminals operating in Gotham City that it pays to keep up with any art galleries and museums just so that youre
ready when they exhibit the Priceless Egyptian Twin Cat Statues or a gallery of famous umbrellas or the original
cover of Pagliacci or something. Seriously, 70 years of this stuff and these places will just not stop asking for
trouble.
Since victory and preparation go hand-in-hand, even a storefront gallery would attract attention, and the Worlds
Greatest Detective can see through an elaborate ruse put on by a guy who wears goggles on his top hat any day of
the week. It might be a little out of his usual purview, but I imagine that level of smarmy deception would last long
before Batman paid a visit to show just what he thought of your paintings.

The only complication that could arise would come from the fact that I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that
Mystery has some kind of elaborate stage magic and/or peacock-based deathtrap just waiting for the right
occasion. But in the end, Im sure Batman would escape, because really: I dont care how many negs youve thrown
out in your dismal career

Batman is a better student of the game than you will ever be. Cape and cowl beats top hat and goggles any day of
the week.

So if youre out in search of romance this Valentines Day and someone dressed like Steampunk Nikki Sixx offers to
show you an art gallery, just save Batman the trouble and brain them with a metal boomerang yourself. Well all be
a little happier.
Read More: The Ask Chris Valentine Special: Batman vs. the Pickup Artist | http://comicsalliance.com/ine-specialbatman-vs-the-pickup-aask-chris-mystery/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #92: The Great and Terrible Batman: Year Two
by Chris Sims February 3, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Why am I so wrong for hating Batman: Year Two? @BatIssues

A: No joke, guys: As bad as its reputation might be, Batman: Year Two has a special place in my heart. If Im honest
and the Ask Chris column is nothing if not a sacred bastion of truth in an uncaring world Year Twos easily in
my top ten favorite Batman stories ever, and might even have a shot at cracking the top five. I love that comic.

I mean, dont get me wrong. I love it, but its also absolutely terrible.
Its
not like the people behind it werent talented, though. Just on the art side, you had Alan Davis and Paul
Neary doing the first issue in the usual beautiful style they bring to their books that makes me wish theyd
done way more Batman work than they did. Of course, while the fact that they replaced on a four-part story after
one issue probably wasnt a good sign for readers back in 1987, Daviss replacement on pencils, a hot new artist
namedTodd McFarlane did pretty well for himself. In fact, as much as hed make his name the following year when
he got the gig on Amazing Spider-Man, Year Two still stands as my favorite McFarlane work. To be fair, though, Ive
never read an issue of Spawn.
And then there was Mike W. Barr, whos right up there with Bill Finger as one of the most underrated Batman
writers in the history of the character.
His run on Detective in the late 80s is just one classic after another, with beautifully crafted issues like #571s
Fear For Sale and the big anniversary bash in #572 that saw Batman teaming up with Slam Bradley, the
Elongated Man and Sherlock Holmes to solve a world-spanning mystery. He even wrote the single best attempt at

the deceptively tough task of creating an evil Batman in The Player on the Other Side from Batman Special #1. If
you havent read it, its a kid whose criminal parents are gunned down by cops on the same day that Thomas and
Martha Wayne are killed, who swears to fight against the law and wears a big W on his face with ends that stick up
and look like Batmans ears. It sounds goofy, and a lot of it is, but Barr and artist Michael Golden pull it off.
Of course, he also wrote Batman and the Outsiders and set DC down the path of trying to convince people that GeoForce was not just awful for the next 20 years, but those are sins to be addressed in another column.
And yet, you never really hear people talking about the year Mike W. Barr spent writing Batman stories, and theres
a reason for that. See, while Barr was writing classic, accessible adventure stories with artists like Alan Davis and
Jim Baikie in Detective Comics, Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli were over in Batman essentially redefining the
character with Year One. It doesnt really matter if youre doing great Batman stories, when someone else is doing
what was regarded as probably being the best Batman story ever printed, youre going to get overshadowed.
But that also leads to one of the more interesting things about Barrs run. He wrote Detective from December of
1986 to December of 1987, coming hot on the heels of DCs first big shot at flipping over the table and starting over
with Crisis on Infinite Earths. This was the year where everything had the potential to be exciting and new, with a
new origin stories for Superman and Batman, an all-new Justice League with a new direction that combined
modern sitcom sensibilities with super-heroic action, and Wonder Woman was getting ready to make her big
return. It was an undeniably exciting time, but while a lot of people were focused on discarding the past, Barr was
taking the stuff theyd just gotten rid of and bringing it back.
His entire run on Batman was built on modernizing classic elements of Batmans history, both in content and in
form. While everyone else was trying to make their stories look modern, Barr and Davis revived the classic Golden
and Silver-Age style title pages for their stories:

And he didnt stop at the title page either. His stories saw the revival of characters like Paul Sloane (the second
Two-Face) and the Crime Doctor, both of whom had been created in 1943. The anniversary team-up I mentioned is
structured like a Silver Age story Sherlock Holmes shows up and explains that top shelf honey and rarified
Tibetan air have allowed him to live to the age of 140 and even Batman and the Outsiders saw the revival of
Metamorpho and Black Lightning, two characters that had fallen into obscurity. But its a testament to his skill that
these stories dont read like throwbacks. They read like modern stories that use those old elements to do
something new.
But at the same time, there are pieces of Barrs Batman work that are just off. Im not sure if it was Barrs attempt
at drawing on those very first stories back in 1939, but his Batman has what could charitably be referred to as a
pretty callous disregard for life.
One of the most blatant examples comes from the bat-sh*t crazy Messiah of the Crimson Sun from 1982s Batman
Annual #8, a tribute to the equally bat-sh*t crazy 50s sci-fi era of Batman stories. The plot is that Ras al-Ghul has a
space station with a solar-powered death ray that hes used to get people to worship him as a cult leader, and when

Batman and Robin head up to space to stop him, Batman ends up casually using a tractor beam to pull Ras's escape
pod into the beam, vaporizing him and then watching as his ashes drift off into the vacuum.

Despite Batmans smarmy dismissal of Robin in that last panel, he has no reason to think that he didnt just kill Ras
al-Ghul as thoroughly as humanly possible. His ashes float into space, guys.
But to be fair, if you stretch your Bat-morality as far as you can, you can justify that. After all, Ras al-Ghuls entire
deal is that hes an immortal who comes back from the dead, so Batman has no reason to think hes actually killed
Ras al-Ghul either and as it turned out, he hadnt. Comics, everybody.
The problem is that this isnt an isolated incident in Barrs work. Even that Silver Agey detective story that I like so
much has Batman using a criminal as a human shield.

Like I said, Barrs an all-time favorite, but if thats not a red flag, I dont know what is.
And at long last, that brings us to Year Two, where those three elements the eye towards modernizing the past
in the wake of Crisis, the looser morality, and the overwhelming success of Year One come crashing together for
a story thats as fundamentally broken as it is bizarre, and one that I cant help but love in spite of itself.
Like most of Barrs scripts, it starts out with a phenomenally good and deceptively simple idea. In this case, its an
idea that springs right out of the fact that 45 years of Gotham City History had just been wiped out, leaving a clean
slate to play with. So the simple idea is this: What if there was a vigilante in Gotham City before Batman?
Say hello to the Reaper:

Despite cribbing a catchphrase from Blue Oyster Cult and saying it around eight thousand times over the course of
the next four issues, I love the idea behind the Reaper. Hes essentially a modernized version of Batman, tougher
and stronger, with a costume thats even more demonic and terrifying. Most important, though, was the fact that he
was a killer.
In that respect, its hard to look at the Reaper as anything other than Barrs response to a character that had just
exploded into popularity over at Marvel the previous year with a limited series that was successful enough to
warrant an extra issue and an ongoing title that hit shelves the month after Year Twostarted. Daviss design for the
character even used the same iconic skull imagery.
In other words, Year Two basically starts out as Batman against the Punisher.
Even the Reapers origin, revealed later in the story, is designed to mirror both Frank Castles and Bruce Waynes in
equal measure:

The difference is that his daughter lives, but well get back to that in a minute.
What matters is that this is an idea with so much potential. Not just to act as a childish Batman could so beat the
Punisher! refutation of the conversation that was going on in comic shops across the country, but to explore what
Batman means to his world. The fact that there was someone who was stronger, tougher, and willing to go further
who still couldnt save Gotham City from becoming so bad that its most prominent citizens were gunned down in
an alley says so much about why Batman has to operate the way that he does. It makes him unique, even among
people who followed the same sort of path.
But while Barr, Davis and McFarlane flirt with that idea, it never really pays off. Instead, the Reapers return to
action leads him into a conflict with Batman, where a guy quite literally old enough to be his father hands the Dark
Knight his ass in a fistfight. The Reaper walks away without a scratch thanks to his +4 Studded Leather Armor, but
Batman is beat up, cut down and shot at by the Reaper and his gun-swords by the way, he has gun-swords and
then crawls through a sewer to have a crisis of confidence.
This is where things start to get a little shaky, because while Ill readily accept the idea that Batman wasnt used
to defeat, being stabbed and shot at sort of seems like something he should be used to by his second year as a
crimefighter in a world where he routinely faces acid-murder at the hands of a homicidal clown. But for the sake of
drama, sure.
And then it goes right off the rails.

Just so were all clear on this: That is a page where Batman takes the gun that killed his parents, which he
apparently stole from the crime scene, out of its secret hiding place and says that using it to shoot someone
is the only way to avenge them. I have a story where Batman dresses up as a gorilla because he went in a sensory
deprivation chamber and hallucinated that Robin died on another planet, and this is still the craziest Goddamn
thing I have ever seen in a Batman comic.

But at the same time, I kind of love it. The sheer unmitigated audacity of Barr and Davis here, not only giving
Batman a gun, but the actual gun that shot his parents. Its a bold choice. Hell, its probably the boldest choice
that its even possible to make in a Batman comic nothing else, not even Batman just straight up shooting
someone, has that much symbolism all blowing up all at once.
Again, dont get me wrong: This should never have happened. Even in the context of a younger, less experienced
Batman, it violates major rules set up within the psychology of the character, even if it does explain how the GCPD
could never find the guy who did the shooting. But in that time, when the entire universe was bringing down
sacred cows like a slaughterhouse Supermans not totally invulnerable! The Flash is dead! Theres no
multiverse! was there really a reason why it shouldnt have happened?
Well, yes. Yes there was. But you can sympathize with the desire to push those boundaries in ways that people had
never seen.
The problem or one of the problems, at least is that every part of this is so sensational that it tears the story
away from the conflict between Batman and the Reaper and boots it straight down a path thats increasingly
ludicrous. The Reaper plot is still there driving the action, but the focus shifts to the book becoming what if
Batman did a bunch of stuff that you never expected him to do because none of it makes any sense. And if the scene
above is where the story goes off the rails, the end of Part 2 is where Barr comes back with a bulldozer and tears up
the whole damn track:

Not only is the Reaper such a threat that Batman calls a truce and teams up with Crime (as represented by a short
bald man in a bad suit), but then he TEAMS UP WITH THE MAN WHO KILLED HIS PARENTS. Who apparently has
not bought a new hat in 25 years.

In no way whatsoever does this make sense, and it only gets worse when he and Chill hit the streets, acting more
like the straight-laced cop and the loose cannon who doesnt play by the rules from any given late 80s buddy
comedy than, say, an unrepentant murderer and the man that he traumatized so profoundly that he started
spending every night of his life dressing as a giant bat and punching out escaped mental patients.
Theres even a scene where Batman watches Joe Chill kill a man with a gunshot and lets him off with a Stern
Warning:

And just in case this story wasnt ridiculous enough, Batman also gets engaged:

It turns out that his fiancee, Rae, is the Reapers daughter, because of course she is. How could she be anything
else?
Eventually, Barr revisits the classic Silver Age version of Batman confronting Joe Chill the moment that the
entire series was building to from the moment the gun showed up. Its actually a really great scene, with Batman
taking him to the boarded-up movie theater in Crime Alley. Rather than sending him freaking out and running into
traffic for a tidy, not-my-fault bit of manslaughter like he did in the original version, though, Batman holds the gun
to his head, ready to pull the trigger. But he hesitates, and thats when the Reaper shows up and shoots Chill in the
head for him.

The reasoning here is sketchy at best, but the gist of it is that the Reaper thinks Batman is weak because hes not
really willing to kill. Then they fight on the construction site of Wayne Tower which, hilariously enough, is being
built across the street from Crime Alley and the Reaper decides that Batman is a killer after all, and then jumps
to his own death. Then Batman puts the gun into the foundation of Wayne Tower and calls it a night. Then Rachel
joins a convent. The End. Sort of.

I have no idea how the Reaper arrived at his conclusion and why he allowed himself to fall, but at this point in the
story, it hardly even matters anymore. Things like motivation and logic have been tossed out the window two
issues ago in favor of a roller coaster ride of sheer kookiness.
But while I dont like what happens in the story one bit, I still cant help but respect that about how its told. Barr,
Davis and McFarlane go all in at every opportunity. Theyre given a universe that, for the first time in forty years,
was suddenly almost entirely fluid. Nothing was locked in, and they took advantage of that, telling a story where
you honestly never knew what was going to happen next because it was built to shatter your expectations.

And in 1987, those expectations were already so fragile that they had to be
an irresistible target. After all, DC had just spent a year telling people stuff like Supergirl doesnt exist, so who was
to say that the new Batman wouldnt be a new-style gun-toting anti-hero? At the time, it was just as likely that
young Bruce pocketing Joe Chills gun would become an etched-in-stone part of Batmans origin as Miller and
Mazzucchellis famous pearls.
It didnt, of course. Barr left Tec at the end of 1987 and went on to create the incredibly fun Maze Agency with
Adam Hughes. By 1994, Year Two had excised from the Official Batman Continuity for obvious reasons, although
its worth noting that it took Barrs other major Batman masterpiece, the genuinely great Son of the Demon, with it.
But there are a couple of epilogues to this story, one of which is a literal epilogue or at least a sequel. So in 1991,
Barr and Davis reunited for a story where Joe Chills son became the new Reaper in order to avenge his fathers
death at the hands of Batman, going so far as to dig up the Wayne Tower foundation stone so that he could use the
same gun, because he secretly witnessed Chill Sr.s death and saw where Batman put it. Fittingly enough, its
called Full Circle.
Despite its shortcomings, its easy to see why there was enough positive response to warrant the sequel. Daviss art
is beautiful, McFarlanes is dynamic, and Barrs story is certainly thrilling. But more than that, its full of great
ideas. So great, in fact, that a lot of them were stripped out and repurposed for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

Its definitely not a straight adaptation you can tell because Mask of the Phantasm makes sense but Year
Two was a clear influence on the film. The look and idea of the Phantasm, and even Andrea Beaumonts ill-fated
romance with Bruce Wayne are lifted directly from the Reaper (although with a much better twist) and stripped of
the non-stop goofiness of I must team up with the man and gun that shot my parents!, they work really well.
Thats what it really comes down to for me. In the end, Year Two is fatally flawed in about sixteen different ways,
but its also a comic that has a genuine sense of excitement and shock to it thats this perfect synthesis of the
weirdness of the late 80s and the lunacy of the 50s and 60s. The stuff that works works, and the stuff that doesnt
is at least interesting. For good or ill, its a book that operates entirely on saying why not? I cant not love that
about it.
And hell, its better than Year Three.

Read More: Ask Chris #92: The Great and Terrible Batman: Year Two | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chrisbatman-year-two/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #91: Why Rumble in the Bronx Is Better than Superman Returns
by Chris Sims January 27, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: What did Superman Returns get right, and what did it get wrong? @GentlemanMonstr
A: Earlier this week, I said on Twitter that Superman Returns was the worst thing that ever happened to America.
Ill admit that that might be an exaggeration, but if it is, its a slight one. Its unquestionably the most disappointing
movie Ive ever seen, based on a wrongheaded idea that tries to simultaneously deconstruct and rebuild a
character, failing at both and making an amazing waste of potential out of a genuinely good cast. In fact, it was so
crushingly bad that I havent seen it since I walked out of the theater.
So the hell with it. Lets talk about Rumble in the Bronx instead.

I saw Rumble when it was released in 1995, and for a 13 year-old who was into action movies, this thing was a
revelation. To this day, its my favorite Jackie Chan movie, and easily one of my favorite movies of all time, and I
imagine its probably that way for a lot of people around my age. It was, after all, the movie that introduced Chan to
an American audience.
Well, if you want to get technical about it, it was a re-introduction. There was Cannonball Run, of course, but both of
his previous attempts at starring roles, The Big Brawl and The Protector, had flopped, and neither one had been the
kind of high-energy action comedy that wed recognize today as a Jackie Chan movie. His career was flourishing
overseas, but unless you had access to those movies from a local importer or were willing to go out of your way to
hunt through a bin at your local flea market to find a second-generation bootleg VHS of Armour of God, you were
out of luck.

But Rumble was different. It was a big theatrical release that became a big box office success in the U.S., and it made
Chan a household name to what was essentially a whole new continent fans by highlighting exactly what made his
signature style so entertaining.

In Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie Chan stars as Jackie Chan. Sure, they refer to his character as Keung, but lets be
honest here, its the exact same character that Chan plays in most of his films, to the point where they just went
ahead and started calling the character Jackie when they got around to the American releases of First
Strike and Operation Condor. Hes an everyman cut from the same cloth as John McClane in Die Hard except
that he has the ability to beat the living hell out of anyone using kung fu, which is handy because pretty much every
man would like to think he could do the same.
The first thing his character in Rumble does after he gets off the plane in the Bronx or a reasonably Canadian
facsimile thereof is go into a fugue state when he sees his uncles training dummy, doing kung fu at it with a
speed and precision that let you know immediately what his capabilities are. And if there any doubt remained, its
removed fifteen minutes later in the movies first fight, when he takes on four gang members and just demolishes
them.

This is the fight that establishes not just what Jackie can do, but that hes the only person who can do it by stepping
between the criminals and the people that are afraid of them, perfectly establishing him as the hero. But more
importantly, its also the last time in the movie that Jackie has a fight that seems effortless.

Thats the genius of Chans movies. Even though you know its Jackie Chan and that hes going to win, theres never
a moment where you dont believe that hes in danger. Why? Because he acts like hes in danger. And its not just
that he gets hit, its that he hurts his hand while punching someone and dodges out of the way of a speeding truck,
only to have the rear-view mirror snap off on his shoulder. Jackie Chan is a character for whom every single action
has a consequence.
That makes his decision to stand up to his enemies seems even more heroic than a character like Tony Jaa in Ong
Bak, who stomps through crowds of enemies without ever breaking a sweat. Even the gag reels under the credits,
where we often see Jackie-The-Real-Person getting hurt while attempting Jackie-the-Characters stunts, help
reinforce his fallibility. It also lends a sense of danger in his fights, which makes even a goofy street gang from a
weird, Christmas-light fantasyland version of Vancouver the Bronx seem threatening.

Thats another important element to the formula: Jackies always outnumbered. Its a pretty common trope in
action movies, and martial arts movies in particular, but Chan stages that it in a way thats unique to how his
characters work.
Theres a scene in The Protector, for intstance the Tony Jaa movie from 2005 where he attempts to find elephant
by kicking people in the head, not the Jackie Chan flop from the 80s where a bunch of dudes are just running on
screen and being brutally taken down. The whole thing takes like five minutes, and ends with Tony Jaa just
standing in the middle of this huge pile of dudes with shattered bones:

Its a hell of a scene to watch, and as a showcase of Jaas skills as a martial artist, its great. Theres even a lot of fun
to be had in seeing just how long it goes on before it finally ends. But theres no tension to it. You know from the
first opponent going down in a broken heap that its exactly whats going to be happening to the rest of those
jabronis.
With Chan, however, being outnumbered presents a pretty huge problem, because its already been established
through that hes not invulnerable. He has incredible abilities, yes, and he can take on four men at once with no
trouble, but five? Ten? A dozen? After being worn down by previous fights? That has tension.
And its why he spends a good chunk of his time running away.

Chans action sequences are set pieces rather than just pure fights, full of thrilling escapes and characters
scrambling to find any advantage that could help them survive. Rumble even goes so far as to show that
literally jumping off of a building will give Jackie a better chance of survival than actually fighting against a mob of
thugs.
Theyre also set pieces that keep growing, bringing you something new every time. The fight against four people
becomes a fight against an entire gang, which then becomes a fight against an even more evil criminal organization.
A one-on-one fight in the gangs clubhouse gives way to an all-out brawl using skis, bottles, refrigerator doors and
pinball machines as weapons, which then leads to a man fighting a hovercraft with a sword.
The one thing I respect about Chans work more than anything else is his dedication to doing something new every
time hes on the screen. Theres no denying that movies like Supercop and First Strike and Operation Condor and
even Legend of the Drunken Master are built from a formula. Rumble in the Bronx is especially guilty on that front:
Its not just an introduction to Jackie Chan and his style and that same character he always plays, but it throws in
his frequent costars Bill Tung and Anita Mui who is fantastic for good measure. I mean really, if you can only
see one Jackie Chan movie, you might as well make it this one, because its got it all.
And if you do watch his other movies, youll probably see the same character youre familiar with, but they never
waste time showing you something youve seen before. They build a story around that character that allows him to
explore something new, without compromising whats already made them great.
And thats why its a better movie than Superman Returns.

In a lot of ways, Superman Returns was in the same situation of being a

reintroduction of a character to the American movie audience, but everywhere that Rumble went
right, Returns went wrong.
Rather than making something that was accessible to new audiences, they chose to do a sequel to a movie from 26
years earlier that also ignored that movies two sequels.
Rather than building a story around a character that explored what was great about him, they hammered a
character into a story that saw Superman abandoning Earth for five years with nothing to show for it, that focused
on a relationship between fathers and sons rather than on Superman himself.
Rather than showing a hero that struggled, endured and triumphed and where violence had consequences, they
showed a Superman who solves his problems by throwing a giant rock into space (while it has people on it) and a
kid who crushes a man with a piano and then experiences no consequences at all.
Rather than a hero whos a central figure who is the only one who can stand up to a threat, they chose to give
Superman, their protagonist, a rival who outshines him by being more heroic and willing to risk harm to save the
person he loves. They even make him more dedicated to Lois Lane, which is essentially like having Maid Marian
end up with Friar Tucks nephew.
Rather than attempting to do something new and exciting that wed never seen before, they steep themselves in
nostalgia so deeply that its the second movie that revolves around Lex Luthor trying to pull off a real estate
scheme.
And thats just how it sucks when you compare it to Rumble in the Bronx. Theres decent stuff about it. Brandon
Routh was actually a good Superman saddled with an awful movie, and the same goes for Kevin Spaceys Lex
Luthor. The scene where Superman saves the space plane, the one thing that even people who hate that movie
admit to liking, shows how good it couldve been, but it also highlights the fact that its the only scene in the movie
that doesnt completely bury the character of Superman in an effort to recreate Superman 78.
And it wouldve been better with a hovercraft anyway.

Read More: Ask Chris #91: Why Rumble in the Bronx Is Better than Superman Returns |
http://comicsalliance.com/superman-returns-rumble-bronx-jackie-chan/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #90: Charles Atlas vs. Count Dante

by Chris Sims January 20, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Count Dante vs Charles Atlas. Which one reigns supreme in having the best ads in comics?
@chudleycannons
A: As much as I love the stories in old comics, one of the great pleasures of reading through the back issues of the
60s and 70s is seeing the ads. There was a ton of bizarre stuff on offer back in the day, and as much as Im all for
the acceptance of comics into the mainstream, I have a lot of unearned nostalgia for the days when super-hero
adventures were partially funded by the secrets of the Dim Mak Death Touch.
But as for which of the two icons of that era reigns supreme, theres no question in my mind: Count Juan Raphael
Dante, The Deadliest Man Alive.To see why, you just have to take a look at the ads themselves. Lets start with
the Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension System:

This page is unquestionably the single most iconic comic book advertisement of all time. It ran in comics
for sixty years in one form or another, starting in the 40s and continuing until at least a few years ago, when I saw
one plastered on the back cover of Savage Dragon. They managed to outlive even Atlas himself, and the only real
change was the addition of the URL for CharlesAtlas.com, where you can learn the first few secrets of Dynamic
Tension for free. As far as comic book imagery goes, this things right up there with Supermans cape, a word
balloon and a big ol burst that says POW!
Its easy to see why, too. The comic strip style structure apes the medium, and the offer of literally transforming
yourself into a bigger, stronger version of yourself to get revenge on your enemies is the exact same sort of escapist
fantasy that super-heroes have been indulging in since they started. Atlass offer is essentially a magic word that

can turn you into a super-hero with the Greek-God type of physique. Its as much of a super-hero power fantasy
as you can get, to the point where the dude is actually wearing tights in the photograph. He might as well be selling
Super-Soldier serum and Vita-Rays.
That said, Ive never been a big fan.
Regular readers of this column may have noticed that I tend to over-analyze things just a bit, and the The Insult
That Made a Man Out of Mac which was based on Atlass own experiences as a skinny kid who bulked himself
up in the name of Total Beach Dominance is no exception. And folks, it might be a great ad, but as a narrative, it
is pretty crucially flawed.
The one thing that really jumps out at me with this ad is that its got a pretty confrontational tone for something
thats trying to sell you a product. Everything that happens in this ad can basically be summed up as Hey kid! You
suck, but I can make you suck less! It comes to a head in Panel 3, where Atlas, through the voice of Macs ladyfriend, gets downright insulting:

All right, first of all, that girls a total jerk. Mac stood up to that guy for kicking sand in her face and thats the thanks
he gets? Whatever, lady. He deserves better.
Secondly, its not just portraying the Mac (and by extension, the reader) as powerless, it goes all the way to straight
up verbally emasculating. This goes far beyond just the frustration of the big guy being a jerk, its set up with an
admirably shameless precision to convey those feelings of embarrassment and helplessness. Its a masterful bit of
manipulation.
So Mac gambles his stamp, and a tellingly unspecified amount of time later, he has transformed into a new
physique. So what does he do?

He goes to the beach and gets his revenge. Hes not defending anyone in this panel, theres nothing but vengeance
in his actions. But the thing is, by going down to the beach and just cold-cocking someone in the face, he has
become the very thing that he hated. He is a dude who goes to the beach and pushes people around with his
superior strength because now he can. In that respect, the ad isnt just manipulative, it plays on the desire of the
powerless to become powerful not in the name of equality, but in the name of oppressing others in the same way
that they themselves were oppressed. Its brutal.
Oh, and he gets that fickle Jezebel back, for whatever thats worth:

Despite the words floating over his head, theres nothing heroic about Macs actions. He learns nothing, and the
simple truth that his world revolves around is that the strong abuse the weak at their leisure. You know what kind
of character deals with a defeat by plotting revenge and returning to show them,show them all? It aint the hero.
Seriously, if this comic had been published by Marvel, there wouldve been an eighth panel where Macs uncle got
murdered while he was out flexing on the beach. At least then thered be a moral.
So yeah, the Atlas ad doesnt do a whole lot for me. But Count Dante? Count Dante is poetry.

The difference is that the Count Dantes ad also crafts a narrative, but its not about you. Its about Count Dante
himself, and its amazing.

Atlass ad dresses up its revenge fantasy in the guise of fitness and developing a more magnetic personality, but
Dantes tells the story of the undefeated Supreme Grand Master of the Fighting Arts, who has honed his lethal
skills to fatal precision in Death Matches. This aint some dude on a beach kicking sand in your face, this is an
arena, probably lit by torches, where one man stood under the silent gaze of whatever mysterious council of elders
makes up the ruling body of the World Federation of Fighting Arts, and defeated every other deadly competitor he
faced, probably killing them before they could do the same to him.
The Count Dante of this ad never gambled a stamp. He gambled with his life. And he won.
That. Is. Awesome. The first time I saw this ad, I scanned it, cropped the top half with the description of the Counts
deadly art, blew it up to a 3 x 3 poster, and framed it. Thats not a joke. I love it that much.
While the Atlas ad manipulates the reader into feeling humiliated, emasculated and helpless, in order to get you to
buy a way to make things better, Count Dantes does nothing of the sort. Theres no attempt to identify with the
reader other than on any level other than an aspirational one. There could certainly be some sand-kicking bully
that would motivate you to learning the Counts DEADLIEST FIGHTING SECRETS, but it isnt a necessary factor like
the Atlas ad presents. The motivating factor presented in the ad is the Count himself, his accomplishments, and his
knowledge. It simply is, a deadly art for its own sake.
And in that respect, believe it or not, Count Dantes offer to teach you the secret of the death touch is actually a lot
more mature and sophisticated than Atlass selfish power fantasy. In this arena, as in all others, the Worlds Most
Perfectly Developed Man has been soundly defeated by The Deadliest Man Alive

Read More: Ask Chris #90: Charles Atlas vs. Count Dante | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-charles-atlas-vscount-dante/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #89: The Rise and Fall of Chuck Austen

by Chris Sims January 13, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Chuck Austen: Go. @atnorwood

A: I hate to break this to you, Andrew, but that is not actually a question. You can tell because it doesnt have one of
those little squiggly things at the end of it. But just this once, Im going to let it slide, because and I am not joking
I am fascinated by Chuck Austen.
I mean, this was a dude who seemed like he had been handed the keys to the mainstream comics industry for one
brief minute, and then pretty much vanished after a series of increasingly bizarre events. Hes one of those creators
that somehow managed to rise and fall like a meteor and the whole thing was about as pleasant as having one

dropped on your house.

If you were reading comics in the early 2000s, it mightve
seemed like Austen came out of nowhwere, but thats not actually the case. Hed gotten his start in comics fifteen
years before he started getting mainstream attention from Marvel, and in the first of many strange turns that his
story takes, he did so by drawing Miracleman with Alan Moore. It was a pretty brief tenure, sure Austen drew a
total of 26 pages over the course of three issues but working with Alan Moore in 1986? Thats about as good a
start as any artist in the history of comics couldve asked for.
And things start to get a little weirder with how he followed that up: 1991s Strips, a semi-autobiographical porn
comic. And believe it or not, what Ive seen of it is actually pretty good. Admittedly, Ive never been able to put
together a full run or anything and its certainly no Small Favors, but theres some solid cartooning in there, with
some really funny gags. Jokes, I mean. Not the BSDM kind.
Anyway, there was another eyebrow-raising moment when Austen went directly from porn comics to penciling
Disneys The Little Mermaid, but neither Strips nor its baseball-themed erotica follow-up Hardball was the book
that launched Austen into the height of his career. That happened in 2001.
At the time, Marvel was taking a lot of chances, and with good reason. Joe Quesada had just risen to the position of
Editor-In-Chief the previous year, riding a wave of success that had pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy. And the way

that he and then-company president Bill Jemas had done it was through a series of huge gambles that had paid off
big-time, most of which involved pulling in new creators to give a fresh spin to books. Some of them were creators
who had acclaimed works elsewhere, like Garth Ennis, and some of them were people who had written in fields
outside comics. But there were a few in there who were brought in after doing independent comics, like a guy
named Brian Bendis, who was best known at the time for a black-and-white true crime story and an indie murder
mystery.
And then there was Austen, who had been working in animation in the late 90s on shows like King of the Hill, who
made his Marvel debut as a writer with a 12-issue mini-series called U.S. War Machine.

I havent actually read this thing since it came out, but I remember really enjoying it. Take that with a grain of salt
believe it or not, my taste in comics when I was 19 is even more suspect than my taste in comics now but it
was like this crazy over-the-top action movie done with Marvel characters, back before that was something Marvel
was actually doing.
Its all done with this super-serious tone, but when its the story of Jim Rhodes leading a team of custom War
Machine suits one of which has a metal bowler hat and a zombie MODOK into Latveria as a strike force to go
explode a bunch of AIM stuff, that tone just makes it better. In my memory, its like somebody at Marvel thought it
would be fun to do Commando as a manga, and then did it.
Of course, now that Im actually looking at pages from it, that might be an opinion that I have to re-evaluate. Theres
a scene where a computer-rendered Dr. Doom shows up thats just awful, and the lettering alone makes it look like
this was sent back in time from a future where LOLcats evolved from man:

But then again, it matters less whether or not U.S. War Machine was any good than what it meant for Austen, which
was a pretty massive break. It wasnt just a mini-series, it was a stunt: twelve black-and-white issues that were
released weekly at the cheap price of $1.50, promising all the gory violence and profanity that the new MAX line
had to offer. Readers had already seen Austen as an artist thanks to his gig relaunching Elektra with Bendis
(already a star thanks to the massive success of Ultimate Spider-Man), but with War Machine, he was being shown
off as a writer, too. And folks, that is where the rocket took off.
Within a year, Austen was writing one of the crown jewels of Marvel comics: Uncanny X-Men.

It wouldnt stop there, either. Between 2002 and 2005, Austen would rack up a resum that anybody in comics
would be jealous of: Avengers. Captain America. JLA. Action Comics. These arent just high-profile writing gigs, these
are comics your mom has heard of. Theres a big difference between being able to say I write comics and I write
Superman, and Austen has that junk on lock. The dude even got a twelve-issue Jimmy Olsen series published,
although they didnt call it that.
But its X-Men thats probably going to be his lasting legacy such as it is in mainstream comics. Its the book he
was on the longest, the book that got the most attention, and its also where everything started to go wrong.
I have to admit that I sympathize with Austen up to a point. Hes said in interviews that he essentially had two
goals with the book. First, he wanted to give the readers what they wanted, and second, he wanted to do so in a
way that wasnt the same story that theyd seen a million times. Those are admirable goals, especially in a time
when it seemed like a lot of people were just content to rehash the same stories over and over, catering to an
increasingly small audience by becoming a cover band that only played songs people already liked until they

eventually got sick of them. The biggest success at Marvel at the time was the Ultimate line, an entire imprint of
titles that were based on the idea of re-telling old stories, but with longer hair and more earrings. Even great stuff
like Grant Morrisons run on New X-Men the other half of the franchise during the Austen era was largely
rooted in echoing Chris Claremonts greatest hits, from the death of Phoenix to Days of Future Past.
And as for giving the fans what they wanted, Austen was quick to figure out that the appeal of the X-Men franchise
was that its a big ol soap opera starring dudes who can shoot laser beams out of their face. Its the character
relationships that are at the core of that book more than anything else, and its easy to see that Austen made a
conscious decision to emphasize those over anything else during his run.
Unfortunately, those new things that he wanted to do and those relationships that he wanted to develop were done
in what can best be described as a spectacularly catastrophic failure.
As much as you can try to follow his logic for the choices he made in his stories, you inevitably come to a point
where things just get downright incomprehensible. Take, for instance, the particularly infamous storyline about a
romance between Angel and Husk that culminates with the two mutants just straight up f***ing in mid-air in front
of Husks mom:

The scene got a lot of attention (for obvious reasons), and I cant even begin to figure out why anyone thought this
scene was a good idea, but heres the thing: Thats not even the weirdest thing in that story. That dubious honor
goes to the fact that its all based on Romeo & Juliet, to the point where there are lines lifted directly from
Shakespeare and put into the characters dialogue with no alteration. And its not like theyre meant to be quoting
the play either its just what theyre saying.
It makes no sense on any level, and adds this weird pretentious veneer to a story that ends with mid-air hillbilly
sex. It gets to the point where its impossible to figure out if Austen is making choices because he thinks theyre
genuinely good, or if hes doing them out of irony, or if its just a joke and nothing more.
And then theres The Draco.

This one is unquestionably Austens most infamous story, and it is most certainly one of the worst X-Men stories of
all time. To be fair to Austen, its not entirely his fault. Philip Tans art in this story was so bad as to be damn near
unreadable, but the reading wasnt much better.
The story is equal parts complex and stupid, but the main idea behind it was that Nightcrawler discovered his
father was a demon. This certainly lives up to Austens goal of doing something that nobody had ever done before,
but the reason for that is that its a monumentally terrible idea.
You may be aware that theres a metaphor for racism at the heart of the X-Men, and with Nightcrawler in
particular. The whole idea behind his character is that he looks like a demon, but hes not. Pointy ears, the classic
devil tail, the misshapen hands and creepy glowing eyes he even smells like brimstone when he uses his powers.
But underneath all that is a person. The lesson is that you cant judge people by their appearance or be afraid of
someone because they look scary or different, and its a lesson that we learn all the way back in his first appearance

in Giant Size X-Men #1, where a bunch of dudes are chasing him because they think hes a demon. We learn
that those guys are wrong, not because Nightcrawlers a good demon or anything like that, but because hes a
human being, just like you and me. Thats the whole series in a nutshell. Thats the metaphor that the X-Men
operate on.
And along comes Chuck Austen and The Draco, and oh hey, it turns that no, hes an actual demon and those dudes
who wanted to burn him at the stake were completely and totally right all along. It turns a story that was just bad
and dumb into one that fundamentally misunderstands not just a character, but the entirety of an extremely
popular franchise and what it means to its fans.
It did not go over well.

I was working in the comic book store by then, and I remember the backlash
against Austen being even more immediate and furious than it usually is when X-Men fans dont like a story. It
was vicious Austen has spoken in interviews about getting death threats and having people constantly tell him
how bad those stories sucked, both online and to his face at conventions but it seemed like such a sudden,
complete turn that theres a level that I cant help but be fascinated by. Its this one time in comics where
everybody picked up a story, read it, and then we all agreed without even speaking that nope, that never happened.
Austens run was essentially retconned by the fans.
The backlash was so severe that it followed him to DC and his brief tenure writing Action Comics. According to an
interview Austen did with CBR, it got to the point where his editors at DC came to the conclusion that people just
flat-out hated anything with the words Chuck Austen on it:
They were having problems with my scripts and general direction, and sales werent where they wanted them. They
wanted a top ten book, and felt another writer could get them there, when I couldnt. What I was told was that Dan
Didio had a conversation with various retailers who said they would never order anything with my name on it because
they hated me so much, and that it was creating a ceiling of sales on Action that I would never be able to break
through. So, I was off Superman. I refused to work under a pseudonym, so DC fired me and blacklisted me from the
company.
It led to a full-blown debacle, where Austen was replaced by J.D. Finn, a pseudonym that some people believed
was actually Austen himself, trying to dodge his own reputation or create a publicity stunt. I even remember
hearing that it was meant to be Austen referring to Jaded Fans, but that seemed like a bit of a stretch. Austen
himself maintained that Finn was actually DC editor Eddie Berganza.
Either way, it led to a pretty abrupt departure from the company, and the end of Austens career writing for Marvel
and DC. But he wasnt quite done yet.

Shortly after his departure from DC, Austen would self-publish WorldWatch, and man, this thing is hard to figure
out. Ive seen it referred to as a parody of super-hero comics, a parody of books like The Authority that were
satirizing super-hero comics, and even as just straight up porn. Either way, its terrible. The whole things full of
ham-handed political comedy like having characters quote George W. Bushs flubbed words like
misunderestimated in between shots of naked ladies and fountains of blood.
The only thing thats notable about it is that Austen used WorldWatch as a platform to satirize his own experience
at DC, firing himself from the book and replacing him with a new writer called Sam Clemens who was, of course,
Austen himself. In that same CBR interview, Austen laments that people didnt get the joke, but to be honest, theres
not really much of a joke there to get. Like most everything else that he did in his career, it was just weird, a choice
that you can kind of see the logic behind but never actually comprehend.
Which brings us to Austens last book, the one thing that completes the almost perfect arc of Austens career in
comics: 2006s Boys of Summer.

With Super-Hero comics clearly not working out for him, Austen ended up going back to the last thing hed had
success with in comics before hed broken into them: baseball porn.
Except that despite being drawn by hentai artist Hiroki Otsuka and being billed as Austens return to stuff
like Strips and Hardball, it wasnt actually porn. Even the solicitations tried to make it sound as transgressive and
porny as possible:
Bud Waterston is a decent looking guy in full hormonal bloom. Its his first year in college, and he and his best friend
Manny cant wait to begin their education in the opposite sex! But like all best laid plans, nothing goes as Bud
hoped or expected. Not only is Mannys roommate a sexual exhibitionist, Bud discovers all the good looking girls in the
dorm are interested in somebody else or in the case of one especially gorgeous baseball player named Chrissie,
interested in him dead last. But when Buds killer fastball gets him placed on the team, will he make it past home
plate?

In reality, though, it reads more like a softcore porn with all the dirty stuff cut out so that it can air on USA Up All
Night, with a pretty similar quality in the writing. I guess it mightve lived up to the solicitations promise in future
volumes it was planned as a series of three, with a big collected edition to follow but thanks to a combination
of toxic mold, the collapse of Tokyopop as a publisher and the lingering backlash against him from super-hero
readers, it never happened.
With that, Austen left comics, leaving behind a bunch of people writing top ten lists of the worst moments in X-Men
history.
Theyre not wrong. From X-Men to Worldwatch, Austens stories are unfailingly some of the worst comics of the
past ten years. Thats what makes him so fascinating to me. When you look at that crowd of new comics writers
that was really making waves at the start of this century, guys like Bendis and Geoff Johns, Austen was right in
there with them, with four solid years as one of the most prominent writers in that crop of creators. And yet, the
best thing you can say about Austens work in super-hero comics is that occasionally, it wasnt absolutely terrible.
By all accounts, hes done with super-hero comics, and I think were all a lot happier that way

Read More: Ask Chris #89: The Rise and Fall of Chuck Austen | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-89-the-riseand-fall-of-chuck-austen/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #88: The Justice League of Professional Wrestlers

by Chris Sims January 6, 2012 12:00 PM

Q: Lets say the Justice League has fallen to Darkseid or some other Ultimate Evil. Its up to you to hand pick
seven professional wrestlers from any era to replace them. Who do you select, besides the American
Dream Dusty Rhodes, who is A GIVEN. Michael Haynes, via email
A: Let me tell you something, Michael P.S. Haynes: I like your style. For one thing, even though it was how I killed
countless hours back at my old job, to the point where I once had a serious conversation with a coworker about
how the McRib was definitely the Green Arrow of the McDonalds menu, its been a while since I did a who would
replace the Justice League question, and its also been a while since Ive had an Ask Chris about my love of pro
wrestling. Although now that I think of it, both of those elements last showed up in columns involving My Little
Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Ive got a pretty weird job.And for another, you have correctly identified my first choice. If my goal here is to fill the
seven archetypes of the Justice League with their closest equivalents in the Squared Circle, then my pick
for Superman is definitely The American Dream Dusty Rhodes, circa 1985.

The parallels here are pretty obvious: The great thing about Superman is that for all the power that he has from
being an alien energized by Earths yellow sun, hes a human at heart, raised by farmers and taught to use his
powers to stand up for those who couldnt do so themselves. Whether it was the populist super-heroics of the
Golden Age or the battle against cosmic threats that only he could stand against, the core idea has always been that
hes the ultimate champion of the common man. He might wine and dine with (Atlantean) kings and (Amazon)

queens, but he also eats in well, giant crystalline fortresses at the north pole that house a diary that he carves into
metal slabs with his heat vision in the language of a dead planet. But whatever. Close enough.
Dustys the same way. He might not have been raised by farmers in Smallvile, but as you mightve noticed from the
subtle message on his truly amazing T-shirt, hes the son of a plumber. And like Superman, his main value isnt just
in his power, but in his ability to inspire others. Seriously, just watch this:
If you do not believe now that every piece of economic strife experienced by Middle America happened because of
Ric Flair, then you must be that computer that took my job, daddy. Thats hard times.
But while the Truth, Justice and American Dream connection is pretty obvious, filling the role of Batman is a little
tougher. But one of the things that makes Batman so immediately appealing is that in order to fight crime, he didnt
become a bright, shining symbol of justice. He became a weird figure of the night so that he could terrify his
enemies, before beating them about the head and shoulders with little metal boomerangs shaped like his own
costume, embracing scare tactics and violence in order to wage his war on evil. And one time, that involved
reprogramming a dudes brain with Motor Neuron Disease and then punching him in the face.
In short, he became The Dirtiest Player in the Game.

At the height of his career in the late 80s, Ric Flair was basically the evil Bruce Wayne. He lived in the biggest
house on the biggest hill on the biggest side of town though I dont think he ever cut a promo talking about how
it had a cave underneath it with a giant penny and a robot dinosaur he flew around in his own jet, and he even
had a team of sidekicks who had his back in case his opponents ever overwhelmed him. Hell, as my friend Scott
pointed out, the dudes even known for wearing a big yellow belt.
Plus, hes got a history with Rhodes (you know, from that time Flair destroyed the economy by putting Rhodes out
of action for a few months) and if theres one thing the story of pro wrestlers being recruited to battle cosmic evil
needs, its a little interpersonal conflict to keep things interesting.
The role of Wonder Woman is another tough one. I mean, yes, theres an obvious choice in the form of the
WWEs Beth Phoenix, who wore a metal tiara, wrestles as The Glamazon and even cited Wonder Woman as an
inspiration in an interview on the Art of Wrestling podcast. But for some reason, she doesnt quite fit in my mind, so
instead, Im going with Cheerleader Melissa.

And not because of my well-known love of cheersploitation cinema, either.

Well, okay: Not primarily because of my love of cheersploitation cinema. The fact is, Cheerleader Melissa is one of
the best women wrestling today even without the pom-poms, and she fits pretty well with most of Wonder
Womans eccentricities. The Cheerleader gimmick, for instance, has its roots in her starting out as a cheerleader for
a tag team working as a pair of hockey players, despite the fact that hockey teams do not have cheerleaders, and
when you get right down to it, that makes about as much sense as a character based in Greek mythology from an
island of Amazons dressing up in a crazy American flag costume.
Plus, shes currently the champion of the Shimmer Women Athletes promotion, which is about as close as pro
wrestling gets to Themyscira.
Incidentally, Cheerleader Melissas frequent opponent and occasional tag team partner, MsChif, also works as a
scientist when shes not wrestling. If I was doing the whole dang Satellite League, shed totally be the Atom, even
though shes a microbiologist and a physicist.
For Aquaman?

The Rockquaman.
Theres no real connection there, but the Rock circa 1999 is probably in the top three things that have ever
happened in professional wrestling history, and since Aquaman sucks, its a nice way to trade up. And if you think
Im wrong and that Aquaman doesnt suck, well you know the rest.

Figuring who was going to be stepping into the role of The Flash was actually pretty easy: Lightning Mike
Quackenbush:

Not just because hes fast either, although he certainly is. I mean, theres a reason they call him Lightning:
But it goes beyond that, and even beyond my view that The Flash should be a book about innovation and the fact
that Quacks one of the most innovative and creative wrestlers around, both in and out of the ring. What it comes
down to is the fact that, in my preferred era of the Justice League, the Flash was a dude with experience.
Wally West had been a super-hero since he was a kid, and when you combine that with the fact that he literally had
the ability to think faster than everyone else, it made him a canny veteran of super-heroics, and thats exactly what
this team so far has been missing. Dont get me wrong, theres a ton of ringexperience, but when it comes to
battling alien gods and space monsters, even Flair and Rhodes are lacking in that department. Quack, on the other
hand Well, lets talk about the time that he invented a submission hold called the Chikara Special, only to find that
the secret counter to the hold had been taught to his enemies in a group called the Order of the Neo Solar Temple.
Take it away, Wikipedia:
It wasnt until January 2009 when UltraMantis Black revealed that he had done this all to get a hold of the Eye of Tyr,
a mysterious Scandinavian artifact that could be used to control peoples minds, named after the Norse god of war.
This, of course, led to the formation of a group called Bruderschaft des Kreuzes, which would grow to include a
gigantic viking named after a sea monster, who would take control of the mysterious Scandinavian artifact, using
it for their evil purposes until it was finally won back last November.
This is the kind of thing Quack has to deal with on a daily basis. Hes already fighting super-villains.
And Quacks prsence also leads to our stand-in for Green Lantern: His old foe UltraMantis Black:

Ill admit that Green Lantern was the one that stumped me for the longest, but when I remembered that
UltraMantis Black was part of a larger organization (The Order of the Neo Solar Temple), had just recently regained
control of a strange weapon with seemingly cosmic powers (the Eye of Tyr), and even had a color in his name, it all
pretty much fell into place.
Now we just need to wait to see if UltraMantises Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, Indigo, Violet and White show
up in a crossover that lasts for roughly thirty-eight years.
Finally, we come to our last Justice League archetype, The Martian Manhunter. Hes the wildcard, the guy with all
of the powers of Superman, plus he can read your mind, turn invisible and walk through walls. He can change the
tide of any battle, even if he was occasionally overshadowed by others. And really, there can be only one
choice: The Macho Man Randy Savage.

Im not going to lie: 90% of this choice is based on the fact that I really, really wanted to write The Martian
Macho Manhunter.

But for that other 10%, I think theres a real connection between Savage and his Martian counterpart. Namely, that
theyre goin to the stars, yeah, the stars.
Space is the place, my friends. Space is the place.
BONUS ROUND:
Q: When Bruce is doing his first reconnaissance of Gothams East End, he mentions Robinson Park, the
Finger Memorial, Sprang Mission. Thats come up again and again since as writers pay tribute to previous
Bat writers and artists. My question was this the first time? Alan, via email

A: Im not quite sure when the convention of naming things in fictional cities after
creators was started and it seems to happen in Gotham City more than anywhere else, probably because its the
most prominent fictional city in comics, and certainly the one with the most character. Combine the crime and
detective aspect of the Batman franchise, and you get a need to actually put names on locations. Superman might
fight robots in the skies over Metropolis, but with Batman, hes always investigating a murder that took place at
the corner of second and Sprang.
But it definitely didnt have its origins in Year One. The most prominent example of a specific, recurring location
was already in place in the 70s, when Batman had moved into Wayne Tower in the heart of Gotham City. As seen in
the panel at left from Untold Legend of the Batman #1 (1980), The Batcave beneath Wayne Tower had an entrance
at Finger Alley, named for Batmans often unsung co-creator, Bill Finger.
Im almost certain that this was introduced by long-time Batman writer Denny ONeil, and now that I think of it, Im
pretty sure Robinson Park (Gothams stand-in for New Yorks Central Park, named for Jerry Robinson) was one of
his too. During his years as the editor of the Batman titles, he was undoubtedly at least partially responsible for
codifying these into the Gotham City we know today, which features a Robert Kane Memorial Airport, a Miller
Harbor, and the surprisingly crime-ridden intersection of ONeil and Adams. Now if they could just get the
Christopher J. Sims Library in there somewhere, wed be set.
Before I wrap this up, I just want to say that today marks the 7th anniversary of the day I started writing about
comics on the Internet, and I want to give an honest, sincere thank you to everyone out there who has been a part
of letting me build my life around doing something fun and writing goofy things like this very column. Thanks,
everybody!

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Ask Chris #87: The Best of All Possible Dinosaurs

by Chris Sims December 30, 2011 12:30 PM

Q: What is your favorite dinosaur, and why? @RaeBeta

A: Im not going to lie to you, Rachel: I think about dinosaurs a lot. Like, you know those statistics that run in
magazines every now and then about how the average man thinks about sex 900 times a day? Well for me, that
figure represents the number of times I think about Batman, Dracula, skateboards, dinosaurs, or some combination
thereof.
And now that I actually write that down, it, uh. it might be revealing a little more about me than I intended.

Then again, thats sort of the point of asking about someones favorite dinosaur.
Believe it or not, I think you can learn a lot about a person from the way they answer that question. Thats one of
the reasons we used it as our standard opener for a while on War Rocket Ajax, because when you get right down to
it, anyone worth talking to has given serious thought to dinosaurs at some point in their life.
After all, dinosaurs are awesome. I mean, theres one that basically has a spiked mace for a tail and pointy spines
down its back. That sounds like the description of something thats four pages down from the Gelatinous Cube in
the Monster Manual,or at the very least capturing princesses in the Mushroom Kingdom. There is nothing about
them that seems like they should have actually existed, but they did, which we know now because they continue to
exist as terrifying skeletons that people have built entire buildings around, even though they were probably all
killed by something from outer space.
Seriously.
And the stegosaurus isnt even the best one, which brings me to my personal favorites. If were talking about actual
real-life dinosaur species, then for me, theres no question whatsoever: Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Now, I realize that saying the T-Rex is your favorite dinosaur is the paleontological equivalent that your favorite GI
Joe is Snake-Eyes and your favorite X-Man is Wolverine. Its everyones favorite, and for good reason: There is
nothing about the T-Rex that is not just ruthlessly badass, starting with a name that translates to the downright
super-villainous King Tyrant Lizard, all the way down to the fact that they ate other dinosaurs, including each
other.
Also, just putting this out there, if you subscribe to the theory that the T-Rex was a scavenger and not a hunter,
then you and I will never be friends.
For me, though, the appeal of the T-Rex comes down to exactly two things: Those tiny, tiny arms. I love those, if
only because I can imagine a T-Rex holding anything like, say, a hot dog and it is instantly the funniest thing in
the entire world to me. I have no idea what kind of evolutionary process would give a forty-two foot-long dragon
monster the most adorable forelimbs that have ever existed, but, well, here we are, with T-Rex and his tiny little
arms.
As for which specific thunder lizard is my favorite, thats even easier: Jack Kirbys Devil Dinosaur.

As much as its often regarded as one of the Kings lesser efforts, Devil Dinosaur is probably my third-favorite Kirby
comic. Admittedly, third-favorite might not sound like much, but were talking about a dude who was largely
responsible comic books as we know them in a career that lasted for half a century.

Originally released in 1978, Devil Dinosaur was the product of a strange period in Kirbys career. This was towards
the tail end of his return to Marvel, which was a pretty big deal considering that hed spent the first few years of
that decade in a stint over at the distinguished competition. At DC, Kirby dragged Jimmy Olsen into the Bronze Age
and created the entire Fourth World saga in a process that saw him writing and penciling a complete comic
book every two weeks, while he was also doing stuff like The Demon, Sandman and my personal favorite, OMAC. But
more on that in a second.
The point is, it was an unquestioned renaissance for Kirby, and while his return to Marvel in 75 is often
overshadowed and overlooked when compared to what he was building with the Fourth World, its very much
along the same lines. The bombastic adventure of Captain America, the cosmic madness ofThe Eternals, the sci-fi
strangeness of Black Panther, theyre all classics.
And then there was Devil Dinosaur.

Like OMAC, Devil Dinosaur was a relatively short-lived comic the former only lasted 8 issues, and the latter
managed to get a ninth in. When you take them together, though, they read like a bookend of Kirbys cosmology,
with OMAC set in the distant future of The World Thats Coming and Devil Dinosaur telling stories of the
unknowable past of The X-Age. But the interesting thing is that as much as they might seem like high concept
fantasies and as much as they definitely are high concept fantasies theres a definite undercurrent of Kirby
actually basing his ideas on things that hed picked up. After all, theres a bit in the text piece in OMAC #1 about
how computers exchanging the time of day from New York to Chicago that will one day be lead to sharing
information instantaneously across vast distances. That part of the World Thats Coming actually got here.
With Devil Dinosaur, the key idea was that scientists may think that man and dinosaurs never coexisted, but with
the discovery of the Coelacanth alive and well off the coast of South Africa 65 million years after they

thought it went extinct, all bets were off. Something that far back in the past was as much of a mystery as the
future:

In other words, like OMACs far-future dystopia, it was the perfect setting for his creations to go on an absolute
rampage. Which is exactly what happened in Devil Dinosaur, especially once the aliens showed up to build the
Garden of Eden in #4.

You know, youd think the fact that the Garden of Eden was a alien construct built around a tree-shaped supercomputer that gained sentience when giant ants blew up a spaceship, which was then destroyed by a superTyrannosaur and his caveman buddy would come up more often in theological discussions.
Thats whats so great about this comic: It is pure distilled why the hell not for 20 pages at a time, starring a
dinosaur that was born in the fires of a volcano and thus does nothing but beat the living crap out of other
dinosaurs, with the occasional caveman, alien or spaceship thrown in for good measure. In short, it was everything

great about dinosaurs combined with all the fearless energy that made Kirby comics so great. Its the best of both
worlds, and when those worlds are dinosaurs that kick other dinosaurs to death and comics by Jack Kirby, thats
downright magical.
Plus, he once fought Godzilla once after Godzilla was shrunk down and sent back in time. 70s Marvel was the best,
you guys. The best.
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Ask Chris #84: Talking About Azrael, the 1990s and You
by Chris Sims December 2, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: There have been some theories that Azrael was a parody of the X-tremeness of Image Comics heroes at
the time. Im not sure, since at the time it looked like DC Comics was committed to putting out a new
generation of heroes to catch on with younger readers at the time (a la Kyle Rayner). So what do you think?
Was AzBats a parody, or was he a legit Batman replacement that never really caught on? Larry, via email
A: I try, you guys. I really do. As hard as it might be to believe given my track record, I try not to talk about
Batman all the time in this column. But then a question like this comes along that starts me thinking, and, well, here
we go again. So come on, Larry: Lets talk about Azrael.

For those of you who arent familiar with him, Jean-Paul Valley better known as Azrael was a character
introduced in 1992, presumably because there werent enough characters running around the DC Universe who
looked like they were made specifically to be action figures. Seriously, the dude had clip-on accessories with lightup action features in the comics. He was secretly an assassin trained by a sect of the Knights Templar called the
Order of St. Dumas so secretly, in fact, that he didnt even know this himself, having had all of the skills necessary
for battling heretics and maintaining wrist-mounted flame swords programmed into his subconscious mind.
He ended up falling in with Batman, who at the time was rolling with a group of associates that included a sidekick,
a butler, a hunchbacked auto mechanic and a dog, all of whom were either living in his house or spending the vast
majority of their time in his unfinished anti-crime basement. When Bruce Wayne was injured during Knightfall,
Valley took over the role of Batman himself for a brief tenure that included a redesigned costume and an edgier,

more violent take on crime-fighting, earning him the nickname AzBats from the fans in order to distinguish him
from, you know, the good Batman.
As for where he falls in the pantheon of legacy heroes and replacements, well, I think its pretty clear that he was
never really meant to be a permanent replacement for Bruce Wayne, even with the pretty temporary level of
permanence that weve all come to expect from super-hero comics. But Im not sure that calling him a parody is
really the right way to describe him either.
Then again, just look at this dude:

While parody might not be quite the right word, theres clearly an intent in this design to capture the zeitgeist of
the 90s. The bulky armor, the helmet and sinister red eyes, the sharp points coming off of his shoulders and
gauntlets, the elimination of trunks and boots in favor of some weird kind of footie pajama leotard underneath. I
mean, the Liefeldian thigh pouches alone pretty much say it all.
And while were on the subject, its worth nothing that as much as this looks like a pure product of its era, here we
are 20 years later with a DC Universe decked out in the direct descendants of this costume. No trunks, just seams,
armor, and points. But thats another column.
The point is, the creators of the alleged New Batman knew exactly what they were doing with this suit. This was a
group that included the legendary writer and editor Denny ONeil, the legendary artist Jim Aparo, and an up-andcoming artist who designed the costume called Joe Quesada, probably better known today as the guy whos been
running Marvel Comics for the past 11 years. A radical departure from a classic costume like Batmans, released at
what was billed as the climax of a massive event, doesnt go out the door without some serious intent behind it.
Sadly, I wasnt present during any of the meetings for some reason they werent consulting any 12-year-olds
from South Carolina, even if they really liked Batman but if I had to guess at just what it was, Id say the intent
was to give the fans what the fans thought they wanted. At least for a little while.

After all, the whole story of Knightfall and Azrael kicked off in 1992, during
a time when comics were absolutely dominated by characters of the Badass Killer variety. Wolverine, Cable, the
original bunch over at Image, hell, the Punisher was supporting three ongoing monthly comics, and as much as I
love that guy, Im pretty sure it wasnt his compelling origin or character development that made him so popular. It
was the fact that he was a ruthless killer. Same goes for Wolverine: Claremont, Byrne, Cockrum and Miller may
have made him a surprisingly rich, deceptively complex character, but the reason most people were reading those
comics was because he had knives sticking out of his hands that he used to stab ninjas. Believe me, as a kid who was
ten years old in 1992, I can totally confirm that this is a premise with huge appeal.
And comics fans being what they were, they wanted everything to be like that. Well, I say comics fans, but thats
not really fair fans of all media tend to be like that. Dooms great and becomes a huge success, so we get a ton of
first-person shooters that are variations and improvements. Street Fighter has kids lining up around the block,
so Tekken and Mortal Kombat and Virtua Fighter become the main attraction at the arcades. Grand Theft Auto 3 is
revolutionary and phenomenal, so suddenly everythings got to have an open world sandbox.
I kind of got hung up on video games there, but it holds true across every element of pop culture. The Beatles are
great, so we get the British Invasion. Twilight sells a jillion copies, so now every Young Adult novel is required by
law to have a shirtless werewolf in it. Lord of the Rings makes a billion dollars at the box office, and suddenly
someone thinks its a good idea to makeDungeon Siege: In the Name of the King.
Theres this weird thing that happens in our brains where things that are good just confuse the hell out of us, so
that the thought process becomes This was good, therefore all good things must be similar to this, and
rather than figuring out the things that actually make it good, they just go with the surface elements. And while it
happens with everything that goes out to a mass market, it happens a lot with comics, and usually with
a huge impact.
Ive mentioned this before and this tangent Im on is about to hit critical mass unless I get back to the point so Ill
keep it brief but the people who read comics have a long and storied history of reading great comics and
learning the exact wrong thing from them. Watchmen is the perfect example. Its a great comic, but half the people
who think its great walk away having learned the lesson that mature comics are mature because people get
raped and that heroes should all be borderline psychotics because thats real, and not because it deals with
complex issues in a way that doesnt necessarily present easy solutions with simple moral clarity.
Which brings us, at long last, back to the comics fans who loved Wolverine, the Punisher, and the rest of the guntoting, ninja-stabbing heroes that we all associate with the magic summer of 1992. The fact that these characters
were such a massive success was apparent just from the numbers, but there was something else in play,
too. Conversation. Specifically, the same dumb conversations people are still having today about how Batman
should totally just kill dudes, because its lame and unrealistic that he doesnt. Nevermind that there are clear
reasons crafted over decades of rich stories about why he wouldnt, killing dudes is what Wolverine and the

Punisher do! And since those guys are cool, Batman has to do that stuff too or else hes not! And he better wear
some body armor, too, because otherwise this whole thing might end up being silly.
Its the sort of thing you heard (and hear) in every comic book store in the country, and with the level of direct
access that comics fans had even then to creators and editors through letter columns and comic book conventions,
Im sure they heard it too.
Thus: AzBats.

It seriously cracks me up to this day that they essentially published years of comics for the sole purpose of saying
Fine, thats how you want it? Here you go. Enjoy. They made a character out of pure sarcasm, and he had his own
ongoing series for a hundred issues. Hilarious.
Or at least, thats how I look at him. I could be wrong about the movies behind his creation. But what I do know
beyond a shadow of a doubt is that he was never intended to actually replace Batman.

Its interesting that you bring up characters like Kyle Rayner, because from where we are now, its easy to look
back and see where the intentions were there. Its easy to spot that Kyle Rayner, Wally West and Tim Drake were
clearly meant to serve as permanent replacements, because we can go back and see that there were years and
years of stories that were devoted to them. Theres a commitment involved in their stories, in that they
are THE Green Lantern / Flash / Robin for a significant amount of time. They have their own adventures and
development that are independent from their predecessors. With a temporary replacement, thats almost never
the case: Theyre there in the story specifically and exclusively because of how they relate to the person
theyre replacing.

AzBats is the perfect example, because for one thing, Bruce Wayne is
never not in those comics, and hes usually sitting around talking about how he needs to get healed. Thats kind of a
tipoff.
For another, the seeds of his return were planted in that story from before the beginning. A lot of readers focus
specifically on Knightfall because, well, its the good part of that four or five years of Batman comics, with the
memorable stuff like Batman fighting all of his villains and that big Jim Aparo BREAK YOU! page. Its easy to stop
after that and just go oh, and then he eventually got better because comics, but thats not really the case.
The fact of the matter is that Knightfall is only a part of a larger story that ran for way too long three or four years,
that was always meant to involve Bruce Waynes return as The Real Batman. How do I know?
Well, if youre not familiar with Knightfall, Knightsend, Knightquest and Prodigal, you might just assume that Bruce
Wayne recovered from a broken back and got back into top-notch crimefighting shape through some goofy comic
book science that just erased his injury, and youd be right. But the actual circumstances of it are one of the goofiest
things to ever happen to Batman, to the point where Id stack it up against any weird bit of the Silver Age in a
heartbeat.
See, Bruce Waynes neighbors physical therapist was Shondra Kinsolving, and when he was paralyzed, she
became his physical therapist and love interest, and it just so happened that she also had psychic broken back
healing powers. But theres a catch! If she used them to fully heal Batman, she would forget Bruce Waynes secret
identity, regress to having the mind of a five year-old, and exit at panel left, never to be seen again. So she did, she
did, she did, and with the exception of a one-panel cameo in the best-left-forgotten Hush, she did. Thats how
Batman got his groove (and lower extremities) back. Psychic physical therapy.
So why is this an indication that Batman was always meant to come back, when Barry Allen returning from the
Speed Force or Hal Jordan being possessed by a giant yellow space bug isnt?
Because Shondra Kinsolving made her first appearance two months before Bane. Five months
before Knightfall kicked off, they had the source of Bruce Waynes inevitable return already established.
Even beyond that, though, its clear just from the storytelling that AzBats was never meant to be a permanent
replacement. I managed to talk about Knightfall at length before without ever really mentioning Azrael,
because the story isnt about him. Its about Bruce Wayne. Azraels certainly in it, but the point of those stories
isnt to show us how Jean-Paul Valley grows or changes in his role as Batman, the point is to show how he contrasts

with Bruce Wayne and why Bruce needs to come back and kick Azrael out of the cowl. Even when hes replaced,
Bruce Wayne is at the center of that story every step of the way, and everything about it revolves around him.
I hesitate to even mention this because its the Comics Internet equivalent of chucking rocks at a hornets nest, but
its a really similar situation to what happened with Stephanie Brown when she was a replacement Robin.

Its pretty clear in that story that she was never meant to be a permanent replacement. Its not just that she was
only Robin for six months, its that Tim Drake never left those comics. Shes set up explicitly within the story as a
contrast to him, and because of that, hes still the focus of whats going on in the book. Even her apparent death
in War Games comes as a result of trying to prove shes as good as Tim was.
Theres another interesting contrast with the two characters that comes up in your question of whether AzBats
was meant to be a permanent change that just didnt catch on and led DC to regress things back to the way they
were. Thats definitely not the case for him theres a pretty clear arc to his stories but Im pretty sure that it
actually was true for Stephanie Brown. Not with her role as Robin, but with her death.
Like I said, I wasnt there, but if I had to guess, Id say that her death was meant to be a (more or less) permanent
consequence of War Games and its apparent mission to prune the Bat-Family tree. Except that it was one of those
things that didnt catch on. It turned out that people actually really liked the idea of the Batman family having an
upbeat young girl in it, which led to Stephanie Browns eventual resurrection and promotion to Batgirl.
Of course, there was also the fact that there was already a Batgirl at the time who ended up walking off-panel and
hanging out in limbo for a year before being shuffled into a new codename, and the fact that Stephanie Browns
tenure as Batgirl ended with Barbara Gordon returning to the role that she had very clearly been intended to
abandon forever. So, you know. Theres that.

The moral of the story? In comics, nothing is permanent, but there are some things that are far less permanent than
others.
Read More: Ask Chris #84: Talking About Azrael, the 1990s and You | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-84azrael-the-fans-and-you/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #81: Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism

by Chris Sims November 25, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: On Scooby-Doo, do you prefer the monsters to be real or people in costumes? @heythisisbrian

A: You know, as much as I tend to allow myself to be defined by my obsessions and in this column, one in
particular definitely springs to mind I never really thought of myself as a big Scooby-Doo fan until pretty
recently. It sort of snuck up on me, to the point where I didnt realize how much thought Id given to that show over
the years until I was doing an interview with Mystery Inc. executive producer Tony Cervone, and I got so excited
when I asked a particular question that he sort of took a step back and said Wow you really like this show.
Im not sure how it happened. One day youre just going along, living your life as normal, and the next youre
frothing at the mouth in rage over a Cartoon Network original movie because it violated the very premise of the
franchise! Somewhere along the line, I woke up one morning with some very strong opinions about Scooby-Doo.

And the topic you asked about, Brian, is the one that I have the strongest
feelings about. Some may live and die by combing through episodes for Velma/Daphne subtext and the lopsided
rhombus of unrequited love orbiting a talking dog, others may devote themselves to charting the parallels between
Mystery Inc. and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, but I will fight tooth and nail over the idea that there should
never, ever be even a trace of the supernatural in the world of Scooby-Doo. And as far as Im concerned its not
a matter of preference, either its so deeply ingrained into the premise of the show and the way the characters
interact that if actual monsters do show up, the whole thing collapses.
Dont get me wrong, as Im pretty sure the record will show, I love the supernatural as a storytelling element. In
real life, I might be a die-hard skeptic such a Velma but when youre talking about stories, theres something
undeniably appealing about Draculas and Wolfmans and other assorted monsters. Theyre the embodiment of all of
our fears and anxieties, given a physical form and weaponized against us. Theres an amazing kind of power in
those ideas, especially when it comes to stories that show us triumphing against them.
I even get why it might be appealing to make the monsters real for Scooby and the Gang. After all, fighting real
ghosts and monsters makes for a more exciting show, especially once kids have twigged to the formula the original
series was built on, which inevitably and invariably led to the unmasking and grumbling about meddling kids that

would become the shows signature element. When its not done exactly right, it can be a monumentally boring way
to kill an hour, even if Batman, Robin and Jerry Reed or as I like to call them, the Holy Trinity are involved.
And to be honest, it falls short of that mark an awful lot, to the point where Ill be the first to admit that more often
than not, Im a bigger fan of the franchise in concept than in execution.
So on one level, I completely understand why the series has occasionally gone in that direction with stuff like The
13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo or the recent live-action movies on Cartoon Network. Adding in actual spooky threats
makes things more, well, threatening. Theres an unpredictability and a danger to the supernatural that you just
dont get from someones crooked groundskeeper trying to scare folks away from a ski lodge with a length of rope
and a couple of pulleys, and putting characters that are already defined and beloved into a new sort of situation
seems like itd be a great way to shake things up.
And that would be great, if Scooby Doo was a cartoon about kids fighting monsters. But despite appearances to the
contrary, its not.
Scooby-Doo is a cartoon about kids looking for truth.

Michael Ryan recently wrote a really interesting article that suggested the
decision to keep real monsters off of Scooby-Doo was originally done in order to appease parents who wanted
something that was just scary enough to keep a kids attention without being so scary that they wouldnt actually
get excited. They wanted to have the fun of monsters without the consequences of having to deal with nightmares
like the parents of those kids who saw Simon Belmont hoisting up Draculas severed head on the cover of Nintendo
Power. It was all meant to be like the televised equivalent of a Nerf Dracula, taking something that was supposed to
be scary and blunting it down until the the big reveal at the end of every episode, which would show kids that the
monsters they were scared of were just normal dudes.
Its certainly possible to look at the show like that as Ryan points out, there were critics when the show
premiered back in 1969 that saw that as a selling point but whether or not it was the intent of the creators, what
they ended up with was something that went far beyond that idea.
Because thats the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode arent monsters, theyre liars.
I cant imagine how scandalized those critics who were relieved to have something that was mild enough to not
excite their kids wouldve been if theyd stopped for a second and realized what was actually going on. The very
first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of
grown-ups who lie to kids, and that its up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if
there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isnt through
supernatural powers, or even through fighting. The way that you win is by doing the most dangerous thing that any
person being lied to by someone in power can do: You think.

But its not just that the crooks in Scooby-Doo are liars; nobody ever shows up to bilk someone out of their life
savings by pretending to be a Nigerian prince or something. Its always phantasms and Frankensteins, and theres a
very good reason for that. The bad guys in Scooby-Doo prey on superstition, because thats the one thing that an
otherwise rational person doesnt really think through. Its based on belief, not evidence, which is a crucial element
for the show. If, for example, someone knocks on your door and claims to be a police officer, youre going to want to
see a badge because thats the tangible evidence that youve come to expect to prove their claim. If, however, you
hold the belief that the old run-down theater has a phantom in the basement, then the existence of that phantom
himself or at least a reasonably convincing costume is all the evidence that you need to believe that you were
right all along. The bad guys are just reinforcing a belief that the other characters already have, and that they dont
need any evidence before because its based in superstition, not reason.
Which is why the existence of the supernatural just doesnt work within the framework of Scooby-Doo. It wouldnt
work even if it were done in such a way that they were discovering the truth that real monsters actually existed
against a disbelieving public, which is a premise thats been done really well elsewhere. Theres an underlying logic
to the world of Scooby-Doo that just boils down to Reason vs. Superstition, and in that battle, superstition can never
win.
It goes down into the way that the characters are built, too, specifically with regards to Shaggy and Scooby. Theyre
the first ones to run away whenever anything spooky happens, and more importantly, theyre the ones that are
always too scared to look for another answer. Whenever theyre confronted with anything that has the whiff of
the graveyard about it, theyre the ones that want to hop back into the Mystery Machine and call it a night, because
they are literally terrified beyond reason. In short, theyre cowards.

But if the supernatural does exist, then suddenly theyre not cowards anymore. Theyre perfectly reasonable people
(well, person and dog, but you know what I mean) who have come to a rational, logical conclusion that there are
things out there beyond their mortal understanding. Running away becomes a pretty fair course of action, because
a world where the supernatural exists is world where the average kid has a lot to be afraid of.
Again, that can work in a story thats built for it Harry Potter comes to mind as a story fit to burst with the
supernatural where someone has to overcome those very legitimate fears in order to save the day. But in the world
of Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and Scoobys cowardice is ingrained in their characters; its always going to be there no
matter how many times theyre proven wrong. And its there because in that world, we have to see them proven
wrong over and over again, because we have to see that reason, curiosity and thinking always triumph over
fear. Thats their entire function. Its what makes them such enjoyable characters to watch.
And when you take all that together, its a big part of what makes the current series, Scooby-Doo: Mystery Inc., such
a great show. Not only does it embrace the idea of the gang seeking out the truth behind the crooks who prey on
superstition, it does so to the extreme where theyre pit against an entire townof adults who lie to them. Its
particularly telling that Velma, who has always been the shows most iconic thinker, is seen in direct conflict with
her parents, who have a vested interest in keeping up the lie of Crystal Cove being a haunted town in order to sell
their souvenirs. She ends up valuing the truth more than her own self-interest, and in the end, so does Fred, on a
much more personal level. Seriously, watch the show, its fantastic.

To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, Scooby Doo has value not because it shows us that there are monsters, but because
it shows us that those monsters are just the products of evil people who want to make us too afraid to see through
their lies, and goes a step further by giving us a blueprint that shows exactly how to defeat them.
Thats what makes the show great. Thats why Scooby Doo endures when similar shows like Speed
Buggy or Jabberjaw or even the surreal masterpiece that is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids fall by the wayside:
Because its not just a show about a bunch of kids and their talking dog fighting monsters. But when you add in the
supernatural, thats exactly what it becomes.
Q: Wheres a good place for a new reader to get into UDONs Street Fighter comics? What are the best or
most important trades? @rxchrisg

A: Im a huge fan of the Street Fighter comics, and while theyre all pretty fun, the Street Fighter Legends miniseries
are far and away the best. The Chun-Li one is a solid action story, but Sakura and Ibuki (the latter of which was
written by Skullkickers Jim Zubkavich) are just everything bright and fun about those games condensed into four
issues each, plus all the Dan Hibiki the single greatest video game character ever you can handle. Theyre
definitely the ones to grab.
Read More: Ask Chris #81: Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-81-scoobydoo-and-secular-humanism/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #79: Snake-Eyes Kills Everybody

by Chris Sims November 11, 2011 12:30 PM

Q: Ive been reading GI Joe: Cobra. What are some of the best GI Joe runs or stories? @drmagnificent
A: First of all, good choice in jumping on the story of Americas daring, highly trained special missions force. Its a
great time to do it, too: IDWs been really good about getting the reprints of the classic stuff together, and theyre
certainly putting out enough of the new stuff that theres something for everyone. Ive fallen behind a little, but I
loved that Watchmen-esque issue about Tomax and Xamot.
Yeah, thats right: I just said that Watchmen-esque issue about Tomax and Xamot.

As for good runs, theres a lot to choose from. I actually think the Americas
Elite series was highly underrated, especially the 12-part World War III story. Even I initially dismissed it, but its
epic that built to the kind of amazing, awesome climax that you could only get when a bunch of dudes who loved
the franchise decided that if they were losing the license, they might as well go out with the biggest story they
could possibly tell. Seriously, a dude jetpacks out of a wheelchair so that he can rocket-punch Cobra Commander in
that last issue. It is fantastic.
Theres a paperback of the whole saga thats currently out of print, but its not too hard to track down. The problem
is that theres no way something that bills itself as the last GI Joe story is going work as well for you if youre new
to the characters than if youd been reading them for a while.

So if youre looking for the best run of GI Joe comics, well, I dont think there are going to be a lot of people who
argue with me when I say that you really need to head back to the original Marvel Comics run of GI Joe: A Real
American Hero. With the exception of one issue a solid fill-in story about clutch by Steven Grant, who also wrote
for the cartoon the entire run of over 150 comics was written by one man, Larry Hama, and he was awesome.
Seriously, that guy is so good at writing GI Joe comics that he ended a 12-year run of comics with an issue that was
basically a Pro and Con list of whether a kid should join the military, and its still actually kind of good.
Also, those Ninja Force issues werent his fault. But thats another column.
What matters is that that original run had a lot of really good, really fun stories, to the point where its actually
pretty tough to answer your question, because even Im having trouble figuring out where you should start with it.
The famous Silent Issue in #21? The invasion of Springfield? The SAW Viper killing Joes? The story where Destro
proves his love for the Baroness by turning his castle into a Transformer? That short UK-only story by Grant
Morrison where Quick Kick talks about how cool Shang Chi is?
Theyre all tempting recommendations, and theyre all comics you should seek out if you like GI Joe, but they can
wait. If you want to mainline some pure, uncut GI Joe, then son, you need some Snake-Eyes in your life.

As hard as it might be if you look back at it from today, there was a time in this country when ninjas were a fresh,
new idea, and that time was called The Eighties. As any walk down the action aisle of a video store at the time
wouldve proved, the shadowy Japanese assassins dominated the media. And comics, which had already had a 50year love affair with dudes who relied on the ancient techniques of the Orient and had only just gotten over their
obsession with the kung fu masters of the 70s, embraced them more than anything else. Just grab an issue
of Daredevil or Wolverine from the era, those dudes are everywhere. Even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which
would become the most popular thing in the entire world by the end of the decade, was originally created to
parody the fact that the only thing Eastman and Laird knew would be successful in comics were teenage mutants
and ninjas.
And Snake-Eyes was the ninja.

Or at least, hes up there with Sho Kusugi. Point is, hes awesome, and while Hamas GI Joe had a surprisingly strong
ensemble cast for a comic that basically existed to sell toys, his popularity eventually led to the comic revolving
around him in the same way that the X-Men franchise would grow to revolve around Wolverine. And if youre
coming at the comics as a fan of the TV cartoon, like I did, thats weird.
Theres this weird dichotomy with the GI Joe franchise where the comics tend to be all Snake-Eyes and Scarlett, but
in the cartoons, theyre barely seen. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that the animation style they
were using was way more suited for shots of generic dudes firing laser rifles at each other than it was to silent
ninja battles. Those shows relied so much on voice acting for character work and exposition that a silent character
just didnt work for them and also, his go-to strategy of stabbing someone in the face probably fell a little
closer to the imitatable violence that network censors were always worried about than, say, Weather Domination.
The current GI Joe: Renegades show does a great job with Snake-Eyes (and pretty much everything else thats in it),
but in the 80s, that dude was just a background character on The Cobra Commander, Destro & Baroness Show.
In the comics, however, you could not stop that dude from being awesome. Check it:

That isnt even an unusual occurrence in the world of GI Joe. And that brings us back around to the problem of
finding specific issues to go for.

Again, a lot of people would point you to #21 and Snake-Eyes totally silent
rescue of Scarlett from Destros castle, and yes, that issue is great. But lets be real for a second: That thing has been
reprinted so much that if you go out and buy an action figure, theres like a 40% chance that that comics in the
package. Nobody needs me to tell them to go read it.
What you do need me to tell you about, though, is the story where Snake-Eyes Kills Everybody.
Its really one long story broken up into two parts, and I actually hadnt read it until relatively recently. I was
always a bigger fan of the cartoon than the toys or comics, so it wasnt until Chad Bowers my cowriter
at Awesome Hospital told me about them that I got into it. The first part is a three-part story that ran in GI
Joe #94 to 96 called, unsurprisingly The Snake-Eyes Trilogy, with art by the great M.D. Bright.
Well, it really starts an issue earlier in #93 when Snake-Eyes and Scarlett go to Switzerland for an operation. See,
for those of you who dont know, Snake-Eyes had worn a mask for the entire series up to that point in order to
cover up the hideous scars from an accident that had (allegedly) also rendered him mute. Now, however, a
revolutionary but excruciating reconstructive technique had been pioneered by one Dr. Hundtkinder. And
with a little time off from battling Cobra, Snake-Eyes finally had his chance to get patched up.
Which was a good thing, because he looked like

 well, he pretty much looked exactly like Jonah Hex. So, you know, theres that.
Now I know what youre thinking: I just blew a secret that Hama had been able to keep for 93 issues without even
giving a Spoiler Warning. Why? A) Its been 22 years, you had your chance to get to this one, and B) while
Hundtkinder does in fact fix him right up, he also ends up selling the Joes out to Cobra, and when he tries to escape,
Snake-Eyes takes a brazier full of hot coals right in the face

giving him an entirely new set of facial scars to cover up with his mask. Total time with his face fixed: One issue,
most of which he spends being tortured like a third-rate villain in the New 52. Hilarious.
That part of the story happens in the basement of the Cobra Consulate in New York, and once Snake-Eyes breaks
free, he starts going up, floor by floor, just straight killing dudes and setting off explosions.

At the end of that story, the Cobra Consulate is demolished. Snake-Eyes murders a building. By himself.
But hes not just mad because his good looks are lost forever. See, back when the Baroness kidnapped him from
Switzerland operating under the assumption that Snake-Eyes had murdered her borther she took her
revenge by shooting Scarlett in the head:

Cold as ice, but ultimately not as effective than you might expect. As is so often the case in comics, Fallout games
and Quentin Tarantino movies, a protagonist getting shot in the head is less fatal and more inconvenient. Scarlett
survives, but shes left in a coma, and when Snake-Eyes gets finished withmurdering an actual building, hes
pretty bummed out about the whole situation.
For the next six issues, Hama focuses on lesser Joes and the return of Cobra Commander, and all the while SnakeEyes hangs out in Scarletts hospital room, getting mopier by the page. But his story picks back up in #103, also
with art by Bright:

Friends, that is Storm Shadow Arashikage ninja, sword-brother to Snake-Eyes, former revenge-crazed Cobra
assassin and current GI Joe ally busting through the roof of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That is how you open a comic
book.
The reason hes adding an unauthorized skylight to the Pentagon is that quiet grieving is not something ninjas are
really all that suited for. The longer Snake-Eyes keeps his silent vigil at Scarletts bedside, the closer he gets to
slipping into a depression that will consume him. He needs something to snap him out of it, something that will
both take his mind off his troubles and allow him to vent his frustrations in a productive way
In other words, Snake-Eyes needs to kill everybody.
Storm Shadow suggests that the everybody in question should be the evil government of the formery Communist
Peoples Republic of Borovia, rescuing a hostage and tying things back into a storyline from five years earlier. The
military guys agree, because really, when a ninja jumps through your ceiling and tells you that theres some ninja
work that needs doing far, far away from where you are, you tend to take his word for it.
So Snake-Eyes heads off to Borovia, but before he does, Storm Shadow gives him the most intense pep talk of all
time:

Oh son, Storm Shadow throws up the Diamond Cutter and puts Snake-Eyes into the Arashikage Mindset, a a magic
ninja death trance that turns him into an unstoppable killing machine. And then they throw him out of an airplane.
I dont want to get into the specifics because theres a lot going on in these issues that revolves around Eastern
European prison camps, Scarletts family arguing over who owns their parents house and a the return of a clown
that hadnt been seen for 70 issues, but trust me, most of the next two issues are devoted entirely to Snake-Eyes
just flat out rampaging. Shooting dudes, throwing knives, decapitating people, blowing up cars.
Its like Larry Hama saw Commando and was like pft, that all you got?
There might be a better GI Joe story out there, but if you want everything great about GI Joe ninja death trances,
Destro being awesome, the dubous international politics that would resut in a Cobra Consulate being built in New
York City, and even a splash page of Cobra Commander kicking a puppy, all drawn by the artist of my favorite
Batman comic that chunk from #93 to #106 is the stuff to get.
Read More: Ask Chris #79: Snake-Eyes Kills Everybody | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-79-snake-eyes-killseverybody/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #78: Gen13 vs. the Circus Freaks of Evil Trent Reznor
by Chris Sims October 28, 2011 12:00 PM
Normally, ComicsAlliance Senior Writer Chris Sims answers comics and comics culture questions from our
readers every week, but as Halloween approaches, things are about to getterrifying! This month, Chris answers
your spoooooooky questions from beyond the grave!

Q: Setting aside Archies G-Rated hijinx, what scary comics stories have failed utterly in their mandate?
@Kevin_Church
A: First of all, Kevin, Archies Weird Mysteries, the TV tie-in comic from 2000 that mashed up Riverdale with the XFiles, was fantastic. The one where Veronica found out she was The Ender spoken of in vampiric prophecy as the
one who would use an ancient amulet to eradicate the scourge of the undead from fictional Massachusetts is an
underrated classic, and for those of you wondering, Im not kidding. That story exists.
As for which tale of terror completely fails to live up to the promise of its spoooooky elements, the one that really
comes to mind is that two-parter from Gen 13 where Caitlin Fairchild is kidnapped and turned into a sexy

dominatrix by a gang of circus freaks led by Sexy Trent Reznor.

For
those of you who may not be familiar with the franchise, Gen 13 was one of the hottest comics of 1995. In fact, there

was a time when Gen 13 was my absolute favorite comic book. What? It was a different time! And I wouldnt get my
first copy of The Dark Knight Returns until the summer of 96.
Heres the high concept: A team of teenage mutants gen-active super-powered beings led by a curmudgeonly old
mentor with male pattern baldness one eye and a totally wicked scar escaped from government custody and went
about fighting evil to protect a world that well, the world was actually pretty indifferent to them, actually.
If that sounds familiar, its because was basically an absolutely shameless ripoff of the X-Men, but with everything
about it jacked up on that Chinese drug that they poison Jason Statham with in Crank. In the first six months of the
ongoing series, Gen 13 threw in sexy teenage lesbians, super-heroes being kidnapped by an island of Amazons and
used as breeding stock, a character based on Bruce Campbell who battled said Amazons with homemade land
mines, a secret order of Vatican assassins who wore corsets and thigh-high leather boots (shout out to Jim Lee),
and a gang of pirates. Actual f***ing pirates, with a Spanish galleon sporting eight Jolly Rogers. And they all lived
in a house with a sexy housekeeper named Anna in a French Maid getup.
You know what? I take back all the excuses I made for thinking this book was awesome when I was 13. It is,
without question, the perfect comic book to love when youre in 7th grade.
So needless to say, those first issues set the bar pretty high in terms of sheer unapologetic stupidity. And then, in a
two part story in #8 and 9, Brandon Choi, J. Scott Campbell and Humberto Ramos flat-out shattered their previous
record for ridiculousness by trying their collective hand at horror. Or at least horror-themed camp.
You may want to get out your Cliche Checklist for this one: Our story begins in the Hall of Mirrors at one of the four
thousand Abandoned Carnivals that chamber of commerce starts constructing whenever a super-hero moves to
town. The reason the Gen 13 who are actually just five people are exploring such a Scoobydoovian location?
Their leader, the frequently naked Caitlin Fairchild, has been abducted by an evil circus with the supremely
imaginative name of the Freak Show!
Aside from a brief flashback where tension between characters is created when Roxy tells Grunge that he looks like
a gaybot in front of Rainmaker (a lesbian), this is pretty much how the entire issue goes. One by one, the
characters square off against (and get their asses handed to them by) the freaks, and each one is more of a cliche
than the last. Theres the Master Blaster-esque Baby & Doll:

Nymph, an alluring (read: naked) siren who takes out the Dollar Store version of the Human Torch that is Burnout,
because shes made of water and hes an idiot:

The Albino, based on the old sideshow mainstay of the rubber man, who can endure Rainmakers lightning bolts
(and also pull off one of the books most thorough gropes) because hes actually made of rubber:

Phobia, not to be confused with the DC villain of the exact same name and powers, who represents a heated battle
between the scripts desire to hit cliche bingo with the creepy little girl trope and J. Scott Campbells instinct to
draw an upskirt shot for every single female character in the comic:

And of course, Caitlin herself, who has of course been mind-controlled into a version of herself so evil that she has
gained Nikki Sixxs haircut:

What could have possibly tuned such a pillar of goodness and two-shoesery into someone who looks like shes one
streak of face paint away from plotting to get Jem and the Holograms kicked off their label?
That would be due to the sinister machinations of the Freak Shows leader, Trance, who is hilarious. Seriously,
just look at this dude:

As confirmed in the letters page a few issues later, Trance (get it? Because its a type of music and a word that kind
of means brainwashing people with psychic powers?) was visually based on Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame,
but with Campbell drawing him so ridiculously weedy that he failed to look threatening even when he was
standing next to Burnout and his dumb soul patch. Oh, an for those of you still keeping score, you can mark of
creepy pile of dolls too, even if the overall effect here is about as frightening as a Toy Story themed SuicideGirls
shoot.
Anyway, it turns out that Trance didnt want Caitlin at all shes just a super-strong, super-stacked bonus that
came along with the real object of his quest:

Lockheed! I mean, Qeelocke, Roxys mysterious pet monkey cat thing who in no way infringes on any copyrights
that may or may not be held by Marvel Comics. At all. Honest.
I read this thing a hundred times when I was a kid well, I mostly looked at Campbell and Ramoss shapely lady
drawings, but I can assure you I paid very close attention to those and I still have no idea why Trance wanted
Queelocke. He mentions something about bounty hunters and raising an army, which seems like a pretty lofty goal
for a dude whos living in an abandoned carnival, but I guess a dude has to find something to do on the 361 days
out of the year that arent the Gathering of the Juggalos.
Unfortunately for him, Qeelocke has the power to open boom tubes (which I dont think anyone had mentioned
before), and he does just that, summoning Anna the Maid, who promptly punches Trance into the next county:

Because shes a robot. Surprise!

And thats pretty much how this little adventure ends. Without Trance to keep Caitlin in line, the rest of the team
rallies and beats up the bad guys in like two pages. I mean, you also find out that Caitlin and Roxy are long lost
sisters and that their father is a pirate king in the South China Sea, but yeah, mainly its just that a robot shows up
and punches Trent Reznor.
There is, however, one piece of the story that I havent mentioned: How Trance got to Caitlin in the first place.

Thats right, everybody: The real scary part of this story is the scourge of underage teenage alcohol raves!!

So congratulations, Gen 13 #9: You are officially the single dumbest After School Special on record. And thats
saying something.
Q: Besides Dracula, who is the best vampire in comic books?
A:

Read More: Ask Chris #78: Gen13 vs. the Circus Freaks of Evil Trent Reznor | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-78-whats-going-on-at-that-spooky-abandoned-carnival/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #77: The Greatest Comic Book Monster Hunter Ever
by Chris Sims October 21, 2011 12:00 PM
Normally, ComicsAlliance Senior Writer Chris Sims answers comics and comics culture questions from our
readers every week, but as Halloween approaches, things are about to getterrifying! This month, Chris answers
your spoooooooky questions from beyond the grave!

Q: Who are the best monster hunters and how would they be rated on the Vanhelsing-o-meter for
deadliness? @iheartkungfu
A: I hate to nitpick, but really, I dont know what todays younger crop of Monster Hunting Scholars see in the
Vanhelsingomter. Despite varied opinions even among experts on whether a Simon outranks a Richter, Ill go with

the Belmont Scale any day of the week.

As for the monster hunters
themselves, there are a lot of great choices out there. Its actually a pretty crowded field thats given us some great
characters. The first one that springs to mind, probably because hes introduced by telling Dracula that he might
be hot stuff in Transylvania, is Blade. Ive honestly never understood why he never quite caught on in comics, but
he does have the distinction of being Marvels first major movie character, thanks to a movie that gave us the truly
incredible line always some motherf***er tryin to ice skate uphill.
But there are other great ones, too. Ive talked about Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegardes Hector Plasm in this
very column, who solves haints through the combination of personal misfortune, a sword made of lightning, and a

surprisingly in-depth knowledge of traditional folklore. Really, his only problem is that there arent more stories
about him.
The same goes for DCs current version of Frankenstein, introduced by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke
during Seven Soldiers. Not only does he hunt monsters, but he hunts monsters on Mars while using the right arm of
the Archangel Michael to wield a holy sword of vengeance against his enemies.

Unfortunately, this version of Frankenstein only has six issues under his belt, and while theyve all been great,
theres just not a whole lot to judge by. Still, if the new Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. series is any indication,
theres an awful lot potential for him down the road.
And then theres the obvious choice, a character thats had almost 20 years of incredible stories of monsterfighting, Nazi-punching action: Hellboy. And he could pretty much take the top spot just by virtue of having a story
where he took on the Mayan bat-god of death in a lucha libre wrestling match.

Thats the sort of thing that makes everyone else working in the same field look like second-stringers. And thats
without even getting into his knack for punching out Lovecraftian horrors and Nazi gorillas, or the fact that hes
[SPOILER WARNING!] the direct descendant of King Arthur and the actual Devil at the same time.
For my money, though, theres one other monster hunter in comics thats better than all of em: Elsa Bloodstone.

Elsa Bloodstone is, without question, one of the most underused Marvel characters of the 21st century, although
her current appearances in the seasonally spooky Legion of Monsters mini-series are a nice step forward towards

solving that problem. But Ive loved her since day one, because honestly: Shes a sexy lady with an English accent
who is also the daughter of an immortal barbarian, and whose entire purpose in life is fighting monsters by making
them explode. Whats not to like?
For those of you who may not be aware, Elsas a legacy character. Her father, Ulysses Bloodstone, was a fairly
obscure character (possibly even more obscure than Elsa herself) created in 1975 by by Len Wein, Marv Wolfman
and John Warner, as a sort of pulp adventurer type with an affinity for wearing shirts that somehow still allowed
him to be bare-chested. His story started all the way back in the Hyborean Age, which at the time was a pretty solid
building block of the Marvel Universe, as a man from Vanaheim who got a magic immortality gem stuck in his chest
and, unlike most of the people that happened to back then, managed not to get it carved out by Conan the
Barbarian.
Instead, he turned his attention to dealing with Marvels monster population, and even managed to pick up a few
sidekicks along the way, like Iron Fists old pal Fat Cobra:

You can already see where Elsa gets it from.

Anyway, despite big plans, Ulysses remained firmly trapped in the Z-list, and his major contribution to the Marvel
universe was pretty much limited to having his corpse show up in a six-part story from 1989 where Captain
America and Diamondback fought Batroc the Leaper.
In 2001, however which, purely by coincidence, Im sure, was right around the time that Buffy the Vampire
Slayer was hitting the peak of its televised popularity the franchise was revived in the form of his Elsa, the
hotter, younger, blonder, lady-er Bloodstone:

Introduced by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Michael Lopez in 2001, Elsa was Ulysses Bloodstones daughter
and apparently his only daughter, which, when you consider that the dude was alive for ten thousand years, shows
some pretty remarkable restraint. In the original stories, Elsa had been raised in England after Ulysses and her
mother had split up, and was completely unaware of his Belmontesque vocation until after shed inherited his
mansion, his magic gem, and the service of his janitor.
His janitor, by the way, was Frankenstein.

Nobody in town seems to notice this little factoid, or if they do, they dont mention it. Probably because a guy
rocking a Marty McFly vest in 2001 is distracting enough that they dont notice the neck-bolts.
Over the course of the four-issue series, Elsa ended up having a team-up with Adam, NKantu the Living Mummy,
and Dracula there was no Marvel analogue for the Wolfman involved, presumably because Man-Wolf
and his magic space gem wouldve made things too complex but thats not really whats memorable
about Bloodstone. What is memorable is that Abnett, Lanning and Lopez just straight up decided to go barrelling
headlong into the sexploitation genre:

Part of it, I imagine, came from the fact that translating Ulysses Bloodstones costume with its super-plunging
neckline to a female form meant that the tiny, tied-up top Elsa ends up with was probably one of the better options,
and the rest of it just fell into place from there. And fall it did.
Seriously, as familiar as I am with Abnett and Lannings other comics, there is no doubt in my mind that the
constant sex-charged adventures of Elsa Bloodstone were done entirely on purpose, and the effect is hilarious.
Its everywhere in this thing. If shes not poutily asking a gang of evil vampires am I naughty? (an actual quote!),
shes splaying out on her bed giving the readers a seductive look as she thinks about the terrifying nightmares shes
been having:

Seriously, this thing is the Bayonetta of Marvel comics.

Sadly or not-so-sadly, depending on your view of supernatural sex farces the book didnt catch on, and Elsa
faded away for the next five years. But the nice thing about being an obscure character that no ones doing anything
with is that occasionally, thats exactly the sort of character creators are looking to use.
And thats exactly what happened in 2007, when Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen took four third-stringers and a
new guy and made the single greatest achievement in the history of art and literature: Nextwave: Agents of
H.A.T.E.

I think Bloodstone is a hoot, but the Nextwave version was an improvement in pretty much every way imaginable.
Elsa was now a redhead (so that there wouldnt be two blondes on the team), and she got a new costume that
was slightly less exploitative than Lopezs design. Really, though, thats in purely relative terms: Immonen did, after

all, have her battling against the forces of the Beyond Corporation in a pair of thigh-high leather stiletto heeled
boots.
But those were just cosmetic changes there were pretty big tweaks to her character as well, presumably beacuse
there were only like fourteen people who read Bloodstone anyway, which is as good a reason for rebuilding as any.
Unlike the inexperienced Elsa of the mini-series, Nextwaves version was a ruthless, gun-toting, monster-slaying
badass who wanted to make things explode and who had the haughtiness that comes from being able to do all that
in the aforementioned stilettos.
Her origin got a retcon, too: Rather than finding out as an adult, the post-Nextwave Elsa had been trained by her
father to take over the family business from. well, lets just say a young age.

As it turns out, 10,000 year-old barbarians are not what youd call nurturing.
Despite the slant towards comedy, the overall effect of what Ellis did with Elsa and the
other Nextwave characters rounded her out as a character in a far better way than just casting her as the sexedup Buffy of the Marvel Universe. She was given resentment and frustration with what she did that was at odds with
how much she loved doing it, a family history that she hated at the same time that she was living up to it, and a
knowledge and responsibility that informed how she interacted with the other characters. Shes far and away the

most sarcastic and abraisive of the Nextwave crew (which is saying something), but shes justified in it. Shes been
doing this her entire life, and shes phenomenally good at what she does. There are layers to her character that
come through in spite of and more often, because of the bizarre situations shes put in.
Which, again, are almost entirely geared towards blowing up monsters.

So when it comes to monster hunters, it doesnt get much better than Elsa Bloodstone.

Read More: Ask Chris #77: The Greatest Comic Book Monster Hunter Ever | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris77-the-greatest-comic-book-monster-hunter-ever/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #76: Batmans Halloween Costume

by Chris Sims October 14, 2011 12:00 PM
Normally, ComicsAlliance Senior Writer Chris Sims answers comics and comics culture questions from our
readers every week, but as Halloween approaches, things are about to getterrifying! This month, Chris answers
your spoooooooky questions from beyond the grave!

Q: In the spirit of Halloween, what are the best instances of a hero/villain dressing up as another
hero/villain? @sequentialmatt
A: As you might expect from a genre so steeped in costumes, masks and secret identities, the ol costume switch has
cropped up in quite a few comics. Superman and Batman have switched costumes to fool their enemies, Iron Fist
once dressed up as Daredevil to help him with a trial, the Super Skrull once dressed up a Iron Fist in order to fight
Namor for reasons that I never quite understood. Its a time-honored tradition.
But with all those to choose from, it probably wont surprise anyone to learn that my all-time favorite comes
from Batman, who not only dressed up as a super-hero who didnt exist, but did it for the particularly
Halloweenish reason that he was absolutely terrified of himself.It all went down in the classic lead story of
1957s Detective Comics #247, The Man Who Ended Batmans Career, by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff. And
folks, this one starts being awesome before you even get past the cover:

Seriously: Not only does Batman have a fireplace in the Batcave that he has carved out of solid stone, presumably to
add a little romantic comfort to those long winter nights spent solving riddles and figuring out how to avoid being
shot by an umbrella, hes gone so far as to have tiny little bats added to the end of the metal brackets. That dude
was all about branding.
And the story itself only gets better from there. Along with Robin Dies At Dawn, the story that gave us the
unnamed scientist who would become Dr. Hurt under Grant Morrison and the fantastic, haunting line I must put
away my Batman costume and retire from crimefighting, its one of the best examples of the infamously strange
50s mindf**k stories where Batman is pushed by his enemies into a temporary bout of insanity.
In this case, Batmans brain problems manifest themselves right on page one:

As a quick aside, I love that three armed gangsters (in snappy suits and fedoras, no less) are freaking out
about Robin. They are so terrified of a 12 year-old that the grown-ass man dropping out of an actual flying saucer is
a complete afterthought.
Anyway, this is Starman, not to be confused with the Golden Age Starman that anyone reading comics a decade
earlier mightve been familiar with from his time in the Justice Society, but more on that later. This Starman is,
well hes basically Batman decked out in Hulkamania colors, right down to having a Star-Signal and a belt pouch
full of metal throwing stars:

Given the similarities (and the fact that this column is all about someone wearing another super-heros costume) it
should come as no surprise that Starman is actually Bruce Wayne, who has switched to a new identity:

You might assume that the sudden change was based on a head injury that left him bleeding like Ultimate Warrior
after he was cursed by Papa Shango (shout out to 1992), but I think thats just a little off-register coloring on my
copy. The real reason that hes changed his identity and that he can never wear the Batman costume again is
actually even weirder.
And it all has to do with this man:

This is Professor Milo, and , his introduction here is fantastic. Not only does he have henchmen that are rockstupid even by the abysmally low standards of Gotham City hoodlums (Duh, whats a phobia, boss?), he also
drops the extremely interesting piece of trivia that Napoleon was afraid of cats. Frankly, Im shocked that I had to
learn this from Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff and not Kate Beaton.
Anyway, he has a plan to give Batman some phobias, and since Professor Jonathan Crane is too busy trying to break
out of Arkham Asylum to file a copyright lawsuit, hes able to go ahead with it. Its a weird plan, too, if only because
the capsule hes so proud of up there becomes three different things in the span of two pages. First, its the pill, then
the pill is broken open so that Phobia Liquid can be poured onto a spotlight, at which time it suddenly becomes a
ray that goes directly to Batmans brain.
Thus, Batman somehow gets dosed by a bat-signal spotlight, giving him a crippling fear of bats.

This plan is genius.

Its the perfect inversion of what Batman does to criminals. His entire existence is based on the fact that as
Finger himself legendarily wrote way back in 1939 criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot, so he became

something they were afraid of. Flipping it around to make Batman terrified of himself is a beautiful piece of revenge
on Milos part. Plus, it takes complete advantage of the fact that Bruce Wayne is straight up All Bat Everything.
Make him too afraid to be around bats, and youve taken away his car, his plane, his anti-crime
basement, everything.
Of course, its also a great device because of what it shows us about Batmans determination. Even if he cant
be Batman, hes still going to spend his time beating the living crap out of Crime, he just needs to find a different
way to do it. So after accidentlaly being a complete dick to a kid while hes apparently out buying fresh produce in
full costume

Batman decides that its time for a change.

Thus, he tells Commissioner Gordon that hes retiring and becomes Starman, which is pretty amazing when you
consider that hes able to get a new costume and equipment that includes an actual damn flying saucer overnight.
But this is, of course, a temporary solution. As soon as the criminals realize that this new guy who looks and acts
just like Batman and hangs out with Robin is actually Batman (and the fact that they dont do so immediately is
another testament to how dumb those goons are), theyll be able to paralyze him with fear by waving vaguely batshaped objects at him.
And thats why Robin decides that the best course of action is to strap Batman to a chair against his will and terrify
him until he gets over it:

Robin dont shiv, yall.

He ends up showing him all the times that his various bat-shaped objects have helped him out with a slide show
involving Batman throwing things at cavemen. And amazingly, despite the fact that he has to endure hours upon

hours of sheer terror, Batman eventually gets over his fear and goes back to dishing out broken jaws to the
criminal underworld:

Batman: Totally a dude who will wear a costume on top of a costume just so he can freak you out after punching
you in the face.
Even aside from the shot of Batman punching a dude through his own logo, The Man Who Ended Batmans Career
ended up being a pretty influential story. Despite being a pretty obscure villain, Professor Milo managed to make a
return in the 90s by showing up in Grant Morrison and Dave McKeansArkham Asylum, and Morrisons run on the
Batman titles would reference this story and others pretty heavily. Plus, Milo managed to show up as a villain
on Batman: The Animated Series with his truly ridiculous haircut intact.
Theres also a strong influence on a a story by Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett that ran in 1998s Batman: Gotham
Adventures #3, in which the Scarecrow robs a bank and doses everyone present including Batman himself
with a specialized fear toxin that makes them afraid of Batman. Batmans paralyzed with fear of himself, and is only
able to stop the scarecrow when a young fan gives him a costume that allows him to dress up as his own childhood
hero, the Gray Ghost:

The most prominent influence, however, came in the pages of James Robinsons run on Starman, a book that was
largely devoted to exploring and unifying the characters who bore that name, starting with Ted Knight, the Golden
Age Starman and going all the way to the 31st Century for Star Boy from the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Despite the fact that Batmans twelve-page tenure as Starman had absolutely nothing to do with the Knight
Familys legacy, Robinson incorporated it into his run, reviving the look and gadgets and setting them six years
earlier as the mysterious Starman of 1951:

And just to keep it in the theme of super-heroes dressing in other heroes costumes, the Starman of 1951 turned
out to be Spoiler Warning for a series that ended 11 years ago two different heroes masquerading as the
same guy: David Knight, drawn out of his own time and given another shot at defending Opal City, and Charles
McNider, better known as the Golden Age Dr. Mid-Nite.
So in this season of scares, keep in mind the lessons that you can learn from Batman: If something frightens you,
change your name and pretend to be someone else for a little while, then have a friend make you look at it until it
no longer distracts you from punching things. If it worked for him, itll work for you too.
#HR
Q: How adorable is a scared Ben Grimm? @talestoenrage
A:

SO adorable.
Read More: Ask Chris #76: Batmans Halloween Costume | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-76-batmanshalloween-costume/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #75: Halloween Specials and Hulk vs. Frankenstein

by Chris Sims October 7, 2011 12:00 PM
Normally, ComicsAlliance Senior Writer Chris Sims answers comics and comics culture questions from our
readers every week, but as Halloween approaches, things are about to getterrifying! This month, Chris answers
your spoooooooky questions from beyond the grave!

Q: Theres lots of Christmas specials in comics. Are there any decent Halloween specials? @ilionblaze
A: Youd think that with all the costumes and masks floating around, comics would be way more keen on
Halloween. Sure, its easy to find a solid horror story in Hellboy and there are 70 issues of Tomb of Dracula floating
around, but stories that are actually devoted to the day itself are surprisingly hard to come by. There are, however,
a few great ones out that that are perfect for getting in that Halloween spirit.The first comics that spring to mind as
essential reading for anyone who loves Halloween are the two Hector Plasm one-shots by Benito Cereno and Nate
Bellegarde:

Originally introduced in backup stories in the pages of Invincible, Hector Plasm is a wandering supernatural
troubleshooter who deals with unquiet spirits. Like Atomic Robo, its a comic that invites a comparison to Hellboy,
particularly in the way that Cereno draws on folklore and mythology to craft his stories, and builds them around a
protagonist whos affable and easy to relate to while still being steeped in the supernatural.
Both of the ones-shots are well worth reading, but the second, Totentanz, is focused directly on the Halloween
itself, with Bellegarde drawing an incredible, beautiful version of the Danse Macabre, and a story of Halloween
traditions that Cereno identified as the best Hector story, Hop-Tu-Naa:

De Mortuis and Totentanz are both available digitally through Comixology. The other Halloween special Id
recommend, though, might require a bit of back issue digging to find, but trust me, its worth it.
Mostly because its got the Hulk vs. Frankenstein.

Released in October of 2008, Monster Size Hulk was a Halloween Special that saw Marvels most prominent
monster in an extra-sized throwdown against their more traditionally supernatural characters. Steve Niles and
Lucio Parrillo did a story where the Hulk hung out with Werewolf By Night and they bonded in a way that only two
dudes who frequently wake up in the woods sporting ripped-up pants in secondary colors can, Paul Tobin told a
bedtime story featuring Googam! Son of Goom!, and theres even a prose piece where the Hulk met Dracula by Peter
David, with some pretty awesome illustrations by Garbriel Hardman.

The real star of the show, though, is the lead story by Hardman and Jeff Parker, appropriately titled Its Alive!
ALIVE!!!, exclamation points included.

It kicks off with Bruce Banner on the run from the authorities in France because, you know, why not when
hes suddenly abducted. He wakes up on a train with a sexy lady and her tiny, hunchbacked manservant, and before
long, hes on his way to Castle

As it turns out, the lady is Victoria, the alchemically preserved 73-year-old daughter of great granddaughter of
Victor Frankenstein, who has a slightly used Monster in her basement and needs the help of a briliant scientist to
get it back in villager-terrorizing order.
The crazy thing here is not that this woman has a plot to resurrect a monster in her basement, because really, when
you grow up saddled with a name like Victoria Frankenstein, that sort of thing is to be expected. The crazy thing is
that she decides that the best way to do this would be to kidnap Bruce Banner, a physicist, and get him to help out. I
mean, its also pretty weird that Banner would just shrug and go with it, but I have to imagine that if your life is
mostly built around punching out MODOKs and Bi-Beasts, you start to figure out that when Victoria Frankenstein is
asking you to science up a monster for her, the next 22 pages of your life are probably going to be pretty awesome.
And as it turns out, they are! After spending some time recreating The OG Frankensteins work from his notes,
Banner is hit by the least surprising heel turn since Sinestro. Victoria and her ersatz Igor (whose name is Fritz)
knock Banner out and hook him up to the machine, operating on the premise that anything the fury of nature can
do, the Hulk can do better.

Victoria claims that she actually does think hes a swell guy, but its the age old story: Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl.
Girl uses boy for his scientific knowledge and volatile radioactive blood. Boy turns into the Hulk.
Thus, one Gamma Ray transfusion later, The Monster of Frankenstein and his inexplicable fur vest have risen once
again!

To his credit, Parker somehow manages to avoid using the word Frankenhulk anywhere in this entire story, but
in a way that you know he was thinking it every step of the way.
Feeling the bitter sting of betrayal, the Hulk and Frankenhulk get in a fight that sees them throwing tractors at each
other until the Hulkbusters show up to remind everyone that yes, youre still reading a Marvel comic. They were
alerted by Fritz the Hunchback, who wants Victoria all for himself, but as they start blasting at the Hulk, the
monster senses a kinship. And again: The phrase LASER BAD! appears nowhere in this comic, but
you know theyre thinking it.
So, in classic Marvel style, the Hulk and Frankenstein (deal with it) have a team-up. They learn to look past the
grotesque exteriors and to the person inside, recognizing what makes them similar, rather than the superficial
problems that keep them divided. And then they beat the living crap out of a bunch of dudes in Mandroid armor.

And really, isnt that the true meaning of Halloween?

Q: If Dracula retired, who from comics would be most qualified to replace him? @SeanMulkerrin
A: Wait, retired? From what? I mean, retirement sort of implies that theres a job involved, but vampirism isnt
really something you do vocationally. If he was going to retire, I guess it would be from his career as the ruling
noble of his Transylvania neighborhood. If thats the case, theres an obvious answer:Aquaman.
Hes got experience as a monarch so thats covered, and while it doesnt have anything to do with blood, he
definitely sucks. Hot-cha!
Q: WHATS THAT BEHIND YOU?!?!?! - @AaronABCP
A: Ha, cmon, quit playing ar

AQUAMAN NO!!
Read More: Ask Chris #75: Halloween Specials and Hulk vs. Frankenstein | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris75-halloween-specials/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #74: Who Is the Best Super-Pet?

by Chris Sims September 30, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Who is the greatest Super-Pet? @Soranomaru

A: Of all the concepts that couldve only come out of the kid-friendly kookiness of the Silver Age, the Legion of
Super-Pets is right up there with the sheer existence of Jimmy Olsen for being the most ridiculous. As for trying to
figure out which one is the greatest, well, that presents a unique challenge, mostly because they tend to be either

boring or straight up creeps.

To find out which ones actually good, youve got to work
backwards, and in the classic lineup of the Legion of Super-Pets, the first candidate for elimination is
undoubtedly Comet the Super-Horse, mostly because hes not actually a horse.
I went through this a while back (as has pretty much anyone else with a stack of back issues and a website), but
since its one of the strangest pieces of the entire Silver Age, it bears repeating: See, Comet is actually that most
loathsome creature, the Centaur. Specifically, hes a centaur named Biron who was cursed into full-on
equestrianism back in Ancient Greece, and was subsequently exiled to space for a few thousand years. After he
came back to Earth (thanks to Supergirls rocketship knocking his asteroid out of its curse-mandated orbit), he
decided that, instead of informing any of the telepathic characters around him that he was a dude trapped in the
body of a horse, hed just become Supergirls pet and let her ride him around, because he was in love with her.
And just in case that wasnt weird enough, whenever a particular comet passed by Earth, hed turn into a dude,
during which time he would adopt the alias of Bronco Bill Starr, a rodeo clown who would ride other horses in
order to impress Supergirl, then make out with her in the brief time before he turned back into a horse and went
back to letting her ride around on his back.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how they thought any of this was even remotely okay.
But while Comet might be the most well-known, Proty is even weirder.

Originally introduced as a pet for the Legion of Super-Heroes Chameleon Boy, Proty was a telepathic blob of
shapeshifting protoplasm. By any sort of sci-fi standards, thats not particularly remarkable, but just wait.
For all its Silver Age signatures, the Legion of Super-Heroes was actually one of the most forward-thinking
franchises of the time, probably because it was relatively isolated from the rest of the DC Universe. As such, it was
one of the first DC books to really incorporate stuff like killing off cast members, only to have them return later.
Specifically, their pioneer in resurrection was Lightning Lad, who sacrificed his life only to be brought back when
the rest of the Legion stood around waiting to be struck by lightning so that their life force would revive him. In the
end, Proty knocked out Saturn Girl Lightning Lads girlfriend and took her place, with everyone mourning his
noble passing.
He was then replaced by yet another completely identical blob of protoplasm with the imaginative name of Proty
II, but thats not the weird part. Take it away, Wikipedia:
In a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths retcon, it was revealed that the original Proty did not die saving Lightning Lads life.
In reality, Protys life force was transferred into the body of Garth Ranzz, and Proty lived his life as Garth from that
point forward. The true Garth was never revived.
What is it with these dudes and pets pretending to be other people so that they can get with teenage blondes?! I
gotta say, the Legion of Super-Pets is downright revolting.

Incidentally, Proty II the one in the panels above would later go on to be a full-fledged Legionnaire, which
puts the entire concept of being a pet into some pretty shady territory.
As forthe other Super-Pets, Ive got to confess that they just dont do a whole lot for me. I mean, Kryptos all right,
but Beppo the Super-Monkey?! An alien astronaut test monkey rocketed to Earth from a dying planet? That
sounds awesome! Theres like five things I like in that sentence! He should be one of the greatest characters in
comic book history, but he just doesnt live up to the potential.
If its between those guys er, pets then Im going to give it to Streaky, if for no other reason than his awesome
lightning bolt fur and the fact that he once punched out a master of space karate.

Honestly, in an era when the Internet has proven that people love nothing more than looking at pictures of cats, I
will never understand why Streaky isnt holding down two monthly ongoing series.
So for that crowd, Streaky definitely wins. If, however, you open it up to all of the Silver Age DC pet sidekicks,
things get a little more interesting.
Look. I would love to tell you that Ace the Bat-Hound is the greatest of all pet sidekicks and an intrinsic part of the
Batman mythos, but I cant. Dont get me wrong, I love the idea of Batman having a dog that wears a mask to
protect its identity:

The fact of the matter is, though, Ace just doesnt do much. I think he sniffed out a hobo once, but thats about the
extent of his contribution to Batmans crime-fighting career. And really, Im pretty sure Batman couldve sniffed out
a hobo himself. This is Batman were talking about here. He has honed his skills with the greatest hobo-sniffers in
the world.
So as much as it pains me to admit it, this is one area where, of all people, Aquaman has managed to score the
victory with his pet sidekick, Topo the Octopus:

Ive become familiar with Topo thanks to the tireless resarch of leading Aquamanologist Tom Katers, who makes a
pretty convincing argument for Topo being awesome. For one thing, as seen above, hes almost as good as Green
Arrow at using bows.
If this were an isolated incident, Id take the fact that Green Arrow is only slightly better than an octopus as a better
example that Green Arrow kind of sucks than as a recommendation for Topos skills, but this is only one of his
many skills, including rocking out

and dairy farming:

Clearly, Topo rules. I have to say, though, the fact that Aquamans reaction to this incredible show of skill is to
about how hes not as pretty as a milkmaid, without even remembering his name? What a jerk.
Aquaman doesnt deserve you, Topo. And the Batcave has an underground river. Think about it.
Q: Can you define emo for me? @Clemfold
A: I cant, but I think the fine folks at Archie Comics can:

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Ask Chris #73: Punisher Fights Batman (Twice) and Wolverines Teeth
by Chris Sims September 23, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Which of the two Batman/Punisher crossovers do you find most delicious? @glunders
A: Im not sure that delicious is an adjective Ive ever used to describe comics that werent printed on Fruit RollUps, but Im going to make a judgment call on this one and answer this one without tearing them in half and
making peanut butter and Punisher sandwiches.

Anyway, as much as I love the characters on their own, the

two Batman/Punisher comics from the 90s are pretty awful. They just dont work at all, mainly because these are
two characters that can never reach their logical end with each other. Batman cant beat up the Punisher and throw
him in Arkham, and the Punisher cant shoot Batman, and they cant even come to an easy alliance that creates a
long-running tension (like the Punisher and Daredevil), because after about 48 pages, they both go back to a
universe where the other doesnt exist. So they just sort of hang out together and glare at each other for a while and
occasionally one throws a punch at the other. It just doesnt work.
So of course, much like many ideas that didnt work, it happened twice in 1994, in a pair of prestige format comics
that told one big story, but with each part by completely different creative teams: Lake of Fire, by Denny ONeil,
Barry Kitson and James Pascoe, andDeadly Knights, by Chuck Dixon, John Romita Jr., and Klaus Janson. Neither
ones good, but as to which ones better, well, lets have a look.
Lake of Fire kicks off with the Punisher on the trail of his old enemy, Jigsaw, who has apparently escaped to Gotham
City with plans to use stolen rocket fuel to set the water supply on fire. I wish I could say that this was the
dumbest thing about this comic, but thats just where it starts.
Jigsaw has apparently been in Gotham long enough to start forging a criminal empire I think they offer tax
breaks for it in that city and through an increasingly convoluted series of false clues, hes able to lure the
Punisher into a church, where hes taken out by a fake nun who splashes him with poisoned holy water. Then, for

reasons I cant even begin to understand, Jigsaw decides to set the church on fire. Fortunately for Frank (but no so
much for the readers), hes rescued by Batman.
Well. A Batman, anyway.

Thats right, everybody: We are in Azbats territory. For those of you who dont know, this is Jean-Paul Valley, also
known as Azrael, who briefly took over the role of Batman after the events of Knightfall. And he is terrible.
Also, Im not sure KH-REEEEEEEEETSH! is the right sound effect for someone crashing through a window. In fact,
Im not fully convinced that its the right sound effect for anything, but its probably best to move on.
Batman and the Punisher realize that they need to work together to keep Jigsaw and his pals from setting all the
water on fire, so they decide to pool their resources and investigate things for themselves. Which they do by
heading straight to the bathhouse. No, really.

The captions in this part are hilariously defensive, especially when you consider that theyre meant to be the
internal monologue that Frank Castle will later commit to his diary war journal. We can barely see the Russians
through the steam, he says, before quickly tacking on but we arent admiring them, just punching them out. Sure,
Frank. Whatever you feel like you need to tell Micro when you get back to the Battle Van.
After that, the Joker shows up and the Punisher completely fails to kill Jigsaw, which wouldnt be all that notable
except that in the captions, hes criticizing his own actions while he is doing them. He talks about how he should just
shoot him, while not shooting him, and how he shouldnt waste time watching himself bleed, while doing that very
thing. He even goes so far as to immediately follow dialogue with a caption about the thing he just said is dumb.
Even this comic doesnt like this comic. And for good reason; its awful.
The sequel, however, is actually worth checking out if you ever stumble across it. Its not what youd call good,
but it has the distinction of being the only time in his career thus far that John Romita Jr. drew a comic with Batman
and the Joker:

If thats not delicious, then I dont know what is.

Q: Punisher vs. Batman in a fight who would win? @Koltreg
A: You know, I honestly never expected to get one question that Id have to reference Punisher/Batman: Deadly
Knights to answer, and yet here I am with two.
As I said above, its nowhere near being a great comic, but to his credit, Chuck Dixon who had long runs writing
both characters manages to pull off one pretty awesome scene. As you might expect, the Punisher tries to kill the
Joker, which Im pretty sure would actually count as community service. Batman stops him and tells the Joker to
run for his life, and the Punisher, about as frustrated as the readers by this point, hauls off and punches Batman in
the face.
If that sounds absolutely terrible, its because it is. But then this happens:

Seriously, it cracks me up every time I read it, which is probably way more often than anyone actually should. The
first panel alone, with Batmans I let you have that one is such a schoolyard move, to the point where it might as
well have been followed up with What? No, Im not crying. Its just its just raining really hard on my mask. Shut
up.
The second panel, though, where Frank actually goes for it and Batman just cold shuts him down? Classic.
Q: Why arent Wolverines teeth covered in adamantium, if every other bone is covered? Nicole, via email
A: Believe it or not, this is something that Ive actually thought about quite a bit, thanks to the fact that the comic
book store I used to go to when I was a kid was a hole in the wall that never changed the hot comics they had on
display behind the counter. As a result, every time I went in, I found myself looking at the chromium
enhanced cover to What If #50.

I never actually read the comic, but since they had that thing on display for the better part of a decade, it was
etched pretty thoroughly into my memory, along with the fact that even Wolverines teeth were meant to be metal.
Now, I realize that since this is an issue of What If, its made-up stories about imaginary Canadian berserker
samurai might not be as accurate as other made-up stories about imaginary Canadian berseker samurai, but for the
sake of argument, lets go with it. If this is an accurate depiction, it means that Wolverine does have Adamantium
teeth or more accurately, that he used to.
Given what we know about Wolverines lifestyle, its pretty easy to figure out what happened:

Even Adamantium teeth can get knocked out if you hit em hard enough like, say, with a wrecking ball. Thanks to
his mutant healing factor, he just grows new ones, but since the Adamantium isnt a natural part of his body, he just
gets regular teeth. Meanwhile, there are presumably 32 Adamantium teeth just floating around the Marvel
Universe wherever they were knocked out, just waiting to be gathered together and reforged into the ultimate grill.
Read More: Ask Chris #73: Punisher Fights Batman (Twice) and Wolverines Teeth |
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Ask Chris #72: The Best Deaths of the Suicide Squad

by Chris Sims September 16, 2011 12:30 PM

Q: Which casualty of the original Suicide Squad run do you feel was done best? @MikeTubbington
A: For those of you who have never read Suicide Squad, one of the hooks to the book was that in order to live up to
the name, a character was killed off in every story arc. As a result, over the titles five-year run, they were able to
rack up a number of dead teammates that almost managed to rival an average semester at Professor Xaviers
School for Gifted Youngsters.

Seriously, Id take my chances with the world that hates and fears me.
With Suicide Squad, its not quite as gruesome as it might sound. The original premise of the book was that supercriminals could work off their debt to society by going on suicide missions for the government. As super-villains
are one of the DC Universes most prominent renewable resources, and since Suicide Squad debuted in that sweet
spot just after Crisis on Infinite Earths had restructured the universe, there were 40 years worth of one-shot bad
guys and goofy Silver Age goons for the creators to choose from.
As a result, there was a built-in revolving door to the cast. A very small group of characters stuck around (including
Deadshot, who was redefined in Suicide Squad to be one of DCs most compelling villains) while other characters
came and went, and some of them went permanently. Or at least as permanent as things get in super-hero comics,
but Ill get back to that in a minute.
Its easy to think that a setup like that would lead to predictable storytelling and a lack of connection with the
characters who died, but writer John Ostrander and artists like long-time Squad mainstay Luke McDonnell pulled it

off beautifully. Not only did it work, but they created a real sense of danger and tension, making it feel like there
was no one in the book who was safe.
Admittedly, there was a lot of that attitude that was a product of the time and the events surrounding the book. It
flowed pretty naturally from the fact that they were working with the expendable characters on the lower tiers of
DCs recently expanded catalog. After all, this was 1987, who cared if Deadshot or Captain Boomerang got killed?
Hell, DC just killed off The Flash a year ago, and these were goofy Silver Age bad guys with garish costumes and
dumb powers!
Ostranders scripts played on that attitude masterfully. For one thing, the guy in the bright red, yellow and silver
costume with a target on his chest (an awesome design, by the way) who made his second appearance 30 years
after his first one by burning his way out of a prison cell with a laser monocle (really) became the closest thing DC
had to Wolverine, only steeped even further in amorality and defined by a death wish something you pretty
much have to have if youre going to point a gun at Batman. But beyond that was the fact that it resulted in some
pretty memorable deaths.
There are two in particular that stick out as the highlights of the book, and one of them is the most obvious choice
possible: Colonel Rick Flag, who died in Suicide Squad #26.

Suicide Squad was a great book for its entire 66-issue run, but those first two years are absolutely phenomenal. It
all comes down to the emotional core that the creators were able to build in those stories, and a key part of that
was the dynamic between Rick Flag and Amanda Waller.
Flag was a holdover from the original original Suicide Squad of the late 50s, when Task Force X was a quartet of
military operatives who went around dealing with abominable snowmen. Under Ostrander, though, Flag was given
a depth that saw him burdened by survivors guilt from the death of his former teammates and his fathers similar
fate on the Task Force X of World War II. Where Waller was utterly ruthless in pursuing her goals no matter what
the cost, wiling to sacrifice members of the team and occasionally even kill them herself, Flag was a deeply moral
man shackled by his feelings of guilt and duty.
He was assigned to be the Squads field commander because after all, even with the threat of bombs that would
blow their arms off if they didnt cooperate, its not a great idea to let arch-criminals run around unsupervised
and theres the palpable feeling that he hated every second of it. He hated working within the moral gray area of
furthering Wallers goals while she battled politicians for control of the squad, and most of all, he hated having to
deal with the unrepentant criminals under his charge:

But at the same time, there was no way that he could not do it. It was his duty, and for Rick Flag, duty trumps
everything. Over the course of the first 25 issues, were shown how Flag has sacrificed everything, from his
relationship to the woman he loves to his own personal morality, in the name of following his duty to the best of his
ability. Hes assigned to the Squad, and despite wanting nothing more than to be out of it, his loyalty remains there.
Theres a great illustration of that idea when the Suicide Squad tangles with the Justice League, and Flag ends up
facing off against another guy who knows a few things about sacrifice in the name of duty:

As you might expect, Batman is pretty fundamentally opposed to the idea of making murderous criminals do the
dirty work of the government and then letting them back out on the streets, but heres the thing: Flag is too. The
difference is that Batman owes loyalty to no one other than himself, while Flag feels he has no choice but to serve
the role hes given. At the end of the issue, Batman quits the Justice League rather than compromise himself, while
Flag bitterly resigns himself to being part of the Suicide Squad.

The bitterness, resentment and guilt just keep building as the issues go by, with Flag going more and more
unstable, becoming a tragic figure who suffers because its against his nature to turn away from the path hes made
for himself. He allows his feelings of duty to completely overtake him his loyalty to the Squad even leads him to
murder government officials that are trying to blackmail Waller until, in Suicide Squad #21, we get this scene:

From that moment, its only a matter of time, and sure enough, just like his father, he eventually finds his own
elaborate way of killing himself.
The method he chooses is a pretty incredible action set piece, too. Over the first two years of the Suicide Squad,
they fight a super-powered terrorist group called the Jihad, starting in #1 and clashing again a few other times. As
it turns out, the Jihad is headquartered in an impenetrable desert fortress built by the Nazis in World War II, but
what they dont know and more importantly, what Flag does is that the fortress also contains a prototype
atomic bomb.
So in order to put an end to the Squads enemies, he goes there and sets it off.

Thus, he fulfills what he sees as his duty and ends it once and for all.
Sort of. Super-hero comics being what they are, Flag didnt die, but as revealed 20 years later in the
appropriately named Suicide Squad: From the Ashes, by Ostrander and Javier Pina its revealed that Flag survived
the blast when his nemesis, Rustam, used his magic scimitar to open a portal to Skartaris, the world of sorcery and
dinosaurs from DCs Warlord. Comics, everybody!
Really, though, its actually a very good story, and playing with those crazy comic book elements is one of the very
things that made Squad a great DC Universe title. Ostranders incredibly adept at turning those strange pieces into

things that he can build that emotional content with, and this is no exception. The rest of From the Ashes is, on the
surface, about Flag discovering that hes been conditioned to obey the orders of the evil General Eiling and
eventually breaking free, but the subtext is that hes found a way to overcome his own inability to choose the right
path for himself.
Maybe its because there was a massive gap between those stories (and 40 more issues of Suicide Squad between
them), but its a redemption of the character that manages to not cheapen what his original death accomplished.
As for my other favorite death in Suicide Squad, that ones just as obvious: Grant Morrison.
Yes, that Grant Morrison. The one currently writing Superman stories in Action Comics. As most of his fans are
already aware, Morrisons run on Animal Man ends with the title character breaking right through the Fourth Wall
and having a conversation about imaginary foxes with an extremely pale version of Morrison himself. Its a
groundbreaking issue, but one of the unintended consequences of it is that, if you want to get technical about it, it
makes Grant Morrison a DC Comics character.
Thus, Morrisons second appearance within the DC Universe:

Of all the amazing things about Ostrander, Kim Yale and Geof Isherwood putting Morrison the Character in their
comic, I think Firehawk and Silver Swan being bored out of their minds by his sob story is my favorite. Thats one
of the great things about this book: For all its pathos and legitimate grimness, its also really funny.
Anyway, what with the fact that hes a comic book writer with the ability to control the reality of the story by
typing in that word processor that hes lugging around, youd think Morrison wouldve had an easy time of it.
Unfortunately, hes brought down by something I can definitely sympathize with:

Writers block. And a werebeast.

Not coincidentally, thats how missed deadlines are dealt with here at ComicsAlliance.
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Ask Chris #71: The Punisher For Kids!

by Chris Sims September 9, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Has there ever been a Punisher toy line? If not, what kind of vehicles or Punisher toys could you come up
with? @Protoculture27
A: Back when I was still buying action figures that werent Destro, I always kept an eye out for Punisher figures, but
unfortunately, hes never been able to carry a full line of toys himself. And really, I can see why: You might be able
to get a few variations out of Frank Castle himself, the rest of the line would pretty much consist of Microchip,
Jigsaw, and maybe an army builder box full of dead mobsters that you could pile up around him. Thats about as
far as you could go with it. There just arent enough recurring characters to fill out an entire line.
Of course, theres also the fact that the Punisher is a guy who straight up murders people all the time, and that

can be a difficult sell to parents out doing their Christmas shopping.

Of
course, that doesnt mean that there havent been any Punisher figures. There are plenty, mostly because the
Punisher hit the high point of his popularity during a time when Marvel Comics was owned by a toy company, and
as we all learned from Americas daring, highly trained Special Missions Force nothing quite appeals to the kids like
an action figure of a guy who comes with his weight in guns, especially if they actually fire!
Thats the thing about Punisher figures : As much as I love the character he is the last person that should ever be
made into a toy for children. The best thing you can say about him is that he fights bad guys, but even at his
absolute best, hes a guy who does nothing but kill other people, and he does it constantly, because he hates them. It
is completely insane that someone would make a toy of that, but they did, and the fact that these exist will never
stop being hilarious.
I never had the one with the caps, but I did get the second version from the Marvel Super-Heroes line, which came
with truly awful brown plastic trenchcoat. As much as Im not really a toy guy, I love this line, if only because
some of the accessories they had to come up with for these figures are just bizarre. The Invisible Woman, for
instance, comes with exactly the sort of things youd expect: an invisible (read: clear plastic) catapult and a

frisbee with the Fantastic Four logo on it. Thats what her powers are, right? Catapulting and super-frisbiing?
Sounds about right to me.
I almost think that the Punisher was included solely because hes the easiest character to make accessories for. Just
throw a handful of guns in there and get back to figuring out how to represent Starfoxs power of super-seduction
in action figure form (Hint: Make him smell like bread).
Im also pretty partial to the more recent figure from the Marvel Universe:

For one thing, while he doesnt quite have the articulation of a G.I. Joe figure, he is in the same 3.75 scale, and you
best believe that means I had him hanging off the side of the A.W.E. Striker, blasting away Cobra troopers and
reminiscing about his time in Vietnam with Stalker and Snake-Eyes.
What? Like you didnt make up stories about your toys so that they could team up? I mean, yes, I was doing this
when I was 27, but uh Lets just move on.
Much like the original figure, the best thing about this one is the accessories, specifically that big silver thing. I have
no idea what its actually supposed to be, but it looks enough like a bazooka that you can use this figure to re-create
one of Frank Castles most ridiculous moments, the cover to Punisher #1:

That thing cracks me up every time I see it. He is about to shoot that dude from two feet away with a high
explosive,while hanging one handed from a rope, even though he is already standing on a fire escape. How exactly is
this supposed to work? Ill tell you how: Awesomely.
Anyway, as crazy as their very existence might be, the regular Punisher action figures have nothing on the sheer
hilarity of the Super Hero Squad versions:

Guys.
That is literally a toy of a guy who does nothing but kill people, to the point where he has a pistol and a
shotgun attached to his hands and who, from the look of it, is based specifically on the extremely violent Garth
Ennis MAX run, which featured him killing a man by cutting out his intestines and stringing them up like Christmas
lights, and it is for three year-olds.
And as an added bonus, hes packaged with a character best known for starring in movies with lines like always
some motherf***er trying to ice skate uphill. They might be the best toys ever created.
There are a couple of other Super Hero Squad Punisher figures, too. The first one has the bazooka and comes with a
chain-wielding Ghost Rider, just in case your toddler is feeling nostalgic for 1992. And then theres the second,
which is based on a costume that Frank wore in five issues that saw him swearing to shoot a neo-Nazi in the face.
No, really.

And he is happy as hell about killing crooks.

My favorite Punisher toy, though, is one that I didnt even know existed until recently, when I was talking it over
with CA editor Caleb Goellner: The Punishers Battle Van.

There are so many amazing things that I dont even know where to begin, but the fact that this toy that asks you to
believe that the Punisher would be driving around in a van with his own logo airbrushed on the side is pretty
fantastic all by itself. Thats not even sarcasm this dude had t-shirts printed up with his logo on them so that
everyone would know who was about to kil them. I have no trouble at all picturing Frank patiently explaining that
no, he doesnt want a wizard riding a dragon across the moon, and yes, its just the skull, thank you.
But the absolute best piece Its sort of hard to make them out in the picture above, but if you look closely at the
wheels, you can see that HE HAS RIMS WITH HIS OWN LOGO ON THEM. THAT IS THE MOST BALLEREST
THING OF ALL TIME.
The only thing that isnt great about those is that I cannot put them on my car. Marvel. For real. Stop whatever
youre doing and get someone on licensing a set of Skull Spinnaz right now.

Still, all of those figures are part of other lines. If, however, I was put in charge of coming up with ideas for one
based solely on the Punisher himself, Id probably focus on doing playsets rather than just figures. After all, while
the Punisher himself has remained pretty constant over the years, putting him into different environments and
situations is exactly what makes those storeis so fun.
For starters, Id want to have one based on one of my all-time favorites, Punisher War Journal #19, the comic that
features one of the greatest cover blurbs of all time. Obviously, the set would come with a jet-ski that could be
kissed goodbye, Franks rental deposit and an improbably huge gun, along with a Punisher figure thatd be unqiue
to the set, based on the outfit Jim Lee had him rocking at the time:

Seriously, who wouldnt want to remember that time that the Punisher wore a Hawaiian shirt over his costume for a
more festive look?
The one Id really want to do, though, would be a Central Park Zoo playset based on the scene from Welcome Back
Frank, full of different traps and action features that you could spring on the bad guys as they chased Battle
Damaged The Punisher through the exhibits. And as the centerpiece?

Its bears!
It might seem pretty gruesome, but lets be real here: If youre already making a toy of the Punisher, theres really
no reason not to go all out by throwing in some angry animals that maul an old lady.
Kids love that stuff.
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Ask Chris #70: The Best Reboots

by Chris Sims September 2, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: What have been the best-handled reboots, quality-wise? @Robalvag

Q: Seems an obvious choice, but what are the best comic reboots ever? @jleehenderson
A: I got a lot of questions along these lines this week, and Im a little surprised about that. Not because I dont have
anything to say, but to be honest, I wouldve thought that everyone wouldve gotten tired of discussing it a while
ago. But in this column, Im committed to answering the questions you send in, so never let it be said that I dont
give my readers what they ask for. It might be difficult this time, though.
I mean, I havent actually watched ReBoot since they stopped showing it on Cartoon Network about ten years ago.

That said, I was a pretty big fan of the show, which probably wont come as a surprise to anyone who was here
when I went into excruciating detail about my continued love of cartoons made for twelve year-olds. To start with,
the premise of the the show was phenomenally clever. The idea that there was an entire society of innocent digital
creatures living in your computer that you were subjecting to a wholesale slaughter whenever you kicked off a
game of DOOM was genius.
For those of you who dont know, thats the premise of the show: The city of Townsville Mainframe exists inside a
computer, and whenever the User plays a game, a section of that city is blocked off and the population is
transformed (Rebooted) into whatever NPCs the game needs to throw at the player you know, zombies, rival
racecar drivers, presumably even the Nazi soldiers of Castle Wolfenstein, although I dont think they ever showed
that one until hes eventually defeated. The system has a Guardian program in this case, a blue dude with silver

dreadlocks name Bob whos in charge of going into the games and defending everyone by battling the User in his
game of choice.
Its a setup that, like the best serialized fiction, allows for you to do anything in any given episode. Any setting, any
exotic locations, any MacGuffin that you want the characters to be going after has an instant reason for being
you just pop them into the Game that drops down onto Mainframe in that episode and youre good to go. You can
have a sci-fi adventure one week and a big sword-and-sorcery fight against a dragon in the next and it all makes
sense. And because they establish right away that the cheerful Binomes the little Ones and Zeroes that made up
the entire background cast would be mutated into mindless leeches if Bob failed, every episodes conflict has the
same sense of danger to it. The stakes of each conflict are equally valid no matter what shape that conflict takes,
and the presence of the Viruses in the system provide a great way to complicate things, especially since its a show
that went so far as to show what happened when the heroes lost.
The real genius, though, is the fact that this is a show that appeals to kids who are into video games
while also casting those same kids in the role of the primary atagonist. Accepting the premise of the show is
accepting that youre the one battling against Bob, and every time you win a video game, youre actually destroying
your cartoon hero. It also raises some interesting pseudo-theological implications by presenting a society built
around the idea that the omnipotent being in control of the system is at best apathetic and at worst an actual
aggressor who literally destroys lives for his own pleasure.
I dont think that idea was ever actually addressed on the show itself, but I imagine there were plenty of freshman
philosophy papers handed in circa 1997 that dealt with it in agonizing detail.

Looking back at it from today which you can do thanks to the first two seasons being on Netflix Instant the
actual animation seems blocky and more than a little awkward at times, but then again, this show came out in
1995. It might not be Toy Story, but for something produced with the technology of the time as a weekly television
show, its actually not bad, and considering that it was meant to echo the graphics of the eras computer games, it
held up pretty well in that respect.
The real strength, though, was in the story. It never really approached the level of moody sophistication that you
got from the better episodes of Batman: The Animated Series because really, nothing at the time did and there
were plenty of pun-laden catchphrases that started to get pretty annoying about halfway through the second time
they were used, but the adventures were consistently, solidly entertaining. Once the series started skewing
towards an older audience well, older in that it was for twelve year-olds instead of ten year-olds, anyway the
complexity was raised in longer-form story arcs that still featured plenty of slapstick humor.
Which brings me to the answer to the first question. The best-handled ReBoots in terms of quality were
unquestionably the third season.

A lot of kids shows have a real hard time with going darker, but ReBoot did it better than most with Bobs
death, young Enzo stepping up and proving woefully inadequate, and being blasted out to the Internet and letting
the evil virus Megabyte take over the System. On paper, it shouldnt have worked at all, especially since this as a
time before being sent out into the wilds of the Internet was a plot that wouldve manifested itself in a truly
entertaining story of a man battling against seemingly infinite hordes of cats with poorly spelled captions.
What they ended up with sounds like itd be awful: The shows two youngest characters get rapidly aged, with the
girl becoming a sexy adult version of herself and the boy basically turning into Cable, right down to the glowing
cybernetic eye. In practice, however, it ended up being really good, and in the grand tradition of kids shows
referencing Coen Bros. movies, it was also the season that featured an extended homage to Fargo.
In fact, the episode that really sold me on it when I was watching it on Cartoon Network years ago was the surreal
dream sequence episode based on The Prisoner, which, again, sounds crazy. But even that was just set-dressing for
the overarching conflict that saw Enzo roaming around searching for his way home, a sequence of episodes that
somehow managed to figure out how to seem exotic after two seasons worth of switching genres every 25
minutes.
And at the end, where you find out that Megabytes been running Mainframe like Bartertown and Bob comes back
from the dead as Computer Jesus? Its highly entertaining stuff.
As for the best comic ReBoot, I have to say that Season 3 also delivers pretty well in terms of humor as well,
specifically the season finale which at the time capped off the entire series. Its a nice little example of tight
plotting, too, in that they managed to pull off the conflict the entire series had been building to, bringing almost
everything to a satisfying conclusion, and still ended up with an extra five minutes to goof off with.
The result: A musical recap of the entire season:
That sequence is only narrowly edged out by Mass Effect 2 for being the best use of The Pirates of Penzance in a
mass-media production created by Canadians.
Inc losing, I dont know if itd make my top five or anything, but its definitely something I enjoyed. I just cant figure
out why so many people would be asking about it this we
Wait.
Did you guys mean comic book reboots?
Oh.
In that case, probably the post-Zero Hour DC Universe and Spider-Mans Brand New Day.
And now, a few quick ones:
Q: What is your favourite comics series right now? (Non-Big 2, please, but it probably wouldnt be
anyway). @saoki
A: Right this very minute, the comics Im loving the most that arent from Marvel or DC would probably be the
consistently amazing Atomic Robo and, believe it or not, IDWs Dungeons & Dragons comic.
Images Screamland is also a safe bet, although Ive only read the first issue of the current series (and the
extremely underrated mini that preceded it), and Stan Sakais Usagi Yojimbo has been going for 24 years and
has never had a bad issue. Its ridiculous.

If Im honest, though, the one Id peg as my current favorite would have to be Mark Waid, Marcos Martin and Paolo
Riveras Daredevil. Those first two issues were as good as anything Waids written and with his career, thats
saying something and Rivera and Martin are the kind of artists where I look at their pages and wonder why
anyone else is even trying right now.
Q: Why do you hate Steel/Commander Steel/Citizen Steel so much? Are you a cyborg racist? @graemem
A: How could I be? I have it on very good authority that were all cyborgs in todays kooky, mixed-up modern
world!
Q: Has your love for Batman ever ruined a date? @Brevidades
A: My love for Batman doesnt ruin dates. My love for Batman ruins lives.
Read More: Ask Chris #70: The Best Reboots | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-70-the-bestreboots/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #69: Workin Man Blues with Diamond Comics Distributors
by Chris Sims August 26, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Pardon if youve already been asked and responded, but is there anything you especially miss about
working in a local comic shop? @cyberpilate
A: No.Okay, maybe thats a slight exaggeration. For those of you who dont know, before I switched to the freelance
writing career that better suits my desire to play video games until 4 AM on a weeknight if I damn well
please lifestyle choices, I worked at a comic book store for six long years. I started out processing back issues and
managed to work my way up to working the register and managing the comics.

For a lot of comics fans especially slackers in their early 20s with designs on a writing career working at a
shop seems like a dream job, and in a lot of ways, I suppose it is. Its certainly a common starting place for a lot of
people on all sides of the industry; Matt Fraction, Colleen Coover and even our own Laura Hudson have spent time
behind the counter at one point or another. I think it was Matt Wilson who said that its like filmmakers who
worked in video stores (you know, back when there were video stores), in that people do it just so that they can be
around something that they love.
But at the same time, its still a retail job like any other, and it has all the hassles that go along with that, plus a
handful that are unique to this particular industry. And the biggest one of those that comes to mind is Diamond
Comics Distributors, the company that holds an uncontested monopoly on getting comics from the publishers to
the stores.
In the six years that I worked at the store, there were two, maybe three weeks that everything wed ordered
actually arrived. There were always at least one or two comics that were missing copies, and sometimes entire

books that didnt ship, leaving us to report the shortages and hope that wed get them in about three weeks, which
we were able to about half the time. And these were best-case scenarios.
Once, I heard from a friend who worked at a store up in Canada that theyd gotten their copies of Comic Foundry,
the short-lived magazine also edited by Laura, along with Wired Art Director Tim Leong that in a lot of ways
was ComicsAlliances predecessor, a few weeks before. Our shop, meanwhile, hadnt gotten the copies wed
ordered, so I checked the reorder system, found that they were available, and had them shipped out as reorders.
They arrived the next week as usual. I figured that I mustve forgotten to actually enter them when I did the order,
but three weeks after that, our initial order finally showed up, shipped from the same warehouse as the others.
Theres no way that makes any kind of sense.
Then there was a week when I got a box that could fit two six-inch tall stacks of comics side-by-side that had
exactly one comic in it, which meant that it cost more to have that one comic shipped to us than we could make by
selling it. There was a time they shipped 200 extra copies of Justice League, but shorted us completely on two other
books, including Civil War #5, which was kind of a big deal at the time. And, my personal favorite, there was the
time we got a box that someone had packed full of comics and either dumped or spilled a full cup of coffee into,
then taped it up and sent it out via UPS.
These were not isolated incidents, either. Ive heard similar stories (and worse) from people who staffed other
shops across the country. Ask your local retailer next time you see him, and see if he doesnt get the ol Comics
Retail Twitch in his left eye.
Its entirely possible that theyve gotten better in the time since I left those three perfect orders were all during
my last year but for a while there, they sure knew how to keep Wednesday mornings interesting.
And of course with any retail job there were also the customers, which were the mixed bag that you get with any
job that deals with the public. At a comic shop, though, you also get the added bonus of people trying to sell their
old comics back to you, something Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie depicted with 100% accuracy in The Rack:

Wed get phone calls from people with collections to sell about once a day, and it didnt take long to figure out a set
of rules:
Ive got some old comics meant that comics from the early 90s.
REAL old comics, man meant 1991 specifically.
Ive got the first Superman meant they were lying.
In the time I worked at the store, I dealt with countless people who unfortunately thought that a polybagged copy
of Superman #75 would be their retirement fund, but a few stick out pretty clearly. I had one guy telling me he had
some really old X-Men comics from when they first came out, and when I asked him if they were the original
Lee/Kirby issues, he told me Yeah, Lee Kirby, thats him. I had to explain to people on multiple occasions that we
had to buy comics for less than we sold them because that was, in fact, how capitalism worked. The best one,
though, was when a guy called up telling me that he had a comic that was even more valuable than Superman #1.
The comic in question?

Superboy #0. See, because 0 is less than 1 and he had to be a boy before he was a man, so it must be an older comic,
and therefore be more valuable. Its actually pretty logical when you think about it.
And then there were the nuts and bolts of retail, like trying to figure out how to stock products for a clientele of diehard super-hero readers for whom indie means Image (or, more accurately, The Walking Dead), while still
trying to support more offbeat books at the retail level. Ill cop to being primarily a super-hero fan, but it was still
tough watching books that I loved and wanted to see succeed gather dust on the shelves until they eventually got
the axe, even when I did my best to hand-sell them.
Also, I had a dream last week where I hadnt gotten the order in on time and woke up in a cold sweat trying to
remember my Diamond reps phone number, and I havent worked there almost two years. Its traumatic, yall.
In short too late, I know there were a lot of frustrations involved in the job that I was more than happy to
leave behind when I quit. But to say that theres nothing I miss is probably taking it a little too far.
For one thing, theres the people. I made a lot of friends while I was there. Chad Bowers, my co-writer at Awesome
Hospital and an upcoming graphic novel, was the guy who hired me to work at the shop, and there were plenty of
other people I met as both customers and coworkers that I consider my pals. Comic book stores and comic book
fans are unique in that way, in that theyre so specialized that you cant help but meet people who share your
interests. I still see them, of course, but not with the regularity that I used to.
I also miss the sheer amount of comics I had access to at any given time. Ive got a pretty good amount myself, but
the shop was one of the largest in the country, with literally hundreds of long boxes packed with back issues. Ive
mentioned before that I was able to put together an entire 300-comic run ofPunisher comics with no trouble,

because they were all right there in the same room where I spent eight hours a day, and there were plenty of other
great oddities hiding in those boxes as well.
More than that, though, is the fact that I had time to read them. I read all those Punisher comics while I was on the
clock because I was a terrible employee because it was the sort of job with a lot of downtime and literally
thousands of things to read to stay occupied. This very column is based on the premise that Ive got a pretty solid
base of knowledge about comics, and 90% of it was built leaning against the counter, flipping through back issues
and grabbing trades off the wall to kill time. And its because I spent that much time around comics that I started
writing about them, which led directly to working for ComicsAlliance.
These days, though and I fully realize that this is going to sound like the whiniest complaint ever I just dont
have that kind of time. Im actually not caught up with some current books that I really love because Im constantly
reading things with an eye on stuff that I can write about instead.
Dont get me wrong I love my job, and as the sheer number of words Ive written about Batman prove,
ComicsAlliance allows me to pretty much write about stuff that Im already interested in anyway except when,
you know, the cruel demands of my editors must be met. Still, I cant imagine reading straight through 300 issues
of Punisher or 12 Archives worth of Legion of Super-Heroes (another comic I read through in one obsessive burst)
because I wouldnt be able to write an entertaining column about the same comics every day for a month. Its really
the only downside of what I do now and an almost infinitesimally tiny one at that in that the thing I do for fun
is also the thing that I have to do for work. It blurs the lines a little bit, in a way that just selling them didnt.
But on the other hand, I can do the job I have now without ever putting on pants, and thats a pretty crucial
advantage.
And now, a few quick answers for The Lightning Round!
Q: What is the best non-Big Two superhero story? @JamesLGilbert
A: Paul Grists Jack Staff. Quite possibly my favorite comic book ever.

Q: Other then Batman and My Little Pony, what else are you passionate about? @rtvu2
A: Im a pretty big pro wrestling fan, but its slightly less well known that Im extremely passionate about fine
cheeses. One of these days someones going to ask whether Batman prefers triple-cream Brie, extra-sharp Cheddar
or applewood smoked Gouda, and you guys are going to get the 4,000-word essay that nobody wants to read.
Q: Whats the hardest to pronounce name of a comic book professional? @chudleycannons
A: As other people pointed out on Twitter, its unquestionably Bill Sienkiewicz. I had a poster autographed by that
guy for three years (a promo for the Sci-Fi Channels Good vs. Evil that I won in a Wizard contest, of all things)
before I knew that it was Sin-KEV-itch and not SINE-Ke-wicks.
Ive always thought it would be a great idea for a website to have a directory of how to pronounce creator names
like Fabian Nicieza and Kurt Busiek, along with character names like Ras al-Ghul and Darkseid , since you very
rarely hear them spoken aloud and usually only see them written. But as the rest of this column has proven, I am
fundamentally a very lazy man.

Read More: Ask Chris #69: Workin Man Blues with Diamond Comics Distributors |
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Ask Chris #68: Cartoons For Kids

by Chris Sims August 19, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Aside from My Little Pony, whats your favorite show thats not aimed at your demographic, but you love
to watch anyway? @isaacsher
A: Considering that Im a dude who just turned 29 and is still more excited about new episodes of Adventure
Time than anything else on television, I think it would probably take less time for me to list the shows Im really
into that are directed at my demographic than the ones that arent. I mean, Im pretty sure that the only shows I
regularly watch that are actually meant for people my age and gender are Louie, The Venture Bros. and professional
wrestling.
And Monday Night Raw is debatable.That said, a lot of the stuff I watch is at least sort of made with my target
market in mind. Adventure Time, for instance, is smart and hilarious no matter how old you are, and while a show
like GI Joe: Renegades is clearly meant to get kids hooked on the adventures of Americas daring, highly trained
special missions force so that theyll want to re-enact them by buying action figures, its done in a show with sharp
enough character work and action sequences that adults who loved the original cartoon so much that they still use
a picture of Destro as their Twitter avatar will enjoy it too.

There are, however, shows that stick out for being a little further out of
what should be my area of interest than others. There was, of course, my brief but furious obsession with Totally
Spies circa 2002 think Charlies Angels in high school by way of Canadian anime starring the voice of Mass Effects
Commander Shepard but as far as favorites go, the one that most immediately comes to mind is The Powerpuff
Girls.
The fact that Powerpuff Girls is easily one of my all-time favorite cartoons (and probably one of my all-time
favorite shows) probably doesnt come as a surprise, considering that a) its part of the same extended Genndy
Tartakovsky Craig McCracken Lauren Faust family of animation that would eventually give rise to My Little
Pony: Friendship is Magic, and b) its awesome. But at the same time, Im not really sure that its as far out of my
demographic as it might seem.

Its often pigeonholed as being exclusively a girls show by people who did not appreciate the Buttercup notebook
I used for High School English class feel the need to classify things, but that seems to be based solely on the fact that
the main characters are girls, and thats that. If you actually watch the show, that argument just doesnt hold up
it certainly embraces stereotypically girly elements, like the flashing pink hearts that make the background of
every episodes epilogue, but its also built on the very stereotypically boyish format of having super-heroes
dishing out hyperviolent beatdowns to giant monsters. In other words, its sugar, spice and everything nice mixed
in with Chemical X, just like it says in the intro.
The entire premise of the show is built on blending those elements in order to subvert expectations about what
little girls with super-powers should be, and what they can be. The end result is that girls get a trio of kickass
heroines that they can identify with which is something that was sorely needed in the world of action cartoons
starring in a show that was made to appeal to everyone.
After all, if the creators of The Powerpuff Girls were making a show that was just for little girls, they probably
wouldnt have based an entire episode on an extended reference to The Big Lebowski.

There just arent a lot of eight year-olds out there watching Coen Brothers movies, although I think its fair to say
that if there are, they are probably the coolest kids in the entire world.
Anyway, the idea of cartoons that could be enjoyed by different age groups wasnt exactly new just watch any
given Chuck Jones Looney Tunes short that you remember from your childhood but massive success

of Powerpuff Girls and earlier hits like Batman: The Animated Series led to an amazing renaissance of cartoons
especially action cartoons that trasncended the demographics they were made for. Its been a complete
embarrassment of riches over the past few years thats included shows like Samurai Jack (a direct descendant
of Powerpuff Girls) and, more recently, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Im pretty comfortable calling Avatar one of the
most compelling adventure stories ever put on television, and while its clearly meant for kids, thats nowhere near
being a hard limitation on its appeal. My nephew loves it, and hes 10. I love it and Im 29. My mom loves it and
shes sixty.
Even when youre looking at something like My Little Pony, you can see the influence. Yes, its explicitly directed at
young girls, but as Lauren Faust said, it was made with a clear intent to make it enjoyable for the parents who were
going to end up having to watch it along with them.
All of which is to say that when it comes to cartoons, it can often be difficult to figure out just which demographic
or more likely, demographics that theyre going for, which has the nice side effect of completely justifying my
love of those dang ponies. If I had to pick one favorite from the current crop of kids shows as a favorite, though,
thats easy: Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated.

Id always considered myself more of a casual fan, in that I watched Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? when I was a kid
and was attached enough to complain about how the new live-action movies on Cartoon Network violated the
premise of the show by involving actual ghosts and dont you start talking about Thirteen Ghosts of ScoobyDoo either but never wouldve listed it among my favorite things.
Mystery Inc., however, is amazing, and a lot of it comes down to the fact that the actual mysteries they solve in each
episode are largely inconsequential. Dont get me wrong, theyre pretty entertaining especially the one where
Harlan Ellison follows in the footsteps of Jerry Reed by playing himself, allowing me to be the first person to ever
write the phrase Harlan Ellison follows in the footsteps of Jerry Reed but theyre actually not the focus of the
show. I mean, theres an episode about two Chinese wizards dueling by flying around shooting lightning at each
other, where the solution involvesmilitary surplus jetpacks that were never mentioned on the series before or
since. Clearly, the idea of a fair play mystery is right out the window.
Instead, the emphasis is on an overarching plot that connects the series together, a gigantic season-long mystery
involving blackmail, kidnapping and another group of mystery-solving teenagers that went missing twenty years
before. Ive referred to it as Twin Peaks with a talking dog, and going purely by the revelations in the first seasons
finale, thats actually not too much of an exaggeration.
And its all supported by some surprisingly well-done character work. Aside from basic, vague attribtues like
hungry and smart, the Scooby-Doo characters have always been pretty blank slates, but Mystery Inc. gives them
some real depth for the first time, building relationships between the characters themselves and their families.
Daphne feels overshadowed by her more successful sisters, theres a love triangle (as odd as that may sound)
between Shaggy, Velma and Scooby, and in a pretty shocking move, Fred turns out to be the most complicated
character of all.

At the start of the series, Fred is portrayed as a guy who is quite simply obsessed with traps. It seems like a pretty
one-note characterization thats just there for a few easy jokes and slapstick scenes with the monsters, and to be
fair, it plays out that way for a good chunk of the season. But then, towards the end of the series, theres an episode
that focuses on Freds relationship with his father where he talks about how he grew up never knowing his mom,
and consequently feels like everyone he cares about leaves him.

In that moment, every one-note joke about his goofy love of traps is suddenly about a kid who obsesses over trying
to keep the things he loves close to him, and who cant figure out any other way but to literally build cages around
them. Its genuinely tragic, with an emotional impact that I never wouldve expected from Scooby-Doo.
And then there are the little comedic touches that really make the show shine. Theres the casual inclusion of bits
and pieces of Scooby-Doos forty year history, like Vincent Van Ghoul and the Hex Girls, or a college
student/revolutionary named for Che Guevara, or my favorite part of the show the fact that their hometowns
economy is based entirely on being a haunted tourist trap, which is completely screwed up when the meddling kids
start revealing the ghosts and monsters to be petty thieves:

All that, and its even got an episode where Scooby teams up with Speed Buggy, Captain Caveman and Jabberjaw.
Seriously.
Read More: Ask Chris #68: Cartoons For Kids | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-68-cartoons-forkids/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #67: The Flash of Two Eras

by Chris Sims August 5, 2011 12:30 PM

Q: Which superhero identity change do you think has been the most beneficial to the character? The most
damaging? @bryesque
A: With all the hubbub surrounding the reveal of the new Ultimate Spider-Man this week, its no wonder that the
idea of identities and legacy characters have been on a lot of peoples minds. The past few years have seen a lot of
identity switches some of which were obviously meant to be temporary and others that became temporary after
the fact with established characters in new roles like Dick Grayson becoming Batman (and Damian Wayne
becoming Robin), Bucky Barnes becoming Captain America, and new characters taking over like Jaime Reyes as the
Blue Beetle and Ryan Choi as the Atom.
But as for which ones were the best and worst, thats something that I find pretty interesting, because they both
occurred within the same franchise. The best identity change in comics was Wally West replacing Barry Allen

as the Flash, and the worst was Barry Allen returning to replace Wally West.
Admittedly, I say that as a guy who absolutely loves the Wally West era of Flash, particularly under Mark Waid.
When I was a wayward youth who had given up on mainstream super-heroics for the relatively fresh takes (and far
more scantily clad ladies) of books like Gen13. And dont get me wrong, I still have a soft spot for those comics
today, even if I do cringe at the memory of passionately explaining to my 7th grade classmate that no, Gen-Active
SPBs were totally different from Marvels mutants.
But Flash was the book that brought me back to DC, and by acting as the bridge to other great 90s titles
like JLA, Starman, Impulse (another Waid classic), turned a love of a few specific characters into a love of an entire
universe. And everything thats great about that book, everything that made Flash one of DCs most consistently
great titles for ten years, is built on Wally West.
The main recurring theme of that book, the idea of the Flash as a legacy and a family, could only happen the way it
did with Wally West as the central figure or in his case, the keystone. Barry Allen had famously been inspired to

take the name Flash by Jay Garrick in his first appearance, and the two characters had famously interacted in the
stories that helped to create the DC Multiverse, but the unified post-Crisis DCU allowed for something completely
different. Jay Garrick was recast into a much more fatherly role for the Flash legacy, and the streamlined universe
allowed Waid to create the idea of the Speed Force and recast characters like Johnny Quick and Max Mercury as
members of the same legacy, as well as showing how it lasted into the far future with Impulse, XS and John Fox.
And it was all centered not just on Wally West, but Wally and his relationship with Barry.
Unlike a lot of people who favor Wally West over Barry Allen, I dont think the problem is that Barry Allen is a
boring character. I mean, he is, but thats not something that cant be fixed by dropping him into a good story. Hell,
the Pre-Crisis Wally West was just as boring, if not more, and in stories like JLA: Year One and Flash & Green
Lantern: The Brave and the Bold, Waid proved that Barry Allen could be written as an interesting, compelling
character who fought crime with as much fast thinking as fast running. So boring isnt the problem.
The problem is this:

In Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barry Allen dies saving the universe, and thats his defining moment as a character.
Its probably the best death a super-hero could possibly have. Crisis was arguably the biggest story DC had ever
done. Everything was in danger on a grander scale than anything before or since, with 40 years of comic book
history in jeopardy. And for all the hype that surrounded it, Marv Wolfman and George Perez delivered a comic
that ended a universe. Say what you want about the quality of the story, but the tagline was true: Worlds lived,
worlds died, and nothing was the same again even when a bunch of people came along two decades later and
did their level best to make things look like they used to.
And in that gigantic story, Barry Allen a character whose book had been canceled due to lack of interest after the
notoriously meandering Trial of the Flash goes out in the ultimate blaze of glory. He sacrificed his life to
save everything, and while thats as good an ending as a character can ask for, its a terrible middle. For one thing,

its a high note that youre never going to be able to top, but more importantly, having him return afterwards
invalidates the very idea of his heroism in Crisis.
Last week, I talked about accepting that any protagonist is essentially invulnerable just by virtue of being a
protagonist, but at the same time, its important for a creator to build the illusion of danger. We all know from the
start that Robin Hoods going to make the shot, Indiana Jones is going to beat the Nazis, and Supermans going to
save the day; its up to the story to create that shred of doubt that gives us the ability to think that maybe this time
he wont. And when you have a character bounce back from the ultimate heroic sacrifice, you cross a line that
makes the suspension of disbelief immeasurably more difficult for the reader.
And its only compounded by the fact that, juding by the 15 years of comics that came after Crisis, Barry Allen was
meant to stay dead. If you look at a story like The Death of Superman, in which Superman does not, in fact, die
the seeds for his return are there from the start. His return is a foregone conclusion that comes off as logical, or
as logical as anything involving the phrase Kryptonian Gestation Matrix can seem. Barrys death, however, feels
more genuine because it was meant to be an end to that character, which makes stories like The Return of Barry
Allen in which Barry Allen does not, in fact, return hit harder with more emotional impact.

But the second Barry Allen shows up in his bomber jacket and goes back to punching out Captain Cold, the curtain
is pulled back and the fiction is revealed for what it is. The sense of danger is gone, because weve seen him return
from dying to save the universe with every hair in his crew cut intact. If youre familiar with what happened
in Crisis, and I think its safe to say that DCs been pretty keen on readers being familiar with Crisis over the past
few years, its nearly impossible to believe that anything could ever have a lasting impact on this character. The
illusions gone.
And whats worse, his return undercuts not just Barry himself, but what Barry means to other characters,
specifically Wally West himself. When Barry sacrifices his life in Crisis, he becomes the super-heroic equivalent of a
martyr, and quite frankly, hes better and more valuable as the inspirational figure that makes him than as a living
hero, because of what that means to Wally.
Basically, what it comes down to is that Barry Allen is DCs Uncle Ben.
One of the best things that Mike Baron, William Messener-Loebs and Mark Waid did with the Flash was turn him
into exactly the sort of character that DC needed to make their Post-Crisis universe seem fresher. Stop me if this
starts to sound familiar: The Wally West Flash was a younger hero (but one who still had experience from starting
out as a teenager) who was characterized by being friendly and quick-witted, who made mistakes in his personal
life, but was driven above everything else by an example set by his dead uncle. Whose name started with a B.

Wally West is probably the best of DCs legacy characters, for the simple reason that the creators of his stories used
that legacy to hold everything together. It was his motivation, it was his origin, and it was the standard that he had
to honor while simultaneously surpassing it to become his own man, taking on the role on his own terms in a way
that still allowed him to carry on a legacy. He was the Flash: The Fastest Man Alive.
But just like how Spider-Man would lose his driving tragedy (or at least have it severely lessened) if Uncle Ben
showed up alive and well, Barry Allens return makes all of that a moot point. The standard set by a man who did
the right thing even at the cost of his own life means a lot less if it turns out he didnt actually lose something, and a
legacy means nothing if it ends up being handed back to the guy who was meant to hand it down in the first place.
So what do we gain when he comes back? Wally Wests development is rendered irrelevant by the fact that he
more or less ceases to exist in favor of having a book about guy whose defining moment loses all of its impact. Two
characters lose the things that make them great, and get nothing in return, and a book that should always be about
moving forward takes a big step backwards.
And now, a few quick questions for The Lightning Round!
Q: If Batman didnt exist, what character would you be the expert on? @SorryCurve
A: If Batman did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
But failing that, I have read every Punisher comic, and I consider myself to be one of the worlds top Jimmy Olsen
scholars.
Q: Which superhero is most likely to be totally obsessed with Radiohead? @CandyAppleAlly
A:

Hes a weirdo.
Q: I dont believe Ive ever heard your opinion on Mouse Guard. Im thinking of checking it out. Is it any
good? Einar, via email
A: Ive unfortunately fallen behind lately, but I thought the first few miniseries were great. Compelling story,
absolutely gorgeous art, and an interesting take on fantasy themes that did a great job of world-building without
seeming obvious about it. Definitely worth your time.
Q: Given your expertise as a Batmanologist and your appreciation for Harry Potter, which house do you
think Batman would be in? Really this question is, what do you think is the most important of Batmans
qualities: Bravery, intelligence, cunning orwhatever it is that Hufflepuff have? Im thinking Slytherin
myself. As evil as that sounds, the most cunning are the most likely to be victorious due to planning.
James, via email
A: First of all, Hufflepuffs are defined by their loyalty, and second, as I understand it, Slytherins are defined
by ambition more than cunning, and its that lust for power that led so many of them to side with Voldemort. Id say
that Batmans fairly ambitious deciding at the age of eight to end all crime is a pretty lofty goal but its not his
defining quality, and a dude who makes a habit of taking in carnies isnt going to last long in Slytherin anyway. Of
those four, Id go with intelligence. He is, after all, the Worlds Greatest Detective, and his meticulous planning
requires an awful lot of thought.
Besides, just look at the dude:

Hes already rocking Ravenclaw blue.

Read More: Ask Chris #67: The Flash of Two Eras | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-67-the-flash-of-twoeras/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #66: Superman, Batman and the Worlds Finest Friendship
by Chris Sims July 29, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Frank Miller says that Superman and Batman would never be friends. What do you have to say to
that? @MagicLoveHose
A: As hard as it might be to believe, I dont really have an opinion about this. The relationship between Superman
and Batman isnt something Ive spent a lot of time thinking about, and I dont really find it all that interesting.
Nah, Im just messing with you. Of course Ive got an opinion on this one. And with all due respect to Frank Miller, I
completely disagree.Admittedly, Frank Miller more than anyone else is responsible for the modern idea of Batman,
an amazing feat that he accomplished through two stories, plus a run onDaredevil that influenced all of super-hero
comics. I even remember having the old Batman vs. Captain America debate with a guy I used to work with back at
the comic book store who said there was no question, because in a fight between a Bob Kane Detective and a Jack
Kirby Super-Soldier, the latter wins hands down, with my reply being that as of 1987, that Bob Kane Detective
was now a Frank Miller Badass, which puts it a little closer together. So yes, Frank the Tanks ideas on these
matters are going to hold a lot of weight.
But while Miller may have cast a shadow that defined the character for the past 25 years, its important to
remember that for the forty years before that, those dudes were best pals.

Four solid decades of high fives and slam dunks. Try to ignore it if you want, but brother, that happened just as
much as anything in Dark Knight Returns did.
Like so many things I talk about in this column, the status of the Worlds Finest Friendship would seem to hinge
entirely on Batman, for the simple reason that of course Superman would want to be his friend. Superman wants to
be everyones friend. Hed even be friends with Lex Luthor if that guy stopped trying to kill him and used his
criminal intellect for good. Its kind of his entire deal.
So the question is whether or not Batman would want to be Supermans friend, and as I understand it, the accepted
rationale against it is rooted in the idea that Batman would never trust Superman enough to actually like him. And
to be honest, theres a lot of solid logic behind that. Batman has seen the corruption that comes with power
firsthand, and hes well acquainted with the idea that those who have that power often see themselves as above the
law, the very fact that led him to become a vigilante rather than work within the system.
And that leads to whats often cited as the crucial difference between the two characters: Superman, the allpowerful invulnerable alien, has no reason to keep himself guarded. Nothing can physically hurt him, which leads
naturally to an attitude of openness. Why wouldnt he walk up to someone and offer his hand in friendship? They
literally cant stab him in the back. If they try, hell deal with them then, but has nothing to lose by assuming the
best in people.
This, by the way, doesnt mean that hes a pushover, which is something that he definitely is in Millers work,
particularly The Dark Knight Returns, in which Supermans about as morally steadfast as a Nazi soldier being tried
at Nuremburg.

Hes a stooge whos just following orders, and if theres one thing Supermans not, thats it. He just prefers to think
that given the choice, people are basically good. Thats it.
Batman, however, is rooted in being The Worlds Greatest Detective, and from Holmes on down, detective
characters are built to be suspicious. They have to be in a mystery, everyones a suspect until theyve been
eliminated through cold logic. Batman should be suspicious of everyone until given a reason not to be, and
thats before you take into account that Superman is a guy who can move so fast that he cant be seen, shoot death
rays out of his eyes, and break through a locked door with a flick of his finger. When you see everything through
the lens of crime, everyone starts to look like a suspect.
Theres a secondary reason brought up when discussing Batmans dislike of Superman, which is that Batman,
having struggled and trained his entire life to hone his abilities, would think Superman was lesser for having come
by his abilities naturally, through no effort of his own. This, to put it kindly, is total bullsh**.
Stories where Batman rails against Superman for being able to fly above it all and have bullets bounce of his chest
while sitting in his billion-dollar stealth jet, nestled snugly in his kevlar armor, both of which were prepared for the
evening by his combat trained butler, are among the dumbest things that have ever seen print. Yes, Batman
struggled and trained, and thats a very important aspect of his character, but you know how he traveled around
the world to become a ninja and stocked his utility belt with grappling hooks and pointy metal logos? He used the
vast fortune he inherited from his parents through no effort of his own, and having that much money is the
closest thing we have in the real world to super-powers. Ragging on Superman for inheriting powers powers
he uses exclusively to help other people rather than being a self-made man isnt just being a dick, its being a
massively hypocritical dick.
That kind of storytelling only plays into the power fantasies of fans who want their realistic hero to be a bigger
badass than anyone else. So please, if we can all stop being in third grade for a moment, lets all agree that ideas of
one fictional protagonist being more powerful than another are just silly arguments for children. Ive never
understood it when adults tell me that they like Batman more than Superman because Supermans too powerful.
The standard argument is that if youre reading a story where youre bored because of Supermans powers, thats
the fault of the writer, but the flipside of that is also true: If you truly believe that Batmans going to lose because
someone wrote down that hes a normal human, then youre unclear on how the concept of fiction works.
Dont get me wrong: I love the idea that Batmans a human being who set out to become something more than a
man through sheer force of will (and lots of money), and I love the the idea that Superman came from another
planet with incredible powers and was embraced by the Earth. I think theyre both extremely compelling,
extremely important aspects of those characters, and I wouldnt change them for the world. But they have no
impact whatsoever on whether theyre going to beat the bad guy. Theyre always going to beat the bad guy.
Batman can fly with a jetpack. He can take a bullet to the chest because he wears armor. He can bend steel in his
hands with the exoskeleton he had in the opening scene of The Dark Knight. He can fly around the world in the
blink of an eye in a rocketship.

He and Superman can do exactly the same stuff, when the story requires it. Theyre equally powerful for exactly the
same reason: theyre both protagonists in a story. The only difference is that Supermans from Krypton and
Batmans from old money.
From a storytelling standpoint, theres a difference that comes in terms of action that reflects on their relative
forgive the expression power levels, though. Its an old truism that all heroes are fundamentally reactive
because the villain has to commit the evil act (or at least the attempt) before the hero can show up to stop and/or
punish them, but by their natures, theyre forced into different roles. Batmans allowed to crash through skylights
and dangle thugs off of buildings because hes a normal human. Superman, however, has
to always be extremely reactive, because the second the most powerful man in the world starts throwing his weight
around, he stops being a hero and starts being a bully, a label that never seems to stick to a billionaire who dresses
like Dracula and beats the mentally ill into submission.
This often leads to what I like to call the ol Riggs-n-Murtaugh, where one person doesnt like the other
because theyre a loose cannon whose methods go too far! This has a slightly better footing than I dont like you
because I can only fly when I wear my jetpack, but still, at the end of the day, their goals are similar enough that
they should be able to find common ground.
Now obviously, within the comics themselves, Batman should never look at Superman and say Hey, we are both
protagonists. We should team up and be protagonists together, and fight bad guys although now that Ive
written that down, I have to admit that I think itd be pretty awesome if it actually happened. But theyre both
smart enough to be able to look at each other and realize that they both have advantages that theyre using for
what is essentially the same goal.
So in the end, as metatextual as all this might sound, it eliminates everything but the core of the conflict: Batmans
suspicion and distrust against Supermans visibility and defined morality. And it makes absolute, perfect
sense that Batman would be leery of trusting Superman.
Except that they live in the same world, they both understand how that world works, and they know each other.

It all goes back to Batman being a detective. Hes trained to observe people, to watch them, to know when theyre
lying and what their true motivations are. Five minutes talking to Superman, and hes going to understand that hes
not a guy who plans to gain the publics trust and use that to declare himself King of the World.

Batmans going to understand that this is a guy who simply cannot stand by and let people suffer while he can do
something to stop it. Thats something he can respect, because hes the exact same way.
And yes, Clark Kent might hear about a six foot bat terrorizing the night in Gotham City and think this is something
worth putting a stop to, but the first time Superman sees the lengths Batmans willing to go to in order to protect
the innocent and stop Crime from hurting other people, his doubts are gone. Hell see the good in Batman, just like
he sees the good in everyone else, no matter what kind of scary front they put up.
They are fundamentally two characters who are devoted to helping others, and I think that gives them a lot of
common ground to bond over, even if they see the world through a different perspective.
Besides, even if you see Batman as the ruthless avenger who is vengeance, the night, etc., the Frank Miller character
of Year One, consider this: Is there any conceivable reason that a tactician who went so far as to weaponize a
swarm of bats would not want to have the most powerful person in the world in his back pocket? Seriously, can
you even imagine the psychological edge that would give him over criminals?

Hey, weve got the Bat tied up! Lets shoot him in the head!
You know, I heard that his best friend is Superman, who can tear apart tanks with his bare hands, hear your
footsteps from orbit, and set you on fire by looking at you. His best friend. Who would probably be angry if he died.
Oh no, I have accidentally loosened the ropes lets get the hell out of here before Two-Face gets back.
Thus: Best Friends Forever.

That said, that part in Dark Knight Returns where Batman plugs into the lamp post and then hits Superman with the
entirety of Gotham City? Still pretty awesome.
And now, a few questions from The Lightning Round!
Q: I was fairly surprised when on War Rocket Ajax, you expressed a distaste towards Ranma 1/2 when its
such a huge influence on so many things you champion (Scott Pilgrim, Adam Warren, etc.), and it has so
many of the elements you love (nonstop action, high-concept comedy ideas taken to the extreme,
superheroics as high school metaphor) It seems tailor-made for you. Is there any larger reason, or is it
just not your cup of tea? Stephen, via email
A: You know, that definitely sounds like something Id say, but Ive never actually watched Ranma 1/2, so Im going
to guess that it was a joke.
Q: Did they ever explain how the Punisher went from being an angel (and dead) to alive and well in
Welcome Back, Frank? @padnick
A: Yes. The last three pages of Ennis and Dillons first issue deal with it in a pretty swift manner, but it boils down
to Tried it. Didnt like it.
Q: Is it just me, or are Cassandra Cain and X-23 essentially the same character? Grace, via email
A: There are certainly similarities theyre both taciturn teenage killing machines, which I believe came on USA
right after Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills but
I think calling them the same character is a little too far. For one thing, X-23s still around, and for another, I think
the fact that Cassandra Cains penance for her earlier deeds was something she sought out herself sets her apart at
least a little bit from X-23, who was pretty much led to redemption by being taken by others to the Xavier Cult For
Gullible Kids School For Gifted Youngsters. If, however, another round of Amalgam Comics came out, Cassandra-23
would be the biggest no-brainer ever.
Q: Ive been reading DC Million lately, and Ive gotta ask what happened in the future that the JLA wasnt
around at ALL during the 30th century and then showed up again after? in the DCU i guess the core super
heroes just disappeared for centuries and then reappeared later? Janra, via email
A: Oh, this ones easy: There is a Justice League in the 30th century. Its the Legion of Super-Heroes.
There may not bet characters directly filling the roles of their predecessors (theres no Batman or Superman in the
Legion, after all), but just as the JLA was the direct heir to the Justice Society without having Wildcat or Doctor Fate,
the Legion fills that role by being the prominent super-team of the age. Aside from Mon-El and Karate Kid, there
arent a lot of easy comparisons, but its more important that the Legion was a group of heroes inspired to unite
from across the galaxy dont forget that despite the of America, the League featured a Martian, an Amazon
princess and the King of Atlantis and fight against evil.

Theres a reason the JLA of the 853rd Century in DC One Million is the Justice Legion. Its the heir to both teams,
because theyre all part of the same heroic lineage. It just so happens that the heroes in that particular time are all
carrying on those 21st century legacies.
Read More: Ask Chris #66: Superman, Batman and the Worlds Finest Friendship | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-66-superman-batman-and-the-worlds-finest-friendshi/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #64: How To Read Everything

by Chris Sims July 8, 2011 12:30 PM

Q: As one of the leading Batmanologists, its probably safe to say youve read most, if not all, things Batrelated. When you read that much, do you keep notes or records for later use? Im thinking of obtaining the
dvd-rom from a few years ago collecting Captain America from the 60s to his death. How would you
suggest tackling it? By creative teams? By year? By the times he got-crippled/into-politics/gotwerewolfd/other-bizarreness? Chris C., via emailA: Much as I hate to undermine my own credibility, I have to
admit that there are huge chunks of Batman comics that I havent read. Theres a big section from the 90s that I
just dont have much interest in, for instance, and its only been pretty recently that Ive been able to get my hands
a lot of the weird stories from the 50s, thanks to a popular desire to rewrite Batmans history as a Serious
Character that would have you believe that dude just cold did not existbetween 1941 and 1970.
Throw in the sheer number of comics including the newspaper strips and obscure foreign stuff like Jiro
Kuwatas Bat-Manga, something else that only became available in the past few years, and even then only partially
and its a daunting task, even for a guy who could happily do nothing but sit around reading Batman stories all
day. I mean, even if I applied myself, somebodys got to watch all these old Dusty Rhodes promos on YouTube. So
unfortunately, while Im pretty comfortable in saying that Ive read more Batman comics than the average fan by a
pretty huge margin, I havent read em all.
I did, however, read every single Punisher comic in about three weeks back in 2005.

The weird thing about this is that when I made this decision, I wasnt a particularly huge Punisher fan. Id jumped
on with the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon Marvel Knights series, and while those are still some of my favorite comics of
all time, they werent what made me want to go digging through the characters history. It was playing the video
game that came out along with the movie starring Tom Jane that did that.
What? It was a really good game. And somewhere around the level where you popped out of a coffin with a
machine gun to mow down a funeral home full of crooks, I decided that I liked this guy enough to read every comic
I could find about him.
As it turned out, that was a lot of Frank Castle. At the time, the complete Punisher ouvre totaled just under 400
comics. Fortunately for me, the two biggest obstacles to getting this done, finding the comics and making the time
to read them, werent really problems at all. I was working as a clerk in a comic book store with massive stock of
back issues at least 400 long boxes so putting together the run into what I called The Box of

Punishment was easy, and all the downtime between customers was spent reading, because I was not what you
would call a very good employee.
The one major problem I was left with was how to put them in order. The obvious answer was to just read them
chronologically in the order they came out, but with the Punisher, thats not really an option.

Along with Spider-Man, who had been reigning as Marvels flagship character for 30 years, the Punisher was the
most prominent character in Marvels boom of the early 90s, even beating out Wolverine in terms of sheer number
of comics. As a result, a lot of those 400 Punisher comics came out in a pretty small window of about five years.
For a while, Punisher, Punisher War Journal and Punisher War Zone were all coming out at the same time,
sometimes twice a month, and those were just the ongoing series. Throw in the mini-series, annuals, quarterly
specials (including the annual Punisher Back to School Special, a concept I always found hilarious) and prestige
format books, and getting them all in chronological order would be a nightmare. Even with the information you
could pull from something like the Grand Comics Database, youd be spending way more time organizing comics
than actually reading them. Thats no way to go through a box of comics, son.
In the end, I came up with a solution, and while it might not have been the best way to go about it, it worked all
right for me: Organizing it based on era, format and series. This was made a little easier thanks to the fact that,
while Punisher, War Journal and War Zone were coming out at the same time, there was very little overlap between
the actual stories. They only really crossed over twice, once in a story called Suicide Run that came pretty late in
the run, and again when all three titles were canceled en masse in Countdown.
So heres the reading order I laid out, divided into eras:
The Boom Years:

1. Early appearances in the Spider-Man titles.

2. Punisher v.1 (the five-issue Grant/Zeck mini-series).
3. Punisher v.2 #1 84 (up to the first part of Suicide Run)
4. Punisher War Journal #1 60 (up to Suicide Run)
5. Punisher War Zone #1 22 (up to Suicide Run)
6. All of Suicide Run in order
7. The rest of Punisher up to Countdown
8. The rest of War Journal up to Countdown
9. The rest of War Zone up to Countdown.
10. All of Countdown in order.
12. All the annuals for Punisher, then all the annuals for War Zone.
13. All the mini-series published between 1989 and 1995, capped off with Punisher Meets Archie.
The Lean Years:

1. Cutting Edge and Double Edge (Frank goes crazy, kills Nick Fury, sets up the next series)
2. Punisher v.3 #1 18
3. All the mini-series released from 1995 1998
The We-Dont-Talk-About-That Years:
1. Punisher v.4 #1 4 (Oh hell yes I read some comics about Angel Punisher!)
2. Wolverine/Punisher: Revelation #1 4
The Ennis Years (a.k.a. The Good Years):

1. Punisher v.5 #1 12 (Welcome Back Frank)

2. Punisher v.6 #1 37 (Marvel Knights Ongoing)
3. Punisher v.7 #1 Current (Marvel MAX Ongoing)
4. All the mini-series and one-shots released between 2000 and 2005.
Dessert:
1. All the Prestige Format one-shots.
The reason I saved the Prestige Format books for last is because they tended to be bat-sh** crazy, even compared
with the rest of the run. My favorite was Punisher: G-Force

in which Frank the Tank hijacked a space shuttle so that he could kill a crook who had escaped to a space
station. It is amazing, and everyone should own a copy. Everyone. Even people who only like Adrian Tomine and
Dan Clowes comics.
ESPECIALLY the people who only like Adrian Tomine and Dan Clowes comics.
Anyway, as you can see, I wasnt kidding when I said there were a lot of comics about the Punisher. And if you were
going to attempt the same thing today, itd be even more complex, with the split between the MAX version of the
punisher and the Marvel Universe version, the title changes, two more volumes of Punisher (not counting Punisher:
Frank Castle and PunisherMAX), one more of Punisher War Journal, and another of War Zone, and another stack of
one-shots, and Franken-Castle, where the Punisher becomes an undead monster with a robot arm. Which, I would
like to point out, is awesome.
But as complex as my system was (and as complex as Marvels schedule for releasing Punisher comics continues to
be), it did lead to a pretty fun experience. For one thing, while Id always written off those Boom Era stories as
being pure, unreadable products of the 90s and a lot of them were exactly that theres a lot of genuinely
enjoyable stuff in there. Mike Barons sixty-issue run on Punisher (v.2) in particular has this great low-fi VHS
aesthetic that, when you read them all at once, is like distilling everything great about 80s action movies and
injecting it directly into your brain. Theres an issue about Frank going undercover as a substitute teacher to keep
the Kingpins drug dealers from taking over a high school, one where he fights the Marvel Universes version of
Charles Manson, and one where he breaks up a crooked ninja training camp in Kansas run by a dude whose dog is
named Tanto.

I even found out that Punisher v.3, which was written by the legendary John Ostrander with the premise of The
Punisher joins the mob! is actually not bad. Even if it does feature way more than I ever wanted to read about the
X-Cutioner.
And best of all, it led me to the comic with the greatest cover blurb of all time:

Incidentally, thats the issue where you find out that the Punisher is afraid of water, but hes able to conquer his
fear through shamanic magic. And Microchip paints himself black and pretends to be a Hawaiian death spirit.
It is unquestionably the finest work of Jim Lees career.
Which leads me to another unexpected result of reading the entire run of Punisher: Before I read all those comics, I
liked the Punisher well enough, but somewhere in the process, even though a lot of those comics were not very
good, he became one of my favorite characters. I guess when you spend that much time on one character, you really
see their positive qualities, like the ability to shoot a gigantic assault rifle one-handed while jet-skiing.
But really, the rules and reading orders are just my personal preference. If theres a character youre curious about
and you can track down a nice run something those DVD collections are perfect for, especially when youre
dealing with a comic like Captain America or Fantastic Four, where theres only one series to worry about for most
of it its something I can highly recommend doing.
As for taking notes, well, I probably should, but I usually dont. Occasionally Ill jot down an issue number if
somthing really notable sticks out, but I generally have a good memory for what happens in what issue.
There was one attempt at taking notes that I made during the Box of Punishment, though. I thought it might be
interesting to keep track of how many people the Punisher killed in each issue as I read them so that I could have
Frank Castles official, canonical body count. I still think thats a neat idea (if more than a little morbid), but I gave

up pretty quick in the fourth issue of the ongoing series, where Baron has him mention a career lifetime total
of 665 kills.

Do you stick with just the ones that are shown in the comics, or do you start over from there, adding each
subsequent kill to that total? Does that count the war? If there are flashbacks, do you count them as new ones or
assume theyre part of that total? And when it splits into the MAX and Marvel Universe books, does the number
carry over, and if so, to which version?
Forget it, man. I already put enough work into reading those comics without adding in algebra.
Read More: Ask Chris #64: How To Read Everything | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-64-how-to-readeverything/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #62: My Two Bat-Dads

by Chris Sims June 24, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Batman dies, and leaves Robin in a My Two Dads situation. Which superheroes does he select as dads?
@MagicLoveHose
A: For those of you who havent been listening to War Rocket Ajax the podcast that Matt Wilson and I produce
each and every week right here at ComicsAlliance Ive been thinking a lot about the sitcom My Two Dads lately.
Its gotten to the point where Ive actually had a conversation about it once a week for an entire month, which Im
pretty sure no one, even the people directly involved in the show, have done since at least 1993. And yet, as hard as
it might be to believe coming from the Worlds Foremost Batmanologist, this is the first time Ive thought of it in the
context of my usual obsession. If only youd found a way to work the Bring It On franchise in there, you wouldve hit
the trifecta.For those of you who arent familiar with it, My Two Dads was a sitcom that ran for three years in the
late 80s, and it was based on what is unquestionably one of the most ludicrous premises ever recorded on film.

It focuses on two guys played by Paul Reiser and BJ and the Bears Greg Evigan who are called before a judge for the
reading of their mutual ex-girlfriend Marcy Bradfords will. Despite their past as romantic rivals who didnt get
along, the two men havent seen each other in fifteen years, which is why it comes as a shock that their mutual ex
has demanded in her will which is apparently as legally binding as it is completely bat-sh** insane that they
move in together and raise her daughter Nicole, because one of them is the father. And heres the crazy part: Paul
Reisers a businessman, and Greg Evigan? He wears jeans! Ha ha, how can those guys possibly get along! So wacky!
No, wait. Sorry, I got my notes mixed up: The actual crazy part is that if these two dudes who have hated each
other for over a decade and both broke up with the woman before she even knew she was pregnant, presumably
because she was shtupping both of them dont both agree to mutually raise the daughter of questionable lineage

that they had no idea even existed before right then, she would be remanded to the custody of the state and be
placed in an orphanage that is described in the show as Dickensian.
This is, I think youll agree, the grandest, most complicated dick move in history on the part of the mother in every
single way.
The idea that Batman would engage in such an act of post-mortem dicketry is flawed right from the start. For one
thing

For another, while I think its safe to say that the idea of an intricate plan involving fifteen years of secrecy would
hold some appeal for Batman, its really not his style. Im pretty sure that barring the occasional unfortunate
incident with a crowbar and lets be honest, that kid was asking for it Batman would already have plans in
place for his wards, children and various hangers-on in the event of his demise that did not use them as pawns in
elaborate schemes to get revenge on his friends and/or teach them the meaning of togetherness. It doesnt really fit
his goals.

For the sake of the question, however, lets assume that he does. And following the stated, completely insane
premise of the show, Robins Two Dads have to be super-heroes that a) he would enjoy seeing forced into a
reasonably uncomfortable situation that would last for years, b) that he would actually trust to keep one of his
sidekicks safe, c) someone who was unlikely to just say the hell with it and send Robin to the orphanage before
going on with his day, and d) the complete social opposite of the other Dad.
The first choice is pretty easy to make: Superman.

Lets face it: If you want to raise a kid to be a decent human being and a top-notch crime-fighter, Supermans
probably the guy youre going to want to go with. He definitely has the ability to provide for a kid, and more
importantly, Batman trusts him. After all, for the forty years before everybody and their brother decided they
wanted to be Frank Miller, those two dudes were best friends:

That said, I cant imagine that he wouldnt think it was hilarious to inconvenience the heck out of the guy by
binding him inextricably to his final request. The last line of his will would probably be gotcha.
Plus, hes already aware that Robin exists, which puts him a step ahead of Nicoles dads.
The only tricky part is the question of whether hed bother to actually do it. Yes, Supermans a great guy who exists
as a being of absolute, perfect morality who has devoted his life to helping others, but hes also a dude who
discovered a second survivor of Krypton who was also a member of his family and decided to drop her off at the
orphanage so fast that Im surprised he didnt break the time barrier.

Hmm No!
Theres a good chance that thats the harshest thing Ive ever seen in a comic. We have each other now just, you
know, pretend you dont know who I am and lets also not tell anyone you exist for a while. Ill call you. Promise.
Batman would know this, of course, and so his second choice of Dad would have to be someone who would
counterbalance this by being the kind of person who would refuse to let a youngster go to an orphanage. Combine
that with the other requirements especially the one about being opposite extremes and theres only one
person I can think of that really fits the bill as Batmans chosen Evigan: Tommy Monaghan, alias Hitman.

I know, I know: It sounds completely insane that Batman would ever recruit someone who kills people for money
to raise one of his kids, but I think itd work for a few reasons.
For starters, it solves the problem of Superman dropping the kid off at the local orphanage so that he could return
to his happy bachelor life of messing with Lois Lanes head. Tommy had a pretty rough time growing up in an
orphanage himself, and theres no way hed let someone else go through that if he was called in to stop it. Well, no
way might be a little strong. I have to admit that it certainly never stopped him from making his fair share of
orphans to begin with.
Second, he already has a history with Superman that fits the pattern!

They used to be friends (see Hitman #34), and while their friendship became strained partly due to not seeing each
other for a while (and, uh, partly because Tommy kills people for a living), it wasnt so far gone that they couldnt
build at least a mutual respect (see JLA/Hitman #2).
But theres an even more important aspect that really makes it work: The entire point of Marcy Bradfords
Machiavellian plot was to teach her exes a lesson about how they should come together and be friends, because she
wasnt just a f***ing lunatic, she was a smug and pretentious f***ing lunatic who wanted to tell other people who
they should associate with even after she died. With Batman, friendship probably wouldnt enter the equation; his
relationship with Tommy mostly involved punching him in the face and trying to throw him in jail for killing
people.
But! What Batman would want is one less gun-toting murderer on the streets of Gotham City, and its awfully hard
to kill people when youre constantly hanging out with a guy who can outrun your bullets and stop them from
hitting their targets. Plus, if youre generally a decent person which, despite the killing, Tommy is theres only
so much time you can spend with Superman before his goodness starts to rub off.

And now, The Lightning Round!

Q: Other than Uncle Ben, how would you rank the various suitors that Spider-Mans Aunt May has had over
the years? @pbarb
A: Best to worst: Jay Jameson, Nathan Lubensky, Edwin Jarvis, Otto Octavius.
Q: If you got to choose one musical artist that you could make a comic anthology out of from their songs
who would it be? @jason1749
A:

Q: Did Batman go to college? I hear conflicting answers to this question? @terrusse

A: Of course!

Unlike Batmanology, actual Batmanning requires a degree. And usually some intense post-graduate work in the
fields of punching, batarang dynamics and butler management.
Q: What superheroes are most and least appropriate as subjects for airbrushed t-shirts? @RaeBeta
A: Least appropriate? Its a tough call, but Im going to go with Jack Hawksmoor from The Authority. The most
appropriate, though, is unquestionably Dark Horses own Rebel!

In fact, now that Im actually looking at him again, Im pretty sure that dude can only exist on an airbrushed t-shirt.
Read More: Ask Chris #62: My Two Bat-Dads | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-62-my-twobats/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #61: Southern Fried Super-Heroes

by Chris Sims June 17, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Who are the top five super-heroes from the American South? @AaronABCP
A: As readers and listeners of War Rocket Ajax could probably tell from my constant talk of barbecue and my
obsession with pro wrestling not to mention the accent that leads me to tell people Ill do something right quick
Im a Southerner myself. And oddly enough, with all the fictional team-ups I thought up to kill time over the
years, it never occurred to me to try my hand at creating a team out of folks from down here.
But a Southern gentleman such as myself cannot let a challenge to my honor stand, suh! So today, it looks like Im
putting together a Southern Super-Group!But its actually a pretty tricky task, especially if you subscribe to a
philosophy that prevents you from putting Rogue and Gambit probably the Souths most prominent
representatives in the world of comics on any list that has the word top involved, which I do. And a few of
them even pose a tricky question of just what it means to be from the South. I mean, if you want to get technical
about it, Swamp Thing was born in Louisiana, but his brain patterns were based on Alec Holland, who was from
Stamford, Connecticut, which is about as Northern as you can get. Either way, I just cant imagine that guy throwing
down on a plate of Bojangles, and really, thats the true test of Southernness.
Plus, there just arent a lot to work with. Super-heroes have always tended to operate in places like New York,
either the genuine article of the Marvel Universe or slightly disguised versions like Batmans Gotham City. It really
just underscores the fact that for all their high and mighty rhetoric, the Justice League just doesnt give a dang
about those Duke boys making a mockery of Commissioner Hogg and Sheriff Coltrane with all their blasted shinerunning.

So really, when youre trying to come up with a list of the top five super-heroes from the South, youre pretty much
going to be talking about all of them. And surprisingly, my picks make for a pretty solid group.

First up, Mitch Shelley, alias Resurrection Man, who hailed from the fictional city of Viceroy, South Carolina.
Viceroy was also the home of the Soder Cola bottling plant Soder and Zesti being the DC Universe stand-ins for
Coke and Pepsi which always scored bonus points with me, since I actually live in a South Carolinian city with a
Coca-Cola plant, making it pretty easy for me to see Resurrection Man as a hometown hero.
I also really like his powers, which provided a really interesting premise for a series of ever-changing adventures.
Every time he gets killed which is surprisingly often, even for a third-string DC hero he resurrects with a
different super-power. Its pretty similar to Multi-Man (a DC fourth-stringer who had his greatest moment
in Suicide Squad), with the difference being that his new power usually relates to way he died, so if he got, say
blown up by a gas station exploding, hed come back with fire-powers.
Even better, his series is getting resurrected in Septembers big DC relaunch, featuring the return of co-creators
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning to scripting. So hopefully, well finally get the story that shows whether he prefers
mustard-based barbecue or or the heathen vinegar based travesty they peddle up in the other Carolina.

Even in comic books, a medium that has brought us stories of gorillas with jetpacks and robot Draculas, there has
rarely been a high concept as monumentally over the top as The Haunted Tank. Its a tank. And its haunted. By a
ghost. This is genius.
And its also what Id refer to as egregiously Southern. Amazingly, I grew up in a state that observes Confederate
Memorial Day, and I didnt know until I was 20 years old that the Haunted Tanks ghost in question was based on a
real person, Confederate cavalry general James Ewell Brown (Jeb) Stuart, who was known both for being a gifted
strategist and for wearing a cape and a gigantic ostrich feather in his hat. And in the DC Universe, after fighting for
the cause of slavery, he has to work off his karmic debt by helping his descendant blow up Nazis. Like I said:
Genius.
Especially when you look at the covers the legendary Joe Kubert provided for the Haunted Tanks adventures in the
pages of G.I. Combat. My personal favorite, for reasons that are probably going to be obvious, is the one where they
fight an enemy tank by straight up ramping off a cliff, Hazzard county style:

You cant really tell there, but on the actual cover, the Nazi tank commanders eyes are bugging out like Daffy Duck.
Its great.
And yes: That was the second Dukes of Hazzard reference Ive managed to drop in this column. The question now
isnt if Ill hit the trifecta, but when.

As the record will clearly show, I love the hell out of U.S. Ace, the modern-age name for Marvels underrated
classic U.S.1 but unlike the other characters on this list, his region of origin isnt ever clearly referenced as being
the South. That said, lets be real here: This is a trucker who has a metal plate in his head that gives him the ability
to mentally control his big rig in comics first and only example of teletruckinesis. So basically, hes Marvels
version of Jerry Reeds character in Smokey and the Bandit, and that was the Southernest movie since Birth of a
Nation.
Plus, how can anyone doubt a dude so Southern that he made Doctor Doom say mess o biscuits?

How Ace is not featured in comics every single month is a mystery I will never understand. But for the record, I am
available to write it.

Back before he was Kid Flash, Bart Allen was Impulse, the resident super-speedster of Manchester, Alabama. Now
admittedly, he wasnt actually from there, since he moved there when he was five years old after his
uncontrollable super-speed led him to age to an apparent fifteen making him what would properly be termed a
time-traveling carpetbagger. But since thats the same age I was when I moved here, Im counting it.
Besides, his time in Manchester under Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos was unquestionably the high point of Bart
Allens super-heroic career, right down to one of my absolute favorite single issues of all time, Impulse #3, in which
Bart got in a fight with his entire school.

That girl in the dress cold slapping the kid in the Adidas is the best, you guys. The best.
And finally, my top Southern hero

Now, hold on, I know what youre saying: Jack Knight? Starman? That guys not from the South! But heres the
thing: While Opal Citys actual location is never mentioned in the comic just like Gotham, Metropolis, Keystone
and so on a book published for the DC Universe roleplaying game, released as an official source, had a map that
dropped the Opal right here in South Carolina, down around Charleston.
Presumably, this was done to reconcile the fact that Opal is surrounded by farmland but has a strong history of
pirates, as Charleston and Savannah, Georgia are both steeped in all kinds of piracy that dates back to the 1600s.
That said, it is slightly problematic. For one thing, Im pretty sure that the Palmetto State doesnt feature a single
sprawling Art Deco metropolis, and for another, as someone whos lived here for a mere 23 years, its hard to
believe that the Shade would pick this place as the spot to live out the rest of his immortal days, no matter how
good the barbecue is.
But it more than makes up for those problems by improving the series immeasurably. Its a great read as it is, but
trust me on this one: Jack Knights dialogue is way, way better if you read it with a thick Southern accent. Here, try
it out on my favorite line from the entire series:

See? The only way that gets better is if hed said Compared to you, Im Hank Williams Jr.!
So there you go: My favorite Southern super-heroes. And before anyone says it, no, I did not forget Jonah Hex.
Sure, hes Southern as the day is long, but hes also not a super-hero. You could say the same about the crew of the
Haunted Tank, but while scarred-up cowboy is a thing that could (and did) actually happen, a haint on treads is
something you only get out of the DC Universe. And now, a few quick ones:
Q: What would you rather fight (and probably lose to): a zombie dinosaur, or a were-Cloverfield?
@nicholasreed
A: First of all, Im a little upset by your insinuation that I couldnt beat a zombie dinosaur in a fight. I mean,
I couldnt, but its not polite to call me out for it in public.
Anyway, while I havent seen Cloverfield, I am informed by the Internet that its about some giant monster who
menaces a gang of insufferable youths. But the fact that its a were-Cloverfield means that its only a giant monster
sometimes, and the rest of the time its just some guy who doesnt know why hes waking up on top of a pile of
rubble, right? So yeah, Id fight that guy, right as he was waking up. You may call it cheating, but me and Batman
call it winning.
Q: The Claremont/Byrne X-Men: bedrock of modern comics, or woefully dated soap opera? @likeanaddict
A: I re-read a big chunk of it not too long ago and while there are parts of it that fall into the woefully dated
category, like the three stories in a row where Magneto, Dr. Doom and Dracula all decide not to kill the X-Men
because Storm is really hot (seriously, theyre all in the third Essential) most of it it really does hold up really well.
That said, I could live quite happily without ever again seeing the phrase no quarter asked and none given!
Q: What steps would you take to market your indie comic? @JoeyG

A: My indie comic? You mean my webcomic, Awesome Hospital, created by me, Chad Bowers, Matt Digges and Josh
Krach, which updates every Tuesday and Thursday with the continuing story of the worlds most radical medicine?
Well, Id probably try to get a job writing for Americas most popular comics website and then slip in a shameless
plug when I thought my editors wouldnt notice.
Read More: Ask Chris #61: Southern Fried Super-Heroes | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-61-southernfried-super-heroes/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #60: Batgirl Walks Again?

by Chris Sims June 10, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Whats your take on Batgirls newly granted ability to walk? Should characters be permanently
disabled? @deebeemonster

A: If DCs goal with their reboot was to get people talking about their books again, then
theyve certainly succeeded on that front. Ever since the announcements came down, it seems like the impending
DC Universe relaunch is the only thing anyones been talking about. And aside from, you know, those new
costumes, the one piece of the reboot thats sparked the most discussion and debate has been Barbara
Gordon returning to her role as Batgirl, and apparently ditching her Oracle identity and the spinal injury that
paralyzed her legs along with it.
Its not a surprise that it would prompt such a huge reaction, either. No matter what her codename is, Barbara
Gordon is a character that a lot of people have a pretty strong attachment to, something that ComicsAlliances own
Andy Khouri tackled in his rundown of this very subject. And unsurprisingly, Ive also got opinions on the
matter.First up, I have to say that I like Batgirl and specifically Barbara Gordon as Batgirl a heck of a lot,
which I know comes as a shock to absolutely nobody. The idea of Batman inspiring other people to follow in his
footsteps is one that Ive talked about quite a bit with regards to Dick Grayson and the other Robins, but with
Batgirl, theres a completely different set of elements at play that comes from the fact that shes Commissioner
Gordons daughter.
Theres a pretty complex web of influences for Batgirl, but it all hinges on the idea that after the murder of Thomas
and Martha Wayne, Gotham City is so far gone into crime and corruption that it requires Batman. In any other city,
a guy as honest and tough as Jim Gordon would be enough to pull it back from the brink, but without Batman,
theres too much even for him. Without Batmans influence, both direct and indirect, Lieutenant Gordon who is,
for all intents and purposes, the only honest cop in Gotham City gets two in the back of the head in a parking
garage and serves as nothing more than a warning to everyone else to stay in line if they know whats good for
them.
With Batman, however, theres a change in Gotham City that allows for someone like Gordon to thrive. Batman is
the force behind it who acts outside the law, but Gordon is the law; the incorruptible force of justice in human form,
complete with a sweet moustache.

And that all of it is something that Barbara understands. She learns from her father what it means to do good,
and gets his drive to do the right thing, but she also gets that she lives in a world where becoming a costumed
crime-fighter is quite possibly the best way for her to do that.
Whats more and this is the important part she does it on her own. She doesnt get taken to the cave and
trained by the worlds greatest detective, and she doesnt even undergo the kind of training her father had,
although his status as the police commissioner certainly does provide a nice storytelling loophole for how she got
equipment and knowledge. Instead, through determination and an incredible amount of intelligence, she becomes
one of the few characters (along with the original Batwoman, in whose footsteps she definitely walked as a
character) who looks at what Batman is doing and says, Yeah, thats the way to do it. I can totally do that. And she
does.
In that respect, shes arguably as much of an aspirational character as Batman himself is, with the added bonus
that, like newer characters like Tim Drake, she does it without a motivating tragedy.

She just decides to do it because she genuinely believes its the right thing to do.
Also, its worth noting that she has what is unquestionably one of the best costumes in comic book history.

Seriously. That ones up there with Spider-Man and Mr. Miracle.

But heres the thing: I also love Barbara Gordon as Oracle.

If Barbara Gordon is an aspirational figure as Batgirl, shes exponentially more so as Oracle. Theres a value that she
has as a woman in a wheelchair that she just doesnt have as a sidekick to Batman, no matter how much of a good
sidekick she is.
One of the things I really like about the Batman characters is that they all tend to represent an idea of surpassing
limitations to become something greater than just a person, and in the aftermath of her injury, thats exactly what
Barbara Gordon did. Its genuinely significant for comics that rather than just being cast aside or reverted, her new
status quo in the wake of The Killing Joke was embraced by creators like John Ostrander (writer of Suicide Squad,
where she made her first appearance as Oracle) and Chuck Dixon (the original writer of Birds of Prey) and Grant
Morrison (who made Oracle a full-fledged member of the Justice League) and used very prominently.
Oracle is a super-hero. A different kind of super-hero than Batgirl, yes, but one thats equally valid by any
standards, and the fact that she becomes one a second time by conquering a limitation sends a very powerful and
very necessary message to the readers about what that sort of heroism really means. Especially when you consider
that the change came at the perfect time, when the rise of the Internet to incredible prominence in modern life
made her status as a hacker and information broker something that readers could easily relate to and understand.
In an Information Age (Im borrowing the quotation marks from Jack Kirby), it makes perfect sense that Batman
and the JLA would have someone whose focus was on gathering intelligence and dealing it out to devastating effect.
Of course, at the same time, DC has created a universe where it makes absolutely no sense at all for her to not be
able to walk.

Thats the problem with bringing in realistic elements into super-hero stories. As much as Im all for using events
like the ones in Killing Joke to build characters and spin into something new which is exactly what they did with
Oracle theres also the fact that Barbara Gordon lives in a world where people have access to phenomenal sci-fi
technology from alien worlds and super-advanced societies, Purple Healing Rays, Green Lantern Rings, Lazarus
Pits The list goes on for days, and thats without even bringing up how Bruce Wayne recovered from his own
paralyzing spinal injury by having his psychic girlfriend/physical therapist think really hard at his back. That
happened. And they live in the same town.
Beyond that, there are advanced robot limbs all over the place. Arsenal got a robot arm like two days after hehis
was severed, and Cyborg, a character that was around seven years before Barbara Gordon was paralyzed? All of his
limbs are robot limbs.
I mean, theyre everywhere. Heres a scene from the latest issue of Detective Comics, the very book in which Barbara
made her first appearance:

Really. Youre telling me that dude, a car thief, has robot legs, but Barbara Gordon, who is friends with the richest
man on the planet who by the way also knows Superman cant get a set? Really. Really.
That said, its equally obvious that these are not real people. Theyre characters in a story, and if Barbara Gordon
as a character has more value as a prominent disabled super-heroine which I think she does then its a
perfectly valid choice on the part of DC to leave her that way. The problem is that it becomes increasingly difficult
to explain why she wouldnt opt for one of a million solutions (she knows where the Lazarus Pits are, you guys!) and
then just stay as Oracle anyway.
Which raises another question about the entire situation: Why should Barbara Gordon go back to being Batgirl,
rather than just remaining as Oracle? And thats not as in why would she choose to do that, but rather why
would DC do that?
If theres one thing the DC Universe has a surplus of right now, its female Batman Family characters. Theyve been
set to launch Batwoman in a new series for months, and even beyond her, theyve got Stephanie
Brown and Cassandra Cain ready to step back into the Batgirl role. The only thing wrong with Stephanie Brown is
her costume (which would fit right in with the 90s fashion revival going on over there) and if you absolutely have
to take her out of the role, then Cassandra Cains only just recently come back after a nice year-long sojourn in
limbo under the codename Black Bat which, cmon, is not great.

Plus, at this point, Barbara Gordon has been Oracle (1989 to 2011) just as long as she was Batgirl (1966 to 1988).
While a rollback isnt unprecedented just ask Wally West and Kyle Rayner its not like theres a built-in
excuse of one version having an established tenure over another.
So what does DC get out of it? Well, recognition from a wider audience, one assumes. Barbara Gordon as Batgirl has
been featured in three different mass-media projects, including Batman 66

and two different animated series:

Barbara Gordon as Oracle, however, only really has the Arkham Asylum video game and the short-lived Birds of
Prey series to her credit. And that last one might actually count against her.
As for which one Id go with if I had my way, its hard to say. I like both versions of the character an awful lot, and I
really enjoy both aspects for what they represent. But I will say that in a line of comics that also features Dick
Grayson as Nightwing, Jason Todd as the Red Hood and a completely unrelated red-haired Batwoman, Barbara
Gordon still being Batgirl doesnt really work.

There is, however, another possibility that I havent seen anyone addressing, and its one that would allow DC to
have it both ways: The idea of Barbara Gordon, Oracle, acting as Batman, Inc.s representative in a new role as the
Batman of the Internet:

Of all the concepts introduced in Batman: The Return and Batman, Inc., the idea of Barbara Gordon lightcycling
around a crazy Trond up cyberhacker firewall Acid Burn Zero Cool virtual reality Internet was the one that I had
the most doubts about. I can totally see DC just wiping the slate clean and moving onto someone elses idea of what
Batgirl should be, but at the same time, we already know that Batman Inc. is surviving the relaunch with a return in
2012, so even if its not likely, its a definite possibility.
Then again, that still leaves the other Batgirls out in the cold, and an entire series about Barbara Gordon ReBooting
into the Game Cubes of the Matrix seems like it would be pretty limiting if it went on for more than a few issues.
And if thats the case, rebranding the character as Batgirl rather than Oracle seems like the sort of compromise that
isnt going to make anyone happy

Read More: Ask Chris #60: Batgirl Walks Again? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-60-batgirl-walksagain/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #59: The HeroesCon Lightning Round Special!

by Chris Sims June 3, 2011 1:00 PM

Normally in this column, I pick one or two questions from the ones sent in by readers and answer them at length
and thats putting it nicely. This time around, however, Im doing things a little differently. This weekend, Ill be
heading to HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina, where among other things, Curt Franklin, Chris Haley and I
will be appearing on a ComicsAlliance Live panel, Saturday at 2:30 in Room 206, where well be taking
audience questions about any topic for a solid hour. So in order to train for the panel, Im answering as many
questions as I can in this weeks Lightning Round Special!Q: Has Batman ever fought a bear? Ian, via email
A: Oh son. Getting this question is like Christmas morning for me. Yes, Ian: Batman has indeed fought a bear.
In fact, hes done it several times, but if you want the absolute best Bearfight in the Caped Crusaders history, I
suggest you check out the two-part Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Alex Blaisdell story in Action Comics #465 and 466.
Lex Luthor invents a gas that can turn people into kids, and before using it on Superman, he tests it out on the Flash
and Batman. Being good pals, Flash and Batman show up to warn Superman, but since there were presumably
plenty of Ten Year-Old Batman robots running around back in the Silver Age, they have to prove their identities.
So as proof that this kid really is Batman, Superman and the Flash make a ten-year-old fight a bear.

So hows it work out?

Yet another reason to love Batman: He accomplishes this even without the benefit of training. Beating the crap out
of a bear just comes naturally to him.
Q: If you were in charge of the relaunch what changes would you make to the DC universe?
@AndrewJPlant
A: Id undo the death of the KGBeast. Pretty much everything else could stay.
Q: If U.S. 1 can mentally control space big rigs, could he control Optimus Prime? Andy, via email
A: Yes, he can. In fact, what a lot of people dont realize is that while he might put on a strong face as the role of a
leader, Prime craves the telepathic dominance of a handsome outer-space redneck.
I should point out that since I dont actually like the Transformers, Im getting all my information on this one from
fan-fiction.
Q: Much like the MLB, there have long been rumors of doping in the superhero community. Which
superheroes are on the drugs? @HighMindedMW
A: Super-hero hopheads? That ones easy. These guys:

I mean, most people are already aware that Hourman gets his powers from popping pills that make him feel really
groovy for sixty minutes, but the rest of those guys are doped out of their minds. The Sandman, who has prophetic
dreams and uses a sleeping gas gun? Yeah, I heard he learned how to make one out of a soda can in college, if
you know what I mean, and Grandpa Flash got his powers by breathing in hard water fumes. Or as we call it here
in the 21st century, freebasing.
And Hawkman? The guy is literally getting high with Nth Metal. I dont even want to know what kind of alien
degeneracy that is.

Q: Did you watch any of My Little Pony prior to Friendship Is Magic? Either as a real fan or in a theres
nothing else on TV and/or I dont feel like wrestling the remote from my sister way? French Guy, via
email
A: I only started with Friendship is Magic, but Jen Vaughn my pony-watchin pal who has contributed art to Ask
Chris before is a lifelong fan, and she forced me to watch an episode called Bright Lights, where a bunch of
creepy-ass ponies were kidnapped and had their life force drained by an energy vampire pony version of
Prince named Knight Shade.
This thing was absolutely horrifying. First of all, the animation and voices are not what youd call good. Second of
all, this is a show about pony groupies being lured backstage by a shady manager, which, while probably useful
advice for the young ladies of the 80s, is still a little creepy. Third, I am deeply disturbed by the idea of humans and
ponies coexisting, especially with no knowledge of why there are only two humans. And finally and most
importantly its yet another example of shameful zebracism.
Q: If you were to take one webcomic character you didnt create, give them superpowers (if needed) and
then were to place them in a comics universe/continuity, whom would they be, what could they do and
where would they be, universally speaking? Luke, via email
A: I would totally cast T-Rex from Ryan Norths Dinosaur Comics as the Tyrannosaurus in the Batcave.

Just standing there all those years, totally freaked out and excited about being that close to Batman, but too
nervous to actually speak up. But Alfred would know. Alfred always knows.
Q: I dont think I ever hear you talk about the Avengers. What would be their best storyline?
@deebeemonster
A: For my money, the best Avengers story is hands down 1987s Under Siege, by Roger Stern, John Buscema
and Tom Palmer, in which former Navy SEAL and chef Casey Ryback has to defend a battleship from terrorists
who wait. Sorry, wrong story.

Avengers: Under Siege is actually about the Masters of Evil beating the living hell
out of the heroes and then ransacking Avengers Mansion. The arts some of Buscemas most solid, and the script is
Stern at his finest, which is saying something. Its full of great moments that create real tension, and even in a story
where the tide turning and the heroes rallying to win is a foregone conclusion, the strength comes from some
beautifully done emotional moments.
The heart of the story is Captain America, and he spends the issue tied up while Baron Zemo who blames Cap for
killing his father, the original Baron Zemo just constantly taunting him with what hes doing. Theres a scene
where he orders Mr. Hyde to destroy his old Golden Age shield, one of his mementos from World War II, and when
the deed is done, Zemo looks at him and asks him what hes going to do about that.
Caps response: Im going to remember it.
That is stone cold. And its played so well, with Zemo turning away, fists clenched, thinking Will nothing break his
spirit?! Its a moment when he realizes that hes passed the point of no return, that theres no way hes getting out
of this without Cap getting his revenge, one way or another. So he makes him listen while Hyde beats Jarvis, the
Avengers faithful butler, to a bloody pulp.
Its the end of the story that gets you right in the gut, though, and if you dont want a 24-year-old comic spoiled for
you, stop reading now. After the team boots the Masters of Evil out of the mansion Cap discovers that theyve found
the small trunk of personal items he keeps at the mansion, and theyve destroyed them.

It underscores the idea that for all that hes acclimated to his role as a super-hero in the modern Marvel Universe,
Cap was still a man out of time. These were the things that tied him to his childhood, reminders of an era that none
of his teammates really understood. Now, they were gone, and with them, Captain Americas only photograph of his
mother.
Its the kind of brutal emotional pain that super-hero comics often have a hard time getting across, but Stern,
Buscema and Palmer nail it with a skill that very few creators have ever managed to match. Id go so far as to say
that its one of the best Marvel stories ever, and well worth picking up in the recent hardcover.
Q: If you could put any one writer and artist on one book for at least 12 issues, who would you pick?
@wildvulture
A: Assuming that Chris Sims and a Resurrected Jim Aparo on Batman isnt a legitimate option, Id put Benito
Cereno and Nate Bellegarde on Metamorpho: The Element Man in a heartbeat.

Q: Like you, Batman is my favorite, and Spider-Man is my second favorite. However, I dont really know
why I like Spidey so much. I have a three-foot stack of Batman TPBs and graphic novels but not one SpiderMan book. Are there any collected Spider-Man stories that match up to the Batman classics (Year One,
Gothic, Killing Joke et al.)? Drew, via email
A: Unfortunately, there are very few stories where Spider-Man fights a bear. They do exist, he just doesnt do it
with the alarming frequency that Batman does.
As for stories that match up to the Batman classics, thats hard to say. For one thing, most of the great Spider-Man
moments that stick out in my mind arent in the sort of long-form stories like you get with a lot of other characters,
like Year One or the Dark Phoenix Saga, theyre from single issues. Ill even admit that most of my love of SpiderMan can be traced back to exactly one comic, Amazing Spider-Man #33, which I still consider to be the single
greatest Marvel comic ever printed.

Ive mentioned this before, but I had a paperback that had that story (along with a few other high points, like the
origin story and The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man) when I was a kid, and I read it until the binding gave out and
it came apart in my hands.
That said, Id put Kravens Last Hunt up there against just about anything. Its absolutely fantastic, although
unlike Year One and the like, Im not sure Id consider to be a definitive Spider-Man story, since its such a
departure from what Spider-Man does most of the time. In fact, with its darker storyline and a more
psychologically frightening villain who is clearly completely insane, its actually more like what one imagines from
a typical Batman story, right down to the genuinely creepy scenes of Kraven naked and eating spiders by the
handful to get psyched up for his fight with Spider-Man. It is, however, pretty darn fantastic, and belongs on any
Spider-Man fans bookshelf.
Q: Whats the ideal length for a single issue? 22 pages? 20? 16? @alexhern
A: I dont know about ideal, but whenever Im writing scripts for my own full-length comics, I always go for 24
pages. Its a solid number that gives you eight pages to work with for each section of the classic three-act story
structure, and so it lends itself really well to self-contained single-issue stories. For all the great original graphic
novels and paperbacks out there, I really love the single-issue. Maybe its because its what I grew up with, I really
think that its a great format that you can do quite a bit with.

But that said, there are great stories written at 22 pages, at 16 pages, and even
down to the classic 11 and 8-pagers of the Silver Age, which can often be read as a master class in economical
storytelling. And once you get to the web and away from restrictive factors like print cost and physical size, the
idea of limiting yourself falls away; the ideal length for a story becomes when its done. There are single issues
of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja that are fifty, sixty, even eighty pages long, and theyre as good as or better than
anything else thats coming out today. And thats just one example, comics like Rich Burlews Order of the
Stick dont limit themselves to issues at all, instead telling long, winding stories that top hundreds of pages, but still
work within the structure of having a punchline (or a similar punctuating moment) in every single-page strip.
Writing a story to fit a set length can create a solid structure to work from, but it can also be limiting when the
primary focus should be on producing a solid story.
Q: My dad was a casual comic book fan in the 1970s, and he told me once about a comic he read where
Batman was a guest lecturer for a College Criminology class, and he is telling the students about the Red
Hood. I have assumed that this is a brand new story, as opposed to a reprinting of Detective #168 from
1951 and Batman #213 from 1969. After a minimal amount of research which turned up nothing, I
theorized that maybe my dad read this story in a 100 page giant from the 1970s. Is this the case? Do you
know which comic mightve been the one my dad read? Any light you can shed is most appreciated.
Reuben, via email
A: Other than the reprint in Batman #213 that you mention which couldve easily been floating around well into
the 70s there are a couple of possibilities that spring to mind. I dont think it appeared in any 100-Page SuperSpectaculars or 80-Page Giants of the era, but it was reprinted as the lead story in Limited Collectors Edition: Secret
Origins of Super-Villains.

Not only did this one hit shelves in 1975, it was also a gigantic Treasury-sized comic (which, for those of you who
arent hip to the lingo, were more than twice the size of a regular single issue), and that larger format mightve
made it pretty memorable for him. Id say that ones a pretty safe bet, especially if he mentioned any of the other
origins included. Then again, if he doesnt remember a newspaper-sized story where a cowboy went to space and
got laser pistols so that he could fight Superman, this one probably isnt the source after all.
Q: What two superheroes would you put in a My Two Dads scenario? @koltreg
A: For those of you who arent familiar with it, My Two Dads was a television show about a woman who, in the
ultimate dick move, had it put into her will that her daughter had be raised by her two ex-boyfriends who hated
each other and who both had an equal chance of being her father, and if they didnt agree to it, she would be sent to
an orphanage that was literally described in the show as Dickensian. It is maybe the most ludicrous concept for
anything, ever.
As for who in comics fits the mold, theres no possible way it could be anyone but Cyclops and Wolverine. Not
only are those two guys basically the mutant equivalents of Greg Evigan and Paul Reiser to begin with, they also
have Hope Summers right there to complete the cast!

Cable would be the judge that enforces the adoption order.

Q: If DC were to start a series similar to Marvels Thunderbolts, which of DCs supervillians do you see as
ripe for rehabilitation? Who would you put in charge of keeping them in line? Bill J., via email
A: Bill, I get the feeling that Im about to blow your mind: DC actually did do a series like that, all the way back in
1987.
The idea of recruiting crooks as expendable soldiers to be sent on suicide missions isnt a new one; DC and Marvel
both probably cribbed it from one of my all-time favorite movies, 1967s The Dirty Dozen, which was itself based on
a novel of the same name, which had been written after the author heard rumors of a similar group operating
during World War II, which may in turn have been based on the real-life unit called the Filthy Thirteen. But comics,
with super-villains, the constant threat of complete world destruction and entire universes full of magic, timetravel, alternate dimensions and super-science to play with lend themselves to a huger, brighter version of the
same concept. And thats exactly what John Ostrander brought to the table in Suicide Squad.

It is, without question, the best DC comic of the 1980s, and also one of the most influential. Ostrander took
characters that had fallen into obscurity like Punch & Jewelee, Nemesis, and the Enchantress and used them as a
basis for stories set in a darker side of the DC Universe that still embraced everything that goes along with superhero books. He even revitalized long-time villains like Captains Cold and Boomerang, introduced Barbara Gordon
as Oracle and while Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers were the ones to revive Deadshot after his original
Golden Age appearance, Suicide Squad was the book that made him the fatalistic assassin that he is today. It even
introduced new characters, the most enduring of which has been Amanda Waller, a fixture of the DC Universe who
would go on to appear in the two comics most directly inspired by Squad, Secret Six and the highly underrated Greg
Rucka run onCheckmate.

The book ran for 60 issues, and if you havent read it, it totally holds up. Whats more, after years of canceled
solicitations, the first volume of it finally came out in paperback and the more recent Raise The Flag mini-series
doesnt miss a step either.
As for what Id do if I was tapped to revive the concept today, its hard to narrow it down. The thing about superhero comics is that there are dozens of villains for each hero, which leaves you spoiled for choice. I will say, though,
that in the Suicide Squad pitch I keep in my back pocket in case the opportunity ever arises which I think is
something every writer hase I had Cameron Chase cast as the field leader.
Q: What are the best and/or worst comics that involve a real-life musician or group? Gena, via email
A: The best? Without question, the story from Bob Burden and Rick Gearys Eisner Award-winning Gumby where
an evil circus ringmaster turns Gumby into a golem by writing Hebrew letters on his forehead, and Gumby gets
rescued when the ghost of Johnny Cash descends from the heavens.

The worst? Aerosmiths apperance in Shadowman #19.

There aint no kind of good in that thing.

Read More: Ask Chris #59: The HeroesCon Lightning Round Special! | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-59the-heroescon-lightning-round-special/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #58: Macho Man Memorial

by Chris Sims May 27, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: In memory of Randy Savage, who are the most macho comic book characters, using Savage as the
watermark? @bradcandoit

A: For those of you who havent heard the sad news, we lost one of my childhood heroes
last week when The Macho Man Randy Savage suffered a fatal heart attack while driving.
Ive written about my affection for Savage several times here at ComicsAlliance and elsewhere, but I think Matt
Singer said it best in his Requiem for a Macho Man: For a kid who read comic books, when he and Hulk Hogan
teamed up to form the Mega Powers it was like tangible proof that super-heroes really did exist. And hes right:
Savage was one of those guys who larger than life both in the ring and on the mic, with an incredible charisma
about everything he did from dropping the majestic Flying Elbow to selling Slim Jims. As a result, the comparison
to comic book heroes has always been easy.But at the same time, the standard set by Randy Savage isnt just high,
its also a strange departure from traditional ideas of machismo, even those embodied by a guy like Razor Ramon.
After all, this is comics were talking about, and you cant swing an Intercontinental Championship Belt without
hitting a total badass.
Just off the top of my head, youve got Batman, Wolverine, the Punisher, the entire cast of Sin City basically
anyone written by Frank Miller in the past thirty years qualifies. Bonus points if they have ever referred to
themselves as a stupid old man at least twice in one panel.
So if we were going by pure Dollars Trilogy manliness, Id give it up to Sgt. Rock, for four extremely compelling
reasons:

One, he kills Nazis. Two, he carries two belts of .50 caliber ammunition on his shoulders at all times despite the fact
that they do not fit any gun he carries, because he considers an extra thirty pounds to be a good luck charm. Three,
both his arms and his chest hair were too powerful to be contained by any government issue clothing, bursting
forth of their own free will. Four, he kills Nazis, and that is all he does.
That guy is like Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef and Bruce Lee just stared at each other in a desert until it somehow
formed a person. In rankings of traditional machismo, he comes out ahead every time.
But thats not quite what the Macho Man Randy Savage represented. It probably wont surprise anyone to learn
this, but I do consider myself something of a scholar on the subject, and in my research, Ive discovered that Macho
Madness is characterized by everything in general, but five elements in particular.
First, The Macho Man must determine his own destiny.
The Macho Man refuses to be shackled by others he must be free, and bristles under the influence of others, even
those that would seem at first to share similar goals, like the ill-fated team-up with Hulk Hogan as the Mega
Powers. He shares his glory only reluctantly, and is quick and brutal in seeking revenge for any betrayal. Hes goal
oriented, with a focus on building himself up to challenge even the stars, yeah, the stars themselves.
This leads directly into the second characteristic: The Macho Man is an outsider in society.
He may exist within society, but he is definitely not of it, and sees himself as apart from the rules and boundaries
that lesser men have set up to confine and protect themselves. He respects no rules but those that he himself
creates, surpassing any limits if he chooses to do so, for any purpose that he deems worthy of himself.
As a result, we have the third element: The Macho Man secures his place in history.
Its not destiny or privilege that leads the Macho Man to greatness, but sheer force of will. He is able to accomplish
great things, mostly involving defeating Dragons or Snakes.
Fourth, The Macho Man is always jittery. Its part of his personality.
This may seem counterintuitive given what came above, but the jitteriness in question isnt nervousness or the
product of being unsure of ones actions. Its quite the opposite, a constant energy that courses through him as a
result of being one million percent. The Macho Man is a coiled spring, ready to explode into action at a moments
notice.
Which brings us, finally, to the last element: The Macho Man must snap into it.

If nothing else, the Macho Man is a man of action, and when he acts, thou art never bored. Also, whenever possible,
he should be portrayed as someone who leaves castles in ruins behind him as he treads the Earth beneath his heel.
Add it all up, and theres only one character that can live up to a that reputation: Conan the Barbarian!

Seriously, just look at that dude. I mean, Im pretty sure that Death-Duel With The Undead Wizard is an accurate
description of Randy Savages match against the Undertaker in 1991, but theres also the fact that he is already
wearing trunks and a championship belt.
He fits the pattern perfectly: As a barbarian warrior from Cimmeria, he brutally fought his way through the society
of the Hyborean Age, going from a thief to a mercenary and finally becoming King of Aquilonia, just as the Macho
Man himself defeated Hacksaw Jim Duggan to become the Macho King. Theres even a scene in my all-time
favorite Conan story the classic Rogues in the House where Conan has to defeat a gorilla that thinks its a
wizard by wrestling it to death.

I swear he drops an elbow in at least the most recent version of that story. And really, what are Robert E.
Howards Nemedian Chronicles other than a slightly tougher version of Mean Gene Okerlund?
Obviously, its not quite a one-for-one comparison. Conan, for instance, never joined the nWo not even in the
black and white Savage Sword of Conan magazines. Also, while Im missing a few of the 90s era comics from my
collection, Im reasonably certain he was never seen wearing a purple sequined poncho/cape with his name on it
and a matching cowboy hat, which I think we can all agree is a major failing of the creators.
But, just like Randy Savage, Conan was a character so much larger than life that everything around him seems
smaller by comparison, who draws you into his adventures driven by charismatic combat, ruthless villainy and
uncompromising style.
And just like Conan, the Macho Man Randy Savage has now passed into the world of legends.
Q: If you were to cast the Avengers as 8 Pokemon gym leaders and an Elite Four, who would be included
and what types would they use? @JohnDudebro
A: Okay, lets see here. If you were going to start your Pokemon journey in the Marvel universe, heres how I think
it would go down.
First, youd encounter Ant-Man and the Wasp, who would specialize in Bug-Type Pokemon!

At some point during the battle, when he was down to one last Pokemon, Pym would flip out and become
Yellowjacket, but once you finished off his Beedrill, youd get your Particle Badge.
Next up, youd test your skills against Moon Knight, who would specialize in Fire, Water, and Grass types.

Multiple personalities, folks. Sometimes they come in handy. His final Pokemons type would be the one your
starter was weak to, but if you make it through, you get your Khonshu Badge.
After shuffling through some tall grass to grind a few levels, youd meet up with the deadly Black Widow and her
team of highly trained Poison types.

If you can make it through her, you get your Widow Badge. Kind of a no-brainer, that one.
Moving on, I hope youre keeping those Pokeballs in belt pouches, because its time to face off
against Darkhawk and his Dark type Pokemon!

What? He was in West Coast Avengers! Even though he lived in New York! Just be thankful that Grim and Gritty
arent available types. Anyway, beat him and you get your 90s Badge.
At the halfway point, you take aim at Hawkeye and his Flying types!

Fortunately, hed spend most of the battle trying to increase his Accuracy and doing his best o convince you that it
qualifies as an actual super-power. After a few hits and an almost mandatory NOT LIKE THIS!, you get the Carny
Badge.
Next up, a trip out to space for Moondragon and her Dragon Types!

I, uh, dont really have anything clever for this one. The reasoning here should be obvious. You get the Baldy
Badge and we all move on.
Next up Benjamin J. Grimm, the Ever-Lovin Blue-Eyed Thing and his Rock Types!

To get to him, youd have to fight your way all the way to the top of the Baxter Building which, in a Pokemon
game, would be like four floors, tops but once you got there, the Clobberin Badge could be yours.
Finally, your last opponent before entering Avengers Mansion for the big throwdown, Edwin Jarvis and
his Normal types!

Hed be surprisingly tough, but after reminding you that only the top percentage of the Earths Mightiest Heroes
are able to set foot in his hallowed halls, hed present you with your Butler Badge.
As for the Elite Four, theyre pretty much the guys youd expect: Captain Marvel with Ghost Pokemon, Iron
Man with Steel types, Captain America with Fighting types, all building up to an epic clash against Thor and
his Electric Pokemon. Its a little obvious, yes, but unfortunately they have yet to introduce the Magic Uru Hammer
type.
And God help me, I think this actually isnt the nerdiest thing Ive ever written for this column.

Read More: Ask Chris #58: Macho Man Memorial | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-58-macho-manmemorial/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #57: Uncle Scrooge vs. Superman: The Greatest American Icon
by Chris Sims May 20, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Whos the better American icon: Superman or Scrooge McDuck? @crimsondude

A: While my pick for the best American icon in comics would probably go to Wild Dog who drives a pick-up
truck, wears a football jersey and camo pants, carries an uzi and fights terrorists in Iowa its hard to argue that
both Superman and Scrooge McDuck probably have a better objective claim to the title. After all, despite all their
differences, the Last Son of Krypton and the Last of Clan McDuck are both quintessentially American characters.

Theres one obvious aspect of their characters that makes them so uniquely American: Theyre both
immigrants who came to America for a better life. For Scrooge, it was to escape the poverty that was hanging over
his familys head from a nobility that had fallen into irrelevance, while Superman was escaping the literal
destruction of his home, with his parents making a sacrifice so that he could grow up somewhere where hed have
more advantages, like, you know, not being exploded. Theyre both trying to escape the past by coming to whats
often been referred to at least in the countrys mythology as a land of new beginnings.
But even that points to a difference between them that leads to two sides of the American story. While the
reasoning behind their journey may be similar, the details are vastly and significantly different, most specifically
in when they arrived.

Superman came to Earth as a baby, and while the height of excess that was his Silver Age power set granted him a
total recall memory so that he could remember his brief time on Krypton, he is for all intents and purposes an
American. He grew up here, and that means that while hes certainly an optimistic idealist, he knew firsthand the
realities of growing up in America or at least, the realities of growing up in an America that has stuff like cosmic
rods and Green Lantern rings.
But at the same time, in most versions of the Superman story, hes also aware while hes growing up that there was
something different about him, that in coming from somewhere else, he was different from everyone else. Of
course, the mitigating factor there was that his differences involved flying around and bench pressing tractors,
which certainly helps to build a young mans confidence, but I think its a significant element that his parents
his Earth parents are often portrayed as encouraging him to keep those differences a secret so that he can better
assimilate into American society.
Which leads to something thats even more significant: When he finally does start operating as Superman, he tells
everyone straight up what his entire deal is. He doesnt go out there and say that hes just a super-strong flying guy
from Kansas, everyone in the DC Universe knows that despite appearances, Superman is an alien from the planet
Krypton. And for bonus points, he does this through that distinctly American practice of manipulating the mass
media by interviewing himself as Clark Kent.
Point being, in doing this, Superman represents one of the core ideals of America: No matter where you came from
or whats different about you, if youre willing to pitch in and do your part, America will accept you for who you
are. Now whether or not this is actually true in practice, thats a whole other column.

Scrooge, on the other hand, comes to America for the first time at the age of 13. Thats certainly a young age, but
the important factor here is that unlike Superman, he decides to come to America.
And he does so to seek out his fortune, because hes heard as we all have that America is the land of
opportunity, where a man (or duck) can start with nothing and become rich through hard work and perseverance.
In other words, hes sold on the idea of America, but when he gets here hes faced with the fact that hard work and
perseverance translates to years upon years of backbreaking labor with crooks and liars around every corner
looking to part a fool from his money.
Scrooge may have fulfilled the American rags-to-riches story, but he did so only through a great deal of hardship
and suffering, and even when he finally gains his incredible wealth, its a precarious position that leaves him only
one disaster man-made or natural away from being wiped out.
That all leads to a very strong awareness of just what having that money means in American society. Unlike the
loathsome Richie Rich, who inherited his impossible fortune and has so little regard for what money means that he
has a safe made out of diamonds and gold and will never live like common people, Scrooge has a keen
understanding of the value of a dollar.
Its also worth noting that Superman and Scrooge are both defined by the characters around them, though once
again in opposing ways. Supermans greatest value isnt in his powers or in the physical act of saving a nosy
reporter from falling out of a helicopter; his greatest value comes through inspiration.

By his very existence, both in the comics and as a fictional character, Superman inspires people around him to be
better people. His message related in several stories, my favorite of which is 1962s The Last Days of
Superman is that its not the powers that make him a Superman, its choosing to do the right thing.
With Scrooge, hes made a better person by those around him. His first appearance in 1947s Christmas on Bear
Mountain finds him as a bitter old miser who has completely given up on other people:

Its not until he meets Donald and the Nephews after testing their courage with an elaborate trick that involves
bears that he comes to remember that he doesnt have to be apart from others. Instead, he finally recognizes
something of himself, the endless curiosity, the fearlessness, the hunger for triumph, and its only then that he
becomes something greater.
Theyre both interesting takes on the idea of community, and how uniting with others can completely change us,
just shown from completely opposite angles.
Which brings us around to the next difference thats also a key point in their American identity: The ideals they
represent.

When you get right down to it, Superman is essentially a being of pure altruism. He has the power to do anything
he wants. If he wanted to conquer the world and rule as a dictator, either benevolent or iron-fisted, thats
completely doable. If he wanted to do nothing but lay around in bed all day playing XBox and eating pizza, he could
do that too. But he doesnt.
Instead, Superman puts his powers to work helping those who cant help themselves, and while that might smack
of socialism to some, its a very important part of my understanding of America. Its certainly not unique to this
country, but the idea of one person using his abilities for the good of everyone is extremely egalitarian, and equality
is a pretty big deal around here.
Despite the fact that hes obviously tougher and stronger then everyone else, not to mention able to fly and see
molecules, Superman doesnt declare himself king (except that one time). He uses his powers to help everyone,
because in his mind, thats the fair thing to do.

Scrooge, on the other hand, is motivated entirely by greed. Admittedly, its a greed thats expressed as a desire for
adventure that comes with a specific moral code that Ill get to in a second. Hes even often shown to value every
coin, bill and treasure as much for the memory of how he got it than for its actual monetary value, suggesting that
its the challenge and thrill of overcoming adversity that he truly values. And also having enough of it to swim in
like a porpoise.
Either way, the root of it is an all-consuming drive for acquisition, which I dont think anyone could possibly argue
isnt an intrinsic part of American society.
But at the same time, he has that moral code I mentioned earlier, and once again its all based on the idea of playing
fair.

But even with that code in place, The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck shows that there was a time when he was so
consumed by greed that he broke his own golden rule, and even the Scrooge of the Barks strips wasnt above
exploiting his relatives for cheap labor and trying to weasel his way out of paying them. Even in the story with the
famous tougher than the toughies panel above the classic Only a Poor Old Man sees him trying to con the
nephews out of the 30 cents an hour he promises to pay them through some stone cold trickery.
In fact, in a lot of ways, his often ruthless tactics in clawing his way up from nothing to one of the most powerful
people in the world financially speaking makes him less like Superman and more like Lex Luthor.
In other words, Scrooge is a character with regrets, who very clearly is shown to have his priorities wrong while
traveling the world anywhere theres a resource to be exploited, from gold to diamonds to oil. Sound like anyone
you know?
In the end, theyre both great American icons, but oddly enough, its the talking duck who lives in a world with
Mickey Mouse whose exploits are more tempered with reality. Superman is a far better example of what
we should be

but Uncle $crooge is a little bit closer to what we are.

Q: Im a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan and Ive always wondered if there is a connection between Lovecrafts
Arkham & Batmans Arkham, and if there is, is it more than just a shared and/or inspired name? Jill, via
email
A: Batmans Arkham Asylum is indeed named for Lovecrafts Arkham and its notably high population of crazies. In
fact, when Arkham first appeared in 1974, it wasnt even written as being part of Gotham City, but rather just a
New England Institution, which makes the connection even clearer:

I imagine that this was originally just intended to be a throwaway reference, but by 1980, writer Len Wein used it
as the basis for a story where Batman had to break into a mental hospital that featured a bunch of his villains as
patients, and the rest, as they say, is history. For the record, that story in Batman#326 and 327 also features
the idea that the staff at Arkham gives the Joker a mannequin wearing a fully functional Batman costume that he
could use as a target dummy, thus setting the standard for extremely questionable treatments that we know and
love today.
Q: What is the Flashpoint Chris Sims like? @graemem
A: A lot like Age of Apocalypse Chris Sims, but newer.
Q: How do you feel about the term brony being applied to adult males who watch My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic? @CitizenPalmer
A: I actually think its pretty clever, but then again, I am a sucker for a good portmanteau. In fact, I guess you could
call me a portmanbreau.
Q: What is the most awesome Hulk panel of all time?
A:

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Ask Chris #56: The Best Supporting Cast in Comics

by Chris Sims May 13, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Whats the best supporting cast in comics? @Protoculture27

A: In a medium thats so driven by serialized storytelling, it is impossible to overstate the importance of a
supporting cast. Sure, the heart of any story is the conflict between the hero and the villain, but especially in superhero comics, the supporting cast provides a viewpoint for readers and interactions that allow for deeper insights
than just boy howdy, this guy sure doesnt like crime.
But while there are a lot of great characters who might not be in the spotlight all the time, super-hero books
provide an interesting problem in figuring out just what a supporting cast member is.Take
the Superman franchise, for example. At first glance, its a clear candidate, if only because Lois Lane and Jimmy
Olsen are two of the best supporting characters ever created. But theyre also something a little more than just
supporting cast members, too, and its hard to figure out how much of what makes them great has to do with
their own adventures, in which Superman is often seen as their supporting cast member.

While its usually pretty safe to refer to a love interest as a member of the supporting cast, it gets
even more complicated when you throw sidekicks into the mix. Do Jimmy Olsen and Robin count as support or are
they main characters in their own right? And what about villains? Is a supporting cast memberanyone in a comic
that isnt the main character?

But when most people say supporting cast in reference to a super-hero comic, they tend to mean anyone who
doesnt have super-powers or dress up like Dracula so that they can battle a renegade botanist, which is the
definition Im going to go with since I dont want to be here all night. But it also means that a few books with really
strong casts get knocked out of the running.
Again, going back to Superman, once you get past Jimmy and Lois, its pretty slim. The most enduring supporting
characters, like Steve Lombard, Cat Grant and the rest of the staff of the Daily Planet are generally pretty onedimensional. I cant really imagine being all that interested in a Steve Lombard solo story and they do exist
and while thats perfectly fine, its also not exceptional.
But that criteria also means that you have to eliminate some comics that would otherwise be strong contenders,
like Paul Grists incredible Jack Staff.

Dont get me wrong, Jack Staff has some of the best, most well-developed and most engaging characters in comics,
but the reason for that is that Grist spends as much time detailing their interconnected adventures as he does on
his title character. It even got to the point where he retitled the series as The Weird World of Jack Staff, reflecting
his focus on the entire fantastic ensemble.
But within those guidelines, it shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone that Im a pretty big fan of Batmans
supporting characters. Not to make this all about the underlying themes of Batman because I wouldnt want to
do that but if the role of the supporting cast is to reflect and illustrate characteristics of the protagonist, his crew
does it better than almost anyone else.
Youve got Commissioner Gordon, the moral center of Gotham City, who wouldve been crushed by the
overwhelming evil without Batman there to give him the opportunity to rise to the top. Youve got Alfred, who

manages to convincingly serve as a father figure for a character whos defined by being an orphan, patching up his
wounds, providing sound advice, and is even occasionally acting as the Mycroft to Batmans Sherlock:

Even characters with smaller roles, like Leslie Thompkins, bring something interesting to the greater mythology.
But the keyword above was almost, and you may want to take note, because I dont say this very often: In this
arena, Batman comes in second.
The best supporting cast in super-hero comics belongs to Spider-Man.

Thats probably not a bold revelation for anyone, since the soap-operatic nature of Spider-Man is what set his
stories apart from others and helped to revolutionize the modern super-hero. The very nature of the secret identity
a legacy that goes back past Superman and through the Scarlet Pimpernel invites a supporting cast that sees
his alter-egos in a different way. But with Spider-Man, the fact that his everyday interactions were just as much of a
draw as his super-villain punch-outs led to creators cultivating (and I apologize for this one) a web of characters
that not only reflected Spider-Man himself, but also emphasized the duality that resulted from leading a double life.
Almost every character in Spider-Mans supporting cast had a vastly different opinion of Peter Parker than they did
of Spider-Man, from Flash Thompson to Harry Osborn to Aunt May to Gwen Stacy. The only one who didnt was
Mary Jane, who was later revealed to have been in on the secret all along, but even that points to an interesting

pattern among his love interests, in that each one represents a different aspect of his life, and theyre all things
most people can relate to pretty easily.

Gwen Stacy is the (absolutely gorgeous) girl that got away, the idealized perfection of his past. Ive mentioned
before that one of the most appealing aspects of Spider-Man is that the cocky, wise-cracking Spider-Man is the guy
that nerdy, introverted Peter Parker always wanted to be and eventually grows into, and the fact that Gwen loves
Peter but is at best deeply suspicious of Spider-Man underscores that fact. Shes stuck in his past, and never really
comes to terms with the person hes becoming as he grows up.
The Black Cat, however, is the (absolutely gorgeous) opposite at least, at first. Shes sexy, dangerous, and
exciting, but shes only interested in the surface. She was interested int he bravado and action that Spider-Man
projected, but in one of the most literal metaphors in comics history, she had no regard at all for the actual person
underneath the mask. She flat-out refuses to acknowledge his past, instead only wanting to move onto the next
thing.
Mary Jane is the (absolutely gorgeous) girl next door whos been there for the whole thing. She knows him better
than anyone else, and in the current version of events, that translates into her knowing him a little too well,
something that tends to happen with people who have seen you from all sides.
Even Spider-Mans newest love, Carlie Cooper, the (absolutely gorgeous) police scientist, brings an interesting new
perspective to things. Shes literally a scientist who catches criminals, and as such, she has the potential to
understand Peter Parker on an intellectual level and his desire to fight crime. I hope she sticks around.
But theres one character that really puts Spider-Mans supporting cast over the top. The man. The myth. The
moustache. Americas greatest newspaperman, J. JONAH JAMESON.

Im nowhere close to kidding when I say that JJJs easily one of my favorite characters of all time, and while a lot of
that has to do with the sheer hilarity of a dude sustaining that level of anger for 50 solid years, hes actually a
surprisingly complex character.
For all intents and purposes, Jonah has as much a claim to being Spider-Mans arch-enemy as anyone else, up to
and including the Green Goblin. He constantly attempts to turn public opinion against Spider-Man through his
newspaper, and hes even been at the source of creating actual super-villains and killer robots to fight him. But at
the same time, when he was being blackmailed for his part in creating the Scorpion, he publicly admitted to it
rather than allowing someone else control that information.
The scene in the Spider-Man movie where Jonah played by J.K. Simmons in the greatest page-to-screen
transition were ever likely to see refuses to give up the identity of the photographer who took pictures of
Spider-Man, even while his life is being threatened, is a great example of the idea that theres an unshakable core of
integrity to him. For all his bluster and seething explosive hate, hes a guy whos deeply committed to the truth, and
he will do everything he can to get that truth in the hands of the people. It just so happens that what he believes to
be the truth is completely wrong.
That said, it says a lot about him that he hired an editor like Joe Robbie Robertson, who is equally committed to
the truth but has never commissioned a machine with the word slayer in the name. Robbies there to keep him
honest.
Jonah also provides one of the most interesting plays on Spider-Mans duality, in that Peter Parker not only has to
betray himself to his own worst enemys propaganda machine to make ends meet by selling photos to the Bugle,
but in doing so, hes secretly violating the truth that JJJ holds above all else, thus proving him right all along. SpiderMan really is a menace!
And none of that has anything to do with Spider-Mans super-heroics. Its the sort of consistent, character-driven
interaction that can only result from a cast thats exceptionally well-defined, and that add an incredible amount to
their stories, and in the world of super-hero comics, it just doesnt get any better.
As for the best supporting cast outside of super-hero stories

I think that about covers it.

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Ask Chris #55: The Justice League of Stand-Up Comedy

by Chris Sims May 6, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: If you had to assemble a team of stand-up comedians to fight crime as the Justice League of Comedy, who
would be in it and why? @Mattchild
A: As someone who got his start as a comedy writer before I got into the downward spiral of pseudo-brainy, selfreferential essays about Batman (see: every other installment of this column), it shouldnt come as a surprise that I
like comics of the stand-up variety almost as much as I like the comics that have two staples and a cover. In other
words, Im a total comedy nerd, and after talking your question over with fellow comedy nerd (and my co-host on
the War Rocket Ajax podcast) Matt Wilson, I think Ive figured out a pretty solid team based on the
Morrison/Porter-era Big Seven lineup.First up, my stand-up stand-in for Superman, Louis CK:

It might seem counterintuitive to give Supermans spot to a guy whos probably best known for some pretty
pessimistic material, but as Matt said in our conversation about it, the guys untouchable. Much in the same way
that Supermans greatest role is as an inspiration to others, CK is often considered to be a Comedians Comedian
and occasionally a Comedians Comedians Comedian, which is just silly. Hes a four-time Emmy Award
nominee as a writer on The Chris Rock Show and Late Night with Conan OBrien, hes constantly producing new
material, and he even named his last special Hilariousand then managed to live up to that title. Heck, this is the guy
who wrote Pootie Tang, the single most underrated comedy of the 2000s!
Currently, hes got a TV show, Louie, that hes writing, producing, directing and starring in with carte blanche from
the network, and if thats not the best analogy in stand-up comedy to Clark Kent singlehandedly keeping the Daily
Planet going for the past 70 years by reporting on his own adventures, then brother, I dont know what is.
Plus, theres a nice level of Superman-style inspiration to his work. Not only did he famously remind people
that everything is amazing right now, an interview in the New York Observer revealed he decided to make TV when
he was a kid because he wanted his mom to have better shows to watch:

I remember thinking in fifth grade, I have to get inside that box and make this s better, he said. Because she
deserves this.
Not gonna lie, folks: That makes me mist up a little like the end of All Star Superman. Granted,
Superman probably wouldnt drop quite so many c-bombs, but other than that, hes a solid fit. Plus, theres the
possibility that a romance would blossom and wed end up with Lois CK, and that would be amazing.
Next up, we have our ersatz Batman: Paul F. Tompkins.

Admittedly, Tompkins is not exactly what youd call a grim avenger of the night, but he does have those snappy 40s
style suits and currently rocks a full-on mustache in the style of Batmans late father. Seriously, how he managed to
not be cast as Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins, I will never be able to figure out.
What really makes him fit the role, though, is the subject matter of his bits. Not only does he have an entire
extended discussion of the term Freak Wharf as an inexplicable slang term for a mental hospital which has
shockingly never been used to refer to Arkham Asylum but he actually has jokes with villains that would fit right
into Gotham City. Vicious dogs, people offering trick cans of Peanut Brittle and a withered old shut-in named
Kilroy who requests meat delivered to his door in real thin slices, real thin slices!? Thats not just a comedy album,
thats the plot to one of those creepy Peter Milligan issues from the early 90s.
Plus, Batman totally prefers cake to pie. Everyone knows that.
Next up is the replacement for the Martian Manhunter, Patton Oswalt:

As far as Im concerned, Jonn Jonzz, the Manhunter From Mars not to be confused with his highly successful
cousin, Geoff Jonzz is a necessary part of the Justice League. Hes been a member of almost every incarnation,
and as a result, as Batman put it in the pages of Justice League International, he understands the group dynamics of
super-heroes better than anyone else.

Patton Oswalt, on the other hand, doesnt quite have the set of super-powers that the Martian Manhunter brings to
the table unelss you consider going from the nerdy villain in the Reno 911! movie a CGI rat to be shapeshifting
but if theres one dude in stand-up who knows a lot about super-heroes, its him. Not just because hes a comic
book fan, but because he actually wrote a JLA story called Welcome to the Working Week thats a) one of the very
few Justice League comics to be named after an Elvis Costello song, and b) actually pretty awesome. Plus, he was
the guy who put the Comedians of Comedy tour together, and if youre familiar with those guys, then you probably
have a pretty good idea of who else is going to make it onto my list.
Stepping into the yellow boots of the Flash: Aziz Ansari.

Im going to go out on a limb here and say that Ansari is probably one of the top two comedians to ever come out of
my home state of South Carolina. Like Wally West, he got his start in stand-up as a teenager, though Im reasonably
certain that electrified chemicals were not involved. I mean, its not out of the question, but Im pretty sure that
wouldve come up.
Anyway, while hes probably best known these days for his role on TVs Parks & Recreation, his stand-up is really
notable for just how fast hes able to build to punchlines, and especially in his earlier stuff, how hed deliver
multiple twists on the same setup before moving right into the next one and then coming back with a callback to an
earlier joke. Even on Parks & Rec, his rapid-fire delivery in scenes like the one where he listed off alternate names
for foods is like being punched in the face at the speed of light with laughs.
And seriously, the world needs Raaaaaaaandy: Reeeeeeeebirth. You can have that one for free, DC Comics.
For Green Lantern, Im gonna go with Maria Bamford.

Bamford came pretty close to being the JLCs version of Martian Manhunter, what with the sheer amount of
characters she does in her act being the stand-up equivalent of shape-shifting, but Green Lantern fits better.

After all, a magic space ring that can create anything you can imagine is the one super-power that has creativity as
a prerequisite, and Bamford has creativity to spare. She is, after all, a woman who did an entire one-hour
homemade special without once getting up from her couch. Seriously, the more I talk about it, the more I actually
want her to have a Green Lantern ring, just to see super-villains slowly backing away from an army of hard-light
constructs speaking in different, over-the-top Minnesotan accents.
And you thought she was going to be Wonder Woman. Sexist.
Wonder Woman, of course, would be Eugene Mirman.

Yes, I know: Eugene Mirman is, in fact, a man. But cmon, if he was good enough to play M.I.A. in a bit with Aziz
Ansari a few years back, Im pretty sure he could fill in for Wonder Woman. Shes all about breaking down those
barriers, yall.
Besides, the core concept of her character is that she came from another land to share her peoples philosophy with
the world. Mirman, on the other hand, emigrated from Russia when he was four so that he could share a truly
hilarious message he got from a band on MySpace on a Comedy Central special. Its basically the exact same thing.
And rounding out our super-heroes, we have Aquaman, played tonight by Zach Galifianakis.

Sweet beards.
Finally, theres one other member of the JLA from the Big Seven era thats unaccounted for: Oracle. And for that,
the only possible choice is Tom Scharpling.

Scharpling isnt a stand-up comic, but as the host of The Best Show On WFMU a weekly radio call-in program
he fits right as the Justice League of Comedys version of the mysterious unseen voice working behind the scenes to
coordinate their actions.
After all, Tompkins is a pretty frequent guest on the show, and a few weeks ago, Patton Oswalt actually called in to
chat while he was on stage at the 40 Watt. Plus, Scharpling and frequent collaborator Jon Wurster have a gang of
fans called the Friends of Tom with different specialties a police officer, a librarian, a soap opera aficionado, a
pastor, Philly Boy Roy, and so on ready to act as their eyes and ears on the ground. In other words, theyre the
FOTs of Prey.
There are a few others that spring to mind swapping Green Arrow for David Cross is probably the most obvious
comic-to-comic switch of all time but I think the ones above are the ones to go with. Ive got to say, though: Its
awfully difficult to think up a scenario where things would get so monumentally dire that a group of comedians
would have to step up to replace the Justice League, and if it ever actually came down to that, Im pretty sure
Brainiac would have us all shrunk down to Bottle City size before breakfast. That said, theyd make a way better
lineup for a rock club tour than the real Justice League, even if Batman did study for years to have perfect timing.
Q: If you had to compare your fellow Comics Alliance staffers to comic book characters, who would be
who? @chrisloxley
A:
Laura Hudson:

Caleb Goellner:

Andy Khouri:

David Uzumeri:

Chris Sims:

Read More: Ask Chris #55: The Justice League of Stand-Up Comedy | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-55-thejustice-league-of-stand-up-comedy/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #54: The Mythology of Jack Kirbys New Gods

by Chris Sims April 29, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Beyond Thor and Hercules, who are the best gods in comics? @Wraithstrike
A: Well, I hate to be pedantic about this because as we all know, the Comics Internet simply cant abide pedantry
but it actually sort of depends on what exactly you mean by gods. If you mean mythological figures that were
actually worshipped by people in the real world, then I have to admit that Thor and Hercules pretty much have that
one sewn up, if only because Ive never really gotten around to reading as many stories of the Monkey King as I
want to.
If, however, you mean any characters that are referred to as gods with a similar aesthetic and scope, then theres
absolutely no question about which ones are the best. Why even bother with the old gods when Jack Kirby gave
us The New Gods?

Comic books are often referred to as modern mythology, but its not quite
the same thing. While both forms tend to center around phenomenally powerful characters engaging in gigantic,
often allegorical battles waged through impossible feats, the modern super-hero tends to have a lot less in common
with classical mythology than they do with folktales and stories of heroes like Robin Hood. The difference is one of
intent: While their stories often do have deeper morals and mean more than just the surface, the primary goal for
the super-hero is to entertain.
Mythology, on the other hand, has its roots in education, rather than just entertainment. It seeks to provide
instruction or answer questions about the world around us by personifying concepts into explanations people
could relate to. Why does the sun rise and set? Because Apollo rides his chariot across the sky. What holds the sky

up? A gigantic dude with some severe back problems. Why do spiders make webs? Because Athenas a really sore
loser.
The fact that these explanations also have the potential to make really entertaining stories What makes that big
boom when its raining? Thor beating giants to death with a hammer is a secondary concern, and one that seems
to be based on getting people to actually listen to the explanations. If classical mythology was more boring, it
wouldnt have survived for thousands of years.
Of course, theres another key element to their survival thats also their biggest similarity to modern super-hero
comics, and thats that the same thing happened with them that happens whenever someone creates a popular
group of characters: The audience wants to know more. So this Thor guy fights giants? That sounds like something
Id like to hear more of, especially if it takes my mind off of chipping through the tundra for four hours so that we
can get the spring planting done. The stories then grow, and the result is that you end up with abstract concepts
and aspects of nature that are viewed through the lens of humanity.
Thats what forms the bridge between explanation and entertainment. The entire reason why we still talk about
mythological gods and heroes thousands of years after anyone thinks that the Sun is actually a dude being dragged
across the sky by horses who lands somewhere off the coast of California every night is because we can relate to
them as people. For all their lofty power, the gods of Greek mythology have very human concerns: Hercules was
strong enough to punch a lion to death, but he still had to wake up in the morning and work 12 jobs he didnt want
to do because he screwed up. Zeus isnt just a gigantic raincloud, hes a dude in a bad marriage who has trouble
relating to his kids and thinks the girl down at the vineyard is pretty hot. Of course, he would also think that the
best way to hit on her would be to transform himself into a swan and hope she was what we in the Internet age
would call a Feathery, but thats beside the point.
The Norse gods went even further by having the one concern thats uniquely and ultimately human: They knew they
were going to die. As a result, while the original intent of explaining why we have rainbows has faded, the
characters themselves endure.
And all that brings us to the 20th century and the world of super-heroes. With their educational value removed by
the advance of science and the fact that we had the actual reasons for natural phenomena, the only thing the heroes
had left was their value as entertaining stories and for the people Kirby was telling stories for, that was a role
that had been supplanted by the comic book super-hero. Even the mythological characters that had survived had
been recast into new roles; the Thor and Hercules that Stan Lee created for Marvel Comics certainly arent the
same characters as their inspirations, if only because Aeschylus never wrote them into a titanic team-up with Iron
Man or Dr. Doom.
In other words, there came a time when the old gods died.

With that in mind and having just recently left the company where hed created the comic book version of Thor,
giving the panel above an added metatextual element Jack Kirby created a series of comic books that were truly
mythological in scope. But rather than dealing with the explanations that the rapidly advancing science of the 20th
century had made irrelevant, he focused on other, more metaphysical questions: What is the nature of good and
evil, and is it possible for one to arise from the other? What does it mean to be free? What does it mean to lose that
freedom? Can the horrors of war and violence be justified? These werent new questions by any means, but they
were the ones people ask that dont have easy, scientifically provable answers, which is why they persist and
inspire stories that explore them.
Of course, Kirbys genius lies in the fact that these are stories that can be read and enjoyed perfectly well on the
surface level as nothing more than epic adventure stories. The underlying ideas that drive mythology are all there
in every character, but seen most clearly in the conflict between Orion, Mr. Miracle and Darkseid.

Of all the Fourth World characters, Mr. Miracle is probably the easiest to read on a metaphorical level, because its
all right there in front of you: The son of Highfather, he was exchanged for the son of Darkseid to seal a nonaggression pact between the idyllic planet of New Genesis and the dystopian Apokolips, and as his greatest attempt
to prove the superiority of Evil, Darkseid imprisoned him and raised him to be a mindless drone, stripped of all
individuality and made into an unthinking soldier who lived only to serve those in charge of his society. Theres
even the fact that the plan was carried out byGranny Goodness, a monster wrapped in the name of something
pleasant, the living embodiment of lies and propaganda.
But instead of succumbing, he escaped, literally removing himself from the very idea of evil. And not only that, but
in doing so, he spread the idea of freedom to others, even luring away Barda the deadliest of Darkseids Female
Furies through the simple, enduring idea of love. She is shown a better way, and rejects the horrors she has been
conditioned to both accept and perpetrate in Darkseids name.

That alone would be a beautiful story, but it seems to rely on the idea that goodness is inherent, and that if you
possess it, you can resist the crush and temptation of evil. Thats part of it, but theres an equally important aspect
to the story that comes from Orion.

If Good and Evil were inherent properties, then Orion wouldve just been Mr. Miracle in reverse he would have
remained evil despite Highfathers best efforts, and returned to his father unchanged. But he doesnt, and thats
one of the most important statements that Kirby makes in the entire New Gods saga: Orion resists Evil simply
because hes been shown a better way to live, which means that in the exchange of children between Highfather
and Darkseid between Good and Evil Darkseid loses three times. From the beginning of the saga, theres no
question about which is more powerful.
Of course, while it comes easily to Mr. Miracle, Orion struggles. ComicsAlliances own David Brothers is fond of
talking about Ann Nocentis highly underrated run on Daredevil, where she inverts the traditional model of superhero comics by characterizing every time Daredevil resorts to violence as a failure. The same holds true with Orion,
whose very nature tends towards violence. Every time hes forced into a fight, every time he loses control, hes
betraying his ideals and theres a level where New Genesis loses and Apokolips wins.

Its also worth noting that the only things that keep him from giving into his tendency for bloodshed are the
teachings of Highfather and the calming influence of the Mother Box. Again, its all right there on the page, and
Kirbys not exactly subtle about it. Its his mother and father, his upbringing, the way that hes raised that shows
him a better way to live.
Kirby, a veteran of World War II who had nightmares about the horrors he saw for the rest of his life, created a
mythology where theres no such thing as a god of war, because the very act of war itself is a losing proposition.
Orion himself refers to it as packaged murder, and at best, its shown to be a regrettable necessity that can never
truly be won through the temporary solution provided by, but by eliminating the root causes of hatred and fear.
Which brings us to Darkseid, the embodiment of hatred and fear, a swaggering bully who devotes himself only to
his own personal gain. But the interesting thing about Darkseid is that hes not just the super-villain space monarch
who sits on a throne plotting destruction. Instead, hes both grand andinsidious, showing up anywhere at any time,
even in your own home:

For all his intimidating physicality, Darkseid is very rarely seen in action. He doesnt punch through a wall and
start trading haymakers with Superman, his actions are geared towards conditioning people to embrace and
exploit their own base hatred and fear. Thats how he wins and remakes the world in his own image, by dividing
humanity and spreading the evil of hate, fear and ignorance, allowing them to believe that they can justify believing
that someone else is somehow less of a person.
Unlike most villains, Darkseids ultimate goal doesnt really involve killing anyone. Hes devoted not to death but
to Anti-Life described by Walter Simonson the outside control of all living thought, a slavery that masquerades
as freedom by allowing its victims to give in to the dark side of humanity. Again: No subtlety whatsoever.
But its what he does. In Forever People, it takes the form of an amusement park where the exhibits are his victims,
conditioning people to ignore the suffering of their fellow man, terrifying the children who realize whats
happening while the adults become more an more jaded. In Mr. Miracle, he commissions a trap for the worlds
greatest escape artist that doesnt involve ropes, chains, or locks, but rather a building full of people who have been

convinced that Mr. Miracle isnt one of them, that hes something other, something that isnt a person and is
therefore there to be destroyed.
It might not be subtle, but at the same time, its hardly the grandstanding form of blow-up-the-world evil that
comic books have a reputation of portraying. This is a villain who exploits the small selfishness that we all see,
experience, and even commit on a daily basis and shows how it all adds up to towering evil, and that makes him
one of the most genuinely terrifying villains in comics. Darkseids not real, but the evil he dabbles in is.
And thats the essence of mythology. As real as Darkseids evil is, the struggle that Orion experiences to avoid
giving in is just as real, as is the desire for freedom that drives Mr. Miracle. Its designed to teach something as well
as entertain, and it succeeds.

Q: I want to read Maggin and Bates Superman, but I need a good starting point. Are there any trades for
that, and if not what are the best back issues to get? @GentlemanMonstr

A: Its actually not a comic, but if you really want to get some excellent work by Elliot S! Maggin,
then you should definitely track down the two Superman novels that he wrote, Last Son of Krypton and Miracle
Monday. Theyre honestly some of the best Superman stories ever told in any medium, and theyre cheap enough
that I often see em floating around conventions for a buck each.
Failing that, Ive talked a few times about the amazing three-issue Lex Luthor/Superman team-up story that Cary
Bates did in Action Comics #510 512 thats well worth picking up.
Q: Are there any women comic book writers/artists? Can you recommend your favorites (if you have
any)? Amanda, via email
A: Oh yeah, theres a bunch, and in fact, Marvel just recently did a three issue anthology series called Girl
Comics that was produced entirely by women. As far as personal favorites, artwise, Im a huge fan of Colleen Coover
(currently drawing Top Shelfs Gingerbread Girl, which is available to read online), Amanda Conner, Emma Rios,
and Ramona Fradon was one of the best artists of the Silver Age. As far as writers, I like an awful lot of what Gail
Simones done particularly her old Deadpool/Agent X run and Kelly Sue DeConnick is doing a great story at
Marvel with Osborn.
And in webcomics, theres even more: Ming Doyle draws The Loneliest Astronauts, Jess Fink does the amazing
erotic victorian robot romance comic Chester 5000 (NSFW), JoJo Seames draws Monster Plus, and Sheli Hay
draws Troop Infinity. And thats just off the top of my head.
Q: Who the hell is Jake Friedfeld? @ageofarune
A: I think Jazzy Jake Friedfeld was a character who appeared in exactly one issue of Patsy Walker as a soda jerk
with a crush on the title character. He stared longingly while filling up a root beer float for Patsy and Buzz, only to
become distracted and have it spill on his shoes, punctuating the strip with his would-be catchphrase Aw
ploppers! Apparently reader outcry was so strong that he was never seen again.

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Ask Chris (About Batman) #54: Why Doesnt Batman Kill?

by Chris Sims April 22, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Batmans no kill policy: when did it start in the comics and what do you see as the limits of it? (Killing vs.
Not Saving) @ELB_Brian
A: All right, guys, look. I know that these last few weeks of Ask Chris have been even more Batman-centric than
usual, and I fully intended to focus on something else this week to give everyone a break. But then this one came
along, and I just cant resist.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, there actually are other things that I like and know stuff about, and Ill get to
them. Just not this week, because the the history of whether or not Batman should kill people and why is one

that I have some very strong feelings on.

Batmans policy against killing and
specifically the use of a gun is one that crops up from time to time in discussions of the character, and it always
really bugs me when someone brings up the idea that the original Batman carried guns and killed people, which
is technically true, but doesnt quite reflect what was going on in those comics. I know, youre all shocked that Im
bothered when people are wrong on the Internet about Batman the single worst sin a man can commit but the
whole idea of the Original Batman is a false construct thats completely dispelled if you go back and look at the
timeline of how the character developed, and it had a lot less to do with Batman himself than the influences his
creators were inspired by.
First, the facts: In the stories immediately after his first appearance in 1939, Batman did carry a gun and had a
much more casual attitude towards the death of his opponents that saw him occasionally killing people. In fact, in
his Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Michael Fleisher describes the first year of Golden Age Batman
stories as having a grim brutality in which easily a score of criminals die by his hand.
The most common example of this aspect of the early Batman stories probably because of how much its been
reprinted over the years is his first appearance in Detective Comics #27, in which Batman slugs a neer-do-well
so hard that he falls into a vat of acid

and responds with a brusque a fitting end for his kind. Theres just no way around it: the Batman who appears
in The Case of the Chemical Syndicate is a stone cold killer, and the following issues, where he packs an
automatic and occasionally stomps a dude to death seem to back that up:

But I think theres a misconception among a lot of readers that this was the original intent of the creators, and that
the murderous, gun-toting Batman persisted until Dr. Wertham or the Comics Code or even the 1966 TV show
arrived and forced a change that toned him down. But by going back and reading through those first couple years
of Batman stories, its easy to see that this wasnt the case at all. The fact of the matter is that this original
version of Batman lasted about two years.
By 1940s Batman #4, in a story by co-creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane which is about as definitive as you can
get Batman reminds Robin that we never kill with weapons of any kind.
As crazy as it might sound, the Batman who killed in those early stories wasnt really Batman or at least, not
Batman as hed become, and certainly not Batman as we think of him today. Keep in mind that when these stories
were told, Batman wasnt just a new character, he was a new character in an entirely new medium. The Golden Age
is full of comics by people that were driven as much by the desire to create stories as they were by the sudden
and extremely lucrative popularity that medium was enjoying after Superman became such a massive success.
These were guys who were literally just making it up as they went along, and as a result, the stories and their
internal continuity took a few years to settle down and become a coherent whole.
To give you an idea of just how mutable these stories were, consider this: The single most important thing about
Batman as a character, the fact that his parents were murdered and his decision to become a vigilante to avenge

their deaths, did not exist until six months after he was created. The murder, the vow, the bat crashing through
the window, everything that we think of as the core of his character didnt appear until Detective Comics #33, and
thats only the start of the idea of Batman becoming a cohesive, unique entity. Before that, hes definitely
recognizable as a prototype, but hes not Batman just yet.
Of course, if the guy running around in a Batman costume fighting crime in those early stories isnt Batman, that
raises the question of who he actually is, and thats an easy one to answer. Hes The Shadow.

Ive mentioned before that Batman was influenced by a variety of sources including the brand-new super-hero and
Sherlock Holmes, but there was nothing Finger and Kane drew from in those early issues more than the Shadow.
The millionaire playboy alter-ego, the spooky presence, even the fact that he flies around in an autogyro and
battles against mad scientists and Yellow Peril caricatures, those were all things lifted from the Shadow and so
were the guns and the killing.
It was only later that Batman was fully realized as his own character rather than just a knockoff, and thats
something even the creators seemed to realize. I dont think its a coincidence that Bill Finger revisited the end of
The Case of the Criminal Syndicate for the beginning of another story where Batman knocked a crook into a
chemical plants vat of acid, only to have him survive and return as the Joker.
Of course, that sudden shift in 1940 wasnt the last time Batman would be shown as a killer. In the 80s,
presumably spurred by a desire for comics in general and Batman specifically to be more mature in the wake of
books like The Dark Knight Returns in which, it should be noted, the Batman doesnt kill there was a sudden
rush of comics that showed him to be, at the very least, pretty unconcerned about the matter of people dying
around him.
Specifically, two creators that had Batman crossing the line are Jim Starlin and Mike W. Barr, who are actually
two of my all-time favorite Batman writers. Starlin wrote the very first Batman comic I ever read, but even that
features Batman baiting two crooks into blowing each other away with uzis while he casually leaps out of a
crossfire, and Ten Nights of the Beast a story that I am way more fond of than anyone actually should ends
with Batman locking the KGBeast in a sewer and leaving him there to starve to death. Marv Wolfman would later
retcon it so that Batman eventually tipped off the authorities making the whole thing into one gigantic Time Out
for a guy who killed a hundred Gothamites in 4 issues but the original intent is clear.
Barr, though, is even more bloodthirsty. Again, hes one of my favorites Fear For Sale is one of the best Batman
stories ever, and I recently listed The Doomsday Book from Detective #572 as an underrated classic.
Unfortunately, not only does Batman use a thug as a human shield in that story

he also wrote a story called Messiah of the Crimson Sun where Batman just straight up kills Ras al-Ghul, and
then when Robin points this out, he responds with Did I, Robin? Did I? Yes, Batman. Yes, you did. You used a
remote control to override his spaceship controls and flew him into a giant laser beam, then opened the hatch so
that his ashes were blown out into the vacuum of space.
Ras came back of course thats what Ras does but Batman has no reason to believe that he will after one of
the most thorough murders in comics history. He threw his ashes into space.
For me, though, both of those things fall squarely into the category of Plot Points I Completely Ignore, because as
far as Im concerned, Batman Does Not Kill is one constant, immutable traits of the character, as much an
inherent and necessary part of him as anything else. There are plenty of metatextual reasons for it ranging from
the nature of the super-hero as something that appeals to children to the fact that if Batman actually killed the
Joker, then we wouldnt get any more Joker stories and that would suck but there are also equally valid instory reasons for it.
And again, theyre often misconstrued, both by readers and by the creators. Theres a scene in Judd Winicks run
where Jason Todd confronts Batman and flat-out asks him why he doesnt just kill the Joker which, all things
considered, is a pretty fair question and Batman answers by telling him that it would be too easy and that its a
slippery slope that, much like Pringles, once he popped, he would not be able to stop.

Thats nonsense.
Batmans a guy who trained himself to be the worlds best martial artist and a guy who could solve crossword
puzzles in his head while cross-referencing crime locations with Italian clown operas. He came back from a broken
back through sheer force of will and beat an addiction to Venom in a weekend by locking himself in his basement
and growing a beard. Im pretty sure that if he set his mind to killing the Joker and then not committing any more
murders, he could probably make that happen.
I actually like the scene up to that point and its portrayal of Jason Todds pretty legitimate beef with Batmans
policy, but its the halfhearted, wishy-washy oh but I want to! exploration of why Batman doesnt kill completely
tanks it for me. The only reason that Batman should give as to why he doesnt kill is that the Batman doesnt kill.
Thats all there is to it.
But there is an underlying reason for it, and its one that the scene above doesnt touch. And it all hinges on the idea
that Batman is a crimefighter. Thats a very specific word thats applied to Batman for a very specific reason, and
it encapsulates the very specific aspect that separates him from other characters. At its core, the idea of Batman is
one thats extremely oppositional, and its set not just against evil in general, but the very concept of capitalC Crime.
It seems contradictory given that in many ways, Batman is a criminal himself, a vigilante who operates outside the
law with methods and that are certainly illegal. Fleishers encyclopedia even includes a list of Batmans
particularly flagrant violations of civil liberties and due process that sprawls out over two pages. And thats only
the notable ones, in a book that was published 30 years ago.
But if were going to accept Batman as a hero and I think its pretty clear at this point that I have then there
needs to be a clear demarcation of what separates the idea of Batman from the idea of Crime. And thats the easiest
thing in the world to figure out.

Batmans entire idea of Crime, his entire perception of what it means to break the rules set down by society,
descends from exactly one moment: his parents murder. That one act, the taking of a life, is the defining moment
of his life, and it defines what he swears to battle against. The very act of killing another person is what he has
devoted his whole life to working against, and its complete and utter anathema to him.
Its also why he doesnt use guns. In his mind, a gun is quite literally the weapon of a criminal the only criminal
that matters, the one that represents Crime as an overarching enemy, a force that Batman has to reckon with. In his
world, theres a symbolism to a gun thats just as powerful as the symbol that is Batman: as much as he terrifies the
superstitious, cowardly lot that make up Crime, the gun is what terrifies a populace thats been made afraid of
criminals.
Its these layers of symbolism and concepts literalized into characters that make Batman so compelling as a
character and, and what defines his existence on a metaphorical level. For Batman, Crime is killing, and the
opposite of Crime is Batman.
As to the limits of this rule, thats a little bit more of a gray area. Theres a common interpretation of Batman as
someone who just doesnt want anyone to die, ever, and while thats certainly a valid interpretation up to a point, I
think it centers far more on the act of murder as a criminal transgression. For me, it comes down to two simple
concepts that are etched in stone: Batman doesnt kill, and Batman will not allow one person to kill another.
These two rules apply to everyone, from Commissioner Gordon on down to the Joker, and as long as theyre in
place, I think of the portrayal of Batman as valid. Anything beyond those is just set dressing.
The idea of killing versus not saving, is a much more metaphysical one that really comes down to whether your
personal philosophy equates inaction with an evil act. The infamous I wont kill you, but I dont have to save you
scene is my least favorite part of Batman Begins, but at the same time, stories where Batman does more than the
bare minimum and goes out of his way to save the Joker at great personal risk always ring really false for me.

All things being equal, Id probably prefer Batman to rescue everyone if it comes down to it because it feels more
traditionally heroic, but Id prefer it if that situation never happened again. At this point, that Batman stops the
Joker from slipping on a banana peel and falling into an open volcano or whatever, he starts to look less like a hero
and more like an idiot who should probably just let that one take its course.

Read More: Ask Chris (About Batman) #54: Why Doesnt Batman Kill? | http://comicsalliance.com/batmankills/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #53: Batman vs. Harry Potter

by Chris Sims April 15, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Im having a very heated debate with my friend Jordan. She claims Harry Potter could defeat Batman in
a fight. I claim she doesnt know squat about anything. Harrys parents died and he, over the course of
several years, becomes a whiny brat. Bruce Waynes parents died and he, over the course of several years,
becomes the ultimate weapon. I really dont think I need much more proof. I figured that turning to the
worlds leading Batmanologist may help her see the errors in her ways. Andrew, via email
A: Considering that I worked the counter at a comic book store for six years, Ive settled more than my fair share of
this type of question, since arguing about who would win in a fight is the #2 national pastime for nerds, right
behind complaining about things that no force on Earth could stop them from buying. To be honest, it can a little
tiresome sometimes, but you have appealed to me as both a Batmanologist and a Harry Potter fan. So if I dont
answer this one, who will?
Except for every literally single person on Fanfiction.net, I mean.

For starters, though, I have to say that youre way off-base in your assessment of Harry.
The characterization of him as a whiny brat is one that I see cropping up all over the place, and its a complete
misreading of the character. Yes, he can be moody and petulant, but hes a teenager. And lets be real here: If you
werent moody and petulant when you were a teenager, then thanks for reading ComicsAlliance, Your Holiness the
Dalai Lama.
Also, its worth noting that Harrys got some stuff going on that significantly exacerbates his problem. Think about
what you were griping about when you were in high school, and the events that led you to declare that only [The
Smiths/The Cure/Nirvana/Violent J] understood what you were going through. Now think about how well you
wouldve handled it if there was ACTUALLY A DUDE WHO WANTED TO MURDER YOU AND COULD DO SO BY
POINTING AT YOU WITH A STICK. And also he has an entire army of people who know where you sleep. And at
one point he secretly controls the government.
Ill give you that hes a privileged jock who is allowed to do whatever he wants because hes the ultimate teachers
pet and anyone who even makes the slightest attempt to get him to abide by the rules is immediately categorized
as a villain, but whiny brat? All things considered, Harry does better than most people wouldve just by being
willing to get out of bed in the morning.

Youve also set up a false equivalence in their origin stories. They seem to have the primary
factor in common on the surface wealthy parents murdered by a criminal but being orphaned is such a
prerequisite for becoming a protagonist that it barely even counts when figuring out what heroes have in common.
Ive written about this before, but one of the most important factors in Batmans origin isnt just that his parents
are killed, but that that the very concepts of comfort and safety that hes known for his entire life are taken away
from him in one brutal moment. The fact that hes old enough to comprehend that but still young enough to believe
that the proper response is to grow up into something that can change the world by sheer force of will is a crucial
element of how and why he works.
Harry, on the other hand, doesnt have that. His parents are killed when hes an infant, so he has only vague
memories of them, and until Hagrid shows up to cart him off to Hogwarts when hes 11, he has no reason at all to
swear vengeance since he thinks they died in a car crash. As a result, the absolute misery of his upbringing with the
Dursleys gives him a completely different idea of home and safety than what young Bruce Wayne grows up
with. Even when his surrogate parent Sirius dies later on, hes not motivated by what hes lost, but rather the
knowledge that he never had something. Its close, but theres a difference, and it comes from the fact that he
formed his entire concept of what the world is while three people who absolutely hated him kept him so far down
he didnt even know what up was.
But that in itself points to a major difference between the two characters: Harry just takes it, and does absolutely
nothing to improve his own situation. Now admittedly, hes a kid, and theres a metaphorical significance to both
stories that as children, theyre powerless to stop bad things from happening to them. But at the same time, the end
result is that Harrys origin is a very passive one. He sits in the cupboard under the stairs for a decade after his
parents murder and its only through someone elses actions the arrival of the letter from Hogwarts that
things change. This, by the way, is another key difference: While Voldemort murdering his parents is a crucial act in
the story that sets things in motion for everything around him, the defining change of Harrys life is the day he
finds out hes a wizard.
But still, the passivity is there from the start. Its a fact of storytelling that heroes tend to be reactive rather
than proactive, as the villain always has to be the one to make the first move. Without Prince John and the Sheriff
oppressing the people of Nottingham, Robin Hoods just a weird dude who lives in the woods.
For Harry, however, this problem is writ large. He very rarely acts without being led or forced into it by outside
forces, whether its Dumbledore giving him a nudge in the right direction (the climax of Prisoner of Azkaban),
enemies setting him up (the entirety of Goblet of Fire), manipulation from Voldemort (the trip to the ministry
in Order of the Phoenix). Even the big adventure of Deathly Hallows isnt just set into motion by Dumbledores will,
but Dumbledore himself has to come back from the dead to give him a pep talk and set him on the path to victory.
Even the formation of Dumbledores Army is originally Hermiones idea, and its Neville who keeps it going as the
Hogwarts Liberation Front.

Thats by no means a flaw of the Harry Potter books. Its quite the contrary: the depth of the supporting cast is one
of the books best features, and if anything, the fact that Harry is essentially swept up in a conflict between two
other guys Dumbledore and Voldemort thats largely beyond his understanding makes him a much more
relatable character than someone like Ron Weasley, for whom the bizarre is completely normal. The Wizarding
World needs to be overwhelming for Harry, because it needs to be overwhelming and tantalizing and bigger than
life for the readers who are meant to identify with him. His strength lies in resilience, conviction and the power of
believing in whats right and being willing to fight for it when it comes down. But the flipside to that is that things
happen to Harry.
Batman, meanwhile, is anything but passive. He knows eactly what hes going to do from the moment his parents
get shot, and as far as Im concerned, hes got Alfred on the phone with karate schools the next day. Hes often in the
same reactive situation as Harry, but the difference is that hes as much of a scheming mastermind as his villains,
just working for the side of good. Even when hes not actively out on the streets punching out the Joker, hes always
fighting crime, whether through preparation or by making proactive moves like the recent founding Batman Inc. so
that the Batman can be everywhere.

For Batman, the victory is in the preparation, and over time, thats become one of the aspects that defines
Batman as a character, and in a broader sense defined his literary ancestors like Sherlock Holmes, who always had
the piece of knowledge and the skill at observation to solve whatever problem presents itself.
It also leads to one of the most frequent misreadings of Batman, especially with regards to Mark Waid and Howard
Porters Tower of Babel storyline, where Batman is revealed to have been keeping files on how to take down the
rest of the JLA. Thats not Batman being a jerk, and its not even really Batman figuring out how to take out his
friends if he needs to. Thats Batman being a character who lives in a world where having to fight off an evil version
of the JLA from another dimension or a worm from space who can control minds or a disembodied spirit that can
possess Superman is a very real problem that happens about once every three months, and having to figure out a
way to deal with it. Its dedication to the necessity of staying a step ahead of evil no matter what form it takes. If
you engage Batman, then youve already lost.
By constrast, Harry succeeds through the (equally valid) mixture of luck, determination, and the help of his friends.
He gets more on top of things by the end of the series, but for most of it he does absolutely zero preparation other
than just learning stuff in school, and even there, hes not really one to apply himself. Its underscored in Goblet of
Fire, when he puts off figuring out the Second Task until the last minute, and his achievements in all three are
directed by an outside source.
Of course, its also worth noting that Goblet of Fire is a book that does feature a character who advises constant
vigilance and preparation no matter how unpleasant against ones enemies, and that he spends the entire
book beaten up, naked and imprisoned in a trunk. Clearly, we have JK Rowlings opinion on the matter.
Taking all that into consideration, theres really no doubt in my mind of how a fight between the two would end.

Theres one crucial element at play that decides this thing faster than anything else, and its very simple: Harry
Potter uses a wand.
Assuming the characters know the bare minimum of information about each other Batman knows Harrys a
wizard, Harry knows that despite appearances, Batmans not some sort of ninja Dementor so that he doesnt waste
time trying to take him down with Expecto Patronum then the only question is whether Harry Potter can say
three syllables in Fake Latin and manage to hit a moving target used to dodging gunfire with a Stunning
Spell before Batman disarms him from thirty feet away with a piece of metal shaped like his own logo.
There is no possible way that this happens. Not on Harrys best day, not on Batmans worst.
And thats pretty much that. You take away Batmans utility belt and hes still Batman. Hes still one of the worlds
greatest martial artists and tactical thinkers with years of experience fighting different opponents. Take away
Harrys wand and hes a nearsighted high school student with really good reflexes. Sorry, Harry.

Admittedly, there is a scene in Identity Crisis where Zatannas able to get a spell off on Batman before he can throw
the Batarang, but a) she doesnt have to aim, and b) if youre basing an argument on the events of Identity Crisis,
then we both know youve already lost.
Of course, the real end result of all this is that the second Batman hears theres an extremely pale dude with a high,
cruel laugh going around offing peoples parents, he and Harry would of course team up to throw the Death Eaters
back in Azkaban Asylum.

Read More: Ask Chris #53: Batman vs. Harry Potter | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-53-batman-vs-harrypotter/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #52: Shaolin vs. Caveman, Batman vs. Hamlet

by Chris Sims April 8, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Care to explain to the people at Periscope Studio why a Shaolin Monk would of course kick the crap out
of a caveman? @padnick

A: For those of you who dont know, I recently did an interview with Hulk writer Jeff
Parker where he revealed that Periscope Studio of which Parker, Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover, Erika Moen, David
Hahn and others are members is evenly divided on one absolutely crucial issue: Who would win in a fight
between a Shaolin monk and a caveman? Unsurprisingly, Parker himself sides with the caveman.
He is also the wrongest wrong in Wrongtown, and will be giving the keynote speech at WrongCon 2011.Dont get
me wrong, I like Parker a lot, and Im certainly pro-caveman in almost all aspects of life that arent sitcoms based
on insurance commercials. I even like it when theyre together, like when Parker created Harrison Oogar, the
Caveman of Wall Street in the pages of Age of the Sentry.

No lie, Cavemen are great, and theyre only made better by the fact that theyre less memetically played out than
pirates or ninjas. But for an otherwise rational person to consider even for a moment that a caveman would be able
to defeat someone who has mastered the 36 chambers is so ludicrous that I cant even begin to comprehend it.

Considering that he writes Hulk, it shouldnt surprise anyone that Parkers

argument is based around the cavemans greatest strength: Savage, unflinching brutality. The archetypical
caveman in this scenario is almost more beast than man, who faces off against a mammoth armed only with a spear
whenever he gets hungry and doesnt even bother to develop language because smashing your head with a rock
is something that everyone already understands.
Its this overwhelming toughness and a determination honed by literally having to fight every day for your very
survival that Parker thinks will carry the caveman to victory. He even cites the opening scene of the X-Files movie
where a bunch of cavemen fearlessly attack a bunch of aliens.
I sympathize with the idea, but honestly? If your go-to example for any argument is something from the XFiles movie, then youre on some pretty shaky ground to begin with, buster.

The Shaolin monk on the other hand the kind that you find in comics, anyway
is the opposite. While the caveman fights instinctively and is driven by the urge to survive, the monk fights with a
determination honed by a desire to achieve something more than survival. Namely, accoridng to Marvel Comics,
theyre after the rising and advancing of the spirit, and if a lifetime of watching Shaw Bros. movies has taught me
anything, its that they go about this by harnessing the fundamental forces of the universe into techniques with
names like The Six Harmonies Fist and The Five Poisons Hand.
The caveman, on the other hand, has a stick. He hits things with it.
The question here isnt just one of whether its cooler to survive in a world seems to be actively trying to kill you by
beating things into submission with a club or to master the Force of Buddhas Palm; its a question of brute force
versus technique. You can certainly win a fight by simple overwhelming strength and by being able to endure
more punishment than your opponent, but all things being equal, the guy who knows how to fight is going to beat
the guy who just swings a club while grunting every time. Especially if he can hit him five times and make his heart
explode.
Unfortunately, I cant prove this textually since dont actually know of any comics where a Shaolin monk fights a
caveman, mostly due to the fact that Marvel has yet to hire me to write a story where Shang Chi, the Master of Kung
Fu gets zapped back in time to Jack Kirbys X-Age to fight Stone Hand of the Valley. I can however, offer up the next
best thing.
The caveman part is easy: DCs Vandal Savage is an actual caveman who was granted immortality and increased
strength by the rays of a meteorite, making him a super-caveman. The shaolin part is a little trickier, but if you

break it down into the core characteristics Ive already listed determined, studied his entire lifetime, mastery of
the martial arts, fights with intelligence then it starts to sound like someone we know.
You guys can probably see where Im going with this.

In The Return of Bruce Wayne #1, Batman is sent back to caveman days and ends up throwing down with Vandal
Savage in the oldest of old school battles. Its not exactly the perfect Shaolin vs. Caveman fight, but considering that
Batman is a disciplined, highly trained martial artist known for employing thought and strategy, so despite the fact
that he ends up dressed as a caveman, he fits in pretty well as a substitute for Shaolin.
Its important to note that at this time, Vandal Savage is the toughest, most hardcore people-eating caveman of all.
So hows that work out for him?

He gets cold dropped, Mortal Kombat style.

Now admittedly, your average Shaolin monk would not have a gas-powered grappling hook to use in the fight, but
if were going to start going down that road, your average caveman also wouldnt have crazy super meteor strength
either. Plus, if youre going to give a caveman his club and a caveman without a club is just a hairy naked dude
with bad teeth then the Shaolin monk gets the equipment that he would use, including the most gruesome
weapon ever conceived!

The Flying Guillotine! Sure, spears and clubs are handy for taking down mammoths and asserting your superiority
over fire, but can a caveman decapitate an opponent with what is essentially a razor frisbee? No. No he can not.
In my mind, theres absolutely no contest here. The only way that a caveman stands a chance against a Shaolin
monk is if that caveman happens to be Jack Kirbys Moon Boy, who has a giant Tyrannosaurus that was born in the
fires of a volcano doing the actual fighting.

Unless he has access to a dinosaur which ranks only below a Dracula on my exhaustive mental chart of who
beats who then that caveman is getting Shaolind all over this piece.
And thats real.

Q: To what extent do you think the Hamlet and Batman mythoi share archetypal features (as Morrison
alluded to in Last Rites)? @blueturnsred

A: Aside from the fact that theyre both out to avenge a dead parent or two, I dont think Batman and Hamlet have
much in common as characters at all, and even that isnt all that similar. The Wayne family, as Ive mentioned
before, represents a sort of pure, idealized world for Bruce Wayne, Hamlet has to deal with his mother being at
best complicit in and at worst an accessory to his fathers murder, and the actual culprit is his uncle. Theres no
idealized family, even his deceased father, who hounds him from beyond the grave in disappointment.
Hamlet is also famously characterized by his indecision and inaction, which lead directly to the deaths of almost
everyone in the play, and even when he does finally decide to act, he screws up and kills Polonius by accident. In
most versions of the Batman story, on the other hand, Bruce Wayne knowsimmediately what he has to do after his
parents are murdered, and the only question is how he can go about it.
You could argue that theres a connection there; Hamlet knows hes supposed to kill Claudius but doesnt know
how, just as Bruce Wayne knows he wants to fight crime, but the difference is that while both men receive omens
(the ghost of Hamlets father and the bat crashing through the window), Hamlets tells him what to do, and
Batmans tells him how to do it.
In the end, though, Hamlet is forced to act by the pressure of a duty that he has no real desire to fulfill he tries to
weasel his way out of it constantly, even trying to convince himself that maybe Claudius is innocent, or that he
probably shouldnt run him through while hes praying, and oh the hell with it maybe he should just kill himself to
get out of it. With Batman, however, there might be a sense of duty involved, but I dont think theres ever a doubt
that this is what Bruce Wayne wants to do. He completely lacks Hamlets reluctance and becomes a far more
proactive character, and all things considered ends up much happier.
I got the feeling from that page that Morrison was setting up something similar to his response to a question of
whether he thought Superman was a Christ figure. To some extent, of course, he is its an unavoidable
comparison when youre dealing with a monumentally powerful, totally good man raised by normal people after
being sent to Earth from above but Morrison joked that Western religion would be a whole lot different if God
had sent Jesus to Earth right before Heaven exploded.

Along the same lines, I dont think Morrisons looking for similarities here, but rather underscoring the differences,
and not just between Batman and Hamlet themselves. Its part of a larger sequence about how Robin brightens
things up with his very presence in the story. The story of Hamlet would certainly be a whole lot different if he was
more like Batman, but it would be equally different if the other connection that Morrison makes had been true.
If Horatio had been more like Robin, a bright source of happiness to counterbalance Hamlets introspective
brooding, rather than just the passive scholar who serves as a sounding board for Hamlet to bounce soliloquies off
of, then he probably wouldnt have ended up being the only guy left onstage at the end of Act 5 who hadnt been
poisoned to death.
Thats where I think the comparison is. The superficial similarities between Batman and Hamlet just serve to
underline how important Robin is for the character in terms of changing the tone of his story, something not quite
so dark that keeps it from turning into a tragedy.

Read More: Ask Chris #52: Shaolin vs. Caveman, Batman vs. Hamlet | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-52shaolin-vs-caveman-batman-vs-hamlet/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris: Terrifying Gypsy Curse Edition

by Chris Sims April 1, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: It seems like every super-hero has to have some kind of terrible tragedy in their past to motivate them.
Who do you think has the most screwed up reason to fight crime? Erin, via email
A: Well, Batmans parents were straight up murdered in front of him, so thats pretty hard to top. You could say
Supermans circumstances were worse, seeing as his entire planet was vaporized, but he was just a baby at the
time. And Dick Graysons parents deaths were just poor ripoffs of Bruces origin.

You guys know Im going to lean towards Batman every time, and, well, this time isnt any different. Hands down,
he wins the most horrific origin when you take into account psychological trauma.
You guys know Im going to lean towards Batman every time, and, well, this time isnt any different. Hands down,
he wins the most horrific origin when you take into account psychological trauma.
Q: Would the My Little Pony ponies be more of a competent foe for G.I. Joe than Cobra? Can they even use
guns? What colors would their lasers be? @leapindog
A: Its like you have just stepped into my wheelhouse, looked around, took inventory, and come up with this
question. First, I cant imagine ANYONE being less competent than Cobra. So just from being sentient beings the
Ponies have the advantage.
Second, the Ponies are smart enough to strap the lasers to their sides. If they even need the lasers. I mean, come on,
they are led by Celestia, the Pharaonic God-Empress of Equestria who has domain over the sun. She could beat
Superman if she wanted to!

Q: Diminish the self. Reduce your mind to fragments and then reassemble them. The man you have become
is not fit for this Urth, this plane, these lives. Look at your reflection, see who HE is, then discover who YOU
are. Do zla boga. Do ZLA BOGA. DO ZLA BOGA, DO JASNEJ CHOLERY, CHOLERY, CHOLERY. anonymous, via
chicken blood written on my door
A: Now, this one was weird, you guys. I swear I heard this same nonsense phrase last week when I was walking out
of a Gamestop. I had just traded an evolved Purrloin for a legendary Woobat and I had my head buried in my
Nintendo DS and wasnt really watching where I was going. So, of course I walk right into this crazy homeless
persons little nest next to the Gamestop dumpster!
She started yelling at me in some foreign language and I tried to explain to her that I totally bilked a twelve-year
old out of his rare Conkeldurr, but she wouldnt listen and just kept screaming. Im not sure what her problem is,
but since then every time I look in the mirror its like I see an extra shadow on the other side that I cant account
for.

If anyone can translate that phrase for me, let me know! Maybe she wanted to trade me an Amoonguss, a doublemushroom pokmon who totally has pokball extremities. Yes, this is a thing that exists.

Q: Hey Chris! Love your column. I just wanted to know what you think about Tommy Wiseaus next project.
I heard its a horror film. What do you think? @dorealis
A: I think its brilliant. Tommy Wiseau is such a terrible actor, so if you can play off of that thenHold on. Im sorry, Im having trouble concentrating. I try to think about Tommy Wiseau and I just I cant see very
well right now.

I need to move on to the next question, my mind feels foggy when I try to think about this, Im sorry, Im sorry.
Q: Hulk vs Macho Man, who you got? @zoom2
A: Now heres a question! But you have to clarify are we talking Macho Man, Intercontinental Champion years? Or
when he teamed up with Ultimate Warrior? Or, even better, when he was a member of the NWO?
And THEN, you have to specify which Hulk. Which is even more complicated once you start getting into the
different colors, the different brains, the different realitiesReality. This reality vs. the mirror. I see myself in the glass, but I cant catch my own eyes. I look nervous, afraid,
sweating. Why do I not want to see myself? Who am I afraid of seeing? Chris Sims. Chris Sims. Its me Its only
me!

Right?
Q: Do you think Jimmy Olsen could keep a job at a real newspaper? Richard, via email

A: Regular Ask Chris readers already know of my love for Jimmy Olsen, so you know Ive pretty much considered
every Olsen-centric question.
I think I think My mind is heavy, right now. I cant explain it.
Thinking of giant turtle Olsen, he could hold down a job pretty much anywhere, but you know
Ah.
Ah, I see. In there, I am not Chris Sims. I am still myself, but No. I looked! He looked! His forehead, damp with
sweat, its peeling back. Its Its an eye! An extra eye, a third eye. And its staring at me. It burns, it burns, my self
burns from the gaze of this eye. I feel myself falling, falling, falling to pieces. My self, a puzzle that needs to be
solved.

Yes, Jimmy Olsen could keep a job at a real newspaper.

Q: Whats the worst thing John Byrnes ever written? Do you think he could ever really write something
great again considering all the terrible things hes said? @lakitusdong
A: An angel, one winged, flying down through the suns roof, I see it now, I see it, it comes, IT COMES FOR ME, I
CANNOT SPEAK, MY EYES RENDERED BLIND, MY I SEE IT, IT HAS LANDED BEHIND ME, BEHIND YOU. Turn around, Chris Sims, please, stop staring at me with that
eye and LOOK BEHIND YOU, THE ANGEL, THE ANGEL is a pony. a small pony. it says it is mine. i ask for no ownership, i ask the pony to hold on to its agency, its own
sense of self, but it gives itself up, up to me, it has become a PART OF ME.
My pony.
My little pony.

Q: Do you think Batman would run as a Republican or Democrat? Kary, via email
A: Batman. The word has lost its meaning. Ive said it often. So often. Its become robbed of its power. I think of the
air as Batman, the unknown particles that keep us all alive Batman, the trees, the people, space, all of everything
ever who am i, who i am
batman
batman

batman
batman
bat
ba

man
tm
an

whh

my identity, sense of self, diminishing. chris sims, I cant see him, cant feel him. can you see me? or am I looking at
myself through this screen? Im lost, feverish, the sweat pouring off my forehead, my fore head, its splitting, its
open, I CAN SEE I CAN SEE NOW, LOOK AT ME FOR I CAN SEE!
I journey through self, afraid, marching, and I have no choice in the matter.
Chris Sims
Batman
Chris Sims Batman
ChrisSimsBatman
chrissimsbatman
Ch
Ba
Ri
Ss
Tm
Si

An
Ms
Basic Mans Mirths
Starch Imams Bins
Shaman Bit Scrims
Batman Chris Sims

Its me. Im here. Im alive. I see myself for who I am, for what I am. I have finally
looked, really looked, and I see myself.
I can live. I can live.
Q: Who wins in a fight, Gay Batman or Gay Pikachu? @mitsumonster
A: Gay Batman. (Todays Ask Chris column was written by Chris Sims, as astrally channeled by Curt Franklin)
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Ask Chris #51: Because You Actually Demanded It, Pokemon vs. Ponies vs. Wrestling
by Chris Sims March 25, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Book your dream traditional Survivor Series match: My Little Pony vs. Pokemon. Which 5, who wins, and
whats the elimination order? @dannimal
A: Before I answer this one, I just want to point out that I did not make this question up. This was an actual
question sent in by an actual reader who wants an answer, no matter how ridiculous that answer might be. And
fortunately, Pokemon, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the world of professional wrestling just happen to be
my areas of expertise.
So just remember: You asked for it.For those of you who might not be familiar with it, the traditional Survivor
Series match as created by the World Wrestling Federation in 1987 is essentially a huge tag-team battle. The twist,
though, is that its two teams of five wrestlers, and its done elimination style. When a member of a team is
eliminated through pinfall or submission, the match doesnt end. Instead, the wrestler is eliminated and the teams
continue until every member of a team is eliminated, leaving the other team as wait for it the survivors.
Its a great gimmick as it allows for a match where the advantage can shift back and forth between the teams with
every elimination and the surprise of seeing a team having to carry on and fight back without a critical advantage.
Which of course makes it the perfect form for Ponies and Pokemon to settle whatever differences they might have,
which thankfully I have not been asked to provide.
The fact that its a five-on-five battle makes for an interesting set of problems in picking out the teams, too. With My
Little Pony, its just a matter of figuring out which one of the six main characters gets left out of the match.
Assuming, of course, that Im not allowed to pick Celestia, the Pharaonic God-Empress of Equestria who controls
the very sun itself, then the obvious choice for team captain is Twilight Sparkle, who is a) the smartest of the
ponies, and b) the one who has magic powers that can defeat a giant bear made of outer space.

As the two most athletic ponies, Rainbow Dash (who controls the weather by kicking the crap out of clouds)
and Applejack (who harvests apples by kicking the crap out of trees) are easy picks, and with her natural charisma
and showponyship, Pinkie Pie is a natural for the squared circle.
That brings us down to the painfully bashful Fluttershy and the high-class, dress-making Rarity, and Fluttershy
pretty much gets in by default. As much as shed be interested in adding a title belt to her collection of fashions,
theres just no way Rarity would want to sully her hands by participating in the actual match. She would, however,
be accompanying her team to the ring, because she is unquestionably the Equestrian equivalent of Jim Cornette.

With the Pokemon, though, theres an entirely different problem, in that youre picking from a roster of 649 and
narrowing that down to just five is a bit of a hassle. Again, the captain is pretty obvious: Emboar, who is a pig that
is on fire that is also a professional wrestler.

Also, according to the Pokedex, Emboar uses his beard, which is on fire, to set his own hands alight so that he can
throw flaming shoryuken punches. And thats awesome.
For the rest of the team, though, Im just going to throw in a few of my favorites: Bulbasaur (the greatest of all
starter Pokemon), Empoleon (a pengin who has swords for hands and looks a little like a luchador), Magikarp (for
luck!) and my personal favorite, Snorlax, who only does three things: Sleep, eat, and kick ass.
And now that weve got the roster set, were ready for the match.

As the match kicks off, Emboar leads off for Team Pokemon, while Twilight Sparkle chooses to hang back, sending
in Applejack as her first combatant, hoping that AJs strong kicks (as seen in episode 4, Applebuck Season) will
buy her time to examine her enemies and strategize a plan for victory.

Unfortunately for Twilight, things dont go exactly as planned. At a Sir Mix-A-Lot approved 53 and 330 pounds,
Emboar is built like the Kingpin, if the Kingpin was also literally on fire. Despite leg strength built from a lifetime of
hauling apple carts around the farm, AJ just cant bring him down, and only serves to set herself up for Emboars
signature Heat Crash, which hits so hard that none of her teammates can make the save when he goes for the pin.
Applejack eliminated by Emboar (Pinfall)
With her team suddenly at a disadvantage, Twilight shocks the opposing team and the entire the crowd by sending
in

Fluttershy.
Theres a brief moment of speculation on whether or not Fluttershys ability to mentally control animals (episode
17, The Staremaster) also works on Pokemon, but we never get to find out, as the minute shes faced with being
in the ring with a massive firebreathing pig-wrestler trying to knock her out and a crowd full of people watching,
she bursts into tears and taps out without Emboar even taking a step towards her.
Fluttershy eliminated by Emboar (Submission)
This, however is all part of Twilight Sparkles master plan. As we all know from episode 5, Griffon the BrushOff, no one makes Fluttershy cry without getting dealt with Pinkie Pie style.
Emboar is suddenly confronted with a whirling cotton candy tornado. Even with Emboars expertise in both
fighting and setting moving targets on fire, Pinkie Pie is able to dodge using her psychic precognitive powers
(episode 15, Feeling Pinkie Keen). And if theres one thing a fighting type like Emboar is weak to, its psychic
powers Pinkie Pie makes short, shocking work of Emboar before he can even make a tag, and Team Pokemon
loses its captain to a sudden three-count.
Emboar eliminated by Pinkie Pie (Pinfall)
Empoleon rushes the ring in an attempt to drop Pinkie Pie with Giga Impact, but not only does he miss, but Pinkie
manages to pin him in a record three seconds, warping reality around her in an impressive yet surreal display.
How?

Pinkie Pie eats rainbows. Thats how. You cant even confront that kind of power.
Empoleon eliminated by Pinkie Pie (Pinfall)
At this point, Team Pokemon sends in their big gun: The Road-Blockin, Flute-Rockin, Big and Round, Smackin
Down, Sleepin, eatin, jabroni-beatin Peoples Champ, Snorlax!

Pinkie Pie may have been able to avoid her other two opponents, but with the scent of cupcakes still lingering in
her mane from her day job at a bakery, theres no avoiding Snorlax when the hunger is upon him, and, mistaking
her for an unusually mobile food source, he attempts to have her for a mid-match snack.
Fortunately for Pinkie, this only just tickles, but while laughing, she taps out, awarding Snorlax a victory even as he
falls asleep, facedown in the middle of the ring.
Pinkie Pie eliminated by Snorlax (Submission)
Snorlaxs penchant for naps now presents an entirely new problem for both sides: Hes asleep, but too far away
from the corner for either of his remaning teammates to tag in, and so heavy that he cant be rolled over for the
Ponies to get a pin. Twilight Sparkle herself takes to the ring, attempting to use her unicorn telekinesis to flip him
over, but she just cant do it.

Finally, fed up with not seeing any action, Rainbow Dash tags herself in when Twilight
wanders over to the corner to do some thinking, and starts flying around the sleeping Snorlax fast enough to create
a tornado. Steel chairs start flying and the fans hold on as the wind whips up, but Snorlax himself remains firmly
planeted, until the ring itself rises into the air, tilting and dumping him unceremoniously onto the floor. Hes then
counted out without ever waking up.
Snorlax eliminated (Countout)
As the tornado dies down, Bulbasaur vaults into the ring, lashing out at Rainbow Dash with his vines in an effort to
bring her down to the mat where shell lose her aerial advantage. He manages to land a hit, wrapping the vines
around her, but the plan backfires without pinning her wings, Bulbasaurs just tied himself to one of Equestrias
best flyers, and is taken on a flight that ends with him being spiked facefirst into the mat as Dash lands to get the
pin, leaving only one Pokemon left.
Bulbasaur eliminated by Rainbow Dash (Pinfall)
Magikarp enters the ring. Magikarp uses splash. But nothing happens.
Rainbow Dash, confident from the thrill of victory, boasts that shes about to end this match in ten seconds flat, but
thats when Twilight Sparkle notices that Magikarps got a foreign object. Suddenly she understands whats going
on its an Exp. Share, and the whole time the rest of his team has been fighting, Magikarp has been gaining
experience from the battle.
And now, that experience is paying off: Magikarp is evolving.

Twilight tries to warn Rainbow Dash, but its too late; she flies right into a Hyper Beam and gets instantly KOed.
Rainbow Dash eliminated by Gyarados (Pinfall)
Now its all down to Twilight, and while her magic is strong, shes no match for a rampaging dragon without her
friends by her side.
Twilight Sparkle eliminated by Gyarados (Pinfall)
WINNERS: Team Pokemon
Thus, Twilight and her team are narrowly defeated by Team Pokemon, but more importantly, they learn a lesson
about how its better for friends to deal with their problems together rather than trying to face everything alone,

and also that you shouldnt judge someone just because of their looks, even if they look strange or different. And
really, thats far more important.
And this is, without question, the strangest, nerdiest, and most completely inaccessible Ask Chris of all time. In fact,
Im pretty sure that if you managed to make it this far, you deserve a little something extra, which is why I asked
my pal Jen Vaughn to illustrate just how insane this match-up would be:

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Ask Chris #50: The Next Best Batman Stories

by Chris Sims March 18, 2011 1:00 PM

Q: Im itching for some good, new-to-me Batman reading. Asking for the top ten greatest Batman stories, I
think will give us the famous greats that most of us have probably read by now. So I want to ask about the
next ten. What are the greatest Batman stories ranked eleven through twenty? Paul, via email
A: Ive actually gotten a lot of requests for a list of good deep cuts for Batman lately, and while its a tricky
proposition to figure out which great stories are the ones that dont get talked about as often as the ol standards,
its not like Batman suddenly stops being good after you read your Year Ones and Mad Loves and R.I.P.s and Killing
Jokes and all manner of various Nights of the Beast. There are literally thousands of Batman stories out there, and
even more if youre not limited to just the comics, and as you might expect, I think an awful lot of em are worth
checking out.
And considering its my 50th installment of Ask Chris, Im just glad you didnt ask for eleven through fifty. After
all, I have to sleep some time.So with that said and with a little brainstorming help from ComicsAlliances
own David Uzumeri, a pretty solid Batmanologist in his own right, to help narrow down the list, here are my picks
for that rarely-seen second half of the countdown!
20: Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)

Mike W. Barr and Jerry Binghams Son of the Demon isnt exactly an obscure title especially in the years since
Grant Morrison used it as the extremely loose basis for Batman & Son but it rarely gets mentioned at the top of
anyones list, and usually gets overshadowed by some of Barrs other work on Batman. Dont get me wrong, theres
no shame in being outranked by Fear For Sale, but Son of the Demon is a darn good read.
In a lot of ways, its like the 80s Action Movie version of Batman and I mean that in a good way. Theres world
travel, big fights in exotic locations with an army of gun-toting mercenaries, and of course, the alluring daughter of
an enemy that Batman has to team up with because this time, hes out for revenge!

Im pretty sure Batman even employs the skill of gymnastics and the kill of karate at some point.
More famously, of course, the story also involves Batman, Talia, and their child. In Morrisons version which isnt
so much a retcon as a semi-un-retcon, but thats super-hero comics for you there was a eugenics experiment
involved, but here, its just straight up the product of Batman at his most shirtless, and it lends itself to a very
interesting look at the kind of relationship that Batman would be able to have with Talia.
19: Blood Secrets Detective Comics Annual #2 (1989)

Im not gonna lie, folks: I bought this one a few years back because a) I really like Mark Waids work as a writer,
particularly the run on Flash that saw him frequently co-writing with Brian Augustyn, and b) I really, really wanted
to see Batman just straight up wreck a bunch of racists. Oddly enough, despite the promise of the cover, thats
actually not what this ones about. Not exactly, anyway.
Thats certainly an element to it; the story is related by Batman to an unknown listener who isnt revealed until the
final page, detailing an adventure he had during the years he traveled around the world training to become
Batman. In this case, his travels bring him to Huntsville, Alabama to learn the art of detection from Harvey Harris.
This in turn finds him investigating a series of murders linked to a hate crime that took place 40 years earlier, as
the men involved are turning up as the victims of an unknown killer.
Its a compelling mystery story with a twist ending, but the real story lies in Waid and Augustyns examination of
the Batmans morality.

Its not just about solving a crime, but rather the precision with which he has to act, the level of detachment that he
has to achieve, and how much of his motivation comes from vengeance and just how dedicated he is to punishing
those he deems guilty. And as you might expect, those are things Im pretty interested in.
18: Batman: Ego (2000)

Considering that it was written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke, Im always surprised that this one doesnt get talked
about more. I remember it being something of a sleeper hit back when it came out, as it was one of the first things
Cooke had done in comics, well before more high profile work like New Frontier.
Either way, its awesome. Its set up as a psychological drama that examines the dichotomy between Bruce Wayne
and Batman through an extended sequence where they argue with each other about whether or not they should
do the world a favor and kill the Joker. And as you might expect from the fact that its by Cooke, its absolutely
beautiful.

Ive talked about the conflict between the different sides of Batmans identity before in this very column, but
Cookes examination is every bit as smart as it is well-drawn. He spends a lot of time examining the roots of
Batmans morality, and delves into just what the idea of Batman means, not only to criminals and super-villains but
to the people of Gotham City and even what it means to Bruce Wayne himself. In the end, theres a reconciliation
as there should be and while thats a foregone conclusion thats necessary for the character, the journey to it is
one of the best character studies in comics.

Unlike a lot of the stories on this list, Ego actually has been collected in a nice volume that also contains Cookes
fantastic Catwoman story, Selinas Big Score, and a handful of short pieces he did with guys like Paul Grist and Tim
Sale. If you dont own it, you should.
17: Batman and the Monster Men/ Batman and the Mad Monk (2006)

Speaking of excellent creators who have done underrated work on Batman, we have these two. Since Frank Miller
dropped his definitive origin story for Batman 25 years ago, there have been dozens maybe hundreds of
stories set in the Year One era, and very few of them even come close to being as good as Matt Wagners two
miniseries.
Rather than telling a new story of Batmans rookie season (which can certainly be awesome, as Morrison and
Jansons Batman: Gothic proves), Wagner instead went back to the actual year one to tell modern versions of two of
Batmans earliest adventures, and the results are incredible.

Much like Ed Brubaker and Doug Manhke did when they retold the first Joker story in Batman: The Man Who
Laughs (which is also a darn good comci), Wagner manages to update the story while still preserving the elements
that define it as a pulp adventure: Mad scientists creating hulking monster men and a vampire with a house laden
with deathtraps. Wagner even manages to do a scene of Batman being vexed by a slowly closing set of walls with
spikes sticking out of them and still makes it seem fresh and adventurous.
16: Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003)

By all rights, Greg Rucka and Klaus Jansons Death and the Maidens shouldve been the last Ras al-Ghul story.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by the mystifying existence of the pretty terrible Resurrection of Ras al-Ghul from a
couple years ago, that didnt exactly work out.
But that doesnt mean its not a great comic. Its essentially the capstone of what Rucka did in his tenure as the
writer of Detective Comics, delving into a piece of al-Ghuls history while simultaneously setting him up for his
demise, which also involves him bribing the location of the last Lazarus Pit out of Batman by giving him an
alchemical solution that will allow him to see the spirits of his parents.
Its that last bit that makes the middle section of the story so interetsing, as Batman is put into the unique position
of having to justify the choices hes made with his life to the people who may have inspired him, but never really
wanted to see their son become a masked vigilante dressed like Dracula. Plus, you get to see Martha Wayne
straight up slap her son in the face for being disrespectful.

Thats right, yall. Martha Wayne is hardcore.

The only thing that isnt good about this story is how much it brings to the table that is then completely ignored in
what might be the biggest waste of potential in the history of the Batman franchise. In their nine issues, Rucka and
Janson introduce Nyssa Raatko, the successor to the title of Ras al-Ghul, who could have added an entirely new
spin on things, but was instead killed off-panel in an issue of Robin, of all things. Truly ridiculous, but that doesnt
make this story any worse.
15: Dead Reckoning Detective Comics #777 782 (2003)

Another great artifact from the highly underrated Brubaker/Rucka era on the Batman titles is this one, a grand,
sweeping murder mystery involving a conspiracy among all of Batmans major villains that focuses on Two-Face
and answers the question of what Hush would be like if it were actually any good. Which, considering that both
stories were going on at the same time, is pretty hilarious.
The actual story, however, is dead serious, absolutely brutal and meticulously plotted, to the point where it brings
back a character that originally appeared 510 issues before in 1943, but done in such a way that it requires no
prior knowledge to enjoy.
For reasons that I cant even begin to understand, this story and most of Ed Brubakers run on the Batman books
has never been collected in paperback, but its not hard to track down and definitely worth doing so.
#14. The Batman Adventures v.2 #1 17 (2003)

A few years after Batman: The Animated Series finally ended, someone at DC had the brilliant idea to give that
version of Batman one final send-off, and the even more brilliant idea of turning to Ty Templeton and Dan Slott to
be the guys to do it. The end result was something that was absolutely amazing.
While the comic followed the continuity of the show, the fact that it was no longer on the air (and thus no longer
setting the pace for stories) meant that they had the freedom to create something that reads like the unproduced
final season, weaving together longer form story arcs in a way that DCs All-Ages line rarely got to do. Things were
shifted around. The Penguin successfully ran for mayor of Gotham City. The Joker got conked on the head, lost his
homicidal urges and devoted his time to expressing his love for Harley Quinn, which completely turned her off.
Batman spent multiple issues undercover as Matches Malone. They even managed to work the redesign for Poison
Ivy into the story as a plot point that played out in an extremely unexpected way.
But at its heart, it was still a book about telling solid, accessible stories that cut right to the heart of what the
characters all about, like the one where Bruce Wayne goes to a therapist and has to bluff his way through a word
association exercise, by Vito Delsante and Dean Haspiel:
Batmans definition of play alone is worth the price of admission.
13. The Doomsday Book Detective Comics #572 (1987)

It occurs to me that Mike W. Barr is the only writer to make it onto this list twice, and with good reason: His run
mightve had a few missteps, but when he hit, he knocked it out of the park as one of the best Batman writers of all
time.
This ones a great example of that. Released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Detective Comics, this is an
adventure where Batman, the Elongated Man and Slam Bradley team up with Sherlock Holmes to stop Moriartys
great-grandnephew from blowing up the Queen of England.

One more time: Batman teams up with Sherlock Holmes. Further discussion should not be necessary.
12. The Untold Legend of the Batman #1 3 (1980)

At this point in the article, its probably pretty clear that Im something of a Batman fan, and a lot of that has to do
with the fact that I had a copy of Untold Legend when I was a kid. Its essentially a three-issue crash course in
Batman history disguised as a story, and I absolutely loved it. Admittedly, my love for it also springs from the fact
that my copy with an audiobook adaptation on cassette tape, but the point stands.
In order to provide Batman with a reason for him to talk about his past which, this being the Silver Age version,
included Bruce Wayne being the original Robin and a recap of the story where he tracked down the man who killed
his parents, revealed his identity, and sent him running into traffic writer Len Wein came up with a compelling
story that reads like the Cliffs Notes version of Batman R.I.P.: Someone who knows everything about Batman is
trying to destroy him piece by piece, starting by burning the original Batman costume worn to a Halloween party
by Thomas Wayne.
This upsets Batman, and he starts straight up slapping men in the face.

It gets even better when its revealed at the end and Spoiler Warning, but cmon, this thing is 31 years old
that Batmans actually doing it all to himself having suffered a head injury leading to a psychotic break when
Catwoman exploded a warehouse at him.
Thus it is proven: The only person who can destroy Batman is Batman.
11: Batman Adventures #3 (1992)

Its pretty common knowledge that Batman: The Animated Series is one of the best
depictions of the character
outside of comics and that would be because its completely true but even dedicated fans of the cartoon often
overlook just how good its comic book companion was. Written by Kelly Puckett with regular artist Mike Parobeck
and fill-ins from incredibly talented guys like Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett, The Batman Adventures was a
master class in how to create tight, compelling plots that played out in 22-page stories that werent just good for an
all-ages book, they were quite easily the best Batman comics of the 90s.
The whole runs worth checking out #10 is one of the best Riddler stories of all time, right after Dark Knight,
Dark City but its the first three issues that sold me on this one back when I was a kid buying comics at the
Piggly Wiggly. Each issue is self-contained, but theres an arc going through those first three that the Joker is
manipulating other villains in preparation for something big, while at the same time hitting on what made these
characters what they were, like the Penguins aspirations to upper-class crime.
#3, though, is where it really comes to a head, as the Joker reveals his master plan, and no joke: It is essentially the
template for Christopher Nolans version of the Joker from The Dark Knight.

He wants to undermine the very idea of law in Gotham City and then unmask Batman as his final, humiliating
defeat.
I remember reading this when I was 10 and being legitimately scared of the Joker for the first time in my life. Id
gone from watching Batman 66 for an hour every day after school to reading this story which again, was in a
book for kids based on a cartoon where the Joker ties up Jim Gordon and breaks his arms with a baseball bat on
live television while Batman watches, his face not showing any emotion other than grim resolve.

Ive read the story a hundred times since then, and even without the lens of nostalgia, it holds up. That close-up of
the Jokers face by Templeton and Burchett is still my favorite picture of the character, and everything you need to
know about him is laid out for you in that one violent, terrifying sequence. And thats just one page.
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Ask Chris #49: D&D With Super-Heroes

by Chris Sims March 11, 2011 12:00 PM

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Q: You are going to play a game of Dungeons & Dragons with 5 comic characters who for the sake of the
question are interested in playing, have enough knowledge to play and will be completely free for your
weekly session. Who would you play with and who would be the Dungeon Master? Luke, via email
A: As ComicsAlliance readers familiar with my cardboard dragonslaying and journeys into elf help will no doubt
recall and as others will be completely unsurprised to learn I am a dude who loves some D&D. In fact, Im
willing to say that I love it almost as much as the Chris Sims who actually works as a game designer, whose email I
occasionally get. You can tell us apart because he has a beard, and only thinks about Batman sometimes.
Which brings me to my first point: Much as it might surprise you, there is no way in hell I would play D&D with
Batman.As much as Ive spent the past two decades wishing Batman was my best friend (what? Like you havent?),
gaming night is where wed part ways. Seriously and I dont believe I have ever said this before that dude
would be the worst. He is clearly the type of guy who would memorize every entry in the Monster Manual so that he
could exploit their weaknesses (and invent plausible reasons for his character to also have that knowledge), not to
mention a tendency to order the other players around like they were his sidekicks.
And as your Dungeon Master? Forget it.

Yes, playing in an actual cave would be pretty sweet and Alfreds gourmet cooking would certainly beat the pants
off of the normal Game Night ration of pizza, Cheetos and Mountain Dew, but hes definitely the sort of DM who
would see the infamous Tomb of Horrors as a little too easy on the players.
I imagine there would be a lot of dungeon maps that looked an awful lot like possible escape routes from Arkham
Asylum, and several quiet, measured responses from behind the DM screen about how if he didnt kill your
character for failing the very first saving throw of the session, then the rules would be meaningless.
Also, he would probably only roll twenties, having spent years practicing polyhedral spin control in case he ever
needed it to beat Killer Moth or whatever. No, thank you.
Now with that settled, there are plenty of super-heroes who would make solid additions to a game. I tend to like
playing Monks in my games Monk being the D&D term for guy who runs on walls and does magic kung fu all
over the place so with five characters to choose from, that gives me enough to pick out a DM and the four basic
food groups of the Adventuring Party: Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard.
First up is every partys requisite meat shield, the Fighter, a specialist in front-line combat who gains a bunch of
different options on how to attack, all of which lead to a desired result of putting a pointy piece of metal into
something you dont like. For that, you need a guy with experience: Benjamin J. Grimm, the ever-lovin blueeyed Thing!

Admittedly, the college football star turned daring spaceship pilot turned rock-monster super-hero might not seem
like a likely choice for someone who would be totally into sitting around a table pretending to rend wyverns in
twain with his +3 Holy Longsword, but cmon. Bens best friend in college wasReed Richards, and theres
absolutely no possibility that the Marvel Universes biggest nerd didnt rope him into at least a couple sessions
back in the day. And that was before he started cosplaying as Blackbeard.
And then theres the fact that this is a guy who straight up loves fighting monsters. Hes a member of the Fantastic
Four, which means that his day job is to go to the Negative Zone and
punch Blastaar, and when hes not
doing that, he occasionally heads over to Unlimited Class Wrestling to fight guys just for fun. He is a dedicated fan
of hitting things.
Plus, hes the kind of stand-up guy who will definitely be down for bringing the pizzas, and every gaming group
needs one of those.
Next up we have the Rogue: The sneaky, often devious master of bypassing traps and striking enemies in the back.
Clearly, thats a role designed for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

If Reed Richards is the biggest nerd in the Marvel Universe, then Peter Parker clocks in at a close second, and there
is nothing you can tell me that will make me believe that he did not pester Uncle Ben and Aunt May to buy him at
least a copy of HeroQuest for Christmas when he was 12.
There are only two problems. First up, a world of imagination means that there are no real-world consequences to
your actions whatsoever. In other words, this is quite possibly the only time in Spider-Mans life that he would be
presented with a world where he has great power with no responsibility whatsoever. As much as Spider-Man is
Peter Parker cutting loose and cracking wise, Spider-Man Playing D&D would be that taken to a truly hellacious
extreme.

Spider-Man is the kind of player who, when presented with an adventure where the party had to rescue the local
Viscounts beautiful daughter from a vampire before he could turn her into his undead minion, would fight his way
to the vampires lair, then backstab the daughter and stuff her body into a Bag of Holding, because you cant turn
her into a vampire if shes already dead and the Cleric can Resurrect her tomorrow anyway. I can hear his voice in
my head, clear as a bell. What? Im Chaotic Neutral!
For the record, though, that strategy would totally work.
The second, and far worse problem, is that Peter Parker is definitely the most likely to be the mandatory gaming
group member who quotes Monty Python constantly, making him both a threat and a menace. But at least hed be
having fun.
Speaking of Clerics, they are the walking bandages that hold adventuring parties together, and theres nobody who
fits that role better than Jonn Jonnzz, the Martian Manhunter!

According to Batman, the Martian Manhunter understands group dynamics better than anyone else, and coupled
with his selfless concern for others, that makes him a perfect addition to the gaming table. What makes him a great
Cleric, though, is that he totally understands how those guys work.
For most adventuring parties especially ones that put Spider-Man and his signature bad luck in charge of
disarming traps The primary duty of a Cleric is to cast healing spells, which is why players often forget that they

can also cast stuff like Harm, Flame Strike and spells that invoke the direct intercession of gods. Similarly, the
Martian Manhunter is often so busy backing up his running crew in the Justice League and establishing telepathic
links and so on that everyone sort of forgets that he has all of Supermans powers, plus he can turn invisible and
read your mind.
Of course, that telepathy could make a Dunegon Master reluctant to include Jonn in the game, but hes a solid
enough guy that he wouldnt use it to cheat, and besides, theres a way bigger problem for him in this game, namely
the fact that its pretty much built around humans going around slaughtering sentient creatures because they have
green skin and a book lists their alignment as Usually Evil. If he can get past that, though, hes golden.
For our final player, we have the Wizard (or Sorceror or, if youre old, Magic-User), a character class that allows
its users to rend the very fabric of reality, unleashing the primal forces of creation and destruction in a process so
intense that it makes you almost as good at killing things as the guy who just hits them with a sword. Sound
frustrating? It is. Almost as frustrating as being the arms dealer whose only client is COBRA. Just ask Destro.

If there is any better sign that Destro would be into playing Dungeons & Dragons than the scene from G.I. Joe #21
where you find out he has custom-painted miniatures of everyone in the cast, then brother, I dont know what it is.
Seriously, a guy who wears missiles on his wrist is a guy who wants to be able to point at something and blow it up.
Now that we have the team together, the only spot left is for the Dungeon Master, who puts together the
adventure the players go on, and Ill admit, this one is tough. I considered going with Arcade, because his game
would probably be phenomenal, but the downside is that he would probably insist that you LARP your way through
it and then attempt to kill you. Dr. Doom has the necessary masterminding skills and the love of fantasy that leads
someone to become a wizard and then go back in time to fight King Arthur, but there are only so many dungeons
where you help Sir Victor kill a homebrew monster named Stretchy Stupidface before that gets real old.
The strongest candidate that I ended up discarding was Amadeus Cho, but trying to outwit problems made up by
genius with a hypermathematical mind is enough of a hassle even without having to deal with him informing the
players that actual monsters are way tougher than the ones in the book, and his adventure will be adjusted
accordingly.
In the end, there was only one best choice: Barbara Gordon, alias Oracle.

Just look at the facts here: She was a librarian, and now she spends her time in a dark room behind a screen
orchestrating the actions of a kung fu master named Black Canary and a woman named Huntress who shoots
things with a crossbow. Shes pretty much a Dungeon Master already.
Under normal circumstances, Id cap things off with a picture of the whole gang enjoying a dungeon crawl, but as
sad as it is, there exists no art of me, the Thing, Spider-Man, the Martian Manhunter, Destro and Oracle playing
D&D. If, however, any of you would like to draw such a thing, send it in tocomicsalliance at gmail.com and Ill post
it in a future column!

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Ask Chris #48: Marvels Most Versatile Character

by Chris Sims March 4, 2011 2:00 PM

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Q: Youve mentioned that you believe Batman to be the most versatile DC character, but who is the Marvel
equivalent? @Zbg333
A: You know, I get a lot of questions asking me to stack Batman up against various Marvel characters as though Im
some sort of Moonknightologist, but this is one that addresses something that I find pretty interesting: The idea
that Batman is one of the few characters that works in any kind of story.

Theres a convergence of influences at Batmans creation that leads to him being a

character that has as much in common with pulp avengers like the Shadow as he does with Superman, and who
displays equal parts Sherlock Holmes and Doc Savage. As a result, he lends himself to a spectrum of adventures
that other characters dont, from action to mystery to science fiction to comedy. Its just as true to the character to
see him busting up organized crime on the streets of Gotham City as it is to see him battling Darkseid on the planet
Apokolips or, as seen at left, wearing a gorilla suit and being menaced by tentacles.
Admittedly, there are people who dont share that view, who only want to see Batman in gritty, noir-style
adventures where he fights believable crooks like the Joker, and who view stuff like the Brave and the Bold cartoon
as a watered-down shadow of what the True Batman really is.
But those people werent on national television as a Batman expert this week, so I guess that makes them wrong.
But putting aside my boundless ego a task that darn near takes a forklift at this point this does speak to one of
the more frustrating quirks of super-hero comics fans and creators: The tendency to tie characters to very specific
takes, and a refusal to acknowledge anything that steps out of those bounds. Really, as much as Batman might be
the character who works best in the widest variety of stories which is as much a tribute to how much creators
have done with him in seven decades of being one of the most popular characters in fiction as it is to anything else
all you really need to tell any kind of story with a character is to stay true to what that character stands for.
In super-hero comics, theres a lot of weird stuff floating around. You might prefer to see Batman as a street-level
vigilante detective, but also lives in a universe with an outer-space police force of people with magic imagination
rings that named themselves after flashlights, so weird stuff is going to happen. Or to put it in Marvel terms, theres
no reason that this

 is any more intrinsically worthwhile than this

 especially when you consider that the one many fans regard as being a more serious take on the character is also
the one that involves decapitation-by-polar-bear and an unstoppable hitman who speaks with a Boris Badenov
accent being smothered to death by the morbidly obese.
And believe it or not, this

 is not only a highly enjoyable comic, but one that manages to stay true to both of its lead characters at the same
time.
Of course, like I said, some characters lend themselves to different types a little easier than most, and as far as who
can fill prety much any role in the Marvel universe, thats a pretty simple answer: Benjamin J. Grimm himself, the
ever-lovin blue-eyed Thing!

Again, I think its an aspect of his character that has a lot to do with his origins. In the Fantastic Fours first
appearance, the book that formed the basis for the entire Marvel Universe, theyre changed into super-heroes
by Cosmic Rays, and thats a premise that sets a certain level for what comes after. Just the nature of the word
cosmic conjures up images of the sort of images that are associated with the FF: big, world-shaking battles
against grand-scale threats like Galactus and trips through the dimensional barrier to the Negative Zone, you
know. Cosmic. And as the muscle of the FF, the Thing fits right in.
But theres something else at play here. If the FF is a family which has been one of the core tenets of the book
since the very beginning then Bens the outsider. Reed, Johnny and Sue sort of orbit each other, but for all
intents and purposes, Bens more friend than family. That doesnt mean he doesnt fit in with the rest of the
team, but while its hard to imagine the other members without each other, the fact that the Thing isnt related
makes him easier to spin off into his own adventures.
And then theres the fact that more than anyone else, the Thing represents that defining characteristic that set the
Marvel Universe apart from its Silver Age DC counterpart: His power doesnt come without a price. He may be
cosmically tough and strong, but in appearance, hes a monster who at least at first inspired just as much fear
from the people hes saving as the villains he fights, actions which in turn underscore the humanity beneath that
rocky surface.
Its the same basic idea that Marvel would later expand on somewha successfully in an obscure title called The XMen. Some of you may have heard of that one.

Anyway, that leads to the idea of what drives the character of Ben Grimm when hes not punching out Annihilus
with the rest of the FF. Reed Richards, for example, was always a super-genius, and even now, thats what defines
him more than his powers. Ben, on the other hand, was a daring pilot willing to take a risky journey in order to
protect his pals, and thats what establishes his love of adventure and defines him as a character.
Throw in the fact that hes the most enduring link between Kirbys pre-FF monster comics and the super-heroes of
the Marvel Universe, and it all combines to give you someone whos a good man from the streets of New York who
was trapped in the body of a monster by incomprehensible cosmic forces, who wants to do good by using his
strength to protect others. And thats a character you can do anything with, even before you throw in the idea that
his best friend has a Pogo Plane that provides a convenient plot excuse to get him anywhere in the world that you
want to set a story.

Thats one of the reasons that Marvel Two-In-One is one of my favorite series of all
time, and not just because its a hundred issues (plus annuals!) of an orange rock monster teaming up with a
different super-hero every month to punch the livin crap out of bad guys.
Well, actually, thats exactly why I love it. This was a book where the Thing teamed up with everyone, from Dr.
Strange to Luke Cage to ROM: Spaceknight. Sure, Spider-Man mightve had a longer run on the more wellknown Marvel Team-Up, but those rarely saw him out of his defined element of web-swinging and wall-crawling
around Manhattan, and when they did, the fact that he was out of his element was often one of the driving forces of
the plot.
The Thing, however, just melded right in with whatever he was faced with that month, and even when that
unfortunately meant the creation of dudes like the Aquarian, it says something that the Thing could go from
punching out space witches in Central Park with ROM to chilling with what essentially amounted to Space Jesus.
As a result, the Thing became one of those characters that can work in a story dealing with virtually any theme. He
can be introspective and question his role in the world and whether he can even be considered human anymore
like he did in This Man, this Monster

or he can fight a gang of surly Hulk robots and then crack wise while celebrating with a super-hero poker game,
like he did in Dan Slotts criminally underrated The Thing. He can go toe-to-toe with cosmic-powered worldbeating bad guys, or he can join a super-powered professional wrestling promotion.
Heck, you can even combine the two and still get a great story:

Seriously, that is a story where the Thing has team up with a bunch of other super-heroes who all enter the ring for
a cosmic boxing match against a guy called The Champion of the Universe. And its awesome. Theres Action,
Comedy, Sci-Fi, and if you throw in Alicia Masters, youve got Romance covered too.
The guy even works in ghost stories.

Or at the very least, while reading ghost stories, which is just as good.

Q: Lets say, hypothetically, that I had two comic book options to choose from: I can either purchase the
recently-released trade paperback collection of the first six issues of Nick Spencers new Image
series, Morning Glories, or I can purchase all eight issues of Kirbys O.M.A.C.: One Man Army Corp. Keep in
mind, I have the reprint collection of OMAC that DC put out last year and it is a thing of beauty but these
are the real deal, in all their faded newsprint and benday-dotted glory. Which do I choose? Show your
work. Dylan, via email
A: This question actually came in a few weeks ago, so hopefully Im in time to help. Now, obviously, a run
of OMAC is worth having; at the very least, you get the text piece in #1 where Kirby predicts the future in his
typically amazing style

but consider this: Youve already got those stories. Do you think Kirby himself would want you to buy the same
thing youve already read, or go for something thats both new and creator-owned? I never met the man, but Im
guessing hed go for the latter.

Q: Now that youre an Official Batman Consultant, are you going to let your fame go to your head?
@Metz77
A: Last week, I referred to myself in this very column as a philosopher king. I dont think theres any room left for
my ego to expand.
Q: What comic had the worst art ever? My vote is for mid-80s Jonah Hex. @alogicalfallacy
A: Extreme Justice.

Q: How is each My Little Pony aspirational-rad-positive for a growing young lady? I ask because I find
Pinkie Pie difficult. @MartynEm
A: Thats right, everybody! Its time oncea again to close out Ask Chris with another installment of The Journal of
Pony Studies!
I think youre being a little too harsh on Pinkie Pie. Sure, she can be a little overbearing and scatterbrained and is
the voice of superstion in Ponyville, and there was definitely that one time where she assumed a zebra was an evil
enchantress (who does evil dances) because she looked different, but the important thing is that she
has good qualities that help her overcome the negative ones. Specifically, Pinkie Pie is more about having fun than
the other ponies. She throws a party for Twiligiht Sparkle when she arrives in town to make her feel welcome,
which is a very nice thing to do for someone, and even has one in an attempt to change Gilda the Griffons attitude
and help her make new friends. She is of the mind that there is no problem that cannot be solved through partying.
Which makes her the My Little Pony equivalent of Andrew W.K.

And thats real.

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Ask Chris #47: How Not to Be Bored By the Incredible Hulk

by Chris Sims February 25, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: So, I say that Hulk is boring. What stories could convince me that he is not boring? Der, via email
A: Huh. Of all the complaints Ive ever heard people voice about the Hulk and in six years of writing about comic
books on the Internet, Ive heard a lot hes boring is not one of them. I mean, this is a character who defines
winning as dragon punching an elephant so hard its tusks break off.

What could possibly be boring about that?

Admittedly, while I like the Hulk just fine, hes not one of my all-time favorites, and I can definitely see why the
basic idea might not sound appealing to everyone. When you boil it down to the essentials, guy is faced with a
problem, guy gets mad, guy turns into a monster and smashes something, monster turns back into guy, guy goes
shopping for new purple pants seems like a formula that would get real repetitive, real quick. And in a lot of runs,
it does.
But really, you can say the same thing about, say, detective in Dracula cosplaly punches the mentally ill at night or
Supermans friend gets into and out of hijinx three times a month, too. When you boil anything down to its barebones component, you lose the things that make any story distinctive.
With the Hulk, theres actually a lot of psychology involved there. Putting aside the fact that hes a walking
metaphor for the horrors of the nuclear arms race, most stories about Bruce Banner are stories of a man at war
with himself. There are ideas in there about repression and frustration, and its one of the few characters that
actually functions as a reaction to the traditional super-hero role as the power fantasy. The Hulk is the biggest
possible power trip, turning into an unstoppable engine of destruction whenever someone wrongs him but
there are definite consequences involved for the things he does.
Even at the best of times, there are still two distinct halves of his personality that mostly outright hate each other,
and that sort of man-versus-self set-up for conflict can lend itself to some very interesting stuff, especially when its
literalized to include smashing.
Sweet, sweet smashing.

The very idea of having a character whose biggest defining characteristic is that hes insanely strong is one thats
been lending itself to grand, over the top storytelling since Heracles was punching out lions and dropping sleeper
holds on the Hydra. By its very nature, thats something that makes creators want to go more and more over the
top, with each one attempting to outdo the stuff that came before, which by all rights should be the exact opposite
of something boring.
It might not always work out that way, but when it does, it makes for some extremely exciting comics.
If I had to point to one in particular that captured all this, one comic that Id hand to you and say hey, if you dont
like this, you will never like the Hulk, then theres no question: Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscemas Incredible
Hulk #300: DAYS OF RAGE!

Thats right, everybody: The exclamation point is part of the title. Thats how you know its good.

As you might expect from the fact that it was both a special abnormally large size
issue and #300, Days of Rage was a pretty big deal, and even a quarter of a century later, it still ranks as one of
the biggest pure fight comics in Marvel history. But theres another aspect that I think is really interesting about it.
This story was released towards the end of Mantlos 72-issue run, a long tenure on the title in which hed put the
character through five years worth of adventures, introducing new characters and even building him up in the
pages of ROM: Spaceknight, another book he was writing at the time. He wasnt just trying to top what had come
before, he had to top himself.
So he wrote a comic where the living embodiment of bad dreams killed Bruce Banner and a completely savage
hulk rampaged through Manhattan beating seven shades of stuffing out of the Avengers.
And all of this information is conveyed to the reader via the thought balloons of Dr. Strange, who is flashing back to
all this stuff while cold chilling on his stoop:

In other words, its awesome.

And its one of the best uses of Marvels New York City, too. When the Hulk starts tearing down billboards and
throwing them at crying babies in the street seriously, thats the splash page its not just Dr. Strange who
shows up to stop him, and its not even just Strange and the Avengers. Its Strange, the Avengers, Spider-Man,
Daredevil, S.H.I.E.L.D., Mario Cuomo, the Human Torch, Power Man and Iron Fist.
And while that gives us a pretty huge fight scene, it also gives us some really nice character moments. Specifically, it
gives us the best Starfox panels ever, in which the spacefaring creep attempts to use his lust-inducing powers to
halt the rampage

and is then quickly punched through a brick wall because that was a stupid, stupid plan.
It also plays around with the expected formula: Despite the fact that the Hulk thrashes pretty much everyone he
fights including a pretty clever way for him to take out Thor without making him seem like a complete chump

he doesnt win the fight, and neither do the Avengers. Not in the traditional method of we punched it until it
wasnt a problem anymore, anyway. Instead, theres a solution that sets off the next bit of Mantlos run, which,
considering the punch-ups that led up to it, was surprisingly psychological.
Unless you count the lead-in from #299, theres not much in the story that involves Bruce Banner or the idea of the
Hulk as something boiling just below the surface of a normal man, but other than that, its pretty much everything
you want to see him do.
It also set a standard that later Hulk writers would go back to time and time again in their efforts to top. The heroes
had been fighting the Hulk since the early days when he first showed up in Fantastic Four, but after Mantlo, things
were ramped up. It was only a few years later when Al Milgrom wrote and drew the rematch in Hulk #331 and 332,
wherein the Hulk flipped out, fought the Avengers and destroyed an entire town, and theres a direct line from that
all the way to the slugfest that was World War Hulk.
Also, if you get a chance to pick up any of the 70s Rampaging Hulk magazines which were collected a few years
back in Marvels Essential line and which provided the black-and-white images above Id check those out. These
are, after all, stories where Namor attempts to fight the Hulk by throwing a butcher at him.

For something of a more recent vintage than Mantlos run thats all kinds of exciting, I can definitely recommend
the Planet Hulk storyline from 2006.

It might sound weird for me to say this about a comic where the Hulk becomes a
space gladiator, but I actually wasnt looking forward to it when it was first announced. Id originally assumed it
was just going to be an extended retread of the old story where the Hulk went to a sub-atomic barbarian kingdom
where Bruce Banners mind existed in the Hulks body and found himself a girlfriend named Jarella.
There are a lot of similarities in the broad strokes, but Greg Pak whose work here launched him to success with
books like Incredible Hercules and his current run on Incredible Hulks did a great job of not just hitting the same
themes, but building them into something new. Theres an underlying sinisterness that comes from the Hulk being
betrayed and sent to space by his former allies that goes hand in hand with the fact that this was a Hulk who was
smart enough to understand just what that betrayal meant.
It introduced great new concepts into the characters mythos, too, including giving Pak a platform to bring back
Amadeus Cho and offer the really awesome idea of Banners mind using hyper-math to keep the Hulks rampages in
check.
And hey, if youre looking for something exciting thats on stands right now, then look no further than Jeff Parker
and Gabriel Hardmans current run on Hulk, which is a sharp, incredibly fun take on the old Marvel Two-InOne formula thats been operating on a big-action grand tour of the Marvel Universe. In the six issues that are out
the Hulk(s) go to outer space, Atlantis and Monster Island.
Plus, in a backup story with art by Ben Oliver, you get to see what it looks like when Watchers hit on each other.

Q: Am I just a huge jerkwad who, having the luxury of reading Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman works as
my first comics, cant stomach much of the understandably hyperbolic, perhaps even sophomoric, writing
in many classic books? Sure, Stan Lees Fantastic Four was groundbreaking, but Id much rather read
Jonathan Hickmans run, and Im a pretty diehard X-Fan who finds it nigh impossible to get through more
than ten pages of Chris Claremont. I get why classic comics, especially superhero fare, had to be written in a
less-than-sophisticated manner, with characters constantly voicing subtext and re-capitulating the plot for
the reader every other page, but that doesnt mean I have to personally enjoy reading the stuff to be a true
comics fan, does it? David, via email
A: Hang on a sec. Is this an email actually asking my permission to have an opinion? FINALLY! Ive been
waiting years for the Comics Internet to acknowledge me as its Philosopher King! Who knew it would take an
article about My Little Pony to speed that one up?
Anyway, the short answer is yes, you are in fact a huge jerkwad for having this opinion.
The long answer is no, of course not. Youre entitled to your opinion just like everyone else, no matter how wrong
it might be. I do, however, think its disingenuous to generalize the writing of older comics as being quantifiably
inferior based on the stylistic choices of the era. To take that to its extreme, its essentially like saying Charlie
Chaplin was a bad fillmmaker because he didnt have a great soundtrack. Its fine not to like reading older comics
theres plenty of stuff I dont like, and I often find Golden Age books to be a real chore to get through but to
say that theyre intrinsically and entirely without sophistication or complexity is a demostrably false proposition.
Q: What comics city would you live in if you could? @timcity
A: Im going to assume that you mean a fictional city as featured in a comic book and not a real-life city thats
known for its connection to comics, like Portland or White River Junction. While those who know me as the
Internets Foremost Batmanologist might assume Id go for Gotham City, Id prefer if at all possible to not be clown
murdered.
Instead, Id probably go with Starmans Opal City. The super-villain population is mostly in check, its got
interesting things to see and do, and Im a big fan of Art Deco architecture. Plus, one of those old DCU Roleplaying
Game books had a map setting Opal in my home state of South Carolina, which means Id still be able to get good
barbecue. Plus, theres P-P-P-Pirate Ghosts!
Also, go back and read Starman again, but this time give Jack Knight a southern accent. I promise you, it makes that
book ten times better.
Q: Despite an artful defense a co-worker insists that Silver Age Superman is lame. How do I defeat my coworkers argument? @Sean_Hollenhors
A: Im sorry, Sean

but there are none so blind as those who will not see that Superman shooting a tiny version of himself out of his
hand and then getting jealous of it and trying to kill it is totally awesome.

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Ask Chris #46: Whats So Funny About Good Clean Fun?

by Chris Sims February 18, 2011 12:00 PM

Before we get started with this weeks round of questions, Id like to announce a huge milestone for the Ask
Chris column: Finally, after almost a year of doing this, I have my own theme song. Its a dancy little number
courtesy of The Ampersands (alias Aaron of Awesomed By Comics), and if youre ready to get in the mood for
some Q&A, you can listen to it right now!

Q: What comics would you recommend for the prudish comic reader? Specifically,
for someone who doesnt like to read anything with blood, gore, sexual content, or bad language. Just
because I dont like offensive content doesnt mean Im looking for kiddie comics I like something with a
good, complex story. If you could help me find some comics that would match my tastes, Id greatly
appreciate it. Bert, via email
A: This has got to be one of the most complicated questions Ive ever gotten, and I say that as someone who just last
week spent a Thursday night juggling the variables of how the DC Universe matches up with the cast of My Little
Pony. For starters, theres the obvious trouble: Trying to figure out what someone else thinks is offensive content
is like trying to order dinner for someone you dont know, except it turns out they find certain vegetables to be
morally reprehensible.I mean, I think its pretty clear that we can go ahead and throw the entire collected works of
Garth Ennis out the window on this one, and while that knocks out my usual go-to recommendations
of Preacher, Hitman and Punisher, it doesnt really clarify just what qualifies as over the line. You say you dont like
blood, but are we talking about just limiting it to comics that dont go for Evil Dead 2-esque fountains of the stuff
being vomited by Red Lanterns (in which case, Id tend to agree with you), or does even the presence of a Maxwell
Lord Psychic Nosebleed knock a book like Justice League International out of the running?
The same goes for sex. I consider something like Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Amanda Conners run on Power
Girl, which doesnt shy away from featuring an extremely busty heroine and a story about her being asked to
repopulate an entire planet (which turns out to involve a giant space laser rather than any physical contact) to be a
completely different use of sex in comics than, say, any given issue of Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, but for you,
they might both be too far. I mean, Ive heard stories from retailer/blogger Mike Sterling about a customer who
came to his shop and was scandalized by all the sex in Archie Comics.
Yeah. All the sex. In Archie Comics.

And as for language Well, Im a guy who managed to slip the phrase bangable marmosets into an article this
week, so chances are, were going to have completely different ideas of what is and isnt acceptable in polite
company.

My second problem is the limit you set by rejecting kiddie comics. Im pretty sure I know what you mean you
want something with a little more depth than Super Friends and Super Hero Squad but heres the thing. Most allages comics are classified that way specifically because they dont involve sex, violence, and swearing. And when
you have creative teams that know how to work within those limitations, you can get some really great comics out
of it.

Case in point: Paul Tobins current run as writer of the Marvel Adventures SpiderMan series. This is a book that is clearly for kids, but like the best things geared towards younger readers, it doesnt
talk down to its audience, and ends up being something that actually lives up to being an all-ages book.
Tobins stories which actually began in #53 of the previous volume of MA Spider-Man, and which are
conveniently collected in volumes called Thwip!, Amazing and Spectacular are some of the best Spider-Man
comics Ive ever read, and coming at a time when the core Amazing Spider-Man title is better than its been in 20
years, thats saying something. Each issue is a nicely done complete story, but theres an overarching plot involving
a bounty placed on Spider-Mans head by a crime family, a romance with a new character named Chat, and even
appearances by Chats best friend, a teenage Emma Frost.
Theyre beautifully constructed comics, and despite the stigma associated with being a kids book, they read less
like something for kids and more like well, like a really great story of Spider-Man as a teenager.
And its hardly alone as far as sharp kids books go. The Batman Adventures series by Kelly Puckett and Mike
Parobeck that came out to tie in with Batman: The Animated Series was unquestionably the best Batman comic of
the 90s. They were fun and clever, and while there was violence, it wasnt anything more graphic than youd see on
the show. Admittedly, there was one issue #3, with the Joker that scared the heck out of me when I was 10,
that was less because of the off-panel violence than the outright creepiness of the Joker, which is as it should be.
And the more recent iteration of the series from 2003, by Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett, is very much along the
lines of Marvel Adventures Spider-Man.
And while were on the subject of great comics geared at younger readers, theres one Ill recommend all day
long: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, by Don Rosa:

Life and Times, of course, is based on a Disney property, which means that its about as far from offensive content
as youre likely to find. Rosa even takes swipes at the increasingly grim-and-gritty world of super-hero comics in
his notes for the collected edition, and I dont want to put words in the guys mouth, but I came away with the idea
that he was not a fan.
Like the original Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge stories that its based on, Rosas story, an ambitious tale designed to
colect every throwaway line Barks ever wrote about Scrooges past exploits and combine them into a chronicle of
his rise to unimaginable wealth and his fall into the bitterness that reigns before he starts palling around with
Donald and the Nephews, is pure adventure. Its meticulously researched both to fit into the references in the Barks
stories (which are all listed in the notes) and for actual historical accuracy or as accurate as you can get with a
talking duck that has three cubic acres of coins that he swims in like an otter. Either way, I have no qualms about
recommending this one to anyone, as its one of the best comics of all time.

Another one that often gets lumped in with kids books and for good reason, even if it does have that elusive allages appeal is Jeff Smiths Bone.

Honestly, I cant imagine its likely that you havent heard of this one if youre asking a question to this column, but
on the off chance that you havent, its good stuff. Over the course of sixty issues which I read when they were
collected into the huge but reasonably priced One Volume edition Bone turns from a cartoony gag strip about

Moby Dick and cow races into a sweeping epic fantasy comic that just happens to star a trio of cartoon characters
that fight alongside perfectly normal humans.
Despite the fact that theyre ostensibly made for (and marketed with great success to) kids, Bone and Life and
Times of Scrooge McDuck both fit all the criteria you listed: Complex, highly enjoyable stories with no graphic
violence, no gore, and no sexual content. Unless, of course, you count Fone Bones crush on Thorn, but man. If
theres too much sex in Bone for your tastes, then I honestly dont know what to tell you.
But again, its not just limited to kids books, and I can easily think of a few great comics that are more or less
prude-friendly, starting with one of my all-time favorites, Paul Grists Jack Staff.

Ive talked about my love for this comic quite a bit, but in addition to the innovative layouts, engaging plots, and
consummate skill in juggling six or seven plotlines at once, Grist relies on a very old-school style of storytelling that
goes for genuine surprise rather than shock. I cant think of a single instance in the entire book of something that
Id consider to even be close to excessive violence, and Becky Burdock, Vampire Reporter, is probably the most
modestly dressed leading lady in comics. And, incidentally, one of the best.

Another one that Ive talked about at length that meets the Good Clean Fun requirements:
Thom Zahlers Love and Capes.
Unlike pretty much everything else that Ive recommended, Love and Capes is a straight up comedy specifically a
romance thats inspired just as much by TV sitcoms as it is by comic book super-heroes but just because its
meant to be funny doesnt mean its not sharp, witty, and complex. Zahler hasnt just developed his romantic leads
into really well-written characters, but hes also provided them with a rich cast of supporting players that help to
provide some excellent stories.
Finally, Ive got one last recommendation, which is another solid candidate for Best Comic of All Time: Stan
Sakais Usagi Yojimbo. Sakais been doing stories of his rabbit ronin for almost 25 years now, and they are
absolutely phenomenal examples of true comic book craftsmanship that should be on everyones bookshelf.
The only reason Id hesitate to recommend them for this particular challenge is that, what with it being a book
where a bunch of samurai are running around trying to kill each other with swords, it does get pretty violent. But
even so, its not exactly the blood and gore type of violence.
This, for instance, is about as graphic as things get on a normal basis:

Now, there are a few times where you actually do see a spray of blood Im specifically thinking of a few scenes in
volume 24, Return of the Black Soul but its used sparingly, and when it does happen, its meant to indicate
something in the story.

And theres plenty more out there too, from Mouse Guard to Mo-Bot High to Supergirls Cosmic Adventures in the 8th
Grade to Chris Schweizers Crogan books to every Superman comic published in the 60s, and while I like my
content to be at least a little objectionable, theres plenty out there that proves you can do a solid story that you can
happily share with grandma.
Well, your grandma, anyway. Mine is way into Punisher Max.

Q: You have expressed your hatred for Kevin Smiths Batman storyline, The Widening Gyre, a few times in
this column, but I was wondering what your feelings were on his earlier story, Cacophony. Reuben, via
email
A: It is equally terrible.
Q: What would you say are the best issues with Dick Grayson as Batman? @Metz77
A: Right now, Scott Snyders run on Detective Comics is absolutely phenomenal.
Q: Are there any good Hugo Strange stories other than Prey? Legends of the Dark Knights given me a
hankerin. Damon, via email
A: Oh, totally. Check out Strange Apparitions, where Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers brought him back in the
70s for the first time since the Golden Age, as well as Matt Wagners Batman and the Monster Men, a modernized
retelling of that Golden Age story. Its also going to be worth your while to pick up Monster Mens sequel, Batman
and the Mad Monk. Hugo Strange isnt in it, but they make one big story thats probably the best Batman story set in
the Year One timeline ever. Batman punches vampires. And thats real.

Read More: Ask Chris #46: Whats So Funny About Good Clean Fun? | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-46whats-so-funny-about-good-clean-fun/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #45: My Little Pony Meets the Justice League

by Chris Sims February 11, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: Which DC characters would best exemplify the traits required to wield each of the Elements of Harmony
from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? Julian, via email
A: Finally. The question I have been waiting for.

Thats right, everybody: As much as I mightve built up a reputation as a guy with an undying love of stories where
batman chin-checks evil in all its various forms and the Punishers nigh-incalculable body count, I am also a guy
who owns every installment of the Bring It On pentology on DVD, so it probably wont surprise anyone to know
that I have been watching the heck out of the new My Little Pony cartoon. So Julian, believe me when I say this: I
have given this question a lot of thought.
For those of you who havent been watching it, Friendship is Magic which airs on Hasbros network, The Hub,
and is produced, directed and developed by former Powerpuff Girls and Fosters Home For Imaginary
Friends producer Lauren Faust follows the adventures of six talking, wide-eyed ponies who live in a truly
inexplicable world where creatures without opposable thumbs have invented things like cowboy hats school desks
and bakeries. Admittedly, the unicorns seem to have the power of telekinesis, but still, theres some pretty dubious
sociology at work here.

Specifically, the show revolves around six specific ponies, and much like The Five
Deadly Venoms, they each represent a specific element of a greater whole. The difference, of course, being that
instead of an unbeatable kung fu style based on different poisonous animals that have to be taken out before their
fighting skills can be used for evil, theyre all about being friends.
Other than that, though, its pretty much the same thing.
At the start of the show, Princess Celestia All-Powerful God Queen of Equestria sends one of her minions
down to Ponyville so that she can learn how to harness the six Elements of Harmony in order to stop her
sister, Nightmare Moon from unleashing eternal night. Seriously. Thats what the pilots about. Fortunately, said
elements just happen to reside in the first five ponies the minion meets, leading to a pretty handy resolution. Of
course, the downside is that this is a show that opens with a massive thousand year-old conflict for the fate of the
world and then moves into bake sales and apple harvests, but hey, thats life.
As for just which elements correspond to DC Universe characters, were going to have to take a closer look.

First up, weve got Applejack, who represents the spirit of Honesty. Now, there are a lot of
super-heroes in the DC Universe that are all about not telling lies Wonder Woman was the actual Goddess of
Truth for a little while, and being totally honest is a prerequisite for membership in the Green Lantern Corps so
in order to narrow it down, were going to have to look at what else defines her.
Applejack once received an award for going out of her way to help the citizens of Ponyville, and, more importantly,
was raised on her familys farm. So lets see here: Raised as a farmer and devoted to truth and helping others?
Sounds to me like weve found ourselves a Pony version of Superman.

Admittedly, Applejack doesnt have Supermans invulnerability she once pushed herself to the point of honestto-God hallucinations while trying to harvest an entire orchard by herself and as of 14 episodes in, she has yet to
show even the first sign of heat vision. Im like 80% sure that she wasnt rocketed to Equestria from the doomed
planet Ponypton, but I think the connection stands.

Next up is Rarity, the pony of Generosity, which in the world of My Little Pony pretty
much translates to constantly trying to stuff her friends into corsets, though admittedly she once cut off her tail so
that a clinically depressed water dragon could use it to replace half of his moustache.
I may not have made this clear at the start, but this is kind of a weird show.
Anyway, if you think about generosity in the DC Universe, its hard to beat Batman, seen here enjoying his little
pony:

Batman might be more closely associated with things like vengeance, but sadly, a vengeance pony has yet to be
introduced into the shows continuity. Even so, he totally fits for generosity: Not only does he literally run a billiondollar charitable foundation, but he also gives up his own time in order to help clean up the streets of Gotham City
and giving good homes to orphaned circus folk. And if nothing else, hes pretty generous when handing out
uppercuts.

Next comes Pinkie Pie, the extreme extrovert of the My Little Pony universe. Her signature
element is Laughter, and that means that she spends most of her time bouncing around, playing practical jokes,
making up songs and generally annoying the living crap out of everyone in the vicinity.
Of couse, she also laughs in the face of certain doom and once plotted revenge on a griffon for being a jerk to her
friends, which involved both psychological manipulation and shocking her with a joybuzzer.
You can probably see where Im going with this:

Much like Pinkie Pie, the Jokers henchwench Harley Quinn often annoys her closest friends, although getting on,
say, Applejacks nerves down at the pony bakery tends to carry a significantly smaller risk factor than stepping on a
punchline being delivered by a psychopathic murderous clown.

Of all the Ponies, I had the hardest time coming up with a DCU counterpart to Fluttershy.
In addition to being the soft-spoken member of the Pny Cre and the resident animal lover which raises the
question of just what constitutes an animal in a world populated by talking horses she represents Kindness.
Now, there are plenty of folks in comics that Id consider to be good folks, but finding someone defined by
kindness in a genre pretty much built around punching out crooks? Its tough. Fortunately, I was able to ask
writer Jeff Parker his opinion on the matter, and he had the solution: Captain Marvel.

It fits, too. I mean, Billy Batson is a kid who was given magical super-powers, and then decided to share them with
his sister, not to mention the entire rest of the Marvel Family and the occasional anthropomorphic bunny. I mean,
I have a sister, and I wouldnt even share a pudding cup with her, let alone anything even resembling the Power of
Zeus.

Rainbow Dash is arguably the most awesome of all ponies. She represents the element
of Loyalty, but thats beside the point, as it is her job to keep it from raining by flying around kicking clouds in the
face. Just so were clear on this: She controls the fundamental forces of nature by kicking. Awesome.
So awesome, in fact, that she can only be represented by someone who is both loyal and whose adventures are
nowhere near the realm of possibilty. In other words, shes totally Jimmy Olsen.

Despite the fact that there are a couple dozen Jimmy Olsen comics where he and Superman turn on each other for
various reasons, at the end of the day, he is Supermans Pal it says so right in the title. And really, is a talking
horse with rainbow hair that controls weather by beating up clouds any weirder than a dude who was turned into
a porcupine-man by a magic imp from the Fifth Dimension?

Finally, we have Twilight Sparkle, and in the interest of full disclosure, I do want to point
out that she was totally my result in the Which Pony Are You quiz at the Friendship is Magic website, which by this
point you have to expect I have done. Shes the de facto leader of the group, reporting directly to Celestia, and
represents the extremely vague and nebulous ideal of Magic.
Given the title of the show, you might expect Magic to be a metaphor for the power of friendship, but no: It is
straight up actual magic. In addition to the standard issue horn-induced telekinesis, Twilight Sparkle has incredible
sorcerous powers, which she once used to battle a giant pony-eating spectral space bear.
Also, for someone meant to be learning about the power of friendship, she can be pretty judgmental. And that puts
her right in line with her DCU counterpart: John Constantine.

It might seem like a stretch to link My Little Pony to Hellblazer, given that one is a strange, often horrifying look at a
world of constant betrayal, strange magic and a world constantly teetering on the brink of annihilation, while the
other is about John Constantine, but I stand by it.

The similarities speak for themslves.

Q: Destro Vs Doctor Doom in a wrestling match, no rules, who wins? @Koltreg

A: Wrist rockets notwithstanding, Doom has Destro outmatched in pretty much every way. The only advantage
Destro has is that if its truly a No DQ match, hed be able to call in the forces of COBRA to help him out in a Four
Horsemen/nWo/Nexus type of situation. Even then, Im pretty sure Doom takes out everyone but Cobra
Commander, who has the good sense to get out of there while Dooms beating on othe Dreadnoks.
Q: What do you say to someone who doesnt like fun/silly stuff in comics because he thinks it all needs to
be adult? @quietprofanity
A: Youre an idiot.
Q: Post-adolescence, ever had a comic that brought a tear to your eye or otherwise elicited a spontaneous
public outburst?
A: Oh, totally. I know its hard to believe, what with the fact that Im a vocal fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is
Magic, but I can get pretty emotional when it comes to my entertainment. The scene in JLA #41 where everyone in
the world gets super-powers and they all go to save Superman because of all the times hes saved them? One of
three things that never fail to make me mist up a little.
Q: Batman will not normally use guns for obvious reasons. But what if his parents had been punched to
death instead? Would Bruce have then embraced the Cable lifestyle over martial arts? Matt, via email
A: Batmans parents could never be punched to death. I mean, have you seen Thomas Wayne?

Dude is just like Batman, but with a Burt Reynolds moustache. Hes Half-Batman, Half-Bandit. Frankly, Im surprised
a bullet did the job.

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Ask Chris #44: The Worst Couples In Comics

by Chris Sims February 4, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: What comic book couple do you find the most annoying? @tangognat
A: My go-to answer for this one is Curt Franklin and Chris Haley, but I dont think thats quite what youre going
for.
Ive got to say, I like a little romance in my comics. That might sound a little strange considering that my favorite
character only sporadically has love interests, and they tend to end up being murdered, going insane or being
written by Kevin Smith, but its true. Unfortunately, for every I love you, Lois Lane. Until the end of time, theres an
Ah caint touch yuh, Remy! mucking things up, so really, the challenge here isnt figuring out which romance is
annoying, but narrowing them down to the absolute worst.When I think about annoying comic book romances,
theres one that pops into mindimmediately, and you could make a pretty good case for this one taking the dubious
honors. I speak, of course, of Rogue and Gambit.

Ugh. No thank you.

Admittedly, my distaste for fandoms favorite incomprehensible mutant lovers may have a lot (read: almost
everything) to do with working in a comic shop and dealing with a constant stream of sketchy fanfic writers who
wanted to tell me all about their vision for a perfect world where Remy bought one of the Genoshan slave collars
on the black market so that they could finally consummate their star-crossed love, but I think theres a little more
to it than that.
I think part of the problem is that the entire thing is based on a sexual tension that can never actually be resolved,
because theres absolutely nowhere to go from there. The whole point as they will remind the reader at length
every single time theyre in more than two panels together is that they want to touch each other and cant. Thus,

that tease becomes the default setting of the relationship, and even when there are clear ways around it like, say,
giving Leech a set of headphones and a Gameboy and having him stand outside the room for a couple hours it
wasnt moved past, because theres nowhere to go. Even when Rogue eventually gains control of her powers,
something else has to be manufactured to keep them apart, like Gambits extremely tiresome secret dark mysterious
past. Its rooted in an interesting way to underscore the traditional Marvel Comics downside of being fantastically
pretty and having amazing super-powers, but its also the sort of thing that, once established, gets real
old real quick.
Especially when its brought up all the time for like twenty years, by characters that are a massive pain to read.
Its bad enough that theyre front-loaded with enough melodrama to power Days of Our Lives for the next forty
years, but actually dragging yourself through the quicksand of extended scenes with both cartoonish Southern
accents andcartoonish Cajun accents is a test of endurance for even the die-hard Claremont fan. Seriously, I grew
up in South Carolina and took four years of French in high school, and I only know what these two jabronis are
saying thirty, maybe forty percent of the time.
Also, finding the Gambit/Rogue romance to be anything but an absolute trial would require me to actually care
about Gambit and/or Rogue, and while I understand academically that there are people who do that very thing,
theres no power in this world or the next thats going to make it happen for me.

As much as I dont like those particular characters, though, its not just them. As big a part
as it is of those books and as much of a touchstone as it is for those characters, the various romances of the X-Men
have never been something that really appealed to me and I say that as a guy who really, really likes the X-Men.
Cyclops and Phoenix, for example, do absolutely nothing for me as a reader. Again, its something I get
intellectually, and I can see that Jeans death in The Dark Phoenix Saga is a big emotional moment for
those characters, but it feels like it peaked then and shortly devolved into stories where Cyclops married her clone,
then totally ditched his new wife and came back for decades of mischaracterization, and as a result, it never really
engaged me in the way that other romances did. Even the love triangle with Wolverine never really felt like it did
more than just open the door for another source of intra-team angst.
Call me a heretic if you want, fans, but for me, Scott/Jean/Logan is way less compelling than
Archie/Betty/Veronica.
And then theres the other major X-Men franchise relationship, Colossus and Kitty Pryde. Again, I guess its fine if
thats your thing, but for me its just sort of something thats there, but with the added bonus that it always
seemed massively creepy for a dude who looks like hes 25 to be straight up dating a girl who was identified quite
often as being 13, which only gets weirder when she starts trying to get him to finally go ahead and shtupher
before they turn into space monsters.

Yeah.
On the bright side, though, it did lead to one of my favorite comics, when Colossus breaks Kittys heart because he
fell in love with an alien, so Wolverine and Nightcrawler take him out to a bar to get him drunk and beat the living
hell out of him. Now thats comics.
Really though, those relationships are mere prelude to the pairing that takes its rightful place as the absolute
worst romance in the history of comic books. Worse than Gambit and Rogue. Worse than Tarot, Witch of the
Black Rose and the Skeleton Man. Worse even than Jimmy Olsen and that horrible shrew Lucy Lane. Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you
DONNA TROY AND TERRY LONG

These two. Yeesh.

For starters, we have Donna Troy, and I dont even want to get into the mess there. All you really need to know is
that shes Wonder Womans hot younger sister. And so of course, as you might expect from a description like that,
she ends up dating and even marrying divorcee, complete failure and utter shameless creep Terry Long.

Man. This guy. Its pretty clear if you go back and read the issues that Terry was meant to be a viewpoint character
for readers, a normal guy who was taken into the world of super-heroics by his affable charm, except that they
completely forgot to actually give him any charm, and instead just shot him straight into loathsome.
When he first appears in New Teen Titans #8 and I want you to keep in mind that the word Teen is in the title
of this comic Terry is a college professor who has already failed to get tenure and is working part time at a
bookstore while claiming to be working on his doctoral thesis in Greek mythology. And if that wasnt enough to
make him a catch, his first act on a lunch date with Donna is to talk about how hot her friend is in what can only be
read as the worlds least subtle attempt to engineer a threesome, while simultaneously quoting Saturday Night
Live.

Even stranger, this somehow manages to endear him not just to Donna, but to Starfire as well:

At this point, Terry Long is just completely inexplicable. I mean, obviously they were setting him up as some kind of
smooth-talking Casanova, but theres absolutely nothing there to back it up, unless Marv Wolfman and George
Perez were laboring under the impression that sexy coeds were just waiting for older dudes with puffy beards,
shirts carefully unbuttoned to reveal graying chest hair and pop culture references that were stale even at the time
to come sweep them off their feet.
Then again, I guess comics are largely based in escapist fantasy. I just wish they werent fantasies for total creeps.

Ive said it before, but man. I want to never stop punching that guy.

Q: As a lapsed Batman reader, what would you recommend as a starting point for catching up on
Morrisons run? @scootermac23
A: Its pretty easy to catch up, you just need to start at the beginning of his run with Batman and Son, and then
move on through The Black Glove, Batman R.I.P., Final Crisis, the two Batman & Robin hardcovers, and then Return
of Bruce Wayne when it gets collected, and then on to Batman, Inc. The Resurrection of Ras al-Ghul is extremely
skippable, but it is worth your time to go back and read Morrison and Klaus Jansons Gothic, from Legends of the
Dark Knight (which is in trade and was just recently made available digitally through comiXology) and

Morrisons JLA if you havent already.

Q: Im planning a 80s movie marathon for my birthday and would love your recommendations. @deatoni
A: The Last Dragon, Big Trouble In Little China, Road House, Gymkata and The Warriors. You will thank me.
Q: Whats the best Fantastic Four lineup ever? (Im partial to post-Secret Wars Shulkie, myself).
@gorjusjxn
A: Aside from the classic lineup, Ive got to give it to these guys:

Q: As a Punisherologist, what in your opinion is the most underrated non-Ennis/Aaron Punisher story
arc? @djeljosevic
A: Honestly, the entire Mike Baron run the first sixty or so issues of the first ongoing series is really fun. Its
essentially Baron doing a series of big goofy mid-80s action movies starring the Punisher, including direct riffs on
stuff like Class of 1984. My favorite bit, though, is the one where Frank has to go undercover as a meth-dealing
biker in order to kill Charlie Samson, the Marvel Universes equivalent of Charles Manson. Seriously.
Also, Id be remiss if I didnt mention Punisher War Journal #19, which has the best cover blurb of all time.

Suck it, Jet Ski rental clerk. Suck it hard.

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Ask Chris #43: The Lightning Round Special!

by Chris Sims January 28, 2011 12:00 PM

Over the past few weeks, Ive devoted the Ask Chris column to tackling single questions in depth, and as a result,
Ive developed a backlog of questions by eager knowledge-seekers that I havent gotten around to. So this week, Im
doing away with the self-indulgent exhaustively researched format and going all out to answer as many as I can,
as fast as I can!
Q: Weve seen a lot of four and five issue mini-series in the last couple of years featuring characters that
maybe cant support their own ongoing. Made me wonder, which member of the Legion of Super-Heroes
would you most like to see star in a five issue mini? Clemfold, via email

A: Im tempted to go with Ultra Boy because I really love the idea of a guy who has a ton of superpowers but can only use one at a time, but theres really only one answer here: Tenzil Kem of the planet Bismoll,
alias Matter Eater Lad! First of all, the guys official super-hero logo is a tooth, but more importantly, it would
be absolutely amazing to see four issues of a writer coming up with universe-threatening problems that could
only be solved by eating things that one does not usually eat.
Especially if it followed the plot of the Guided By Voices song.
Q: Shaolin shadow boxing or a Wu Tang sword style? @teamsmithy
A: Wu Tang sword. Its immensely strong and immune to nearly any weapon.
Q: Whats your feeling on all Marvel heroes being based out of New York City originally? @PatCarrington
A: I like it quite a bit. One of Marvels early selling points, and one that people still gravitate to today, is that theyre
based more firmly in the real world than DCs, which like it or not were a product of pure fantasy in the 60s
when Stan and Jack laid down the groundwork. In the stories, this idea manifests as the characters having to deal
with more relatable problems in addition to their super-heroics, whether its Peter Parker not being able to pay the
rent, or the Fantastic Four squabbling among themselves, or even the X-Mens thin metaphor for racism, but being
able to say that it takes place in a real city helps to underscore that pretty well.
At the same time, there is a limitation to it. The Marvel Universe New York has a lot of stuff going on in it that you
wont find if you actually go there like, say, a giant pagoda full of ninjas in Hells Kitchen, or even Hells Kitchen
itself but its still based on something real. As a result, the creators are never going to have quite the freedom to
build the city as a character itself in the way that they did with the fictionalized version that is Gotham City, or
even James Robinsons Opal City from the pages of Starman. Of course

its not like New York really needs a lot more character than it already has.
As someone who grew up reading comics and watching movies like The Warriors, coming to New York was a
completely surreal experience for me. I told friends of mine that I might as well have gotten off the plane in the
Mushroom Kingdom for as real as it seemed to me. It might just be my perspective as a guy who grew up in South
Carolina, but it just seems to have this hugeness about it, where you could actually believe you could look up and
see Spider-Man swinging around or bump into Ben Grimm on the subway.
And hey, speaking of:
Q: Now that youre a multiple [trip] New York City visitor, how does it stack up against various fictional
NYCs? @pitrpatr
A: Well, on the one hand, I havent been attacked by Morlocks, Mole Men, the Foot Clan, AIM, Hydra, vampires,
COBRA, Galactus, Simon Gruber, the Baseball Furies, CHUDs or that gang that Jackie Chan fought in Vancouver the
Bronx.
On the other hand, I have seen neither Isaac Hayes nor Donald Pleasance standing in the middle of the street
claiming to be the Duke of New York, A Number One. So I guess well call that one a wash.
Q: Damian Wayne vs Damien Thorn, who wins? @elisiron
A: I actually had to look up Damien Thorn for this one. What can I say? Im not much of a horror movie guy.
Anyway, the question of whether the son of Batman could beat the son of the Devil is really just asking whos going
to raise a more badass kid, and honestly? You guys should probably know where I stand on that point by now.
Q: Who do you think the best letterers are? Earl, via email
A: Lettering is one of those elements of ocomics, much like coloring, that people often disregard because when it
works like its supposed to, it enhances every other thing about the comic without necessarily drawing attention to
itself in the way that good art or memorable lines do. Of course, bad lettering can completely wreck a comic the
most important thing of any story is whether or not you can actually read it, after all.

Ill cop to being a pretty huge fan of the art of putting words in balloons, so heres my top five:
5: Adam Warren (Empowered).

Warren letters his own stuff, and hes great at blending the different styles and sound effects in with his art to get
just the right ideas across, whether its hand-lettered dialogue or the blocky fonts that he uses to label things. And
it doesnt hurt that in both Empowered and Dirty Pair, he has a habit of incorporating peoples names into their
logos.
4: Joe Caramagna (The Amazing Spider-Man: Shed, also a ton of other Marvel books). Caramagna recently won the
Awesomed By Comics Podcasts award for Best Letterer In New Jersey, and while it was given out as a gag, its also
pretty much true (sorry, Chris Eliopoulos). Caramagnas usual style is pretty low key, but in Shed, he pulls off a
trick with the lettering during the Lizards change that is a textbook example of how a great lettering job can work
with the art and dialogue to really enhance a story.
3: Tom Orzechowski (Something like 6,000 pages of Chris Claremonts run on X-Men). If youve ever read a great
X-Men story, theres a pretty good chance Tom Orzechowski lettered it. His letter forms are some of the best and
most recognizable in comics, to the point where, no offense to anyone else working on them, those comics just
dont look right without his letters. Either way, hes pretty much perfect, and when I think comic book lettering,
his stuffs usually what pops into my mind.
2: Todd Klein (Batman: Year One, the Dark Knight Returns, Sandman, the Suicide Squad, Top Ten, Fables, Tom
Strong, etc.). He is Todd Klein.
1: John Workman (Thor).

If X-Men comics dont look quite right unless theyre lettered by Orzechowski, then Thor comics arent
really Thor comics unless its John Workman putting the boom in THRAKRAKABOOM! Aside from just having
really beautiful letters to begin with (and a knack for making the voices of the characters seem big when characters
like Thor and Orion are delivering them), Workman integrates sound effects of epic proportions into stories better
than anyone in the business. Hes a frequent collaborator with Walter Simonson, and those two working on a book
is a pretty sure sign that its worth the cover price just to see how they work with each other.
Which brings me to
Q: Whats the best use of a sound effect text? @blueneurosis
A: The best use of sound effects? Thor #347, where the word DOOM is:

a) The title of a story.

b) A sound effect
c) A piece of the narration.
d) Awesome.
And speaking of
Q: What is you favorite common comic book sound effect/onomatopoeia? James, via email
A: Thwipp!
Q: Whats your favorite unique or rarely seen comic book sound effect/onomatopoeia? James, via email,
again
A: Incredible Hercules wins this competition every time. I really like the issue where Herc and Amadeus Cho head
down to the Underworld and the names of mythological figures are used for sound effects that relate to them, but
overall, my favorite is CRACKAJAMMATU! Not just because its awesome, but because its the sequel to a previous
sound effect. Im pretty sure that had never been done before.

Q: Why no love for Jean-Paul Valley? @zhalfim

A: Because he sucks.

Q: In the DCAU, Batman and Wonder Woman seemed to have a romantic

relationship. Whats your take on that? @The_Ghostwriter
A: A lot of people like the romantic interplay between Batman and Wonder Woman, and while it was even flirted
with (har har) in the comics during Joe Kellys run on JLA, its just not my speed. To me, it seems less like the nobrainer character relationship that its often portrayed as and more like an extension of the total fanfic idea that
two characters cannot possibly exist without wanting to bang each other like a screen door in a hurricane.
Admittedly, I think they should probably get along well and theres no reason why one wouldnt find the other
physically attractive. I mean, that lustrous dark hair, those piercing blue eyes, that lithe, athletic body and
Wonder Womans all right too. But they have vastly different ways of looking at things and I cant imagine either
one really wanting to put the time into the bridges theyd have to build with each other to form a relationship, and
it just seems off to me. A mutual interest in kicking the living hell out of evil, while a great thing to share, is not
exactly going to sustain a romance.
Q: Im trying to get into 2000AD. Any suggestions on where to start? Marcus, via email
A: Ive never read too much 2000AD, but that one where Judge Dredd punches that guy is great.
Q: What superhero would be most likely to star in a movie about themselves & be good enough to get an
Oscar nomination? @spudsfan
A: Booster Gold, of course. The Oscar would be one of the technical ones, and it would go to Skeets for best sound
editing.
Q: What makes J. Jonah Jameson better than Perry White?
A: Lets play a game, and you can play along at home too! First, write down a list of words or phrases that describe
J. Jonah Jameson without describing what he looks like, what he does for a living, or how he feels about SpiderMan.
Got it? Youve probably got a list of words like stern blowhard, loud, angry miserly, or hypocritical but
generally honest, and if youre feeling clever, you might even have threat or menace. Thats good!

Now do the same thing, only with Perry White.

If you have more than, say, two items on your list, then you win the prize of me being absolutely shocked.
Q: Whats the deal with the X-Men comics? @thechrishaley
A: Okay, I said I was going to try to do these quickly, so lets see here.
In the Marvel universe, some people are mutants, because Stan Lee is a genius who figured out that if you had one
reason that you could use for any super-power, you could spend less time writing origin stories and more time
writing hilarious insults about Artie Simek in the credits box of Fantastic Four. There have been mutants ever since
at least Ancient Egypt, but during World War II, the atomic bomb started an increase in the X-Gene. A guy named
Professor X leads the X-Men, which he claims that he did not name after himself, but rather after the fact that the Xgene gave you x-tra powers, because he would rather be thought of as a dude who cant spell than a raging
egomaniac. He thinks that regular peole and mutants can live together in harmony and tolerance, whereas his
former friend Magneto, a Holocaust survivor who is understandably wary of being a member of an oppressed
minority, thinks they should use their abilities to dominate the rest of the Human Race. This is a huge issue for
them, despite the fact that the rest of the human race includes stunt-riding rednecks possessed by demons from
hell, giant orange rock monsters, and FrankenCastle.
Both of these guys decided to form teams so that they could decide who was right by throwing impressionable
chlidren at each other, and thus, Professor X founded the X-Men. At first, he had only five students: Cyclops, whose
father was a space pirate furry, Angel, who was rich and had wings but was then blue and had metal wings and is
now only blue sometimes, the Beast, who claims to be smart despite turning himself into a blue cat-man and
hanging out with Wonder Man, Iceman, who was not in Top Gun, and Marvel Girl, who later became Phoenix when
she came back to life in comics so good that they used up all the quality for death-and-resurrection stories for the
next twenty years.
Over the years, more mutants joined up, including the walking fetish that was Psylocke, a German circus acrobat
who was a good man despite looking like a demon until we all found out that he actually was a demon shortly
before we all decided to never talk about Chuck Austen again, and a Russian guy who could turn to metal because
hey, did you know Stalin means Man of Steel? Most importantly, though, there was Wolverine, a hundred year-

old Canadian Samurai secret agent berserker with metal claws, a penchant for collecting teenage girl sidekicks and
surprisingly amazing marketing potential.
Meanwhile, Magneto got his own team of guys that boasted powers like shapeshifting, control of flames, and being
unable to resist the appeal of the KFC Double Down. Sometimes they got to live on the moon (yay!) but the tradeoff
was that they sometimes had to hang out with Quicksilver (boo).
Thus, they fought! And they fought other guys, and sometimes they teamed up, and sometimes they had their
minds erased and learned to walk again and then remembered who they were and/or forgot how to walk, and
sometimes they fought other people, and sometimes they went into space, but mostly they were just kind of moody
about stuff, and most of them spoke in outrageously cartoonish accents.
Theres also a school involved, but since the student body had a slightly higher mortality rate than, say, dinosaurs,
they eventually closed it down and moved to the West Coast, where they could be moody and have accents around
other people.
And that pretty much sums it up.

Read More: Ask Chris #43: The Lightning Round Special! | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-43-the-lightninground-special/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #42: Breaking Down Bane

by Chris Sims January 21, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: As a reputed Batmanologist, what is your take on Bane as a character and his place in the bat-villain
pantheon? @C_Thorn

A: I got quite a few questions about Bane this week, which I imagine has a lot (read: everything) to do
with the news that hes going to be one of the bad guys in the third Christopher Nolan Batman film.
On the surface, it might seem like a weird choice for Nolan, whose films have been largely psychological in how
they treat their heroes and villains, to go with a villain mostly known for being an honest-to-God super-villain
luchador on super-steroids who defeated Batman with a pro wrestling hold. But if you think a lot about where
Bane fits in with Batman and his villains and Im sure it wont surprise anyone to learn that I have it actually
makes a lot of sense.
As much as Cable is a symbol of the excesses of the grim-and-gritty 90s for Marvel, Bane and Doomsday fill that
role at DC, and its not an entirely undeserved reputation. Doomsday especially fits right in with the idea of stories
that got darker, dumber and more violent, although to be fair, his origins lie in the all-too-rare attempt to do
something new. If you look at Supermans greatest foes, they all represent mental challenges. Lex Luthor, Brainiac,
Mr. Mxyzptlk none of them test Supermans strength or resillience, because its firmly established that you cant
top him in terms of raw power. Instead, theyre villains that have to be out-thought. Even Bizarro, Supermans
equal in terms of abilities, needs to be beaten by figuring out a way to make him understand things through his
own twisted logic.
The motivation, then, was to finally give Superman something that hed never had: An enemy that could go toe-totoe with him and present a legitimate physical threat. Its a neat idea, but unfortunately, while it did actually
involve some neat stuff, it also resulted in one of the most popular and widely-read Superman stories of all time
being a comic where Superman and a monster in bike shorts punched each other to death.

Bane, however, is an entirely different beast. In a lot of ways, his defining appearance saw him function less as a
character and more as just a plot point that allowed for a much bigger story, and to understand how he got there,
you have to understand where he comes from. Not the prison in the fictional South American country of Santa
Prisca (although Ill get to that in a minute), but the factors that led to his creation as a character.

The first was the desire to create the biggest Batman story of all time, and in a lot
of ways, they succeeded. Knightfall was huge. It was a twenty-part story (19 parts of which were labeled, plus
the actual kickoff in Batman #491), and thats not counting the months of setup in Batman or the fact that the story
didnt end until it had stumbled through another few years with Knightquest and Knightsend and Prodigal. It
featured Batman battling almost all of his major enemies and marked a big change that would, for better or worse,
dictate the pace of those books for the better part of a decade.
And thematically, while it eventually became downright unbearable, its based on an extremely solid idea. Ive
talked before about how the very idea of Batman involves a man breaking through his own limitations to become
something other, but Knightfall examines just what those limitations are, for whats actually a pretty good reason.
The trend in the late 80s and 90s at DC was to reduce characters in power in order to make them more relatable
which I assume was to follow the model that had made Marvels more humanized characters like Spider-Man
and the X-Men so unbelievably popular and whether or not that was a good idea, its something Crisis on Infinite
Earths certainly accomplished. Superman, for example was no longer quite as strong and could even be hurt the
writers of the Silver Age had always been able to get around those rules, but it was actually codified in the text
itself that he was only X strong and could be knocked out by an A-bomb if he was having a bad day.
Batman, however, had only grown more powerful. Part of it was necessity to the character (Batman has pretty
much always been a brilliant detective and an incredible fighter), and considering that the high point of Batman
stories up to then was the ONeil/Adams era, a reduction of his prowess probably didnt seem necessary. But with
the arrival of Frank Miller who had depicted the incredibly skilled, phenomenally wealthy young Batman of Year
One and the cranky old mudhole surgeon of Dark Knight Returns and the profound influence hed had on the
character, Batman just got tougher.
The challenge, then, was very similar to what they faced with Superman, who was going through his infamous
death at almost exactly the same time. If Batman is more than a man, then no one criminal could possibly stand
against him. But what if he faced an army of them, one right after the other? His own dedication becomes his
downfall he forsakes any kind of rest in favor of stopping the bad guys, until hes so worn down that he hes at a
point where someone could stand against him. This is the key point of Knightfall, and one to remember about
Bane: Its not just Batman vs. Bane, its Batman against everyone. Bane just happens to be the guy who shows up
last.

With all of that in place, now we look at Bane himself. Much like The Death of Superman, the creators decided
not to go with one of Batmans more established villains. This couldve easily been a Ras al-Ghul story, where Ras
finally got sick of Batman refusing to marry his daughter and decided to kill him once and for all, and instead of
Bane thrashing Batman through his own house, it couldve been a swordfight akin to what ONeil and Adams did,
only with an exhausted Batman unable to fend off 400 years of master swordsmanship.
Instead, they went with a villain that was almost brand new, and who was almost certainly created for this one
purpose. And they did it because they wanted a different kind of villain than what Batman usually faced. And they
drew on three distinct predecessors to make him.
The first one is phenomenally obvious to the point of autoplagiarism, but its almost never mentioned. Stop me if
youve heard this one: A new villain shows up in Gotham, a hulking, masked brute who pulverizest he bones of his
opponent. Batman tries to stop him, but in the process, hes injured paralyzed, in fact and a younger blonde

cohort with a mysterious past has to stand in until Bruce Wayne, healed by miraculous Deus Ex Machina means, can
once again resume his role.
That might sound like Knightfall, but its actually the plot of a story that ran four years earlier to coincide with the
release of Tim Burtons Batman movie and celebrate Detective Comics #600: Blind Justice, by Sam Hamm and
Denys Cowan and Dick Giordano.

You may notice a slight resemblance.

To say that Knightfall and its aftermath recycled massive chunks of this story is underselling things quite a bit,
but despite the resemblance, Bonecrusher the guy in the hood up there is actually very different from Bane.
The wires on his wrists actually power sonic gauntlets that reduce his enemies to pulp, and his gimmick is actually
much more like Lord Death Man than anything else. But clearly, there was a huge influence from this story.

The second major influence and no one is going to believe it because its me telling you this is The KGBeast.

The Beast is one of my favorites and Ive gone out of my way to work him into completely unrelated columns
before, but here, I actually have a reason. Again, theres a physical resemblance the massive figure, the color
scheme, the luchador mask but more important is the fact that the Beast is an unstoppable physical enemy. Hes
one of the first foes that Batman cannot overwhelm through sheer physicality, and in fact, Ten Nights of the Beast,
doesnt end with a satisfying punch-out, it ends with Batman realizing that despite his training and skill, his body
has its limits. Instead of fighting him, Batman essentially lures the KGBeast into an underground cell and leaves
him there to die.
The Beast pushes Batman to his limits, but he never has a chance to force the final physical confrontation. Bane,
however, does so, refining the Beasts characteristics and combining them with the most important factor of all.
And that factor? That Bane is essentially the most successful attempt at creating The Evil Version of Batman.
Again, thats not a new idea, and had been done most famously ten years before in Mike W. Barr and Michael
Goldens The Player On The Other Side from Batman Special #1.

The villain in that story, The Wrath, was the son of two bank-robbing murderers who were gunned down by the
police on the same day that Batmans parents were murdered by a criminal, and so he naturally swore his life to
the destruction of the law. Its a great story, but its done with the explicit attempt at setting up the Wrath as a
direct reflection of Batman. Bane, believe it or not, is far more subtle. And not just because he doesnt have a big W
on his face that makes bat-ears.
Batman, despite the tragedy that drives him to become a crime-fighter, is born into a world of privilege. He even
lists everything off in Year One:
I have wealth. The family manor rests above a cave that will be the perfect headquarters. Even a butler with training
in combat medicine.
Bane, however, receives an entirely different legacy from his father: Hes sentenced to life in a South American
prison to pay for his fathers crimes, born to absolutely nothing, save for the natural athletic abilities and
intelligence the two traits he shares with Batman. So instead of being able to travel the world to better himself,
hes forced to work within the confines of a small extremely hostile environment.
As a result, he grows into a man driven by vengeance to take what he wants without any concern for the harm it
causes to those around him. His methods become a direct contrast to Batmans. Batman doesnt kill, but Bane?

Bane will kill constantly if he feels like it, and not even in to further his own goals. While Batman is violent with the
goal of preventing violence, Bane is violence for its own sake.

And then theres the Venom. Introduced by Denny ONeil and Legends of the Dark
Knight #16, the super-steroid was originally used by Batman as a way to overcome his physical limits, which you
may have noticed is a recurring theme surrounding this story. Batman, of course, stopped using it in order to avoid
becoming dependent on something outside himself, but its the source of Banes physical prowess. Where Batman
thinks of Venom as something that goes too far, Bane embraces it and uses it to great effect.
Incidentally, the idea of someone being raised in a prison where he has to train himself physically and mentally
through the prison library, then gains super-powers from a drug, is very much in tune with the origins of Golden
Age heroes. Specifically, it echoes both Marvel/Timelys Golden Age Angel and DCs Hourman, although that might
just be an interesting coincidence.
Even more telling than the differences, though, is the one aspect that he and Batman share. I mentioned before that
theres a direct metatextual reason for the events of Knightfall, but its equally important as to why those events
happened within the story. At its heart, the driving action is started simply because Bane wants to take out Batman.
But in order to do so, he doesnt just do what your average villain-of-the-week does (showing up and calling

Batman out for a fight), and he doesnt even do what the arch-villains do (committing crimes in order to provoke
Batman into action, then springing on him). Instead, he does something that is often overlooked when people talk
about Bane: He comes up with a plan.
He orchestrates a jailbreak at Arkham Asylum to not only release Batmans enemies, but also provide them with
weapons. He doesnt waste time or effort fighting Jean-Paul Valley, because he recognizes that hes not the true
Batman. He devotes himself to discovering Batmans secret identity so that he can fight him when he least expects
it, at his lowest point, outside of an environment. Its not just a plan, but a great one.
Clearly, Bane is a mastermind who belives that the victory is in the preparation. In other words, he sees things in
the same way that Batman does, and turns Batmans own methods against him right down to the Venom that
echoes Batmans own use. He even forms an army of like-minded cronies so that his goals can be furthered on a
grander scale, which is exactly what Batmans doing now, fifteen years later, in the pages of Batman Inc.
The ruthlessness, the single-minded dedication to his goal, the planning and strategy, it all adds up to make him a
direct reflection of Batman, and it all leads to a plan that actually works:

Well, it works for a while, anyway. If Bane truly understood Batman and I actually think its an intentional bit of
character development that he doesnt hed understand that by defining a physical limitation, hes simply given
Batman something else to conquer. Of course, hed also know that if hed read Detective Comics #600, but thats
neither here nor there.
It does bring up one more interesting similarity in their methods, though, in that Batman and Bane both devote
themselves to the physical end of a confrontation, but dont necessarily have an answer for the mental aftermath.
When Batman throws the Joker in Arkham Asylum, for instance, thats the physical end of whatever the Joker was

up to. If hes locked up, hes not physically out on the streets of Gotham City creating chaos, but in terms of
mentality, hes still crazy and hes probably already thinking up his next criminal exploit. The same goes here:
Batman is beaten physically, hes never really broken, despite the hype and taglines of the story. Hes already
working on a way to return.

Unfortunately, he came back in what might be the worst way possible, when his girlfriend/physical therapist
learns his secret identity, uses her psychic powers to fix his spine, which has the side effect of driving her insane
and giving her the mind of a five year-old, after which she is put in a mental institution and never heard from
again. Seriously, Knightfall started out with a lot of potential, but did not exactly end well.
I do think its worth noting, though, that this is a story where Batman is beaten by an evil version of himself (Bane),
who is then beaten by another evil version of Batman (Azrael), who is in turn beaten by Batman.
As for post-Knightfall developments, Bane has had the strange road that comes with being a character created
specifically for such a huge story. Once its over, theres just not much you can do. There might be a way to make
that character exciting again, but if he shows up to fight Batman, you always know how thats going to go down.
The connection with Batman is built to lead to exactly one moment (two if you count the inevitable rematch), and
finding something new to do with that relationship is a difficult task.
Thats not to say that Knightfall itself entirely lived up to the potential that it started out with. A whole lot of it,
after all, was stuff like this

and while I like my comics goofy, it helps if theyre not actually trying to be super-serious at the time. But still,
it is Banes story, and it seems like the further away you take him from that and from a role that sets him up as a
contrast to Batman the harder it is to do something good with him.
For evidence, just look at his brief appearance in Infinite Crisis, where he breaks Judomasters back with the same
move he used on Batman. Its the very definition of using the same action but with absolutely none of the
emotional content that made that action important, and its a prime example of why doing scenes for no reason
other than because readers will remember seeing them elsewhere is one of the surest ways to make bad comics
(see also: Batman: The Widening Gyre). Greg Rucka later tried to salvage it to build up an animosity between Bane
and Thomas Jagger, Judomasters sidekick/heir in the pages of Checkmate, but it went nowhere.

More recently, Gail Simone has been using Bane in the page of Secret Six, where he
functions as a brutal enforcer who follows a strict code, often imposing himself on the other members.
The most interesting development there is that he has come to see himself as a father figure wanted or not
for Scandal, which is an interesting twist for a character who literally grew up in a prison because his own father
left the country rather than face his sentence. But again, his role as a mastermind dedicated to a goal at all costs is
reduced or eliminated. It makes sense that it would be Scandals the team leader, not Bane but it also just
directly points to the fact that without that one defining moment where he fights Batman, the character is
completely aimless.
In effect, hes served his purpose, and is now just hanging out trying to be useful.
Even so, there is something interesting at the core of his character, something that certainly wasnt on display
when he showed up in Batman and Robin, and that even Batman: The Animated Series didnt quite use to its full
potential. Hes an evil version of Batman as a pulp character with a lucha mask, and while hes not one of my
favorites, theres certainly a lot there to work with.

Read More: Ask Chris #42: Breaking Down Bane | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-42-breaking-downbane/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #40: Batman vs. Bruce Wayne

by Chris Sims January 14, 2011 12:00 PM

Q: As Americas most eminent Batmanologist, what do you think of all the hullabaloo over whether Bruce
Wayne or Batman is the mask? Molly, via email
A: Honestly? I think its probably the most overrated truism in comics.

I was around 13 when I first heard the idea behind it, that Bruce Wayne was just the mask
Batman wore rather than the other way around, and my mind was totally blown by this sudden new insight into
how my favorite character works. Its a very, very useful bit of shorthand that gets across the idea of how dedicated
Batman is to fighting crime, and how much his life changed when he decided to devote himself to eradicating evil.
Its even been adopted by a lot of creators as a core tenet of the character, and gained a lot of traction on fans in
the Batman Beyond episode where Old Man Bruce talked about how he even thinks of himself as Batman rather
than Bruce Wayne.
It makes a great sound bite, but its a very simplistic view of things, when the reality or at least, as close to
reality as you get with fictional characters is far more complex.
The idea of the secret identity and the alter-ego is one of the most appealing things about super-hero stories. The
fact that Superman takes off his cape, puts on a pair of glasses, and goes to his day job isnt just a great plot device
that allows for a supporting cast of nosy reporters that are constantly falling out of helicopters, its also an aspect of
his character that makes him far more relatable than any walk across the country. For all his power, he still has
deadlines to make and a crush on the girl at the next desk.
Incidentally, Ive often heard the Bruce Wayne is the disguise argument delivered as a direct contrast to
Superman, whose farmboy values are usually cited as a reason why the real half of that relationship is Clark Kent.
This is equally flawed logic, but Ill get to that in a minute.
With Batman, the idea of relating to the secret identity is blown out of the water the minute words like billionaire
playboy and stately Wayne Manor hit the page, and as a result, its easy to see the Bruce Wayne identity as
being nothing more than a storytelling tool. Batman has no super-powers, so he has to have metal boomerangs,
bulletproof Dracula costumes and a sweet muscle car to compensate, which in turn means that he needs a logical
way to pay for all this stuff. Thus, hes not just a billionaire, but a billionaire who owns a company specializing in

high-tech non-lethal technology that just happens to be exactly what the well-dressed vigilante is wearing this
season.

If Batman is truly the real version of the character, then his need to be Bruce Wayne starts and ends with how
he can put the Wayne fortune and resources to good use fighting crime. And while there are plenty of stories where
thats exactly how it works, and while thats a perfectly fine use of those plot threads, its a very shallow
characterization.
Nobody only thinks about one thing all the time not even when the person is me and the thing in question is
Batman and a well-developed character isnt devoted entirely to going about their goals in exactly one way, even
if it dominates his life.
Now, its certainly true that while Bruce Wayne is out and about on the Gotham City Social Scene, drinking ginger
ale instead of champagne and romancing supermodels, hes definitely playing the role of a wealthy dilettante,
which is not what he is. But its also true that when he drags a crook up to the top of a building and threatens to
drop him fifty stories unless he coughs up the whereabouts of the Riddlers hideout, hes playing the role of a
murderous psychopath, which is also not what he is. Batman would no more drop that guy to his death than hed
spend the rest of his life having cocktails with the rest of the Drones Club.
Theyre both acts to a point; neither one is the truth about Batman/Bruce Wayne, but neither one is entirely a lie,
no more than youre lying by acting differently at Thanskgiving dinner at grandmas house than you do when
youre out at a bar with your friends. We all act differently depending on the context of our situations, and
Batmans no different. Admittedly, he hides a larger portion of his life than most people and his extremes are a little
more, well, extreme, but hes a super-hero. They dont do things by halves.
I think that the idea that there has to be a division in Batman is a false notion that was fueled by Rorschach
from Watchmen:

With Rorschach, there is a clear division between the two identities, specifically of one ceasing to exist when the
other comes around. With Watchmen being as great and influential as it is, a lot of people latched onto this as being
the definitive portrayal of the kind of masked vigilante character that Batman embodies, but theres a world of
difference between the two characters. In this regard, Rorschach the uncompromising vigilante who came up
surrounded by violence and was motivated by a tragedy to destroy what he saw as evil has a lot more to do
with the Punisher.
Batman, however, isnt broken as a person in the way that Rorschach or the Punisher are. He certainly has a
tragedy in his past that set the tone for everything he does now and hes certainly not known for being all that
keen on compromise but the motivation is different. Its crimefighting, not vengeance.
When done well, Both Batman and Bruce Wayne have the same goal, and the person at the heart of both uses
those resources to further it. And unsurprisingly, one of the creators who best gets this is Grant Morrison.
In Morrisons run, Batman is consistently shown as being a man who does everything in his power to stop crime
at every level. One of the common arguments that people often go to in order to dismiss Batman as a character is
that dressing up in a costume and beating up the mentally ill doesnt do a whole lot to effect real change, but
as Bruce Wayne, thats exactly what he does. As a billionaire philanthropist, he creates charities, employs reformed
convicts, gives misguided people second chances and donates a massive high-tech crime lab to the GCPD free of
charge, and as a super-hero, he stops muggings, murders and the literal destruction of the city. In both aspects, hes
devoted to fighting crime, but he doesnt go about it one way or another.
In other words, its Batman who punches out the abusive pimp

but its Bruce Wayne who gives the girl a way to find a better life.

Incidentally, the other major incarnation of Batman that gets this exact aspect of the character right, showing Bruce
Wayne to be just as invovled in the social aspects of crime prevention as Batman is in bringing down crooks? The
1966 Batman TV show.

Bruce Wayne and Batman are just two names for the same person, and, as I said before,
the same applies to Clark Kent and Superman. Superman doesnt really need a job its not like hes got rent to
pay on the Fortress of Solitude but assuming that he wants to have a secret identity and not be Superman all the
time, Clark Kent could do quite literally anything for a living. He could even stay in Smallville and work on the farm
between Justice League meetings.
But instead, Clark Kent becomes a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, meaning that his actual day job is
to seek out truth and expose the guilty to justice, in a way so American that they put it in the First Amendment. In
essence, Clark Kent and Superman both stand for the same things, just like Batman and Bruce Wayne both battle
against crime in specific ways. Same person, same goals, but a wide range of methods.
The end result and the end result of every character who has this kind of thought and development put into
them over the years is a character thats far more well-rounded than he would be otherwise. They might act
differently in different situations, but at heart, Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person. After all, it wasnt
Thomas and Martha Man who got shot in front of their young son Bat.
Q: You walk into a pizza place. They have to machines: Mortal Kombat II and The Last Action Hero pinball
game.

You only have one quarter. Which do you choose, and why? Jen Vaughn, via phone
A: This is maybe the easiest question I have ever gotten for this column: Last Action Hero all the way.
As for the why, well, can we all come together as a society and finally admit that Mortal Kombat was just not very
good? Say what you want about me being a Street Fighter partisan which is true but that game seriously got
by solely by being a game where you could rip someones spine out rather than being a game that was actually fun
to play.
Plus, its a simple matter of economics. I am terrible at Mortal Kombat, which means that quarter is going to last
me about 90 seconds two minutes if I pick Scorpion, because I think I can still remember how to do the spear
move from reading GamePro in 1992, and the ol GET OVER HERE!/uppercut combo would probably get me
through the first level.
Admittedly, Im not that much better at pinball, but holy crap, look at that thing! Its a pinball machine based on the
most (only?) metatextual Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and it has a police siren on the scoreboard. Not only is that
awesome, but Im going to go ahead and say that theres a pretty good chance that if I hit the right spinner

theres a pretty good chance Jack Slater would come to life and help me fight Danny DeVito.

Read More: Ask Chris #40: Batman vs. Bruce Wayne | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-40-batman-vs-brucewayne/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #37: The Best Christmas Present Ever

by Chris Sims December 10, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: What is the best comics related non-comic item youve ever received for Christmas? Sean_Hollenhors
A: All, right, I admit it: This is quite possibly the most self-indulgent question Ive ever answered in this column,
and considering that my baseline is four thousand word essays about why Batman is totally the best guy ever,
thats saying something. But then again, tis the season for Christmas memories, so pour yourself a cup of eggnog
and let me take you back to a memory of Christmas past!The year was 1990, and I have a vivid memory of sitting in
my fourth grade classroom as the teacher handed out an assignment that Im pretty sure was meant solely to kill a
few hours before the break. The idea was that wed all draw a picture of the thing we wanted most for Christmas,
then wed share it with the class. In what I consider to be the height of my career as an artist, I had the idea to fold
the paper over and draw a gift box, bow and all, on the front, so that you could open it to reveal the thing I wanted
more than anything else in the world:

DuckTales for the NES! And you guys thought it was going to be something with Batman.
Of course, my crayon drawing didnt look as good as that, but again, I definitely remember drawing both the Official
Nintendo Seal of Quality and the yellow Save $10 bar in the lower left, because I wanted this thing so bad that I
had memorized the box art. Which, looking back on it, is pretty weird even for me.
DuckTales had actually come out the year before, but despite the fact that Ive been playing them pretty much
constantly for the past 23 years, I never actually owned many video games when I was a kid. Up through the
PlayStation era, my family and I were renters, and while the process of picking out a weekends worth of
entertainment led to some missteps when I brought home a clunker looking at you here, Castlevania II it was a
pretty good way to reconcile a limited budget with the fact that a subscription to Nintendo Power had given me the
desire to play everything.
Incidentally, the other thing that Nintendo Power gave me when I was a kid was an early lesson in the fact that the
right words could make anything sound good, no matter how terrible it actually was, which came in pretty handy in
my adult life when I started writing about Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose.
This, however, was one that I had to own. Just look at these state of the art, high-resolution graphics!

I kid, but it actually was one of the better looking games of the NES era, which shouldnt come as much of a surprise
considering it was developed by Capcom, which for those of you who dont know is the company behind
console-ruling classics like the Mega Man and Street Fighter franchises. As such, it was a highly enjoyable game,
with seriously great music and fun platform gameplay that, in typical NES fashion, only came in two settings:
Ridiculously easy and frustratingly impossible.
Also, its worth noting that I think this is the only NES game in which the main character wore spats. So how could
it not be great?
I first played this game years before I even knew who guys like Carl Barks and Don Rosa were, but at time, Id read
a few of the Disney comics and I was a huge fan of the DuckTales animated series which, incidentally, Ive heard
Barks and Rosa both hated and for me, being able to bop around the world as Scrooge McDuck on a mission of
shameless capitalism was everything I wanted. But looking back, the things that seem the most charming about the
game are the ways it deviated from the show and went straight into the wonderful world of Nintendo Logic.
Scrooge himself, for instance, can attack by knocking blocks around with his cane like a golf club. This makes sense
for the character; as a native of Scotland, Scrooge prided himself on his golfing ability. But his primary attack is
jumping on his cane like a pogo stick, which is something Im not sure Scrooge McDuck has ever done in 63 years of
comics and cartoons.
Then theres the games setting: Youre offered the choice of five different levels: The Amazon jungles, the
Himalayas, a blood diamond mine in Africa (yes, really), Draculas mansion in Transylvania, and my favorite, the
friggin Moon, all of which were selectable on the single greatest stage select screen in video game history:

A couple things about this stage select screen: First, that is the most baller computer of all time, and you can
suck it, Richie Rich.
Second, as you scroll through the available levels, you can see the treasures youre meant to discover in each level.
The scepter, crown and gigantic diamond are pretty self-explanatory, and while I honestly dont remember what
the Transylvanian treasure is, GameFaqs informs me that its a coin of the lost realm. My favorite, though, is the
Green Cheese from the moon, which you get by beating the living crap out of a gigantic moon mouse. You know, as
one does.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, is that the actual map displays the single worst grasp of geography
ever. Granted, the world of the Ducks isnt exactly a stickler for accuracy Duckburg itself being a major city in
the state of Calisota but DuckTales for the NES takes place in a world where Africa is somewhere to the west of
the Himalayas, which are just south of Transylvania, and all three are on a continent that has the Amazon rain
forest at its northernmost point. Im genuinely surprised they managed to actually have an arrow point at the
moon.
But all that craziness just made me love it more, if only because getting Scrooge stuck in the snow of the Himalayas
resulted in the best sprite ever:

And as an added bonus, my dad hated it. Not in a those damn video gamesll rot your brain sort of way; unlike a
lot of kids, my parents were all about the 8-bit era. When I got my NES on my fifth birthday, I remember waking up
at around 2 AM and wandering out the living room to find my bleary-eyed mother trying to get through World 8.
No, dads hatred of it was more of a I cant get past the first Goddamn stage because I cant figure out how to f
ing pogo jump! type of thing, and I found that hilarious. He was more of a Dr. Mario guy.
Sure enough, my hint dropping paid off I gave my mom the drawing Id made with all the subtlety ofwell, of a
9-year-old in December and sure enough, it was there for me on Christmas morning. Over the next few years, Id
put more time into it than any other game I can think of except for Super Mario World (the only game I took with
me to a summer at my grandparents house) and maybe Grand Theft Auto III.
As a result, I came to know that game like the back of my hand. I dug it out to refresh myself tonight and I can still
remember every secret area and exactly how to get the two Hidden Treasures, which absolutely blew my
mind when I was a kid, as they led to the first ever alternate ending Id ever seen in a game.
See, normally when you beat the game, you get a screen of Scrooge jumping up and down with a modest treasure
chest and a shot of a newspaper

and while that might seem like a lot of money, I can assure you that to Scrooge McDuck, that is chump change. It
is for chumps.
If, however, you get the hidden treasures and max out your score by figuring out how to get Launchpad to take you
to bonus stages (a 7 in the 10,000 place in your score!) and backtracking through stages to get twice as much cash
like a boss, you get this

along with Scrooge jumping up and down on a gigantic pile of money with a crown.
As far as comics-related presents go, this one takes the cake hands down, especially since its one of the few times
that the amount Ive wanted something has matched up with the amount of fund Id had with it once i actually got
it. There was a sequel released in 1993, but by that time I had a Super NES, and I dont think I ever played it, even
on a rental. For all I know, it might be worlds better as a game, but I doubt it couldve possibly matched the feeling I
got seeing that second ending for the first time.
It might not be the branching storylines you kids today get with your Mass Effects and your Dragon Ages, but I
swear that I honestly thought I was dreaming and the only time in my life Ive even come close to feeling that sense
of accomplishment again is when I finally got a job that allows me to sit around in my pajamas writing
about DuckTales for the NES all day.
And now, a few quick answers!
Q: Are the Daily Planet/Bugle independent or owned by shadowy corporations? ChompyDuchamp
A: Other than the time during Brand New Day where it was bought by Dexter Bennett, the Bugle has always been
owned by Americas greatest newspaperman, J. Jonah Jameson. The Planet, on the other hand, has at various times
been owned by Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne, and of course Morgan Edge back in the Bronze Age, the magnate behind
news station WGBS that decided to make Clark Kent a television news anchor. Im pretty sure its now owned
wholly by Perry White, although his failure to ever commission killer robots to attack his employees makes me
doubt his commitment to journalism.
Q: My nine-year-old nephew likes superheroes and comics a little. Knowing both him and comics, Im
certain that he would go ape-dung crazy for Batman if the right story presented itself. Not only is Mr.
Wayne terribly awesome in general, I have no doubt hell ring very particular bells in the boy. What trade
paperbacks would you recommend I supply the kid? Brad, via email
A: Since you want to hold off on Year One until hes 11 or 12 (which makes sense, what with the hooker-stabbings
and all),

you could do a heck of a lot worse than to find a copy of The Dark Knight Adventures (and that linkll take you to
where you can buy it on the cheap), which collects the first few issues of Kelly Puckett and Mike Parobecks tie-in
to Batman: The Animated Series. I loved those things when I was that age, and even today, theyre perfect models of
how to tell great, self-contained Batman stories that really are great for all ages. Other than that, he might be right
in that magic age where hed get a real kick out of stuff like the Silver Age Batman Annuals, which I wouldve loved
to have had when I was a kid.
Q: Is it just me or do comics fans seem to feel an undue amount of entitlement when it comes to creators
and their creations? ekanerva
A: Its not just you. Now if youll excuse me, I need to go write an essay about how people keep getting Batman
wrong.
Q: The artist-co-authored Batwoman #0 turned out to be pretty good. What, in contrast, is the WORST
writer-artist creation? KlarionPK
A:

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Ask Chris #36: What Is the Best Superman Origin Story?

by Chris Sims December 3, 2010 12:15 PM

Q: What is/are your favorite Superman origin stories and why? @deantrippe
A: Back when we were both working at a comic book store, my pal Chad Bowers and I made a
list of things that we never, ever needed to see again in comics, and right at the top, outranking
even A Spider-Man story with the words power and responsibility in the title was another
origin story for Superman. And keep in mind: This was before Birthright, Secret
Origin and Earth One.
On one level, I can completely understand why its such an attractive concept for creators to
revisit over and over and over again, but on another level, stop it. Once you get to a certain
point, continually revisiting a characters beginning doesnt add anything, it just drags things
backwards and devolves into confusing published bickering over which stuff counts this time.
To take it back to my days at the shop, its essentially the comics industrys version of four
guys showing up to a D&D game night with four different sourcebooks and trying to shout
each other down with why THAC0 is better than Base Attack Bonus and never actually getting around to the
adventure, and it has about as much to do with telling a good story.But there are a couple of Superman origins that
I absolutely love, and my all-time favorite probably wont surprise anyone. Here it is in its entirety, from page 1 of
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitelys All Star Superman:

Not only is this a one-page master class in economic storytelling, but it is quite literally everything you need to
know about where Superman comes from. Its not just that Morrison and Quitely are able to boil it down to four
panels and eight words, but that those specific panels are all it takes to get across the entire reason why Superman
does what he does.
Despite the fact that Im a guy known for dropping 4,000-word essays on the importance of the utility belt in the
modern heroic mythos, Im a pretty big fan of brevity in situations like this, for one simple reason: Every page
about why Superman does stuff he does is a page where Supermans not actually doing it. And thats fine up to a
certain point, but once the basics are established, its time to move on to some actual heroism.

And again, thats all you need to know. Ive said before that any story that focuses on Jor-El and his relationship
with Superman lookin at you here, Smallville has successfully missed the point of both characters. Jor-El is
not a motivating factor for Superman in the way that Thomas Wayne and Uncle Ben are motivating factors for
Batman and Spider-Man, respectively. Hes a desperate scientist who put his last hope in a rocket rather than see
him perish on a doomed planet.
That is the sum total of his character, exactly one action (putting the baby in the rocket) that gives Superman a) a
reason to have super-powers, b) characterizes him as an alien who will be accepted by Earth and c) casts him as
someone who represents capital-H Hope from the moment he escapes the death of Krypton. Thats it. Theres no
further relationship between the two characters once the baby goes in the rocket; the father/son relationship of
the Superman story comes from Jonathan Kent, one half of the kindly couple that raises him on Earth.
The fact that all this can be conveyed in such sparse terms is one of the real strengths of Supermans origin. Its like
Robin Hood: The crusades and the ransom of King Richard and the politics of land ownership in England in the
1300s and the fact that Maid Marian was only his girlfriend after a sixteenth-century retcon are certainly
interesting, but all you really need to know about that guy to get started on his adventures is robs from the rich,
gives to the poor. Eight words, folks.
But again, that stuff is interesting most of it anyway and like I said, there are long-form Superman origins that
I like a lot: John Byrnes Man of Steel.

My affection for Man of Steel probably doesnt come as a surprise, as it was the origin I grew up with, but I really
think it does certain things better than any other version, specifically in the first issue.
For one, Byrne makes Krypton itself a very cold, sterile place, stripped of all human feeling. I have to assume that
this was a direct reaction to the way Krypton was portrayed in the Silver Age, as a paradise where pretty much
everyone was just as great as Superman. And its a very important distinction.
Ive mentioned before that for Batmans origin, Bruce Waynes childhood should be absolutely idyllic in order to
heighten the motivating tragedy of his parents murder. For Superman, however, its the reverse: Life on Krypton
shouldnt be something Clark Kent should ever aspire to the definitive factor for him isnt where he was born,
but rather the guidance he gets from the Kents and, by extension, the acceptance of Earth. Hes embraced by his
adopted home, and its that act that makes him its protector. Krypton just doesnt matter.
So instead, Byrne uses Krypton to illustrate just whats so great about Earth: That we are nothing but emotions and
life thats worth protecting:

Also, Laras scandalized freakout at seeing bare-chested dudeness is basically hilarious.

Its also worth noting that after Jor-El puts the baby in the rocket and becomes the first Kryptonian in a
hundred centuries to actually tell his wife that he loves her, a great way to cast Superman himself as an actual
product of love rather than the planets cold science hes pretty much done. He shows up a few times again as a
hologram, but only so that Superman can say I come from the planet Krypton and not I come from, I dunno, a
crater out in the East 40. I guess maybe space?
And thats not the only great moment in Man of Steel #1, either. It really is Byrne at his best, and while Supermans
reaction to the way the crowd treated him is certainly a product of the storytelling styles that were prominent in
the 80s

its not only still pretty relevant today, but also does a lot to draw the distinction between Byrnes Superman,
who needs to be Clark Kent and who is truly human at heart, and the Superman of the Silver Age, who
really didnt have much reason to dress up as a reporter and go to work.
The best bit, though, is the fact that Supermans S is just an S.

Virtually every other origin for Superman goes out of its way to throw this under the bus in favor of complete and
utter nonsense, and I seriously have no idea why. The fact that Superman wears an S because his name is
Superman makes sense, which probably has something to do with the fact that in reality, Superman wears an S
because his name is Superman. In Byrnes version, just like in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shusters creation of the
character, he got the name, and then the letter. Its that simple.
But for some reason, creators feel the need to fix what was never broken to begin with. Given Supermans
importance as a symbol, I can understand the desire to try to add significance to it as a Kryptonian crest or
whatever, but that is both needlessly complex and ignores the fact that the reason this symbol means something is
that Superman wears it, not the other way around. The symbol doesnt need to mean anything beyond Superman,

because Superman makes it mean something. In Earth One, however, J. Michael Straczynski goes in the opposite
direction and strips it of all meaning by having it be something Pa Kent came up with after talking to an advertising
executive in a calculated attempt to brand his son, and that might just end up being the absolute worst part of that
piece of garbage.
Again, simplicitys the key. Theres nothing wrong with having a detailed origin story I dont think youll find
anyone who doubts that I think Batman: Year One is a damn fine comic book but when there are so many that all
have different details, each steadfastly refusing to admit that the others exist, a lot of the appeals going to rest with
who manages to cut it down to the things that really matter.
And now, a few quick answers!
Q: Would you like to see Spider-Mans Girlfriend Carlie Cooper or Norah Winters: Girl Reporter back-ups? I
would. @VJ_Dacak
A: You know, traditionally I provide the answers, you dont have to add them yourself. But yes, Id totally read that,
although Id be way more interested in a Carlie Cooper story, as a Roller Derby crime scene investigator in the
Marvel Universe would be print gold.
Q: Best comic character with the word dead in their name. @adamtool
A: Deadshot.
Q: What would you put in a cocktail called the Emma Frost? @metrokitty
A: What do you put in an Emma Frost? Scott Summers!
Really though, Im always up for a comics-themed cocktail, but Emma presents a little problem. It ought to be clear
and sparkly, so Id go with vanilla vodka, Sprite, and a splash of Key Lime juice, because if theres one thing Emma
Frost needs to be, its tart. Served on the rocks, of course.

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Ask Chris #35: The Hip-Hop/Comics Connection

by Chris Sims November 26, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: Why do you suppose it is that so many hip-hop musicians love comics, and so many comic fans hate hiphop?
A: When you get right down to it, comics and hip-hop have been inseparable from the
start. Seriously, in the Sugarhill Gangs Rappers Delight, the first ever major rap hit, Big
Bank Hank spent the good part of a verse romancing Lois Lane away from Superman
through a combination of lyrical skill and worm-size.
This, of course, prompted Superman to release his own dis track, Big Bank Stank, and
kicked off the New York / Metropolis rap feud that lasted well into the 80s.
Either way, the connection started there and continued up to today. In a lot of ways,
comics have had more of an impact on rap than they have on almost any other aspect of
pop culture, and as for why, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that on a thematic
level, they deal with the same things.Super-hero stories and rap are both built around
creating with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, they both involve
battles, enemies, people who fight then team up and sudden betrayals. Rappers even have
super-heroic codenames, and I think that at its core, that comes from the same place.
To use a couple of my favorites as examples, look at Jay-Z and Batman, which, just so you know, is a team-up story
I would write you for one dollar, DC Comics. Both are identities created by otherwise normal men (Shawn Carter
and Bruce Wayne, respectively) that allow them to become somethingbigger than themselves, to accomplish things
that normal men couldnt. Admittedly, the accomplishments might not be quite on the same level eradicating all
crime being a slightly more lofty goal than, say, selling Armadale vodka but the point stands that theres a level
over-the-top posturing there thats every bit as exaggerated as it is in comics. The only difference is that one has
The Worlds Greatest Detective and the other has The Best Rapper Alive.
For another example, you dont need to look any further than hip-hops equivalent of the
Justice League, the Wu-Tang Clan. Not only is this a team where everyone had their own
super-heroic name, but in The Tao of Wu, the RZA writes about the importance of creating
those identities to reflect specific aspects of a character.
Not only does he talk about how theres a marked difference in the aspects of his
personality that he displays as the character of the RZA and Bobby Digital. To him,
Bobby Digital isnt just a name he used to release an album, but a full-on alter-ego with
super-powers and flaws of his own, who failed to learn his lesson from the story of SpiderMan, which the RZA recounts as being about a selfish egomaniac who didnt give a f***
he was the man, out wrestling fools, starting fights.
Clearly, there needs to be a Spider-Man story called Wrestling Fools, Starting Fights, and
again: One dollar. Call me, Marvel.
These themes of identity, of being able to personify a persons characteristics, both good
and bad, is one that you see over and over again in both comics and hip-hop, and its for
that reason that I think rappers identify so strongly with comic book stories and
characters. Again, you see it in Wu-Tang, where Ghostface Killah and Method Man identify themselves as Tony
Starks and Johnny Blaze, as though the names theyve already got werent super-heroic enough.

Its also worth noting that the guys most known for changing identities, MF DOOM and Kool Keith, are decidedly
comic book heavy in both their music and in how its presented.
It doesnt stop with the themes of identity, either. More than any other genre of music, hip-hop is thrives
on conflict, and the same goes with super-hero storytelling. Other genres may use the term battle to refer to
competitions, but a rap battle is actually confrontational, with two guys dissing each other and exploiting
weaknesses in the lyrical equivalent of a fight. And thats just on the small scale: Just like in comics, things escalate
into long-running feuds and when it gets big enough, they even throw in a crossover where a sidekick returns to
fight alongside the hero.
Even the storylines mirror each other. When Jay-Z came out of his retirement, which lasted about as long as
your average comic book characters death, he called his album Kingdom Come, after the story where Superman
comes out of retirement.

And those are just the connections to the thing that happen in the comics; the stuff beyond the text has just as many
similarities. Like comics, hip-hop has a strong reliance on its past which is even referred to as the Golden Age. In
the same way that comics creators draw on old stories for plot points to take a new spin on, rappers and producers
sample old songs, and both are full of references to the past. When Notorious B.I.G. dropped the line every
Saturday, Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl, in Juicy, there might as well have been a footnote album sleeve
reading As seen way back in Word Up magazine #43! Rappin Roy.
Theres even the fact that Grandmaster Cas didnt get any credit for writing Big Bank Hanks verse in Rappers
Delight, making him the hip-hop equivalent of Bill Finger.
With that many connections not to mention the aspirational nature of hip-hop as a way to escape socioeconomic
strife, which goes hand-in-hand with the origins of an awful lot of Marvel characters its no wonder that so many
rappers find themselves attracted to the world of comics. As for the second part of your question, why comics fans
dont have a similar love of hip-hop, well, Im not sure they dont.
I mean, Im sure its a matter of personal tastes, and I worked in a comic book store long
enough to realize beyond a shadow of a doubt that theres a certain brand of geek that will
only be happy listening to Iron Maiden, They Might Be Giants and Rush in various
combinations (with maybe, maybe a little J-pop thrown in for variety), but most of my
friends who read comics are also pretty into hip-hop.
Maybe its just a generational thing, and admittedly, the fact that one of my best pals is
Adam Warrock himself sort of throws off the average, but its true. I can only think of one
or two friends of mine who are less excited about Deltron 3030 than Spider-Man 2099.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: What is the fundamental reason Martian Manhunter never caught on as a singles hero? (Yes, Im making
a wrestling analogy.) JonHexLives
A: Because when you get right down to it, he doesnt do anything that someone else doesnt already do better. Hes
a detective, but weve already got the Worlds Greatest in the same comic, and hes the last survivor of an alien race,
and as you mightve heard, DC already had one of those, too. The telepathy and shapeshifting are interesting, but it
wasnt until relatively recently (specifically the late 90s) that these really came into play as anything other than

just your standard-issue secret identity stuff. So really, the only thing he had to distinguish himself was his role as
the cornerstone of the Justice League, which is a role he fit into very well thanks to guys like Giffen, DeMatteis and
Morrison.
Q: Whats the best Dungeons and Dragon setting and why? MagicLoveHose
A: As far as the official settings, Im awfully fond of Keith Bakers Eberron, as it combines traditional fantasy with a
more pulp and, yes, steampunk sort of feel, and also has a playable race of killer robots. My favorite setting of all
time, though, is Green Ronins Freeport: The City of Adventure, which first appeared in an adventure combining
pirates and Lovecraftian horror, and has the funniest jokes in the sourcebooks.
Q: Why do people hate Triumph so much? samhurt23
A: If you mean Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, its probably because not everyone understands the sublime genius
of a punchline like for me to poop on. If, however, you mean the DC Comics third stringer who was so lousy
even Justice League Task Force wouldnt have him, well, Ill leave that one to the expert.
Q: Ive never read a tweet with quite the level of hatred in its words as yours concerning The Big Bang
Theory. Whats up? charpalnaut
A:

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Ask Chris #34: Beyond Jack Kirbys Fourth World and the Secrets of the Batcave
by Chris Sims November 19, 2010 12:30 PM

Q: Are any of the non-Kirby New Gods books from the late 80s and 90s worth
checking out? vofly
A: The post-Kirby Fourth World stories have been a pretty mixed bag ever since Return of
the New Gods brought back Orion and ditched his Astro-Harness and helmet for the most
generic super-hero outfit ever, complete with a big O on the chest. Seriously, dude looked
like Geo-Force, and that is no way to go through life.
By and large, these characters have tended to work better as elements of other stories
than they have on their own. It might just be a function of how hard it is to capture the
grandeur of cosmic forces when youre not doing a massive meta-story spread out over
four different titles, but stuff like The Great Darkness Saga, Jim Starlin and Mike
Mignolas Cosmic Odyssey, and smaller roles in Justice League International, Suicide Squad and JLA have been way
better than anything that focuses on the New Gods themselves.
Except for one book: Orion.

Really, all I need to say about this is written and drawn by Walter Simonson, and youd probably be able to
figure out that its the best non-Kirby use of the New Gods just from that, but its true. Over 25 issues, Simonson did
a story that was truly epic in scale, following Orion as he masters the Anti-Life Equation and takes over Apokolips,
taking things to the next level . And it does it by doing everything that youd expect right at the start, freeing up the
rest of the run to answer the question of what happens once all the prophecies have been fulfilled.
Which is to say that this is a comic that pretty much opens with Orion and Darkseid fighting to the death, and
brother, that is hard to top.
The issue where it all goes down, Orion #5, is one of Simonsons masterpieces. For pure fight comics, it might even
top the all-splash page issue where Thor fights the Midgard Serpent and knocks his teeth out from the inside,
which is probably the highest praise I can give to anything.

Like his Thor run, Simonsons Orion is lettered by the phenomenal John Workman, and both of the creators are at
the top of their game here. Its the textbook on how to construct fights, with each page leading to the next, showing
the flow of combat on a cosmically brutal scale, with move and countermove punctuated by their signature sound
effects.
When Orion tells Darkseid that the time for talking is over, hes not kidding: Once those two start laying into each
other, the only things you hear until the last page are KRAKKs,FLTHWHRAMs, and of course

the occasional KKRAAAAKKDOOOOHMM!

Beyond the obvious, though, theres a lot going on here. The symbolism of Orion throwing away his Motherbox, the
device thats been tasked with keeping his boundless rage in check, isnt just a signal to the reader that things are
about to jump off (though it certainly is that), but its the defining moment on which the rest of the series rests.
The beauty of the New Gods, something that creators like Simonson and, lately, Grant Morrison understand, is that
theyre the metaphorical aspects of super-heroes writ large and purified even further. Theyre the archetypes of
Hero and Villain, Good and Evil, taken to the extreme, with the underlying message being that Good is ultimately
more powerful. Its an idea that Orion himself is at the center of right from his origin.
For those of you who dont know, heres the quick version: As part of a peace treaty between the planets of New
Genesis and Apokolips, Darkseid and Highfather gave each other their sons. Highfathers son, who would grow up
to be Mr. Miracle, remained capital-G Good despite being raised among the constant, all-consuming evil of
Apokolips, but Orion, the son of pure, unrelenting cosmic Evil, also ends up Good. Angry, yes, but a champion of all
thats Good. In Kirbys mythos, Evil has already lost, its just a matter of waiting it out.
So when Orion throws away the Motherbox, the symbol of New Genesis, hes not just Hulking up, hes turning his
back on Good and trying to beat Evil with Evil. And no matter how good his intentions, in Kirby cosmology and
Simonsons execution thats a losing proposition. Its doomed from the start, and thats the lesson of the series,
beautifully constructed as an almost literal throwaway panel in the midst of a thunderous fight scene.
And if that wasnt enough, Simonson added the pure fun of framing every page with the assembled Fourth World
characters watching it all happen, reacting to the events (and occasionally running for cover as Darkseid is thrown
into the bleachers) as it happens including Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion, covering the Cosmic Title
Fight for WGBS:

Interviewing Parademons. That was the single coolest thing Jimmy Olsen did from 2000 to 2009.
Once the pieces are in place, the book not only follows Orions eventual fall and redemption, but also explores and
expands that corner of the DC Universe in a way that hadnt really been done before or since. In addition to
bringing in new characters like Mortalla in the main story, each issue featured Tales of the New Gods backup
stories by some of comics greatest creators, like Art Adams, Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons, and more.
And also Rob Liefeld.

One of my favorite elements explored over the course of the run, though, is Raker Qarrigat, Green Lantern of
Apokolips:

Originally created by Scott Beatty and Joyce Chin for a Green Lantern 80-Page Giant, Raker was the last survivor of
a disastrous invasion that pretty much wiped out the entire Green Lantern Corps. Cut off from his power battery,
Raker fought in the shadows of Armagetto, keeping his ring in a stasis bubble to prevent it from losing its 24-hour
charge.
And in Orion, Simonson, Al Milgrom and Klaus Janson reveal that Darkseid allows him to exist in order to give the
people of Apokolips a shred of hope, making it that much more brutal when he crushes it out of them.

Its a great bit of writing that showcases the depths of Darkseids evil and his absolute mastery of Apokolips
without detracting from the Green Lanterns heroism, and it incorporates elements of the broader DC Universe
with the Fourth World, something a lot of creators struggle with.
Like Aztek and Hourman, Simonsons Orion is one of those amazing and incredibly underrated DC books that spun
out of JLA, and if you like Kirby, Simonson, or even just good comics, its well worth tracking down.
Q: Are the giant Joker card, the dinosaur and the giant penny in the Batcave from specific stories?
kenlowery
A: They are indeed!

Over the years, Batman has been shown to keep an awful lot of trophies in his anti-crime basement, ranging from
freeze rays and trick umbrellas to the occasional dead sidekicks outfit, but the three most visible and most
consistent that show up in virtually every depiction of batcave are The T-Rex, the Giant Penny and The Joker
Card. And two of them, at least, are actual trophies from Batmans early adventures.
The giant green T-Rex, of course, comes from Batmans crossover with Ryan Norths Dinosaur Comics.

Wait, no. Sorry, got my notes mixed up here.

The T-Rex actually comes from the story Dinosaur Island in 1946s Batman #35.

Id always assumed that the dinosaurs in question were made for some criminal purpose, but as it turns out, they
were actually constructed to be part of a new amusement park off the coast of Gotham City, bankrolled by a
millionaire who gets his kicks from eating priceless historical treasures:

Thats right: Batman once ate an unfrozen Mammoth. That is the diet of a crimefighter.
During the dinner, one of the diners issues a challenge

and of course, this being Gotham City, one of the other diners is secretly a mobster who sees a gadgetless Batman
surrounded by robot dinosaurs as a golden opportunity to get rid of crimes most stalwart foe.

Thus, DC Comics proves once again that The Most Dangerous Game is not so good a story that it cant be improved
by robots, dinosaurs, and Batman.
Incidentally, one of my all-time favorite things about Batman is the fact that he narrowly avoids being killed, then
sizes up the attempted murder weapon and goes You know, if youre just going to throw that out
The Giant Penny comes from The Penny Plunderers in 1947s Worlds Finest #30:

And even by the standards set by Dinosaur Island, this one sits at the height of Golden Age madness.
It revolves around a small-time crook named wait for it Joe Coyne, who, after seeing his best-laid criminal
plans thwarted due to a few penny-related coincidences, goes completely insane and decides to get himself a
gimmick:

Thus, Coyne sets about committing some penny-related crimes which, surprisingly, have absolutely nothing to do
with the Giant Penny. Its just set dressing at the scene of of one of his other crimes, when he attempts to steal a

rare one-penny stamp (stamps being the target of at least 40% of all crimes committed in comic books between
1939 and 1969).

I find it interesting that of all the Batman stories of the Golden age, these are the ones with trophies that have
become so prominent that the Batcave just doesnt look right without them. Other than the Penny being typically
evocative of Dick Sprangs art, they dont really have any significance, as neither one really represents a turning
point for Batman and the villains theyre related to are both forgettable one-shot foes. They just look cool. You see
them and immediately know theres a story behind them and you probably think its one thats way better than
they actually are.
The odd one out, then, is the Joker card, which is immediately recognizable as being tied into not just a big Batman
villain, but the big Batman villain. And yet, its the one that doesnt come from a particular story.
Near as I can figure, it got its start in 1950 in Detective Comics #158, where it wasnt a card at all:

Instead, its a giant replica of the Jokers head, which is pretty appropriate. If theres one thing we know about that
guy, its that he totally loves to make replicas of his own head. Its almost his entire deal.
Anyway, it first shows up as a trophy, and I suspect that over time and different artists, it turned into the far more
appropriate visual of a giant card, which again just looks like something that has a neat story behind it. The Joker
has used playing cards as his signature in several stories Year One, Kililng Joke, The Dark Knight, The Jokers
Five Way Revenge and so on but those are always regular sized cards, and having them tacked up on Batmans
corkboard isnt quite as striking as the giant version.
There may have been a story that came later to retcon it as having its origin in a specific event, but if there is, it
sadly represents a gap in my Batmanology expertise. But really, I never claimed to be all that great at Batmanterior
Design.

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Ask Chris #33: Smallvilles Most Wanted Guest Star and Cobra Commanders Second Chance
by Chris Sims November 12, 2010 12:30 PM

Q: With the obvious choice unavailable, what other DC character would you like to see appear
on Smallville before it ends? willwise3
A: I assume that by the obvious choice, you mean Batman, who was famously the subject
of Smallvilles original pitch, but the fact is that Im perfectly happy not seeing Bruce Wayne show
up on the CW. If I want to see a younger version of Batman learning the skills that hell use to
become a hero, dealing with self-doubt and preparing to deal with a truly ludicrous plot to destroy
a city, Ill just pop in the first half hour of Batman Begins.
But since this is me youre talking to, the obvious choice might be the guy who actually would be
my number one pick: The KGBeast. He would fit in perfectly on that show especially if played
by the WWEs Vladimir Kozlov but as Ive already hit my Laura Hudson-mandated limit
of KGBeast content for this week, Ive got a few other choices.Its actually pretty hard to think up
characters that Id like to see that the show hasnt done yet. Even before the last couple of seasons
where it turned into a live-action revival of DC Comics Presents, the show had already been dipping
into DCs pretty vast reserves of characters. Over the past ten years, weve already seen the Legion
of Super-Heroes, Zatanna, the Flash, Aquaman, the Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and the Justice Society, the
Suicide Squad (including both Deadshot and Amanda Waller), Maxwell Lord and the friggin Wonder Twins. I mean,
right now, Green Arrow is a major character on the show and theyre fighting Darkseid. Theyve covered a lot of
ground.
But while there are still plenty of characters that Id love to see shown off to a wider audience Metamorpho,
Aztek, Space Cabby theres only one that I think could make a pretty good go of it on Smallville: WILD DOG.

Created by Max Alan Collins and Terry Beatty in 1987, Wild Dog is the DC Universes version of the Punisher. And
by that, I dont just mean that hes the DC Universes resident gun-toting vigilante though he definitely is but
that hes a gun-toting vigilante that could only exist in a universe that allows for characters like Jimmy Olsen. Hes a
complete and utter product of his world, with monumentally goofy elements to him that include a secret identity, a
tricked out pick-up truck named Rover, a secret identity that at first was even kept secret from the reader, cutting
edge (for 1987) gadgetry like taser gloves and a mission to protect the Quad Cities from the threat of terrorism.
Yes, you read that right: He fights terrorists. In Iowa.

Admittedly, said terrorists are essentially just a crowd of Hans Gruber knockoffs and, in one story, a gaggle of rightwing anti-pornography activists, which resulted in the house ads promoting his first mini-series to be given the
truly amazing tagine Everyone talks about terrorism He does something about it!
And yet, for all, that, hes treated with an absolute seriousness that comes with being a dude who kicks a guy in the
face so hard that it snaps his neck within two pages of his debut, which to me anyway only makes him more
hilarious.

Whats more, Wild Dog would actually make perfect sense in the context of the show. If the final season is going to
continue the current plot line of showing the publics growing concern over vigilantes who take the law into their
own hands which you know all about if youve been following ComicsAlliances weekly recaps by David Uzumeri
and me then introducing a character set up as a contrast to Clark and Green Arrow, one who crosses the line
that separates hero from vigilante would be a pretty logical choice for a story.
They could even preserve the gimmick of the original mini-series by making his identity a mystery, because
seriously? The space on the Venn diagram illustrating people who both care about Wild Dog and actually
watch Smallville is pretty much occupied by me and Geoff Johns, and I wont spoil it if he wont.
Plus, hes easy on the budget. Check out the dudes costume:

Camo pants, a hockey mask, gloves and a football jersey. I dont even think you need a wardrobe department to get
that together so much as you just need to look in a drawer. The most difficult part would be getting what is
unquestionably the best logo ever printed onto the jersey, and not only am I pretty sure thats simple, it would also
bump up the odds of getting an official Wild Dog t-shirt, which currently hover somewhere around zero.
As unlikely as it is that well ever see Wild Dog on TV hell, its unlikely that well see him in comics I actually
do think hed make a good fit. And if theres one thing that show needs besides an appearance by Kanto,
ballerest of the New Gods its a guy who kicks terrorists so hard they die. And thats something I think we
can all agree on.
Q: If you could give any failed COBRA plan for taking over the world a second chance (other than Cold
Slither which is the obvious choice) which plan would you go with to defeat those meddlesome Joes?
Also: Is Morons! Ive got morons on my payroll! the greatest line in GI Joe history or do I have a better line
to look forward to as I make my way through the series? Michael, via email
A: Man, there sure are a lot of people jumping on my go-to answers this week, because yes: I would do anything in
my power to reunite Cold Slither for a new album. If someone made a shot-for-shot remake of the
documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil starring Zartan and the Dreadnoks, I could finally die happy.

Anyway, to answer your second question first, Im afraid its all downhill from here, as you have in fact hit the
height of Cobra Commanders dialogue. I will say, though, his assessment of Sgt. Slaughter He has the
constitution of a vending machine! comes pretty close.
As to which non-glam-rock-based sinister plot deserves another chance, Ive got to go with Red Rocket Burger:

Like all of Cobra Commanders plans, this one was elegant in its simplicity:
1. Convince retired chefs to purchase Red Rocket Burger restaurant franchises.
2. Construct Red Rocket Burger restaurants, including functional intercontinental ballistic missiles disguised as
decorations.
3. Hire local biker gangs, equip them with laser pistols, and order them to terrorize Red Rocket Burger locations in
order to drive down business.
4. Buy back Red Rocket Burger franchises at a reduced price, making a profit.

5. Replace the non-functioning nose-cones of the ICBMs mounted on the roof of every restaurant with a Photon
Disintigrator Warhead.
6. Hold world for ransom.
See? Simple.
Now, most people would ask the obvious questions, like why didnt they just install the warheads to begin wtih,
or if they had 151 Photon Disintegrator missiles, why did they bother with the restaurants, but I think the
question you should be asking is why bother with the missiles when you have a successful fast food franchise?
Make a good enough burger and you can take over the world without ever firing a shot.
And you know, now that I mention it, Im not sure Cobra Commander hasnt given this one a second pass. I mean,
whatever secret algorithm they used to determine when the McRib can finally come back? That definitely sounds
like the work of Dr. Mindbender to me.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: What is your favorite thing (or things) about Terry McGinnis and the world of Batman Beyond?
charpalnaut
A: I know you were looking for one of my patented million-word essays with this one, but to me, the magic
of Batman Beyond is pretty simple: Hes Spider-Man (young, wisecracking, plagued with girl troubles, has to deal
with his night job keeping him up late when he ought to be studying for tests), except that hes also Batmanin
the future. Theres nothing about that that isnt awesome.
Q: Can you recommend a good jumping on point for the Legion of Superheroes? BuckSolo
A: Sure! Id say start at the beginning with the Silver Age stuff, which DC has made pretty easy to do thanks to their
Showcase volumes of the series. Admittedly, I like Silver Age DC comics more than a lot of people, but the Legion
captures the fun and craziness of the era better than almost anything else, and also features the beginnings of
modern serial storytelling its one of the first books where people die, stay dead for a little while, come back, get
married, and so on.
If youre looking for something a little more modern, Id say you can jump on with the post-Zero Hour reboot,
collected in The Beginning of Tomorrow, which kicks off my favorite era for the team. Keep in mind, though, that
most of the Reboot Era remains uncollected, so if you like it, youre going to be digging through a lot of back issues.
For the current stuff, you can hop on with Geoff Johns and Gary Franks Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes,
which I thought was a lot of fun.
Q: If you could date any fictional woman in the history of comics, who would the lucky gal be? chrisloxley
A: I dont know if Id go so far as to call her lucky, but theres no question about this one: I totally have a comics
crush on Becky Burdock, Vampire Reporter from Paul Grists Jack Staff:

Not only is she smart and pretty, shes a writer whos mad all the time and Im pretty sure shed hate Twilight, so
we already have a lot in common. Plus, shell occasionally knock a bad guys head off with a sledgehammer. That
meets pretty much every criteria I have for a dream girl, folks.

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Ask Chris #32: Brand New Day and the Batmobile

by Chris Sims November 5, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: Now that its ended, what are your thoughts on the whole Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day run?
MarkKirwan
A: For those of you who havent been keeping up with the adventures of your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,
this weeks release of Amazing Spider-Man #647 marked the official end of the Brand New Day stories, which
essentially means that as of next issue, itll only be coming out twice a month instead of three times, and without
the rotating cast of writers.
Its not really a stretch to say that Brand New Day was controversial and it certainly had its share of detractors,
but the majority of them seemed to be directed less at BND and more at the storyline that immediately preceded
it, and on that front, Im totally with em. But the end result, and I say this as someone with a documented love of
the character, is that for the past two and a half years, Brand New Day gave us some of the
best Spider-Man stories in decades.Ill admit that at the start, I was extremely skeptical. It
was, after all, spinning out of One More Day, a story that doesnt have a lick of good in it.
Everybody and their brother on the Comics Internet has thrashed that thing to the point
where it barely even needs to be addressed at this point, but the fact of the matter is that it
was a heavy-handed retcon that that was predicated on something completely antithetical to
the spirit of the character.
Even worse, the whole thing Both One More and Brand New seemed to be motivated
by the most pervasive enemy of good storytelling in comics today, nostalgia. The desire as I
understood it back then was to return Spider-Man to the heights the character had seen in the
70s, and while those stories were great, I was worried that it was going to end up in the same
self-indulgent repetition that often comes with alleged returns to greatness.
With Spider-Man, though, the creators understood that it wasnt just the characters in those
stories that made them great, but how they were told. Instead of falling into the nostalgia trap, the creators and
editors of Amazing Spider-Man got it in ways that other retcons completely missed.
So whether or not the initial motivation was to just get rid of Mary Jane and the marriage, Brand New Day
really did give the books a new sense of energy and forward momentum. Its ironic, considering that the whole
thing came as a result of an event that was criticized for wiping away years of character development, but for the
first time in a long time, Spider-Man stories felt like they had some forward momentum to them.

And the creators delivered on that promise. Instead of just pitting Spider-Man against the villains weve all seen
before, they created new characters for him to fight, with virtually every arc for the first year of BND offering him
a new challenge. And not only were there characters that were clearly created to be fixtures for the character
(like Mr. Negative) and villains that had defined character arcs and mysteries within the story (Menace), there
were also great incidental characters like Screwball added not just to Spider-Man stories, but to the Marvel
Universe.
Because really, Overdrive isnt really a villain that anybody thinks is going to beat Spider-Man

but hes got neat powers, he makes for an interesting and adaptable plot device, and its going to be awesome
when he inevitably shows up in a book like Thunderbolts.
And even when Spider-Mans established foes did show up, it wasnt in the way weve seen before. It wasnt just
that the stakes of the fights themselves were raised, which is a pretty artificial storytelling construct that a lot of
creators rely on to make things seem bigger than they are, when any hack can just write a story a bomb big enough
to blow up the world that your super-powers are useless against. Its also that the characters
were treated differently. Over the course of The Gauntlet, none of the classic villains were left at their typical
status quo, and in the process, we got truly amazing stories like Keemias Castle and Shed, which are easily
some of the best Spider-Man stories since at least Kurt Busieks run on Untold Tales.
Shed specifically which both David Uzumeri and I have written about elsewhere is easy the best Lizard
story of all time, and while that probably wouldnt be a difficult title to come by, its actually pretty amazing. Much
like One More Day as a whole, it takes something that at first glance sounds like itd be awful in this case a
darker, grimmer, revamped Lizard who commits a truly atrocious act in the story and does it with such a level of
craftsmanship that it lives up to the titles promise of being amazing.

Even the supporting cast was revitalized and moved forward. New characters like Dexter Bennett, Carlie Cooper
and Jay Jameson (Senior), new roles and plots for characters like J. Jonah Jameson (Junior) and Harry Osborn, it all
came together recapture the super-powered soap operatic nature thats always been one of the books most
appealing points.
But more than anything else, the idea of change as the only constant, the idea of creation rather than stagnation is
what captures the feeling of those Spider-Man stories we all love from the past. Theres a a feeling to it helped
out in no small part by the fact that three issues were coming out every month that theres more going on for
this character than just a punch-out with the villain of the month.
Of course, that also has a lot to do with the sheer amount of talent behind this book. Im pretty sure that there was
nothing wrong with Spider-Man that writers like Dan Slott and Mark Waid couldnt have fixed without jumping
through the hoop that was One More Day, but the addition of a relatively clean slate didnt hurt matters. Ive said
before that at this point, Waid could write a compelling super-hero story in his sleep, and Slotts work has proven
what everyone who read Spider-Man and the Human Torch already suspected, namely that hes going to go down as
one of the best Spider-Man writers of all time. And while theyre the standouts, theyre not the only ones doing
excellent work; guys like Zeb Wells and Fred Van Lente just killed it every time they got to bat.

The art, too, was phenomenal. Again, the standouts are obvious Id put Marcos Martin and Javier Pulidos
work up against anyone from Ditko and Romita on down but this is an era for Spider-Man that boasted Phil
Jiminez, John Romita Jr., Emma Rios, Chris Bachalo, Max Fiumara, and Paolo Rivera, who drew what might be my
favorite Spider-Man fight scene ever, and more. Thats the best roster of artist any comics had in the past decade.
Even the lettering particularly Joe Caramagnas work on Shed has been notably awesome.
Which isnt to say that its all been perfect. With 101 issues from diverse creative teams, there are bound to be a
few rotten apples in the bunch, and Brand New Day had its share. I couldve lived a perfectly happy life without
ever seeing Freak, for example, and the updating of Spider-Man and the Black Cats relationship to include them
actually having sex while he kept his mask on to keep her from knowing who he was struck me as a shade creepier
than it ought to have been.
And then, of course, there was One Moment In Time, in which the events of One More Day were revisited and
explained. As Evie and Aaron of the Awesomed By Comics podcast put it, this was essentially like bringing up an
argument you had with your significant other two years ago because you still think youre right telling us about
a devil bird and assuring us that only married people can have children accomplishes nothing.
But in the end, the high points far outrank the lows and you really have to hand it to editor Steven Wacker for
putting it all together. Its a truly monumental achievement.
Mostly because it brought us Anti-Venom, who is Venom except in reverse and he wants to help Spider-Man by
eating his radiation, and that is hilarious.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: I havent read Batman since RIP, but I think Batman Incorporated sounds kick-to-the-face awesome.
What should I read to catch up? Greg4cr
A: All you need are the Morrison issues, and those are easy to grab: The first hardcover of Batman and Robin has
been out for a while, and the second just hit this week. Youll also be wanting to jump on The Return of Bruce

Wayne and Batman #700, 701, and 702, but those wont be too hard to track down at your local shop or online at
the links above.
Q: Did you read Superman: Earth One & if so, is it that much different than the other origins we have gotten
since 1986? MushroomJones
A: Yes I did, and yes it is, in that most other Superman origins arent terrible.
Q: You have to go back in time 150 years, and you can bring 2 non-Batman fictional characters. Who do you
bring? What do you do? LiterateKnits
A: First order of business would be to take along a time traveler, because really, there is no way I want to stick
around 1860 for any longer than necessary. Im tempted to go with the Doctor, but his penchant for getting
wrapped up in wacky adventures would undoubtedly delay my return journey to a time of indoor plumbing and
Krispy Kreme donuts, so Im going to with Ultra Boy from the Legion of Super-Heroes, under the condition that he
also brings a Time Bubble.
For my second choice? Devil Dinosaur. Because Abraham Lincoln riding Devil Dinosaur would end the Civil
War toute suite, timeline be damned.
Q: Whats your favorite version of the Batmobile? deantrippe
A: The one that flies.

Special Update Section: In last weeks Extra-Spooky Halloween Edition of Ask Chris, I was asked to create a
Frankensteins Monster made of dead super-heroes. To that end, I chose the head (and helmet) of Aztek, the body
of the Golden Age Mr. Terrific, the arms of Hitman (right) and Jonah Hex (left), the pelvis of Darkseid, the go-go
dancing legs of Gwen Stacy, and Thomas Waynes moustache. I then ordered asked artists to draw this unstoppable
monstrosity.
And I received not one, not two, but three pieces of art! Check em out:
Guayec:

Paul Salvi:

Kate Holden:

Thanks, awesome artists!

Today, we have learned a lesson. And that is that I clearly need to give you guys homework assignments more
often.

Read More: Ask Chris #32: Brand New Day and the Batmobile | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-32-brandnew-day-and-the-batmobile/?trackback=tsmclipv

Ask Chris #31: The Ask Chris Halloween Special!

by Chris Sims October 29, 2010 1:00 PM

Normally, ComicsAlliance Senior Writer Chris Sims answers comics and comics culture questions from our
readers every week, but today, in honor of Halloween, things are about to get terrifying! This week, Chris answers
your spoooooooky questions from beyond the grave!

Q: If you could stitch together a Frankenstein monster from dead superheroes, who would you pick?
dbed
A: Ah, so you wish for me to share the secrets of my forbidden research, do you? I knew this day would come. They
laughed at me. They called me mad. Mad, I tell you! Which is to say that the problem with being a superhero resurrectionist is that those guys tend to resurrect themselves on a pretty much monthly basis, so when youre
constructing your own super-hero flesh golem, youre limited to a small but ever-changing pool of raw (and
rotting) materials. But that doesnt mean I couldnt do it. Call me mad? Ill show you Ill show you all!If I had my
druthers, I wouldnt need more than one body to pull off my desired bit of Frankensteining. Id just bring
back one guy

and if you say you wouldnt read that, you are clearly lying and we have nothing further to discuss. Unfortunately,
that would violate both the spirit and the letter of your question, so Im forced to grab the shovel and my
hunchbacked assistant and go raid for some more parts.
For the head, Id decapitate the thoroughly exploded body of Aztek, the Ultimate Man:

For one thing, you pretty much want your Frankensteins to be pretty malleable when it comes to the brain, and
Azteks mind was both shaped by the mysterious Q Foundation and accessed by the memories of his predecessors.
At the same time, you dont want anyone who wont understand when you yell put down that torch, you wretched
abomination! and Uno here was at least smart enough to think his clothes into the fourth dimension when he
didnt need them.
Plus, that cranium comes with one of the sweetest helmets in comics not designed by Jack Kirby. I guess you could
say hes ahead of the game.
For the torso, Im going to go with Terry Sloane, the Golden Age Mr. Terrific:

Why? Because stitching together corpses and infusing them with life like a Modern-Day Prometheus (not the guy
who fought the Justice League), youre playing God. And when you play God, youve gotta play fair.
Even so, when youre building a patchwork monstrosity, its easy to follow the pattern established by Dr. Victor
Frankenstein. Much like Jack Kirby, Victor was the master whose work sets the standard, but also like Kirby, he
was an innovator, and a better tribute than slavish devotion is finding a way to improve on the flaws of his work.
And when I look at Frankensteins infamous monster, I notice a huge flaw to improve on: The dude has no guns
whatsoever.
Thats why my version gets the right arm of Tommy Monaghan, a.k.a. Hitman

and the left arm of Jonah Hex:

A shambling horror created in mockery of man? Thats great for Halloween. A shambling horror created in
mockery of man that can also shoot with pinpoint accuracy using both archaic and modern firearms? Thats fun all
year round.
For the lower body, Im going to bend the rules a little bit and branch out from super-heroics just a shade, starting
with the pelvic area, which comes, of course, from Darkseid:

Because really, if the Ultimate God of Evil thought the comfort and ventilation of a belted man-skirt was the way to
go, who am I to argue?
And for the final touch, we have the legs, and I thought pretty hard about this one. Do I go with Air Wave, who
could rollerskate on power lines? Judomaster, whose kicks would make my creation a whirlwind of gunfire and
martial arts? The sticky, two-toed feet of Nightcrawler? All good suggestions, but in the end, there was really only
one choice:

Gwen Stacy.

Imagine it. A seven foot-tall monstrosity in a five-pointed golden helmet and a man-skirt made of pure evil with the
words FAIR PLAY emblazoned on its stomach, firing pistols in both hands as it go-go dances at you on a set
of dynamite gams.
Cap that sucker off with Thomas Waynes Moustache, a piece of facial hair so powerful that its loss pretty much
drove an entire city into crime, and I think we can all agree that Ive created the most terrifying and unstoppable
monster history has ever seen.
I expect fan-art by Monday.
Q: Whats the horror movie you saw at too young an age that gave you nightmares? Alternately, whats the
totally milquetoast not scary at all thing that scared the sh out of you when you were 3? Chris Burnham,
via email
A: I dont usually talk about the things that scare me in public becaue well, mainly because my friends are all
jerks, and I know that as soon as I do, Ill get an email with an attachment labeled
BATMANUPPERCUTSASHARK.jpg thats actually a picture of, I dont know, a clown with spiders for hands or
something. In fact, ifAndrew Weiss is not renaming a file to that exact phrase right now, I will be genuinely
shocked.
But, in the spirit of the season, Ill cop to one major childhood fear. The fact is, I didnt see a lot of scary movies
when I was a kid, because I was extremely easy to frighten. I remember being absolutely terrified of Gremlins, but I
cant tell you a thing about the movie that I havent picked up secondhand, as I saw it when I was like three and
never went back to check it out. As a result, I never saw all that many horror movies.
But I did see the trailers that would air on TV, and at age six, I was utterly friggin terrified of Chucky from
the Childs Play movies.
I had it so bad that I couldnt even stay in the room when the already-pretty-creepy commercials for My Buddy, and
I wouldnt set foot in the aisle at Kay-Bee Toys where they stocked them, no matter how many Batman figures were
sharing the space. And to make matters worse, my sister was at least for a time totally into Cabbage Patch
Kids.
Im not gonna lie, I stayed pretty solidly freaked out until around age 12, when I started to get a grasp on physics
and spatial relationships, and that put an end to that fear pretty handily. I mean, Im not particularly strong, but Im
511 and I have the mass of someone who reads comic books for a living. I figure one good punt on any possessed
doll

Artists Absolutely Terrible Rendering

and I dont have to worry about that for at least a couple days.
As for what relatively benign thing scared the crap out of me at a tender age, look no further than this:

I was six years old when this thing hit the stands, and it freaked me out. Its Mr. Mxyzptlks second postCrisis appearance, and you can forget about Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, this thing is why I find
that little 5th dimensional runt to be one of Supermans creepiest villains to this very day.
I remember trying to read it multiple times when I was a kid and rarely being able to get past the second page,
because thats where this happens:

On the surface, its a pretty ridiculous display of power from Mxyzptlk, but when I was six, it was essentially Roger
Stern, Tom Peyer and Paris Cullins managed to combine my fear of dying in a car crash, my fear of falling from a
great height, and my fear of being burned alive, and then added a gigantic freaky clown man.
That thing still gives me the jibblies, and the crazy thing is its probably the least scary thing he does in the book. I
mean, two pages later

he turns a bunch of armor-clad LexCorp soldiers into Transformers, leaving Young Chris Sims to vividly imagine
their broken, mangled bodies being toyed with by some bowler-hatted Lovecraftian horror. If I made it past the bus
scene, that was the one that inevitably did it.

Mock me if you want, but I swear I dont think I ever actually made it to the end of that issue. Somebody let me
know how Lex Luthors Hostile Takeover turned out, okay?
And finally, perhaps the most important spooooooky question of the season:
Q: Which super-heroes/villains would give out which candies to trick-or-treaters? dino_rider
A: Reed Richards gives kids dental floss and travel-sized toothbrushes, but Ben and Johnny hand out Smores as the
kids leave the Baxter Building.
Dr. Doom gives out Doomapples, Latverian Granny Smiths dipped in homemade caramel with candy-corn eyes,
noses and smiles stuck on. Unfortunately, nobody ever comes to get them because his driveway is actually a
treacherous mountain path lined with killer robots. Doom hates Halloween.
Superman makes Rice Krispie Treats with a touch of cinnamon sugar. Mas recipe.
Spider-Man gives out full-sized candy bars, just like Uncle Ben used to, even though he has to hock his microscope
to buy em. He also says Fun-sized? Whats fun about less candy? at least eight times every Halloween.
Catwoman? Licorice whips.
Iron Man used to go for those fancy handmade chocolates with the delicious rum centers, but these days he just
leaves a bucket of cell phones on the front porch with a TAKE ONE sign stuck in there.
The Joker gives out razor blades with tiny apples stuck in the middle.
Wolverine hands out Pocky.
Thor has been reprimanded on several occasions for offering children flagons of mead and whole roast turkeys.
Professor X gives out those terrible little orange and black things, but when you eat them, he goes into your mind
and makes them taste like Ferrero Rocher.
Batman straight up cuts you a check for $600. And Alfred drives you home.
Happy Halloween, Everybody!

Read More: Ask Chris #31: The Ask Chris Halloween Special! | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-31-the-askchris-halloween-special/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #30: Best Baseball Comics and Our Choice in the Legion Election
by Chris Sims October 22, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: With the baseball playoffs underway, do any stories standout in your mind involving the national
pastime? Protoculture27
A: Read comics long enough, and the fact of the matter is, youre gonna see some baseball sooner or later. I mean,
despite the fact that they dabbled in half-court hoops in the 90s, Im pretty sure there was a stretch in the 80s
where the X-Men were on the baseball field more often than they were in the Danger Room.

But as for baseball-themed stories that are especially good, well, there actually are a couple that spring to mind.
The first one that comes to mind is appeared courtesy of Bob Rozakis and Dick Dillin in the pages of DCs SuperStars Giant #10, where its billed as an installment of Strange Sports Stories. And brother, does it live up to the
name.

Before I get into the interiors, I just want to say that this cover by the great Ernie Chan is one of my all-time
favorites. Not only does it feature the word Sportstacular, but just look at the Joker. He is stoked to be getting
chin-checked off a giant baseball. Flip it upside down, and he and Lex Luthor look like theyre on a rollercoaster.
As for the story, it is completely, gloriously insane. The whole thing gets started when the Golden Age Huntress
(later known as Tigress) and her husband and habitual Alan Scott punching bag The Sportsmaster are having an
argument about her career. Shes tired of being trounced by the forces of good and wants to give up the supervillain life to make a go at being a hero, while he wants them to remain firmly rooted in a life of crime. After all, the
couple that commits intricate, thematic robberies together stays together.
Its worth pointing out that they are having this argument at their home in the suburbs, and yet they are both in full
costume:

In order to convince her to keep it crooked, the Sportsmaster suggests that they get the Justice League to play
against a team of super-villains in a game of no-powers baseball, which is without question in the top five craziest
plots I have ever seen in a Silver Age comic. It makes absolutely no sense, and yet, it makes perfect senseat the same
time. This is the Sportsmaster were talking about; its not like he was going to come up with a solution
that didnt involve sports.
Sportsmaster ends up using a machine to zap the heroes and villains to a baseball field which is completely
unexplained, as youd think a machine that could zap people from one place to another wouldve come in handy
during his crimes and lays out the deal. Nine innings, no powers, heroes against villains in a straight-up baseball
game. And the best part? Everyone totally agrees.
There is, of course, the pretty much mandatory cheating on the part of the bad guys

but the heroes manage to totally demolish them, winning 21 to 11. And I know this because of the absolute
craziest thing about this issue: They published an actual all-text play-by-play at the end of the story:

Because why represent these thrilling moments visually when you could do it in text? Although oddly enough, if
you look closely this is the page that slash fiction writers have been wondering about for years: Supermans the
pitcher, Batmans the catcher. I know, I was surprised too.
As crazy as that story is, though, my favorite use of baseball in comics comes from Jeff Parker and Ig Guara
in Marvel Adventures Avengers #26:

Ive talked before about my pure, undying love for the Parkers (and later, Paul Tobins) Marvel Adventures
Avengers run, and the best thing about it is that they were allowed to do stories that embraced the inherent
silliness of super-heroes, but were still good stories. This was, after all, the run that brought you the Avengers being
turned into MODOKs and Ego the Living Planet developing a crush on our sexy, sexy Earth, but this issue is
downright Looney Tunesian.
Its actually a sequel to the events of Fantastic Four #48 50, with a group of aliens coming to earth to borrow the
Ultimate Nullifier in order to keep Galactus from eating their planet, unaware that, as Hank Pym explains to them,
Reed Richards gave the Nullifier back to Galactus after their encounter:

Incidentally, Reeds Southern accent in this panel might actually be the best thing ever. Jurys still out, Ill keep you
guys posted.
Anyway, the Avengers being the Avengers, they volunteer to go to the imperiled planet and lend a hand anyway,
which involves Pym sending giant alien ants to Galactuss ship to get the Ultimate Nullifier back. And this, I think, is
when Parker was seized by the spirit of Chuck Jones:

I love that sequence so much.

See, Spider-Man figured out that the Ultimate Nullifier would just level the playing field, equalizing everyones
powers and nullifying their various advantages and disadvantages, leaving the Avengers and Big G to figure out a
way to settle their differences. Thus, Baseball. IN SPACE.

(OK, OK, actually first they try Chess and later move on to Texas Hold Em, but nobody asked me about those this
week, so thats not what Im going to talk about.)
Despite the fact that it made for a striking enough image to get on the cover, the entirety of baseball content only
lasts about two pages. Still, its a high point of the issue, especially once Ant-Man takes the pitchers mound

to throw the Zenos Paradoxer.

And thats how Hank Pym ruined baseball.
Both stories are tons of fun, and theyll probably stand as my favorite uses of Americas pastime in comics until the
Matt Fraction/Gabriel Ba biography of Kenny Powers becomes a reality, rather than something I just made up.
Q: Who are you voting for in this Legion election and why? adampknave
Q: What is your take on the Legion election? wndola
Q: Who are you backing in the Legion Elections? thetallman_Z
Q: Who are you voting for as Legion Leader? erkalbeleo

A: For those of you who dont know, its election season for the Legion of Super-Heroes. The twist is that instead of
the characters themselves choosing a new leader, the 31st Centurys greatest heroes have opened it up to
let readers decide with an online vote thats open until November 10.
Its a pretty neat idea and I believe its one that the Legion books has done before but as much as Im a fan of
the franchise, I havent been keeping up with the book lately, and I was planning on sitting this one out. Of course,
that was before my pal Kevin Church made a pretty impressive argument for one of the most underused
Legionnaires ever: Quislet!

If you ask me, the 31st Century could use the kind of fresh ideas you get from an intangible energy-being from an
alternate dimension that flies around in a tiny spaceship and possesses electronics.
I was all set to throw my support behind the honorable gentleman (?) from Teall, but then my other friend Bully
the Little Stuffed Bull made an even more impassioned argument for another stalwart Legionnaire who actually has
political experience: Matter Eater Lad!

Unfortunately, in what I can only assume was meant to be a grave insult to the people of Bismoll, Matter Eater Lad
was left off the current ballot, and that is ridiculous. Did any of the other candidates have Guided By Voices write a
a song about them (Warning: a bit of salty language at the end that might be NSFW)? I think not!
The omission of Matter Eater Lad made me realize that as long as we keep supporting the corrupt political system
thats in place, were never going to get away from the same kind of Legion leaders that weve always gotten from
Braal and Titan. Thats why I say that this year, we send a message to those fat-cats in Earthgov and the UP and
work to elect someone with integrity. Someone who stood up to Computo when no one else would. Someone
with three heads.

This year, Vote Weirdo, everybody!

Or, you know, Quislet. Quislets pretty rad.
And now, some quick answers:
Q: Q: Curry beef, kung po shrimp, or Szechuan chicken? eSeamus
A: Curry beef!
Q: What superhero would make a good Luchador? KevinInChains
A: This ones going to require some thinking. I mean, is there any character in comics known for his agility, with
super-powers that would allow him to perform complex grabs and throws, who wears a full face-mask and actually
wrestled in his first appearance?

Huh. Seems like thered be some character whod fit that bill, but I just cant think of anyone. Sorry!

Read More: Ask Chris #30: Best Baseball Comics and Our Choice in the Legion Election |
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Ask Chris #29: Dracula and the Strange Death of Alfred Pennyworth
by Chris Sims October 15, 2010 11:30 AM

Q: What with Halloween approaching, could you please explain why Marvel Dracula is more awesome than
any Dracula alternative? Matt, via email
A: Long-time readers who recall last Octobers Dracula Week festivities may recall that I straight up love me some
Marvel Dracula. Hes probably my favorite version of the character, and considering that Dracula has 113 years of
public domain adventures that have led to both the super-heroic Dell Comics version and at least two
separate Moon castles, thats saying something.
Theres just something about the Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan Tomb of Dracula version that has something the
others lack that sets him above the competiton. And in a word, that something is The DracStache.

Oh man, just look at that thing. Not only is it perfectly groomed, but when you toss it up next to eyebrows so arched
that they are actually right angles, and you have some facial hair worthy of the Lord of the Vampires. Its just
science.
Okay, okay, the moustache is only part of the appeal, but its a big one. When you get right down to it, the reason
Marvel Dracula is so awesome is that hes essentially Dr. Doom in a three-piece suit and a totally awesome high
collar, and by that, I mean that hes easily one of the best smack-talkers in the Marvel Universe. I mean, its one of
the most regrettable facts about my life, but I sometimes go days without having the opportunity to call someone a
witless poltroon, but Marvel Dracula?

This is a guy who isnt just going to kill you, drink your blood, and quite possibly raise your body to be one of his
mindless servants, but he will straight up insult you while he does it. And these arent your average, insults, either:
they are the polysyllabic cut-downs of an educated gentleman.
Take note, kids: educational scientists have proven conclusively that the best way to prepare for the SAT is to have
Dracula yell at you. Wanton : Imbecile :: Sniveling : Lackey.
Also, Marvel Dracula is a raging egomaniac who constantly narrates his own adventures another similarity with
Doom and when its done right, which it frequently is with both characters, the results tread that line between
utterly badass and absolutely hilarious. Seriously, check this guy out:

Standing in a cemetery and laughing while you swear by Satan that nothing will keep you from clawing your way
out of your own grave? Thats so metal that it ranks at a solid 666 Milidios (for the record, thats the highest
possible result despite being out of order numerically).
And on the flipside, we have this:

Marvel Dracula is bored to sleep by your promises of immortality, and will most likely kill you just to spice up his
evening. This is a man who hears the secrets of immortality and responds with Oh Im sorry, were you not aware
that Im f***ing Dracula?
More than anything else even the moustache I think its this astonishing arrogance that makes Marvel
Dracula so appealing. It shows up in other interpretations too, notably in Castlevania Dracula (who steals his
smack-talk from Andr Malraux) and Buffy the Vampire Slayers racist Dracula (whose creator, I think its safe to
say, probably read some Marvel comics about vampires growing up), but the Marvel version just completely nails it
in only the way that a universe built on ranting megalomaniacs can. Hes not just a vampire, and hes not even just
a really awesome vampire. Hes The Lord of All Vampires, which (to him anyway) pretty much means that hes
better than you.
Also, credit where credits due, Marvel Dracula knows how to accessorize:

Behold! The classiness of bat-shaped cufflinks! Not even Bruce Wayne can pull those off.
Q: I found out today that Batmans Alfred was once killed off and later brought back. Tell me more about
this craziness! desktophippie
A: At first, I was planning on calling you out for identifying that you were asking about Batmans Alfred, as though
there were some other Alfred Id be qualified to answer questions about, but then I remembered that its entirely
within the realm of possibility that someone would ask me a question about Lord Alfred Hayes. But as far as the
strange death and resurrection of Alfred Pennyworth, Im actually pretty well-acquainted with how it went down,
as it was a plot point in the very first comic book I ever read.
According to Michael Fleishers Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes v.1: Batman the reference book
no Batmanologist should be without the whole thing started in June of 1964s Detective Comics #328, when
Alfred is taken captive by the notorious Tri-State Gang and locked inside an old prison cell to await a ganglandstyle execution, which is pretty hardcore by the standards of the Silver Age. Batman and Robin are also taken
prisoner, and while they think Alfreds already dead, he thinks theyve been killed, and they end up breaking out
and swearing vengeance on behalf of the other. Unfortunately, one of those vows ends up being necessary, as
Alfred gets crushed by a falling rock:

To be fair, though, you have to admit that if he had to die, saving Batmans life while on a motorcycle in a
construction site is a pretty awesome way to go. Its how I hope I end up.
After beating the mess out of the criminals responsible, Batman (as Bruce Wayne) forms a charitable organization
in his memory, The Alfred Foundation, and then Aunt Harriet shows up to live with Bruce and Dick, setting the
stage for her appearances in the Batman TV show two years later.

But, this being comics, Alfreds death wasnt all it was cracked up to be. Six months later, after dealing with a
tremendous goof called the Grasshopper (not to be confused with the Great Lakes Avenger of the same name),
Batman started getting harassing phone calls from the mysterious Outsider:

This being the days before caller ID, readers had to wait another two years before the Outsider an unseen figure
who manipulated the criminal underworld from the shadows was finally revealed to be this guy:

Yep. Pretty much Metamorphos uglier cousin.

Since youre reading this here, you can probably guess that the Outsider was in fact Alfred, but Ive got to hand it to
creators like Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff for playing the long game with this one. Thats a long time to wait
for a payoff today, and were used to stories that take six issues to finish. In a time when you got three complete
stories in every issue, dragging something out for two years left enough time for a real mystery to build up, and I
doubt that anyone couldve pieced together the identity of the Outsider from just reading the stories.
Of course, thats largely because it also makes absolutely no sense. Lets take this by the numbers, shall we?

1. You would think that friggin Batman, of all people, would be able to tell whether someone was alive or dead. At
the very least, he shouldve had a doctor look things over before dumping him in a coffin and sticking him in the
mausoleum in the back yard of Wayne Manor.

2. Guys, when you have a footnote that long in order to explain science so dubious that you dont think the people
reading books about Red Kryptonite and Atlantis are going to accept it, you might as well just have it say just go
with it, okay? Ed.

3. No one in a comic book has ever said this and then been pleased with what happens next.

4. And so, for reasons that are never explained, the regeneration ray brings Alfred back to life, but also makes him
look like a cobblestone driveway and turns him evil.
Oh just wait, it actually gets crazier.

5. Not only does the regenerator ray turn Alfred into the Outsider, but it also kills the scientist, and also
also restructures his body to look just like Alfred, so that the Outsider (who is actually Alfred) can put Alfreds
body back into his coffin. And then he decides to kill Batman and Robin.
All of this is explained in four pages.
Eventually, though, Batman punches the science out of him and things go back to normal.

Thus, Alfred comes back to normal life, and the charitable Alfred Foundation is renamed as the Wayne Foundation
in memory of Batmans parents, which again is something youd think he
wouldve done before then.
Fast forward 29 years to 1985, when a three year-old Chris Sims is taken to the
Ameristop across the street from his grandparents house and makes a grab
for DC Comics Presents #83, by Mike Barr and Jim Aparo, no doubt attracted by
a very colorful cover featuring Superman, Batman, and the team Batman had been
running with at the time, The Outsiders.
Im pretty sure I wanted this one because of the colorful cover that showcased a
lot of super-heroes, but the interiors offered up a story that came about and I
am 100% sure that this is the genesis of this issue because Mike Barr thought it
would be funny if The Outsiders fought the Outsider.
Thus, Alfred turned back into a monster, Superman pitched in to defeat him, and
one of my earliest memories becomes an infodump about a completely insane
Batman arc from 25 years before I was born, drawn by Jim Aparo. Not gonna lie,
folks: You can pretty much draw a straight line from there to what Im doing right
now.
And thats the time that Alfred died but didnt and then was a monster for two
years.
And now, some quick answers:
Q: With a new superstar series in the works I have to ask: how does Moon Knight compare to Batman for
you? Max_Barnard
A: He doesnt.
Q: What makes a good con for you? JohnnyWeird
A: People. I dont do much back-issue hunting anymore, so the real attraction of cons for me is just meeting folks
and having a good time with friends, and almost every show Ive been to has provided that opportunity. As many
gripes as there are can often be about the comics communitys defensiveness and penchant for snark, there are a
ton of talented people out there who are just super-nice, and plenty of fans and like-minded people who feel the
same.

Also, the phrase open bar.

Q: Do you like caramel apples? sailormew
A: I honestly dont know; its been literally decades since Ive had one. I do in theory, as I like caramel and love
apples. If only there was some national holiday that would give me a chance to sample them once again!
Q: What do you think of this sketch of Rowdy Roddy Piper by Jerry The King Lawler I got at NYCC?
adamrjones24

A:

Read More: Ask Chris #29: Dracula and the Strange Death of Alfred Pennyworth | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-29-dracula-and-the-strange-death-of-alfred-pennywor/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #28: Robin, Robin, Robin

by Chris Sims October 7, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: What are good stories that show the importance of Robin to the Batman mythos? royalconstantin
Q: Who is your favorite/ least favorite Robin and why? charpalnaut
A: I got a few questions about Robin this week (and as I usually get zero questions about Robin, this represents an
increase of infinity percent), which is a little strange. Despite my well-known love of Batman, Robin isnt a
character I spend a lot of time thinking about.
That doesnt mean I dont like Robin when I was a kid, I wanted to be Robin, and I had the underoos to prove it,
complete with a yellow cape that Velcrod to the back of the t-shirt, which Id wear on neighborhood patrols. In the
same way that Jimmy Olsen represents the highest ideal for a young Superman fan (Be a good person and
Superman will want to be your pal!), Robin was what I wanted to be: He got to hang out with Batman all the time.
Really, though, I tend to prefer him less as a character, and more for what he represents and how he works as a
narrative device that gives Batman a non-Alfred character to explain things to.

Ive mentioned before that to me, Robin specifically Dick Grayson represents one of the most important
aspects of Batmans character, in that it shows just how much hes able to change the world. One of the questions I
got was why has Batman spent the last 70 years hanging out with an underage boy, and while thats the
undeniable setup for the old jokes that sent Dr. Wertham into a tizzy, its actually simple to answer: Because at the
start, Robin is Bruce Wayne.
Both characters go through the exact same tragedy of watching their parents die in front of them, ostensibly
leaving them alone in the world, but the difference is what happens next. Without his parents, Bruce Wayne was
essentially left in the care of Alfred and Leslie Thompkins, and while they were able to keep him more-or-less sane
(which is no small contribution, as Ill get to in a minute), they werent able to temper his rage. Dick, on the other
hand, is raised by Bruce, a man who has been there and understands his loss, and the results are dramatically
different.
Bruces actions as Batman are extremely oppositional He might be the Worlds Greatest Detective, but overall
hes a crimefighter, and everything he does, from his training in martial arts right down to his costume, are built
on physicality and intimidation. Robin, however, is rooted in an entirely different philosophy. Batmans there to
fight against crime for taking away his parents, but Robins role has barely anything to do with getting revenge
against Boss Maroni for killing the Flying Graysons. Hes not there for vengeance, hes there to help.

I think its actually a pretty poetic element that ties their actions into their origins: If Bruce had been a massive,
intimidating martial artist who knew seven ways to disarm a thug from any position one of which hurts then
he couldve saved his parents from getting gunned down. All Dick Graysons parents needed, however, was a safety
net.
Again, it comes back to another question that people usually ask facetiously: Why would Batman, a guy with a black
cape made of kevlar, dress a little kid up in the brightest possible colors and send him to fight armed crooks? The
snappy answer is that he needs somebody to draw their fire (har har), but if you look at how the characters have
developed, its obvious. Dick may be the cornerstone and foundation of Bruce Waynes legacy, but Bruce isnt trying
to make another Batman, or even another vigilante. Hes trying to make a hero, someone who is brighter than him
both literally and figuratively.
Aside from the fact that it just sounds cool, theres a reason that when its time for him to strike out on his own,
Dick Grayson gets the name Nightwing from Superman, a guy who so obviously represents light that he literally
gets his powers from the Sun.
Bruce and Dick start at the same place between the dead bodies of their parents, taken from them by crime and
chance through no fault of their own but because hes taken in by someone who has been there and fought
through it, Dick ends up at a dramatically different place. For all the fact that hes surrounded himself with a
network of sidekicks and has been a member of the Justice League for decades, Bruce is still characterized as grim
and alone, but Dick? Dicks no less driven or skilled, no less devoted to battling crime and injustice, but hes
also happy.
In effect, by allowing Dick Grayson to become Robin, Bruce saves him from having to become Batman, and in doing
so, saves himself. Even when Dick becomes Batman, hes not the same kind of Batman Bruce was.

Hes nice. He makes jokes when he fights crooks. Hes well-adjusted. Hes popular. He has friends. He was Best Man
at Wally Wests wedding, and used to shack up with Starfire, a six foot-tall alien amazon sex queen. And unlike
Batmans Bruce Wayne persona, none of this was an act, its actually who he is. Hes not afraid to let people into
his life, because when the people he loved most were taken from him, Batman stepped in to show him there were
still others out there who cared.
Theres not really one story that encapsulates everything, but if youre looking for
a good one that hits the high points, you could do a heck of a lot worse than
Robin: Year One, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The second
half delves a little into setting up some stuff that was going on in Nightwing at
the time, but along with the similarly awesome Batgirl: Year One, it
unquestionably represents Chuck Dixon and Scott Beattys best work, and Javier
Pulidos artwork is phenomenal. He perfectly captures the contrasts between
Batman and Robin, as well as their similarities.
Also, it does a pretty good job of casting Two-Face as Dick Graysons arch-nemesis,
an idea Ive always thought deserved another shot after being done so remarkably
poorly in Batman Forever. I dont want to get into another long, rambling TwoFace discussion, but I think the contrast between the boy Batman did save and the
man he couldnt save makes for a pretty good contrast.

As to which Robin I prefer, thats a much tougher pick for me. I mean, Ive liked reading stories about Damian
Wayne more than any other version, but that has less to do with liking him as a character and more to do with the
fact that hes been at the center of the best Batman comics of my lifetime. I think theyve all got a very interesting
and very significant place in the greater mythology of Batman.
Dick Grayson, as discussed, is essentially what wouldve happened if Batman had been there to help Bruce
Wayne when he was a child, and serves as a living example of how much Batman helps others, but that only really
comes into play once he gets older and moves on from the role.
Jason Todd, however, represents Batmans failure, and the idea that in Batmans world, there are some people that
he cant save. Even before Death in the Family, Jason is already lost. Theres too much anger in him to become the
hero that Dick Grayson becomes; he never gets away from being a vigilante:

This too goes back to his origin. With Dick, Batman was there right at the moment his parents died to take him in
and show him a better way, but with Jason, he doesnt find him until much later, discovering him trying to steal the
hubcaps from the Batmobile. Hes already been corrupted by a lonely life on the streets in which no one tried to
help him. He has no one to save him until its far too late. Even his death comes because he goes off on his own; the
Joker didnt wake up that morning planning to kill Robin, it was a crime purely born from opportunity, and again,
Batman arrives too late to save him.
Well, actually, the Joker probably did wake up that morning planning to kill Robin, but you know what I mean.
If Dick Grayson is what happens to Bruce Wayne if Batmans there to help him, then Jason Todd is what wouldve
happened to him without Alfred and Leslie Thompkins. If there had been no one there to stop his rage from
consuming him, to give his life structure after it was taken away, then Bruce Wayne wouldve gone off angry and
gotten himself killed.
Tim Drake, then, is what Batman would eventually become. The detective who puts the clues together and
then chooses to become a hero, initially driven not by tragedy, but purely out of a desire to help others. Specifically,
to help Batman. Of course, this being super-hero comics, that tragedy eventually came, but it always felt like an
unnecessary gilding of the lily that makes him more like Dick Grayson and seems less like an attempt to advance
the character and more like a reason for him to be chilling out at Wayne Manor at 2 AM on a school night.
Honestly, I havent read too many Tim Drake stories, but of the ones I have, I prefer the ones that treat him like a
teenage version of Batman the same detective mentality and approach to his problems, but with a lighthearted
nature and the modern-age Batman aspect of doing this because its something he wants to do. Adam
Beechens extremely underrated run on the title post One Year Later actually did a great job with this.
Finally, theres Damian Wayne, who was probably the only one explicitly created to be a reflection of Bruce, and as
a result, reads like a synthesis of the other three. Like Jason Todd, he shows us what would have happened to Bruce
without Alfred and Leslie Thompkins, but with Damian, theyre not just gone, theyre replaced by a cadre of
assassins. When he first appears, he has all of Batmans fighting skills, but no self-control, and no motivation to use
it, and it makes sense that he only really becomes Robin after the death of his father in Final Crisis. As Bruces
direct descendant, the tragedy seems to be a necessary element, but like Tim Drake, theres a choice involved, as it
also comes with a complete rejection of his mother:

He does this because hes been shown something better he can do than just the mindless life of murder hed have in
the League of Assassins. Dick Grayson has rescued him from himself, thus taking his place in the cycle that began
when Bruce rescued him.
Is any of this strictly necessary for the greater Batman mythos? Im not sure. There are plenty of great Batman
stories that dont have any sign of pixie boots, after all, but I do think that its a defining factor for the version of
Batman that exists in the DC Universe.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: Which comics continuity has your favorite mythological characters? talestoenrage
A: Im guessing you mean characters based on ancient myths and legends and not just super-powered immortal
beings that dont actually exist, because with the latter, wed be here all day. With the former, though, theres no
question:

Thanks to guys like Jack Kirby, Walter Simonson, Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente and others, Marvels gods have it all
over anybody elses, if only for the sheer complexity of their footwear.
Q: In your opinion, is Clark Kent the real guy or the disguise or something else? Also, thoughts on Zack
Snyder? MagicLoveHose
A: I dont think theres that much a defined split in Supermans two identities. Yes, he pretends to be a clumsy oaf
who needs glasses, but the things he does as Clark Kent the news stories he writes, the way he treats his
colleagues, the love he feels for Lois Lane are no less a direct result of his personality than the fact that he
rescues people and stands up to the injustices that no one else can battle against as Superman. They all come from
the same place, which is why I think its often silly when a creator does a story where Superman loses touch with
his human side. Itd be like me losing touch with the side of me that likes pancakes. Its not going to happen.
As for Visionary Director Zack Snyder, well, I havent had a chance to see 300 and I have absolutely no desire to
see Watchmen as a film, so the only thing Ive seen of his was the Dawn of the Dead remake that James Gunn
wrote. So I guess his Superman movie might be good if he has Superman fight a zombie that looks like Burt
Reynolds?
Also if Ving Rhames plays Jimmy Olsen.
Q: Are you ready to apologize for dissing Turtwig yet? teamsmithy
A: I dont know, is Turtwig ready to stop being lame?
Q: NYC: More worried about Pimps or more worried about CHUDs? BenjaminBirdie
A:

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Ask Chris #27: Why I Love Spider-Man

by Chris Sims October 1, 2010 1:00 PM

Q: So if Batman is your favorite character, and Jimmy Olsen is your third, whos second and why?
George_Austin
A: My second favorite character?

Despite the fact that I dont get the chance to talk about him as much as I do with my other favorites, the number
two slot goes to the amazing Spider-Man. Admittedly, being firmly rooted in second place can often seem like a
backhanded compliment, the fact is that while my personal preference goes to Batman, I genuinely believe that
Spider-Man is the greatest comic book character ever created.
My reasoning probably lines up with stuff that youve heard about the character from pretty much anyone whos
ever talked about him: He is unquestionably the best example of the Hero Who Could Be You! archetype. When
Spider-Man was created, the most prominent young character was arguably Jimmy Olsen, who had a sweet job and
a direct line to the most powerful person in the world, and while I think the record will show that I love
some Jimmy Olsen, its impossible to overstate how revolutionary it was for a character to have problems the
readers could relate to, and that couldnt always be solved by super-powers.

That might seem contradictory to my longstanding opinion that comics need realism only slightly less than they
needed Dr. Wertham, and I definitely maintain that it doesnt work for every character. With Spider-Man, though,
the idea of the Hard Luck Hero is at the center of his character, and its the basis of a dichotomy that makes him
incredibly appealing.
The fact of the matter is, Peter Parkers life sucks. Even at the Joseph Campbell Land of Perfect Day beginning of
his story, when Uncle Bens alive and the wheatcakes are plenty, hes still an orphan (albeit one with two loving
parents) who gets picked on at school for being an outcast. The very first panel of the very first Spider-Man story
isnt web-swinging or crime-fighting, its Flash Thompson and Liz Allen being jerks to him:

Then, when he actually gets his powers and follows the very realistic course of using them to better his own
situation in life, things only get worse, and not only is it essentially his fault, but the one genuinely good thing he
had has now been taken away. Simply put, the dude has it rough.
But when he puts on that mask, things change. Peter Parker might have a sick aunt, a boss that yells at him
constantly and bills he cant afford to pay, but Spider-Man? Hes got problems that you can punch out, web up and
throw in jail. Doc Ock and the Lizard might put up a pretty good fight, but compared to a loved one slowly dying
because she cant handle the shock of a death he caused, its a relief.
Its the idea of super-hero comics as escapism literally translated to the page: Peter deals with his crappy life by
cutting loose, cracking wise and busting heads as Spider-Man, only to find out when he comes back down to Earth
that often, the good hes done as Spider-Man has been countered by things that make his personal life suck even
more. In that respect, hes simultaneously the guy that we identify with and the hero we aspire to be.
And that aspirational aspect is literalized right there in his name: Hes a teenager when he gets his powers, but he
names himself Spider-Man. Spider-Man isnt just who Peter is, its who Peter wants to be, the man he wants to (and
eventually does) grow into: Cool, strong, proactive, always ready with a one-liner, and free of the problems that
arent right in front of him. Superman might pine over cool, cruel Lois Lane, but his stories end with a wink,
because we all know hed just have to walk over to her, take off his glasses and flash that winning smile. Hes
entirely aspirational, just like the Batman whos trained to physical perfection and is always two steps ahead of his
enemies. Peter, however, represents the reader and the fantasy, and theres an incredible appeal in that.
Plus theres the simplicity of his origin:

Again, its incredibly easy to relate to, while simultaneously being a sterling example of the kind of thing that makes
Spider-Man the moral center of the Marvel Universe. Weve all made mistakes and done things with consequences
we didnt intend, but very few of us have dedicated our lives to making sure that the same thing doesnt happen
again not just to us, but to anyone.
Ive mentioned before that I dont like the idea of Batman being in any way responsible for his parents death, but
with Spider-Man, the fact that he learns the consequences of being selfish is a key part of what makes him great. It
makes him less altrustic, but it also humanizes him; hes not perfect, hes just a guy trying to be better than he was.
And in a lot of ways, that makes him an even better role model than a character like Superman, who never falters.

Im not a big fan of Spider-Girl, but Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz nailed Peters character perfectly in that he
retires from being Spider-Man only when hes physically incapable of doing it anymore, and even then, he becomes
a police scientist. Hes a guy thats never going to let anyone get hurt if he could prevent it. Theres nothing that
makes a great super-hero like a driving tragedy.
And because those aspects of his character can be boiled down so neatly into themes that are so universal and easy
to relate to, hes a character that really works well in a variety of stories. Dark stuff like Shed and Kravens Last
Hunt are no less valid as Spider-Man stories than the lighthearted stuff Darwyn Cooke did for Tangled Web, or
Paul Tobins Marvel Adventures stuff, which actually strikes a pretty perfect balance. And considering how much
humor has been a part of the character since the beginning, hes one of the few super-heroes that works really well
in comedies Dan Slott and Ty Templetons Spider-Man / Human Torch is hilarious, but works perfectly for the
character.
But aside from the big metaphorical issues, Spider-Mans just really cool. For one thing, his powers lend themselves
to great visuals, even when hes just standing around talking to himself:

Theres a fight scene in Amazing Spider-Man #577, by Zeb Wells and Paolo Rivera, where Spider-Man doesnt
touch the ground once. Hes clinging to walls, sticking to the ceiling, flipping around while he disarms thugs by
sticking his feet to their guns with his spider-powers. Its phenomenal, and a beautifully creative use of the
characters abilities to tell a story in a unique way.
Also, they put him at a level that, again, is really adaptable. A good writer can create a credible threat for any
character if you think Supermans too powerful to be challenged, thats your fault, not his but Spider-Man
exists at a level that lends itself to different kinds of stories. Hes really strong (being able to lift 20 times ones body
weight is no joke), but in a world with Thor and the Hulk, hes right in the sweet spot of being strong enough to
accomplish amazing feats, but not so strong that he cant be believably threatened without Galactus showing up.

It doesnt hurt that hes got one of the all-time greatest costumes in comics. By all rights, it shouldnt work at all
when I think spider, I dont exactly think bright red and blue with lines all over it but its a testament to Steve
Ditkos design sense that its as good as it is. Its distinctive, and as odd as it is, it makes sense in the context of the
story, right down to the full-face mask to hide the fact that Peter was obviously a very young man.
In short, Spider-Man works because hes the perfect union of good old fashioned comic book fun and the exact right
amount of relatable real-world problems.

Well. As real as it gets in the Marvel Universe, anyway.

And now, a few quick answers:

Q: Was the Justice League Detroit era really that bad? jason1749
A: Yes.
Q: Resolve an argument between me & the boyfriend; is Dark Knight better than Batman Begins?
Winskillfull
A: Oh definitely. Dont get me wrong, I like Batman Begins a heck of a lot, especially the Scarecrow stuff and
Christian Bales immortal swear to me!, but lets be real here. Dark Knight has an incredibly rich, complex
plot built from interconnected set pieces that manage to work both as a big-budget action picture and as an
examination of human nature, what these characters want and how far theyre willing to go to get it, and for all the
hype, Heath Ledgers performance as the Joker really is that good.
Batman Begins, meanwhile, is about an evil ninja master who wants to microwave all the water in Gotham City
because it has fear gas in it.
Im not saying thats a bad thing, just that its not really a contest as to which ones better.
Q: What does the World title have on the Intercontinental title? Just the oceans. Seems to me being
champion of the continents is all that matters. adamrjones24
A: Actually, holding the Intercontinental Championship only means that you are the champion of a minimum
of two continents, which could very well leave the other five unspoken for, a fact that necessitated the creation of
the European championship. The World Championship, however, represents all seven continents and the ocean,
which is why Hulk Hogan could occasionally be seen delivering the Atomic Legdrop to penguins circa 1986.
Q: What character would most enjoy near-freezing chocolate milk? tylerralphward
A:

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Ask Chris #26: Jimmy Olsens Bowtie and the Best of Two-Face
by Chris Sims September 24, 2010 12:30 PM

Q: Jimmy Olsen: Bow-tie? No bow-tie? padnick

A: In last weeks column, someone asked me a simple question about one of my favorite characters clothing, and I
spent four hours writing an answer. Clearly, you guys havent learned your lesson that I will drone on
about anything if given half a chance, especially when it relates to my third-favorite character of all time.Believe it
or not, this was actually something Ive been thinking about this week. When I emailed a bunch of friends
my recommendation of Nick Spencer and RB Silvas Jimmy Olsen story, my pal Anna asked if he had the signal
watch because she figured that was the most important part of his character, and I replied that it was actually tied
with the bow tie. And yet, in the actual story, Jimmys swapped the red bow tie for a stylish necktie:

Is this a problem? Not at all. The fact of the matter is that while Jimmys bow-tie is an interesting signifier, it and
bits of clothing like it dont actually matter much. Some articles of clothing do matter. The Signal Watch, for
instance, has a purpose within the story even when its not used, in that its a visual representation of his
connection to Superman, a connection thats right there at the core of his character as Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen.
The bow tie, on the other hand, is just there because in 1941, dudes wore bow ties.
Admittedly, the bow tie was considered part of his definitive look during the Silver Age, and was even considered
to be mandatory attire for his fan club, even on other planets

but in and of itself, it has no more significance to who Jimmy Olsen really is than Lois Lanes pillbox hat. And
incidentally, hes bald because the robot that looks just like him and lives in his closet isnt a very good barber.
Which isnt to say that its not sometimes nice to see the bow tie back. It is, after all, part of his classic look, and
when an artist can make it work, its great. Just look at All Star Superman, where Frank Quitely draws Jimmy as a
21st century mod with a flair for retro clothes. The bow tie works great alongside his sweater-vest, argyle socks
and artfully spiked hair, and its a good update of the classic look. But its hardly necessary, and Quitely even draws
him without it several times throughout the series.
As much as Ill fight tooth and nail for Batmans yellow oval, insisting on the bow tie strikes me as gilding the lily to
a completely unnecessary extreme. Its like Barry Allen and his bow tie. Theres a scene in Flash: Rebirth where
Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver add a layer of meaning to Barrys tie

and the whole thing just falls flat to me. It gives a reason for him to wear one in the year 2010 even though
theyre out of fashion which doesnt seem very necessary to me, as middle-aged police scientists arent exactly
what I think of when I hear the word fashionista but it ascribes a layer of necessary meaning to what is
essentially set dressing that just doesnt feel natural.
And for Jimmy, its the same way: Its far less important for him to wear a bow tie than it is for him to look and feel
like a cool guy from whatever era youre reading stories from, whether its the bow-tie of the 50s and 60s, the
sweet turtle neck of the 70s, or the 90s bowling shirt, as seen on the Mike Wieringo page I bought myself as an
early birthday present:

I like Jimmy Olsen because of his character, and character isnt about what you wear. Its about what you do. And
what Jimmy Olsen does is karate kick robot monsters in the face. If he does it while wearing a bow tie, great. If not?
No big deal.
Q: My question is about Two-Face. He has a lot of great hooks (fallen hero, deformity, duality, the cruelty of
chance, etc.) but every story of his Ive seen gets stuck on the coin gimmick or just portrays him as a really
eccentric gang boss. Hes popular enough to have been in two of the movies, only to be completely
overshadowed by his co-villain in each. So, as the Internets Foremost Batmanologist, can you recommend
any really great stories about Two-Face that explain why hes lasted so long as an A-list Batman villain?
fsandow, via email
A: Why yes I can! I actually agree with you quite a bit regarding your opinion of
Two-Face; of the Major Batman Villains, hes probably my least favorite, largely
because all of those great hooks actually seem to limit him to a very defined
character arc. Ive often thought that, appropriately enough, there are really only
two stories you can tell with Two-Face in a leading role.
The first is the Origin Story, which hits most of the high points that you mention,
including the fact that hes a fallen hero. The thing I like most about Two-Face as
an idea is that hes as much an opposite for Bruce Wayne as the Joker is for
Batman. While Bruce felt he had to wear a mask and work outside the law in order
to fight crime in a place as wretched and lost as Gotham City, Harvey Dent
attempted to work within the law, and not only was he destroyed by the crime
surrounding him, he had a mask forced on him that he can never take off.
For the best version of that story, its awfully hard to top The Dark Knight, which
does it amazingly well, right down to the fact that Dent is the character that Bruce
Wayne wants to be; the guy who doesnt have to hide in the shadows to make a
difference. But in comics, my favorite version of that story is easily Eye of the
Beholder, from Batman Annual #14.
Writen by Andrew Helfer with art by Chris Sprouse and a cover by Neal Adams,
this story is clearly meant to fit right in alongside Batman: Year One and it does
so very well. If youre even passingly familiar with Two-Face, you know the high points of the story (District
Attorney, acid in the face, schizophrenic break, coin-flipping), but Helfer and Sprouse do a great job with the
details, including the addition of an abusive father that prompts the formation of Harveys split personality.

The Supervillain-Who-Was-Abused-As-A-Child plot has become such a cliche that Ive grown to hate it, but it works
well here, and makes another interesting contast to Batman: Both characters are, on one level, avenging their
parents, but while Batman is motivated by what was done to them, Two-Face is motivated by what his
father himself did. It reinforces the funhouse mirror reflection aspect that I think is so appealing about the
character, but unfortunately it does it so well that exploring it further seems like a moot point. And the same goes
for The Dark Knight; I think theres a good reason why Harvey was killed off at the end, because the character had
served every storyline purpose he could.
Unfortunately, the story has only been reprinted once to my knowledge, in a Two-Face and Riddler trade that came
out along with the abominable Batman Forever. Its a shame, too, because as you can see from the panel above,
Sprouses art while awesome has not been treated well by the passage of time on that newsprint. Yikes.
The other type of Two-Face story is the one where hes healed, and we explore whether repairing the physical can
also put a broken mind back together (SPOILER WARNING: No). Its a pretty grim, but again, it highlights a
difference that sets Bruce Wayne apart from other characters: Whatever is done to him, Batman always recovers,
while Harvey is broken beyond repair.
This is an aspect of the character that was famously dealt with in Frank Millers The Dark Knight Returns, but
another excellent story along the same lines is a Batman: Black and White story called Two of a Kind by Bruce
Timm, of Batman: The Animated Series fame.
The storys actually available to read for free on comiXology, both the website and the iPad/iPhone app, and its
well worth it. Its a great, grim read, and Timms art is, of course, phenomenal:

I think its interesting that both of these stories involve an element of choice in Harvey becoming Two-Face, which
is another element that reflects on Batman: A man that chooses to be something bigger than himself. And really,
those two stories tell you pretty much everything you need to know about him. But the other stuff the coin, the
obsession with duality, the legal background, the rule of random chance makes him a great supporting character
to have around to bolster other peoples stories. This is something that Batman: The Animated Series did
phenomenally well, building Harvey Dent up as a character in his own right and firmly establishing him as a friend
of Bruce Waynes before they made the shift to Two-Face.
Also, given how tailor-made for it that the coin and the gimmick crimes seem, Im continually amazed that he never
made it onto Batman 66. He wouldve been a perfect fit, although the idea of a guy horribly scarred by acid was
probably deemed both too frightening and too prohibitively expensive to accomplish with make-up for the show.
Which brings me to another aspect of his enduring popularity: Hes a great visual. The symmetry and the fact that
you can tell exactly what his deal is just by looking at him make him one of those characters that had to happen. Its
such an obvious gimmick for a villain that if Bob Kane and Bill Finger hadnt created him, someonewouldve
heck, DC even used the exact same visual a second time when they created Tharrok for the Legion of Super-Heroes
and the scarred coin is a touch that puts him over the top in having memorable, interesting quirks.
And despite my reductionist thinking, there are good Two-Face stories that dont fit into the two molds Ive
presented, and that could only have been done with a character obsessed with duality. If you can find it, check out
the excellent (and sadly unreprinted) Dead Reckoning storyline by Ed Brubaker and Tommy Castillo that ran in
Detective Comics #777 to #782. I dont want to spoil it, but it involves both Two-Face and the return of a
character from the 40s with a very close tie to the character, as well as almost every other major Batman villain,
and its pulled off very well. Its seriously the story Hush wanted to be.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: Im on the fence about New York Comic-Con. Since youre going to be there in a Professional capacity,
how would you pitch going to it? blueneurosis
A: Not only am I going to be there, but my partner in crime Eugene Ahn, a.k.a Adam Warrock is going to be there
performing onstage with Kirby Krackle during the weekend his album drops. You do not want to miss this one,
folks.
Q: Where should I start with Silver Age Jimmy Olsen stories? erkalbeleo
A: Considering how much I talked about Jimmy in this column, its probably a good place to answer it. You should
start at the beginning, and DCs got the excellent Showcase Presents Superman Family volumes to let you do just
that. The first volume looks to be temporarily out of print, but Volume 2 features both Jimmy and Lois Lane, whose
stories are equally crazy and highly enjoyable. Its how I read most of em for the first time.
Q: Whats the best indie comic currently running? StoopidTallKid
A: Weird World of Jack Staff or Chew, hands down.

Q: A Simonson Thor omnibus is solicited for later this year. A required purchase for comic fans, yes?
phillyradiogeek
A: A required purchase for comic fans, no! As much as I love those stories and as great as those massive Omnibus
editions look on the bookshelf, I find them to actually be kind of a chore to read. Theyre crazy heavy and very
awkward to hold. For my money, youre better off picking up the softcovers, all five of which look to be in print.
Same great stories, but much easier to actually cart around and read, which is the most important thing you can do
with a comic.
Q: Where the heck did I put my pants? chris_roberson
A: Have you checked the refrigerator?

Read More: Ask Chris #26: Jimmy Olsens Bowtie and the Best of Two-Face | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris26-jimmy-olsens-bowtie-and-the-best-of-two-face/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #25: What Are Batmans Worst Costumes?

by Chris Sims September 17, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: With the knowledge that Batmans costume is about to change again in mind, what are your LEAST
favourite bat-costumes? Max_Barnard
A: Thats right, everybody: Im celebrating my 25th column by doing my favorite thing: Writing about Batman.
Despite the fact that hes been around since 1939, Batman hasnt really changed his costume all that much. Pointy
ears, scalloped cape, bat-symbol on the chest, gloves, boots with the exception of a few minor tweaks here and
there, its essentially been the same costume for the past 70 years. That said

there have been some changes that are pretty significant.To give you an idea of where Im coming from, my
favorite version of Batmans costume is unquestionably the Classic version that he wore from 1964 to 1995,
which is mostly associated with the yellow oval behind the bat-symbol. Someone once wrote in to the letter column
talking about how it perfectly captured the colors of night in the city the dark blue of the sky, the grey of the
clouds, and the yellow of the moonlight, a very Sailor Moonish turn of phrase and while that might be its major
draw, it certainly doesnt hurt that it was the costume that Neal Adams and Jim Aparo (my favorite Batman artist)
drew him in:

Its a great design, and the fact that Aparo and Marshall Rogers drew his cape as more of a cloak that hung over his
shoulders rather than just trailing behind him (as opposed to Superman or Thor) really sells him as a different sort
of character, while still making clearly identifiable as super-hero. Plus, and this is a big selling point for me,
it doesnt look like armor. I really like the idea that Batman is just a dude so good at fighting crime that he goes out
and does it in a really tight sweatshirt. The Batman in the Nolan movies may not be wearing hockey pads, but
Aparos Batman didnt even need anything thicker than spandex to wreck Crimes jaw.
And then theres the oval. Never in the world of comics has a simple shape been quite so divisive. There are diehards on both sides, and personally, I fall into the decidedly pro-oval (proval) faction, for the simple reason that I
think it makes for a more distinctive emblem. I will admit though, that when I was younger, I was
alwaysseriously stoked whenever Id see the plain bat show up, but I think thats because i associated it with
Batmans look in Frank Millers Year One, of which and this will probably shock you I am something of a fan.
I think its that way for a lot of people. The bat sans-oval represents Batmans more hardcore past, either through
Year One or the brutal, gun-toting days of the Golden Age, which are often romanticized as being the original
Batman by people who dont realize that they lasted all of about four issues. Seriously, if you want something
that really symbolizes Batmans past, bring back the autogyro. That thing was rad.
By the same token, I think that for a lot of people, the oval-logo also represents a very distinctive time:

Talk about a dude who didnt need kevlar; Adam Wests Batman didnt even need to do situps. (Rimshot)
Despite the fact that it was totally awesome and if you dont think Batman 66 was awesome, well, youre
wrong the Adam West version was the subject of a huge backlash from a lot of die-hard fans who were laboring
under the impression that it had forever tainted the gritty vigilante they loved. On one level, theres some truth to
that 44 years later and you still cant find a news story about comics with BIFF! POW! in the headline but on
the other hand, as someone who has read a lot of 50s and 60s Batman comics, I can tell you with no exaggeration
that West and Ward were often of a lot less ridiculous than their four-color counterparts had been for the previous
20 years. Despite its popularity, the comics didnt take their cue from the show.
Some readers justify it by asking well why would he have a target on his chest? to which the proper response is
wait, thats your problem with the guy who dresses like a bat so that he can punch mental patients every night?
Once youre at that point, whether or not youve got a little color on your shirt starts to be a minor concern at best.
And yet, all those headlines and Holy _____ , Batman! jokes get laid at the feet of that poor little oval. In a lot of
ways, it tends to be the signifier of a more Kid Friendly Batman, which explains its presence on stuff like the DC
Super Friends and Brave and the Bold versions:

Even in the other animated series, theres a pattern. While Batman: The Animated Series started with the oval,
the shift to darker stories for older kids (and, lets be honest, adults) in The New Batman Adventures and Justice
League was accompanied with a redesign that dropped the oval, while The Batman, a show about a younger
Bruce Wayne with more colorful versions of his enemies, kept it.
It might seem like Im devoting a lot of time to a single element of the costume (and I am), but its actually a big
deal, not just among Batman fans, but creators, too. When Brian Bolland recolored The Killing Joke for the
hardcover, he went so far as to eliminate the oval completely:

Its hardly the biggest change you can tell just from those two panels how drastically different Bollands new
version is from the original but its one that jumped out at me when I read it.
And yes: All of that just to say I like the oval, so stop picking on it.
But again, all that points to the fact that along with the all-black tights (no trunks) that he wore from 95 to
99, thats the major change in Batmans costume. Most of the other variations are either one-off silver age
kookiness

Yes, a FASHION menace!

or are pretty easy to write off as not being (and yes, I know how silly this sounds) the real Batman. But that
doesnt mean that theyre not bad, and for the worst suit that they actually did comics about, its hard to beat the
infamous Jean-Paul Valley AzBats costume that debuted on the cover of Batman #500, by future Marvel EditorIn-Chief Joe Quesada, with Aparo on interiors:

That thing is a hot mess, yall.

I dont even think I need to list off everything goofy and/or terrible about it, but for me, the hat-rack shoulderpoints, the golden football pads, even the inexplicable spikes on his calves all take a back seat to the absolute worst
element: Thigh Pouches.
Thigh. Pouches. Unless the goal is to make Jean-Paul Valleys batman look like hes wearing a single garter like a
new bride which I guess would confuse crooks and give him an important edge those things make no damn
sense. The guy already has pouches in that ridiculous half-belt hes wearing. What does he need more pouches for?
The anti-chafing cream that he needs because hes wearing thigh-pouches?!
And amazingly, while the rest of that costume went away quietly when Azrael was demoted to Junior Sidekick
status and given a book nobody read for a hundred issues, the thigh pouches stayed around. Check out Stephanie
Browns Batgirl costume:

That is a costume being worn in comics coming out today. In the year 2010. And it is rocking the hell out of some
thigh pouches. Ive actually heard Batgirl is a highly enjoyable comic Evie and Aaron of Awesomed By Comics
informed me that in the most recent issue, she and Supergirl team up to fight 24 Draculas, and that definitely does
sound like something Id enjoy but Ive never read an issue because I just cant sign off on those terrible, terrible
thigh pouches.
But like I said, the AzBats costume barely even counts as Batman; it wasnt Bruce Wayne, it didnt last long, and
even then, we all knew it had about as much permanence as Fudgicle on a hot summer day. So if you really want to
see some terrible Batman costumes, Id recommend you find yourself a copy of 1995s Batman: Knight Gallery.
Presumably released to coincide with Batmans costume change to the all-black/no trunks look that he sported up
through No Mans Land, Knight Gallery was essentially a pin-up book where a bunch of artists redesigned
Batmans costume, presented in the form of Batmans costume design sketchbook. This is hilarious on a number of
levels, chef among them being:
A) Batman sure does draw like a comic book artist in the Early 90s.
B) Batman spent a good amount of time drawing increasingly ludicrous costumes in his sketch diary.
C) He named his sketch diary Knight Gallery.
Oh, Bruce. What are we going to do with you?
My pal Rachelle, whom ComicsAlliance readers will remember as the writer and singer of the Stolen Minks
Batman (Youre The Sex), did an excellent writeup of the issue over at Living Between Wednesdays, but my
(least) favorite has got to be this monstrosity:

As we say here in the South, that thing is uglier than homemade sin, but I have to respect the dedication involved in
adding spikes to everything. Even his ears, which are themselves spikes, have smaller spikes on them. It is quite
possibly the most 90s design of all time.
And for bonus hilarity, it comes with commentary from Bruce Wayne himself (courtesy of writer Doug Moench),
who stops just short of Holy crap, why did I draw this? and instead starts ruminating on the nature of fascism.
Fan. Tastic. And Rachelle has even more.
Interestingly enough, though, the first design in Knight Gallery, from Tom Grummett, actually bears a lot of
resemblance to the costume thats coming up in Batman Inc.:

Which brings us to the new suit, and if I had to pick a least-favorite costume actually worn by Bruce Wayne, well,
this ones definitely in the running.
The ovals back, which is a plus, but to me, the raised efect of it makes it look like Batmans got a ceramic ashtray
hot-glued to his chest, and the lack of trunks to break up the costume under the belt makes him look less superhero and more janitor in a cape. I can understand the padded, armor-like gloves which look a lot like the
video game version of Batmans costume in Arkham Asylum, with the effect being similar to that of a mixed
martial arts fighter but again, I like the idea of a Batman who doesnt need padded gloves to punch dudes out.
Aparos Batman would cold open-hand slap guys. Padding just gets in the way.
A bigger problem for me is the piping that runs down the side. Theres been a recent trend to add seams and
stitching to super-hero costumes that, by and large, I just cant stand. Power Girls costume as drawn by Amanda
Conner is a notable exception the seams down the front do a lot to break up the vast blank white space of her
costume and accentuate her curves, which, as we all know, werent being accentuated enough already but on
characters like Superman and especially Captain America, it just doesnt work for me. I think it goes back to my
feelings on attempts to bring more realism to comics, but the seams and stitching make them look less like superheroes and more like actors in suits.
The end result is, at least with Batmans new costume, something thats too busy to be as iconic as what he was
wearing the last time we saw him (or even what Dick Graysons wearing now), and just doesnt seem like it does
anything better than the suit that Neal Adams and Jim Aparo drew.
Of course, Im basing that entire opinion on exactly two images, and I like how it looks on Yanick Paquettes interior
art from Batman Inc #1 much better than on the cover above. I just dont get the point.
Then again

It couldve been worse.

And now, a few quick answers:
Q: I only get to my F(not so L)CS every month or so unless I drop them an e-mail to specifically hold
something for me,
the new release section can be pretty picked over by the time I get there. Can you recommend any other
good places to check weekly for a finger on the pulse of the new releases and to flag anything particular
good/fun/infamous worth checking out ? Brad, via email
A: When I need to look over the shipping list, I always check Midtowns New Release page. Its updated every
Thursday for the following week, and theyre a big enough store that theyre usually getting everything thats
coming out. I will say, though, as a former retailer, what your store is getting may differ widely from the list, owing
to individual store orders, shortages, and even just what side of the country youre on. I used to get stuff weeks
before or after friends who were retailers in California. It you regularly read certain comics, its probably worth
checking to see if theyve got a subscription or pull list program, and if its too far away, you could always look into
online services like DCBS.
As for keeping your fingers on the pulse of upcoming titles, Id highly recommend Douglas Wolks Dont Ask, Just
Buy It! column, where he runs down each weeks titles the day before they come out. Those guys over at
ComicsAlliance tend to know their stuff.
Q: Which are the best Enforcers appeareances? erkalbeleo

A: All of them. Every comic about Ox, Montana and Fancy Dan is so good as to be immeasurably better than every
comic without them. I am, however, personally partial to Daredevil #357, by Karl Kesel and Cary Nord.
Q: Should I have a happy birthday? thechrishaley
A: Yes, Chris Haley. You should have the happiest of birthdays.
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Ask Chris #24: The Best Football and Celebrity Comics

by Chris Sims September 10, 2010 12:15 PM

Q: In honor of NFL season starting: Kickers, Inc, NFL SuperPro, or other which gets the dubious title
of best football-related comic? OsmosisOnline
A: While Im not much of a sports fan, I actually have read every single issue of NFL SuperPro. Im pretty sure
puts me in an exclusive club as its about as close to unreadable as you can get while still being printed on paper,
and while Ive stayed far away from Kickers, Inc, Ive heard its not much better. Fortunately, I dont have to
decide between those two, because Im squarely in the Other camp on this one: The best football comic of all time
is unquestionably a two-part story from 1967 that ran in the pages of Metamorpho: The
Element Man!
For those of you who arent familiar with Metamorpho, its one of the greatest comic
books ever printed. Created by Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon, Rex Mason was an
explorer employed by millionaire Simon Stagg, and on one mission, he stumbled on the
Orb of Ra, a mystical Egyptian artifact that gave him the ability to transform into any
element in the human body, but resulted in a freakish appearance. Complicating matters
further was the fact that Stagg hated Mason, but Mason and Staggs daughter, the beautiful
Sapphire, were in love, except that Sapphire had another suitor in her fathers faithful
butler, Java, who was a caveman.
In a lot of ways, this was DCs answer to the Fantastic Four. Metamorpho himself
combined the visual niftiness of the Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic, while his desire to be
turned human again so that he could marry Sapphire is a clear echo of Ben Grimm. Even
the dynamics of the ensemble cast, some of whom outright loathe each other, is a dead
giveaway, as is the fact that Metamorpho speaks in this phenomenal string of mid-60s
slang, as though he had been taught how to speak by Stan Lees Bullpen Bulletins column. Seriously, its amazing.
The fact that its a DC book with all the earmarks of the Silver Age (I mentioned the unfrozen caveman, right?)
thats approached like a Marvel title makes it one of the first books to synthesize the more equivalent approach
that we enjoy today, and that would come about starting in the mid-70s as more and more creators began to
freelance for both companies. As such, it reads like something thats simultaneously ten years ahead of its time and
inextricably rooted in 1966.
And it also reads like it was in a four-way race against Metal Men, The Legion of Super-Heroes and Supermans
Pal Jimmy Olsen to see who could come up with the craziest damn thing anyone had ever written. And #12 and
#13, by Haney and artist Sal Trapiani, are no exception

because this is the one where Metamorpho plays a college football game against a team of super-chemo robots in
order to stop them from stealing a football that could blow up the world. Boola-boola indeed.
Unlike most DC books of the time, each issue of Metamorpho was a full story, rather than being broken down into
three smaller tales (another thing it had in common with FF), and thanks to the highly compressed style of the
time, they often went all over the place. This one, for instance, doesnt get around to football until page 18 of a 23page story. Instead, it starts with Stagg recruiting a crackpot scientist so that he can make Metamorpho think hes
working on a cure when really hes just waiting for it to fail.
Unfortunately, the scientist he recruits, Franz Zorb, is less crackpot and more evil genius, who was bluffing his
way into Staggs laboratory so that he could build himself a set of evil element robots.

In the Silver Age, this was known as Tuesday.

Incidentally, Haney has essentially created an evil version of the Metal Men, which is something that had already
happened four years earlier in Metal Men #6. When i said Haney and Metal Men co-creator Robert Kanigher
were in a race, I wasnt kidding.
Anyway, the Chemo-Robots beat up Metamorpho and then commence wrecking Staggs mansion before departing
for Staggs alma mater, State Tech, where they intend to steal Professor Kronskis Nucleonic Moleculizer
Projector, which he stashed inside a football for safe keeping. Unfortunately, Zorb has what is quite possibly the
most amazing foresight known to man, and not only has plans in place to steal the football, but has old-timey
football uniforms made for his robots with their chemical symbols printed on the jerseys.

Thats planning ahead, folks.

The crazy football game between Metamorpho and the chemo-robots lasts into the next issue, and the best thing
about it aside from the fact that its a football game betwween Metamorpho and the chemo-robots is that
everyone in the stands just pretty much goes with it:

Because in the Silver Age, people expected things to be at least 150% more amazing than they ought to be.
Its possible that theres someone out there who could make a better comic book involving football someone
may be working on doing such a thing right now but until that day comes, Haney reigns supreme.
Q: What are the best comics (ostensibly) created by people who are celebrities but not professional
writers? goodthingsulike
A: The easy answer for the best one would be The Umbrella Academy, which was created and written by My
Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way because its actually really awesome (thanks in no small part to the
fantastic art of Gabriel Ba), but Im pretty sure thats not the kind of comic youre looking for.
Theres been a bunch of books over the past few years where a celebrity has attached his or her name to a comic,
with people country music star Trace Adkins (Luke McBain), actress Rashida Jones (Frenemy of the State), and
Seth Green (Freshmen) attempting to use their star power to lure a crossover market into comic shops. And
while I generally skip out on that sort of thing, the cream of the crop is pretty easy to pick out: Jane Wiedlins
Lady Robotika.

And Im not just saying that because I have a total crush on Jane Wiedlin, the cutest Go-Go, either, although I can
definitely assure you that that is in fact the case. More than anything else, what makes me like it is that together
with co-writer/artist Bill Morrison the long-time writer and artist on Simpsons Comics whose involvement
was a big part of getting me interested Wiedlin has addressed the major problem with Celebrity Comics, which
is that the celebrities in question arent actually in them.
Rather than just being a comic with her name above the title, Lady Robotika is actually about Jane Wiedlin.
Specifically, its about her being kidnapped by aliens and going to space to battle an evil space emperor, a space
dominatrix and her sexy space-soldiers, which are referred to as Iron Maidens. And that is awesome.
Its also really funny. Its a little heavy on the pop culture references, even for a book revolving around an alien
society thats built entirely around interpreting TV and radio transmissions from Earth, but when they hit, theyre
pretty darn sharp:

Also, theres the whole thing where Jane Wiedlin fights a space dominatrix. I cannot emphasize that point enough.
And now, a few quick ones:
Q: What is your favourite era for Legion Costumes? The inappropriately revealing, disco-fueled beefcake
70s Legion, perhaps? ekanerva
A: Oh, without question, the Reboot Era:

I love those designs. When a team isnt made up of characters that also operate solo like the JLA and the
Avengers I think its important for them to actually have a standardized design, and these were perfect. Simple
and distinctive, but also adaptable in very neat design ways: On Shrinking Violets costume, for instance, the middle
section of the costume was defined by a V-Neck that made an arrow pointing down (for shrinking), while MOnels
formed a big ol M and Invisible Kids was broken into a lowercase i. Very distinctive, very colorful, but still
uniforms so you could tell whos who and which side theyre fighting on a pretty handy visual when youve often
got fight scenes involving a dozen characters.
Q: What religions would you adhere to were you a denizen of the Marvel or DC universes? millerunc
A: Considering that both the Marvel and DC universes have seen actual, literal Roman Catholic Hell erupt on Earth
on at least two occasions, its hard to make an argument against Christianity, especially considering that the greenrobed Wrath of God has been on a super-hero team since the forties.
Marvel at least provides a couple of options, and given my love of monsters being smashed with hammers, Id
probably end up worshipping Thor. Either that, or Orthodox Galactism.
Q: Which Ennis run do you think is better, Hitman or The Punisher? Delmotank
A: Hitman. As much as I love the Punisher especially Welcome Back Frank Hitman is my favorite thing
Ennis has done.
Q: Who would cast in a live action Archie movie and why hasnt there been one before? Heggs
A: Oh, but there has. 1990s Riverdale and Back Again, a TV movie featuring Archies high school reunion that
starred Lauren Holly as Betty. As to why they never made another, well
That oughtta explain it.

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Ask Chris #23: What Are the Best Series Finales in Comics?
by Chris Sims September 3, 2010 11:00 AM

Q: In your opinion, the best series endings in comics? Not just the end to separate story arcs, but to entire
books? shutupadrian
A: In comics, closing out a series can often be a pretty tricky proposition. Its hard enough to write a good ending to
a story, but in a medium where success is often
defined by the fact that something gets to
continue, ending an entire title is even tougher.
But even so, there are plenty of books that go out
on a high note, and if youve read this column
before, my favorites probably arent going to come
as a surprise.
Despite the fact that it wasnt actually meant to be
an ending, Alan Moores run on Supreme
certainly isnt hurt by the fact that its final issue is
a massive tribute to Jack Kirby, and if thats not
my favorite comic Moores written, then Top
Ten #12s pitch-perfect season finale has a
pretty good shot at that title. And of course,
theres All Star Superman, because if you dont
get a lump in your throat when he tells Lois that
hell love her until the end of time, then theres a
pretty good chance that we will never be friends.
When you get right down to it, though, nobody
and I mean nobody can end a series like Garth
Ennis.
Ive mentioned before that while a lot of readers
only see him as a guy who writes hyper-violent
comics that drop more F-bombs than Scarface (a
reputation that actually is well-deserved), Ennis is
easily one of the top three writers of the past 20
years. And if thats ever in doubt, just take a look
at the last issue of any of his titles, where he
brings his stories to absolutely masterful
conclusions that make just about everyone else
look like slackers.

A lot of its rooted in the fact that he has an incredible gift for characterization. Over the course of long runs like
Hitman and Preacher, Ennis builds characters so amazingly well that by the time their stories are ending, the
reader is completely caught up in them. I was just talking to Euge about the end of Preacher when we recorded
War Rocket Ajax this week, and how the fight between Jesse and Cassidy in the penultimate issue is one of the
greatest fights of all time, and not just because Steve Dillon draws the living hell out of it:

By the time those two dudes throw down, this has been building for over sixty issues. Its literally a comic about a
guy with a super-power fighting a vampire, but theres betrayal and redemption and the kind of hate that can only
come from a friendship, and its done in a way that comics rarely get to explore. And its put together perfectly.
And thats just compounded by the fact that Ennis has had the incredible fortune to work with some of the best
artists in comics, and from John McCrea to Steve Dillon to Darick Robertson, they consistently bring their A-Game.
Dillon never feels like hes phoning in an issue of Preacher, but the brutality of the fight and the expressions on
the characters faces just nails the anger and regret that theyre feeling. In short, he sells the hell out of it.

Every single punch in that fight means something more than just one man hitting another to accomplish a
goal. Every single line comes out as though these characters are being torn apart by their emotions. Theres an
authenticity to it that comes from the incredible amount of skill that Ennis and Dillon put from building those
characters every month for five years, all coming to a head.
And then theres the actual last issue where among other things, fifty-six issues after Jesse tells Tulip about the last
time I ever cried, he breaks down and starts crying over the girl he loves. That may seem like an easy thing to pull
off, but very few writers have the foresight to both set something up that far in advance and the talent to pull it off
without it seeming artificial and contrived.
And Hitman is even better.

Pretty much everything I said about Preacher applies again here, only that the amazing art this time around
belongs to John McCrea. I do think, however, that this one actually shows off Enniss versatility a little better. This
is, after all, the book that had a story called Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium wherein the cast blew away
flesh-hungry baby seals for two issues, but when it ends, its one of the most emotionally engaging books Ive ever
read.
Ennis is a very cinematic writer and he often wears his influences on his sleeve, but unlike far too many creators,
he hasnt just watched a lot of movies and tried to replicate them on the page. Hes clearly studied what works in
films and figured out how to make it work in the medium of comics, especially where pacing and staging are
concerned.
I dont think Im breaking much new ground here when I say that Im pretty sure Ennis is probably a big fan of the
climactic scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly where Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef just
cold stare at each other for six minutes. Its one of my favorite scenes in movie history; the quick cuts between the
three actors and Ennio Morricones unforgettable score gives it so much tension, building and building until
somebody finally gets shot. And thats a scene that, if someone tried to literally translate it to comics, would be
monumentally boring.
But the feeling the tension, the excitement, the delay of the inevitable shootout is something that can be
duplicated, and thats what Ennis does here. The last issue of Hitman opens with sixteen pages of two men sitting
in a bar talking to each other. Theres other stuff interspersed, but essentially, thats what it is: Two guys coming to
terms with the fact that theyre about to die. At that point in the book, its an inevitable conclusion virtually
everyone else in the cast had been killed and the scale of storytelling had been on a steady increase to Tommy and
Nat pissing off too many people and running out of luck and they knew it just as well as the reader did. So it ends
pretty much the only way it can, and for that to be done in a DC Universe super-hero comic is a rare thing indeed.

Even with the Punisher, where he did the opposite of what he did with Preacher and Hitman and pared his
character down to a lean, almost one-dimensional constant, Ennis ended by putting his stamp on it. He summed up
everything about what hed done with the character for eight years in two word balloons. Its a masterwork of
brevity.
Like Morrison, Ennis doesnt just leave books; he drops the mic. And it makes him an awfully hard act to follow.
Q: Who has the best hair in comics and video games? brad_merc
A: This was actually a question someone asked months ago that I hadnt gotten to, but I havent been able to track
down the original question. Ive been thinking about it for quite a while though, so Brad was nice enough to ask it
again.
For comics, its easy to go with someone like Medusa, but her hair isnt really all that great, just powerful. No, if you
want good hair, theres only one person to go to: Tony Stark circa 1990:

The T.S. stands for Too Sexy

Seriously: that is one luscious head of hair. The comic book blue highlights, the rigidly defined part, the spit-curl,
the almost-mullet, the fact that it retains its bounce even though he wears a metal helmet for six hours a day.
Combine it with that moustache, and it
is devastating.
With video games, the field is even more open, and
Im glad the question specified best and not
most mind-shatteringly ridiculous, or Id be here
for an entire week without getting through half of
the Square-Enix catalog. Again, its tempting to go
with one of the obvious choices, like Guile, whose
Kid n Play-esque flat-top is honed to military
precision and able to withstand getting stomped
on by a guy with Psycho Power.
Before last year, though, I wouldve given it
to Colonel Scott OConnor, the hero of the fourth
greatest NES game of all time, Kabuki Quantum
Fighter.
For those of you who dont know, Kabuki
Quantum Fighter (the best title for anything that
isnt Lightning Swords of Death) was released in
1990 and still stands as an unparalleled example
of Nintendo Logic, and as an eight year-old with a
subscription to Nintendo Power, it was the
object of my obsession for a good two weeks
worth of video store rentals.
In it, you play as Scott OConnor, a military man
who volunteers to be digitized into the cybernetic
world of a planetary defense computer in order to
keep it from being taken over by a virus. This is
pretty much standard fare, but what set it apart
was that rather than a soldier, OConnors digital
body was in the form of a Kabuki dancer, owing to
memories of his grandfather, who was apparently

very active in Japanese theater. More like Noh-Connor, am I right?

Anyway, once given his Digital Matrix Kabuki body, OConnors main tactic in the game was to take on viruses by
whipping his hair at them:

Yeah, you heard me: His hair is made of the Internet and he uses it to headbang things to death. Deal with it.
This would stand as the most awesome hair in video games for two solid decades, until he was finally dethroned
this year by Bayonetta:

In addition to forming her costume, Bayonettas hair also opens up portalsto hell and becomes giant Satan fists
that she uses to punch things to death.
Also, she wears guns on her feet so that she can kick people in the face and shoot them in the face at the same time,
and is therefore in the running for being my favorite thing ever.

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Ask Chris #22: Who Is the Best Superhero Animal of All?

by Chris Sims August 27, 2010 12:45 PM

Q: Who is the best ANIMAL superhero of them all? (Inspired by me watching the pretty-mediocre
Underdog film on cable) bully_thelsb
A: I hate to be That Guy on a question from the Internets most beloved Little Stuffed Bull,
but it really depends on how loose you are with your definition of animal. Are we talking
only full-time animals, like Underdog or Mighty Mouse? Do characters who used to be
human but later became animals with human brains, like Gorilla Man or Congorilla? What
about mythological creatures, like dragons?
Also, how super-heroic do they have to be? Im tempted to go with Mr. Tawny, but hes not
really a super-hero, just a talking tiger in a plaid suit jacket that used to hang out with a
bunch of super-heroes. And by the way, if anybody ever asks, that is why Captain Marvel is
awesome.If were going to go with only full-time animals (a phrase that I never thought Id
get a chance to use), then I think Ive got to go with

Detective Chimp!
A pretty popular choice for the matter, Im sure, but considering the alternative is pretty much limited to Rex the
Wonder Dog, I think Im pretty safe here. Dont get me wrong; Rex has the pedigree (har har) of being a Robert
Kanigher creation, and as such was involved in plenty of typically Kanigherian adventures like fighting dinosaurs
and shrinking down to explore subatomic universes, and his brother is Pooch, Gunner and Sarges dog from The
Losers.
But Detective Chimp is an alcoholic talking chimpanzee in a hat who solves mysteries, and if I need to explain
why thats awesome, than you and I will never understand each other.
If, however, the definitions arent so strict, then my favorite animal super-hero is unquestionably this guy:

Comet the Super-Horse!

Of course, my reasons for thinking Comets great are pretty closely tied in with the reasons he might not count. See,
despite appearances, Comet isnt actually a horse, and unlike Krypto the Super-Dog (who was the El familys pet)
and Beppo the Super-Monkey (a lab animal Jor-El used to test his rockets), hes not even from Krypton. No, Comet
started out as that most hated of creatures: the loathsome centaur.
Specifically, he was a centaur named Biron who lived in Ancient Greece, where he saved the live of Circe (you
know, from the Odyssey). In return, he asked her to turn him into a regular human, but she mixed up her potions
and turned him into a horse instead, but ended up giving him super-powers in what Ive got to think was a pretty
halfhearted attempt to make up for it.
But wait, it gets better: Because he saved Circe from an assassination attempt, Biron was exiled to outer space by a
wizard, where he lived as a horse on an asteroid for a couple thousand years until Supergirls rocket broke the
magic force field imprisoning him (?!) and allowed him to return to Earth, where he promptly became Supergirls
horse.
And really, since the fact that he was in a horse body meant that the only way he could communicate was by
thinking really hard at people, that had to be a pretty frustrating existence:
Supergirl! Perhaps with your fantastic powers, you could help me! Im
OOH A PRETTY HORSEY!
No, Im You know what? Too complicated. Just, can you
YOUR NAME IS COMET!
No, its Biron, I
I OWN YOU NOW LETS GO TO SPACE!
Siiiiiiigh.
Even so and this is where it starts to get weird that didnt stop Comet/Biron from falling madly in love with
Supergirl. Yeah, thats right: Supergirls pet horse was in love with her, but because he was a horse, their
relationship could never truly blossom.

Oh, except that whenever a comet came near Earth, he turned into a rodeo rider named Bronco Bill Starr, during
which times hed totally make out with her before going back to being her horse. Also, he went to the future a lot.
And that, my friends, is why the Silver Age was awesome.
Of course, if were talking about strange, horrifying half human/half-animal hybrid creatures, then my favorite
would naturally be Super-Pup.
Q: Whats the definitive Squirrel Girl story? BJMendelson
A: If I had to point to one thing about the Comics Internet that warmed the icy cockles of
my heart, it would unquestionably be the fact that, thanks largely to Dan Slott, Squirrel Girl
has achieved the level of cult fame that she always deserved.
I love Squirrel Girl, mostly because shes rooted in the idea of What if we made the most
ridiculous character we could possibly think of, and then had her win every time? In a
universe that prides itself on being grounded in a version of realism that still allows for
gamma bombs and radioactive spiders, shes a pure, shining beacon of fun, and everyone
who likes her seems to get that its because shes constantly, effortlessly
punching way above her weight class. Forget knuckle spikes and the ability to talk to
forest rodents, her real super-power iswinning.
Which, now that I thin of it, makes herthe Marvel Universe version of Batman.
As for her defining moment, Im tempted to cop out and say that its her first appearance,
because thats the story that set the tone by having her singlehandedly beat Doctor
Doom

Really, though, I think it reaches its definitive peak in the GLX-Mas special, in a story where Dan Slott and Matt
Haley not only have her take out Thanos

but have the Watcher on hand to enshrine it as an immutable, incontrovertible element of Marvel continuity,
which is basically Slott getting all up in your grill and going Did you see that? Because that. Just. Happened.
Incidentally, you dont need to thank me for the hot Dr. Doom upskirt shot. Its all part of the service.
And now, a few quick answers:

Q: Which is the more awesome movie featuring both Ben Gazzara and Sam Elliott: Road House or The Big
Lebowski? Robert, via email
A: This is almost as bad as the time I was asked to choose between Jack Kirby and Jimmy Olsen, but while Road
House is the movie I watch every Thanksgiving, Lebowski is quite possibly my favorite movie of all time.
Heck, Im watching it right now.
Q: Did you vote in the Jason Todd: live or die poll? If so, how? And do you think Batman would be
disappointed in you? ChompyDuchamp
A: Nope. I was six. If I had, though, yes he would.
Q: What Marvel/DC character would you have Bruce Campbell play (Evil Dead Era or current)?
PreposteChris
A: Evil Dead-era Bruce Campbell would have been an absolutely perfect Silver Age Superman.
Q: So what do you think of Arkham Asylum, the Grant Morrison OGN? kenlowery
A: Oh, I hate it. Im not a fan of Dave McKean at all (I can see why someone would be, but his art style is just the
opposite of the stuff I tend to like), but even more than that, its the one Morrison story that I just outright loathe. It
reads very much like a product of its time, and despite a few things that I do like the debut of the idea of the
Jokers super-multiple-personalities being the standout its full of edgy moments that seem rooted in shock
value rather than storytelling (Two-Face crapped himself!)
For me though, the worst bit (as you may expect) is that Batman doesnt act like Batman at all and even stranger
is the fact that he doesnt act like Batman acts in any other Batman story Morrisons written. In Arkham Asylum,
hes ineffectual, wishy-washy, and worst of all, a passive observer in his own story. So heres a sentence I never
thought Id write: I liked that Grant Morrison comic a lot better when it was used as backstory for a video game.
Q: If you could choose anyone to write the fabled Batman musical, who would you choose, and why? For
me, Id choose Pete Townshend on the music and Neil Gaiman for the books (maybe Grant Morrison for this
if hes not too busy). Id think theyd be able to Batmans grim side properly without falling into grim-dark.
What do you think? Molly, via email
A: I didnt care for Gaimans work on Batman, so despite the answer to the previous question, my picks would be:
Story: Grant Morrison
Music and Lyrics: The RZA
And thats real.

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Ask Chris #21: The Bruce Wayne Girlfriend Trauma Algorithm and Archies Most Terrifying Comics
by Chris Sims August 20, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: If I were to start dating Bruce Wayne, how long would it take before I would be killed/ kidnapped/
etc.? charpalnaut
A: Despite the fact that hes a handsome, rich, dedicated career-oriented bachelor, Bruce Wayne hasnt really had
anything even remotely resembling luck in the dating department, mostly because as you point out his
girlfriends tend to keep kidnapped and/or murdered, occasionally going so far as to be kidnapped by shadowy
organizations that fake their deaths, give them plastic surgery to look completely different, and then end up being
turned into cyborg super-spies.
Id say its the primary risk of dating Batman, but its less of a risk and more of an absolute guarantee. Its going to
happen. Should you decide that hes worth the risk, however and having seen that dudes abs, I would totally
support that decision there are ways of delaying the inevitable.The first thing you need to know is that being a
normal, successful young lady is the absolute worst possible thing you could do. Seriously, if youre a sharp,
witty, well-adjusted career woman, youre going to find yourself on the wrong end of a super-villain within six
months, tops. The best case scenario here is that youre either going to be sacrificed to a cult of RenFaire Draculas
like socialite/law student Julie Madison

or menaced with a branding iron by a one-man Gathering of the Juggalos, like Silver St. Cloud:

Either way, you should probably go ahead and get used to the idea of being tied up (and not in the fun yes, that is a
batrope in my utility belt, but I am also happy to see you sort of way), so Id recommend reading up on knots well
in advance. And keep in mind, thats not the worst thing that ever happened to Silver St. Cloud. She later had to
appear in a Kevin Smith comic.
As counterintuitive as it might seem if youre trying to land a romance with the worlds greatest crimefighter, youll
have way better luck if you take up a career in the exciting world of thematic crime!

Its Gotham Citys fastest-growing industry!

From what Ive read, the best way to go about this is probably being the alluring daughter of an immortal,
genocidal mastermind. Like most, long-distance romances, its pretty tough and doomed to fail from the start, but
the times youre together are intense and exceptionally shirtless, and you get to spend the rest of your time
hanging out with ninjas and wearing kicky Emma Peel catsuits. Of course, if your fathers an immortal, genocidal
mastermind, that presents its own set of kidnapping and murder-related problems, mostly revolving around the
fact that he will occasionally attempt to kidnap and murder you.
If you come from more humble beginnings, though, you can still make it work. Just get yourself some skintight vinyl
and a decades worth of training in gymnastics and karate (and only karate), then hit the town and just cold start
stealing stuff. Things will probably start out slow Id refer to it less as dating and more as sustained rooftop
flirtation but eventually, youll be getting Bat-makeouts all over the dang place.
Just keep in mind that this in no way will keep Batman Girlfriend Trauma from happening, and once it does show
up, itll be in the form of something monumentally ludicrous, like getting your entire heart cut out, which will
somehow not be fatal. Kind of a pain, though.

You know, now that I actually write this all out and without even getting to Vesper Fairchild, who took three
bullets in the back just to drop Batman into prison for two weeks in a story nobody remembers a decade later
Im starting to think that maybe the Guaranteed Batman Girlfriend Trauma isnt worth it. I mean, yeah, hes
Batman, but what can he possibly have to offer that could outweigh that?

Ah, right. You win again, Shirtless Batman. You win again.
Q: I was wondering if you have any knowledge of a series of scary or slightly scary Betty Cooper stories
from the late 1970s? I have a vague memory of reading some something with zombie-ish characters
and/or something about toxic green goop in the sewers? Perhaps they were just scary to me, I was a little
kid. Eve, via email
A: Im not familiar with those particular stories, but I can pretty much guarantee you that they were published in
Life With Archie.
During the 70s, comics in general saw a surge in popularity for horror-related titles, spurred on both by the
loosening of the comics code that allowed for super-hero characters like Ghost Rider and the arrival of magazines
like Eerie and Creepy that sought to get back to the high points of the 50s EC titles. Archie was no exception,
and so from 1971 to 1979, Life With Archie, which had previously been just another standard comedy title (albeit
one that saw Archie get recast as the super-hero Pureheart the Powerful and the Bond-esque Man From
R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.) became the comic where Archie and his friends were almost killed every issue, usually through
encounters with the supernatural.

Betty, as Riverdales icon of purity and sweetness, was often at the forefront of these stories, dealing with both
supernatural threats and more mundane ones, like the time she was abducted and tied up (which seems to be the
theme of this weeks column) by her extremely sketchy new neighbors:

Theres definitely at least one story that takes place in the sewer #178 although the danger there seems to be
from drowning in a sudden flood rather than anything toxic. As for whether or not the stories were actually as
scary as you remember, well, like I said, I havent read them, so I dont know.
But I can assure you that the ones I have read are terrifying.
Life With Archie #160 is mostly known for the cover story, which features a main story where Betty and Veronica
are almost burned alive when one of Mr. Lodges buildings catches fire, but it also features a backup in which a
mysterious green box was unearthed at a construction site and, when open, emitted an invisible Aura of Satan (!)
that promptly started melting peoples faces off.

I feel like I should point out here that twenty years before this story was published, the people at Archie Comics
had been the ones leading the charge to implement the Comics Code, which was built around the express purpose
of keeping things exactly like this out of the hands of impressionable youngsters.
The facemeltings eventually cease when Archie shoots the box with a speargun from a helicopter (really), but in
the creepiest moment of the story, nothings ever explained or resolved. They just close up the box, bury it, and go
on with their lives like the mailman didnt just get killed by what theyre pretty sure was the Devil.
Five issues later, theres a story where Veronica is held at knifepoint by a crook Mr. Lodge hires to do some
woodcarving, and while thats nowhere near as terrifying as, you know, Satan, it does have what is quite possibly
my favorite opening caption in comics history:
Light flashes off a razors edge as the surgical steel waves slowly back and forth like the sinister head of a deadly
cobra! Archie and Mr. Lodge freeze in their tracks! Veronica stiffens in fear! Everybodys got something to lose in
this chilling stalemate!
So rest assured, Eve: Your childhood memories are correct. And awesome.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: I just found out that FOXs Human Target is based on a DC Comic. Do you have any opinion on that
comic? Worth reading? ZeppoMarxist
A: Absolutely! The Peter Milligan series was probably the best Vertigo book on the stands
when it was coming out, and sadly, one of the most underappreciated, and it had absolutely
gorgeous art by guys like Javier Pulido and Cliff Chiang.
It also has almost nothing to do with the TV show. In the comic, Christopher Chance uses
makeup and plastic surgery to become a perfect double of the person hes trying to protect,
acting as a decoy, and consequently losing his own identity every time he becomes someone
else. There are points in the series where no one not Chance, not the supporting cast, not
even the reader is sure who he really is, but the end result is an extremely complex and
rewarding book about the nature of identity. I think the TV show got the earliest stories
reprinted (Milligan did a mini-series and an original graphic novel before the ongoing) I highly
recommend it, even though it does suffer from the lack of Chi McBride.
Q: Can cows get drunk? What about cow people like Bova? LiterateKnits
A: I am amazed that its taken 21 of these columns before someone asked me about Bova. Anyway, the answer is
yes: Both cows and cow people can get drunk. In fact, if you give a cow enough vodka and Kahlua, its milk will come
out as a White Russian, although you need to bring your own ice.

Q: On the subject of manga, to you prefer it to be right-to-left (preserving the original art) or left-to-right
(creating greater flow for English readers)? Marcus, via email
A: For things like page orientation and layout, I prefer things to be as close to their original format as possible. That
way people dont suddenly become left-handed.
Q: You suggested that Luke Cage asking Dr. Doom Wheres my money, honey? might be the best panel in
Marvel Comics history. This made me wonder whats the best panel in all comics history? Charles, via
Email
A:

From Godzilla vs. Barkley #1 (1993) by Mike Baron and Jeff Butler.

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Ask Chris #20: Morrison vs. Moore and Why the Legion of Super-Heroes Works
by Chris Sims August 6, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: Alan Moores Supreme vs Grant Morrisons All-Star Superman: which is the ultimate Superman
story? cdtatro
A: Of all the questions Ive been asked for this column, this one might be the most difficult.

Im pretty sure just about everyone reading ComicsAlliance is familiar with All Star Superman at this point, but
just so we know where we stand, its the best Superman story in at least 20 years, with Grant Morrison and Frank
Quitely doing a Silver Age-inspired tale of what Superman does when he knows hes dying. Brilliantly written,
beautifully drawn, its darn near perfect.

Supreme, however, is a little more obscure its hard to put together a full run, and while it was reprinted in the
past few years by Checker, the print quality was really lousy which is insane because its one of Alan Moores
masterworks. Beginning with Supreme #41 in 1996, Moore took over a Superman analogue created by Rob
Liefeld and did (stop me if youve heard this one) as Silver Age-inspired tale in which Supreme returned from a
long absence. Essentially, Moore was acting as though the previous ten years of Post-Crisis On Infinite Earths
Superman were just a weird diversion, and now it was time to get things back to normal. Clever, groundbreaking
and thoroughly rewarding (like pretty much everything Moores done), its absolutely phenomenal.
So which ones better? Brother, thisll take some thinking.
Right from the start, its easy to point out that All Star has one big advantage over Supreme: Frank Quitely. His
work on All Star is quite possibly the best of his career, and his beautifully detailed pages and innovative layouts
are able to carry so much information across to the reader, and for good chunks of the run, Supreme just cant
compare.

Thats not to say that Supreme is all that hard on the eyes: Once Chris Sprouse (who would later collaborate with
Moore on Tom Strong) shows up, it is a good-looking book, and every issue boasts flashbacks illustrated by Rick
Veitch that are just incredible. Veitch draws his sequences to look like authentic Golden and Silver Age stories,
doing note-perfect imitations of everyone from Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger, the artists who defined the
Superman family in the Silver Age

to EC Comics creators like Jack Davis, Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman:

Moore and Veitchs work in Supreme is essentially a master class in the history of comic book art and storytelling,
but often, the art on the main story just couldnt keep up. If Sprouse had drawn the whole run, itd be one of the

prettiest comics to ever hit the stands, but that wasnt the case, and while the guys who did draw the first years
worth are okay, theyre unfortunately just okay, and often suffer by comparison.
As far as the stories, its tempting to say that while Morrison has a relatively narrow focus in All Star, Moore is far
more ambitious in Supreme. Part of that has to do with the nature of the two works: All Star was a twelve-issue
limited series, while Supreme was an ongoing that racked up a total of 23 issues before it stopped (a fact Ill get to
in a moment), but theres a key difference in scope, too.
Both comics are full of references to old Superman stories (Morrison does his own tributes to things like
Supermans New Power, while most of the Moore/Veitch flashbacks are overtly remixed versions of classics
like The Super-Key to Fort Superman), and in fact, Im pretty sure that this scene from All Star Superman

is at least partially meant to be an homage to this scene from Supreme:

If so, that brings up an interesting fact: That Morrison himself considers Supreme as much of a valid text on
Superman as the other stories he draws from.
But as I was saying, Moores focus isnt as narrow. While Morrisons essentially creating an idealized version of
Superman and his supporting cast, Moore is creating an his ideal version of the entire DC Multiverse, including
analogues for Batman, Robin, the entire Justice League, the Justice Society, the Phantom Zone, and even manages to
recast existing characters like Youngblood and Glory into his versions of the Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. He
even works in the coupons that used to run in Superman comics for free rides at the Pallisades Amusement Park.
Its essentially the entire DC Universe as created by Alan Moore, which is awesome.
Unfortunately, its scope also provides its own drawback, which is that while All Star comes to a fantastic,
perfectly satisfying ending, Supreme just stops, ending right in the middle of the run. It does it twice, in fact; first
when the ongoing Supreme series ends in the middle of a storyline, and then again when Supreme: The Return
ends after six issues. Dont get me wrong , the final issue is great, but it also ends with a blurb reading Next:
Revelations! and Moores plot for the next issue exists, including a line about how it leads into the grand finale in
the issue after that, both of which were unfortunate victims of the collapse of Awesome, the company run by The
Rob Liefeld that was publishing Supreme after he broke with Image.
It wasnt just them, either: Moore was working on a Youngblood series and a Glory series at the same time, and
while they were both great, they also bit the dust after a couple issues each.
Of course, getting back to the matter of scope, you could also argue that Morrison isnt just working with Superman
as a character, but rather the nature of Superman as a metaphor for heroism itself, and that hes tying it into this
overarching super-story that hes run through everything hes done at DC from JLA to DC One Million to Final
Crisis, and youd be right. But you could also point out that Moore is, in turn, making a study of and a commentary
on the way that the stories themselves have evolved over time, and if I started trying to figure out which of those
was more important or done better, Id be here all day.
Originally, I thought I might settle this by just comparing my favorite issues, but that presents a new problem, as
my favorite issue of All Star is the Superman/Olsen War from #4, Morrisons tribute to Supermans Pal Jimmy

Olsen, and my favorite issue of Supreme Is New Jack City from The Return #6, which is Moores tribute to
Jack Kirby.

You cant ask me to choose between Jimmy Olsen and Jack Kirby, cdtatro. I cant do it. And if I try, Ill explode like a
computer on Star Trek.
So instead, my final answers going to be that they both have their strengths, but theyre both of such high quality
and different enough that comparing the two to decide which ones better is impossible. Sure, it might be a cop-out,
but its also true. And thats the nice thing about reading great comics: Its not a competition, and we all win!
Q: Would you kindly put on your Geoff Johns hat and talk a bit about the metaphor at the heart of the
Legion of Super-Heroes? Something something future, right? Steven, via
email
A: I think the metaphor for the Legion is a pretty simple one, and youre right: Its
all about the future. Not just in that its set in the future, but that its
actually kids and even more specifically, that its kids who are inspired by
super-heroes to become heroes themselves.
I used to not like the fact that so many Legionnaires have powers that are native to
their worlds everyone on Cosmic Boys home planet, for instance, has magnetic
powers, and everyone on Titan is a telepath, just like Saturn Girl but whether or
not that was just an easy way for the creators to explain where all of these powers
came from, its become part of what works about the Legion.
Theres the underlying idea that everyone has something they can do to make the
world a better place if theyd only actually do it. After all, everyone on Braal might
have magnetic powers, but Cosmic Boy is the only one who decided to go out and
help people all over the galaxy with them. And that itself is another huge part of
the metaphor, the idea of people who are literally from different worlds coming
together and working to help everyone.
Combine those, and youve got something that takes the old the only thing
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing message and
literalizes it. The message here is that if we want to save the future, then we have to work for it and teach other

people to do the same, and even if all you can do is eat matter, then gosh darn it, get out there and be the best
Matter Eater Lad you can be.
Its the youth, though, that makes it really work for me. For one thing, it makes them easier for kids who read
comics to relate to, because theyre essentially just a bunch of kids who really like super-heroes. More than that,
though, is the idea of youthful optimism. The Legionnaires believe in heroes in the way that kids believe in heroes,
and they believe that what they do matters. And by acting on that belief, they make their actions matter.
Its an idea that I really like, that everyone can be Superman if they work hard to help others, and while I think
theres a lot of appeal for kids in that idea, if its delivered from an adult, it can easily seem like the kind of work
hard, get good grades lecture that they get from age five to the time that they drop out of college and start writing
about comics professionally.
And now, a few quick answers:
Q: Simple question: which decade do you feel had the best comics from either of the big two, and why?
Max_Barnard
A: Oh, no contest: The 80s. Simonsons Thor, Moores Swamp Thing, Stern and Byrnes Avengers, Byrnes
Superman, Ostranders Suicide Squad, Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguires Justice League International, Miller on
Daredevil and later on Year One, Barr and Davis on Detective Comics. It was a Golden Age, my friend.
Second place would probably be the 60s. Kirby all over the place, Lee, Ditko and Romita on Amazing Spider-Man,
and the height of Silver Age crazy-awesomeness over at DC thanks to Jerry Siegel, Otto Binder, Leo Dorfman, Curt
Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger and others.
Q: Is it Dark-seed or Dark-side for Darkseid? How important is pronunciation in comics?
MichaelWearden
A: Dark-Side. And along the same lines, while DCs official line is that its Raysh al-Ghul, I once asked a guy who
worked as an Arabic translator and he told me it was more like Roz.
It doesnt really matter though, as long as you know who its meant to be when you see the words, though it gets a
little trickier when youre dealing with creators. Im still not sure if my pronunciation of Fabian Niciezas last name
(Knee-See-Ay-Zah) is right, and Ive heard various takes on Busiek and Guice, too, which can lead to awkward
times at a convention.
Q: What are your thoughts on Anime Conventions? And have you ever been to one? Xaiados
A: I havent been to one, but Ive always wanted to go, and even moreso now that Ive been to San Diego. I just
really want to see what a con looks like when youre only casually interested in the subject matter, and see just
how different they are from comic conventions.
Q: What was the best issue of a Wrestling comic you can think of? adampknave
A: Until Cullen Bunn and Tom Fowlers issue of Deadpool Team-Up comes out, the reigning champion is going to
be Jarrett Williams awesome Super Pro K.O.

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Ask Chris #19: Manga Recommendations and What Makes a Batman?

by Chris Sims July 30, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: I usually dont read manga because I dont know where to start. But thanks to you I just read Plutoand I
was blown away. What should I read next? John Maynard, via email
A: As much as I love comics, Im not a huge manga expert, mostly owing to the fact that I burnt myself out on it back
in my younger days. Growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, manga and anime were, to me, the punk rock of
comics: They were something that took a familiar format and used it in a strange new way (which as a bonus often
involved nudity and people getting punched so hard they exploded), and it was something that the squares hadnt
caught onto yet. You had to hunt for it, staying up til 4 AM to catch a Sci-Fi Channel showing of
Project A-Ko or picking up stray volumes from the sketchier comic book stores.It sounds
weird to be nostalgic for what was essentially a massive inconvenience in getting comics, but I
think at the time, I liked the thrill of the chase and the social aspects of being in with the anime
crowd more than the actual product. When the manga market exploded onto the US scene,
however, things were completely changed, and like a lot of folks that were suddenly spoiled for
choice, I binged, until I ended up getting so mad at Love Hina that I essentially ran out into a
thunderstorm and swore to the heavens that I would never read manga again!
I was, uh, a little dramatic when I was younger.
Anyway, its only in the past few years that Ive gotten back into following any manga regularly
(though I never lost my absolute love of Adam Warren), but I picked a pretty good time to do
so, because theres some great stuff out there right now.
The interesting thing about manga for me anyway is that unlike American comics, where
Im predominantly a super-hero fan, theres no particular genre that interests me. Of the series I follow, theyre all
pretty distinctive, and almost as importantly, theyre all pretty easy to jump on. One of the things that frustrated
me as a reader was that manga tends to go on forever, and while I know thats weird coming from someone who
could happily read Batman For 700+ issues, theres something that just strikes
me as daunting about a 49-volume series of graphic novels, but I cant imagine
thats anything more than just what Im familiar with.
You mention Naoki Urasawas Pluto, a series that I just recently finished, and
while everyone and their sister has sung this books praises, it really is that good.
For those of you who havent read it, the idea here is that Urasawa (who also did
20th Century Boys and Monster, both of which Ive heard are fantastic but
havent read yet) is re-telling The Greatest Robot on Earth, which is probably the
most popular Astro Boy story of the 60s by Osamu Tezuka, who is considered
the godfather of manga.
The thing is, though, Pluto is accessible and thrilling even if, like me, youd never
read a single page of Tezukas work before you jumped in, which has a lot to do
with the way Urasawa sets it up. Rather than a straight-up action story like the
original, Urasawa tells it as a dense, heavily psychological murder mystery thriller.

Urasawa sets up everything you need to know in no time its the future and robots are commonplace, there are
seven robots that are considered to be supremely powerful, they were all involved in a recent war, and someone or
something is killing them one by one and then steps aside to let amazing character work drive the story.
Its brilliant stuff, engaging the reader with themes involving the nature of humanity, the mental scars left by war,
the tragedy of racism, and robots beating the living hell out of each other. Even stuff that could come off as silly
under a lesser creator imagine the Hannibal Lechter scenes from Silence of the Lambs, but with robots
come off as disturbing and compelling. Its awesome, and has a nice, finite eight-volume run.
And itll spark an interest, too: Since reading it, Ive been going back through Dark Horses Astro Boy reprints, and
Im almost to the story it was based on.
Other than that, my favorite series right now is probably Yotsuba&! by
Kiyohiko Azuma, which is about as far from the psychological murder mystery of
Pluto as you can get. Its a pure comedy manga centered on a little girl, Yotsuba,
who doesnt know anything.
It sounds strange, but thats about the only way to put it: All of the comedy is
based around the fact that Yotsuba needs virtually everything in the world
explained to her, from air conditioning to apartment buildings to festivals to
fireworks, often completely mystifying the people around her. Its utterly
charming and cute without ever slipping into cloying and sentiment, and is
frequently genuinely hilarious.
Unfortunately, when ADV went out of business, it switched over to being
published by Yen Press, and while its great that they picked it up, theyre also
doing things slightly differently as far as design and translation. I prefer the ADV
translations, but its not really a big deal, the jokes are still there; the bigger sin is
that theyve done away with the logo on the ADV trades (seen at right) and
replaced it with one that looks like it was done in five minutes in PhotoShop. I
have no idea why one would assume that they got the existing logo when they
picked up the rights but for some reason it sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
Azuma also did another series called Azumanga Daioh that followed a class of girls through their high school
years, and while I read every bit of it and watched the anime version, Im a little conflicted. The vast majority of it is
done as four-panel strips (think a newspaper comic strip, but vertical), but theres a completely perplexing lack of
punchlines. I suspect it might be an issue of translation about halfway through, it suddenly gets a lot funnier and
Im thinking there was someone new brought in but the character work is really compelling regardless.
Yotsuba, on the other hand, refines Azumas comedy darn near to a science. Its currently on its 7th volume, and
well worth picking up.
Ive mentioned it before, but my favorite new manga series of the past couple of
years has been Detroit Metal City, by Kiminori Wakasugi. Its essentially
Japans answer to Metalocalypse, but with the added twist that Lord Johannes
Krauser II, lead singer of Japans most evilcore death metal band, is actually
Shinichi Negishi, a hipster who is really into Swedish pop music and fine pastries
and hates the songs he makes as an underground metal icon.
The stories all tend to be extremely formulaic against his will, Shinichi gets
himself into a situation in which he is driven to Hulk out
and become Krauser, going nuts and metalling things up
but the comedy is rooted in the fact that the series just
keeps getting more and more over the top, which has led
to it being one of the most monumentally obscene things
Ive ever read, and also one of the more hilarious.
The fifth volume was recently released by Viz, but it
wrapped in Japan in April, though not before spawning
an anime, a live-action movie with a cameo by Gene
Simmons, and a soundtrack album for the latter.
And while this may come as a surprise, Satsugai is
actually a pretty awesome song.
If youre more into horror, there are a couple of series coming out from Dark Horse that
Im quite fond of: Housui Yamazakis Mail and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery

Service, by Eiji Otsuka and Yamazaki. Mail, I think, is a little easier to jump on its only three volumes,
though the main character later shows up for a team-up in Kurosagi and is essentially what Night Gallery
wouldve been like if Rod Serling had shown up at the end of each episode to blow ghosts away with his magic
handgun. It does, however, get more than a little weird towards the end when the six year-old Frankenstein girl
shows up.
Kurosagi is a little more involved its up to eleven volumes and has a more ongoing story, though its focus is
almost equally episodic but worth picking up, especially for the occasional stories in which Otsuka and
Yamazaki blend humor in with their creepiness. Theres one episode fairly far on in the series where three teenage
scientists who have bound the soul of a dead, video game obsessed nerd to a robot (at which time he promptly
starts running around trying to kill people so he can level up), then spend a good chunk of time standing around
debating the nature of robots in anime. BIzarre? Yes. But its also one of the funnier uses of the fan in comics that
Ive seen.
Im not a huge horror guy, but one of the things I really like about both series is the way that Yamazaki relies on
creepy atmosphere and distortion rather than gore, although theres an unfortunately high amount of naked lady
corpses, so, you know. Be advised.
All told, those are a pretty good place to start, though Im also a big fan of Kenichi Sonadas Gunsmith
Cats, though re-reading it as Dark Horse released the Omnibuses and the new volumes really put into stark
contrast how much of that book is built around everyone being totally cool with Minnie May getting married to a
guy that she started dating when she was a fourteen year-old prostitute and he was a 28 year-old bombmaker for
the mob, which sort of distracts from the really well-done action scenes.
Oh, Japan.
Q: Most modern portrayals of Batmans origin have the shooting as, in some part, Bruces fault. Either he
insists they leave the show early or asks his mom to wear her pearls or startles a jumpy Joe Chill with a
pretend sword thrust. Do you think this a significant change? And, if so, for the better or worse? BillJ, via
email
A: I do think its a significant change, and one that is absolutely terrible.
As you might imagine, Im a little picky about my Batman origins, because even a slight change in the elements can
throw off the metaphor of the character, and the more filigree you add to an origin story, the further away it gets
from what, in my opinion, it should mean.

Batmans origin is simple: a childs parents are murdered in front of him and he swears to keep that from
happening to anyone else. Everything else is just set dressing: The fact that hes rich is just a way to explain how he
has an anti-crime basement full of cars and autogyros, Marthas pearls are just a neat visual, and the fact that hes
going to see Zorro is just a nice way to explain why he opts for a black cape. The simplicity makes it brilliant, and
the genius of it is that it plays on a whats often considered to be a childs worst fear on a profoundly metaphorical
level that makes it everyones fear. Thomas and Martha Wayne arent just Bruces parents; theyre not even standins for the readers parents. Theyre Safety, Comfort and Home. And in one instant, theyre taken away and this
is the important bit for me completely at random.
In my ideal Batman origin, Joe Chill (the mugger who killed Batmans parents) wouldnt even have a name, because
that diminishes what he represents. Hes not a man, hes Crime. Hes the thing that Batman fights against every
night when he suits up to stand between Crime and Safety. If that simple element is changed to remove the random
element of chance the idea that there is Something Out There that can destroy your life through no fault of your
own because no one is there to stop it as a direct result of his actions, then Batman is no longer altruistic, hes
guilty. His actions stop being one of sacrifice and start being one of penance, and in my mind that makes him less
heroic.
He becomes Spider-Man, and while I love Spider-Man, theres a nobility to Batman essentially sacrificing Bruce
Waynes life that Spider-Man doesnt have. Peter Parker is working off a mistake he made because his inaction
cost him something, Batman was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now devotes himself to being in
that same place to help others. He has no real reason to do so he already lost his parents and nothings going to
bring them back he just cant bear for anyone else to go through what he did. Both are perfect in their own way,
but Batman works better without having to be guilted into being Batman.
Theres a slightly more gray area that arises in the Silver Age story (one that Morrisons been playing with) that
reveals that it wasnt a simple mugging, but rather a mob hit orchestrated by Lew Moxon, a gangster that was sent
to jail on Thomas Waynes testimony after Wayne refused to operate on him. I like this a little better, as it involves
Thomas Wayne being killed for doing the right thing rather than because Bruce screwed up, and it leaves Bruce
blameless, but I still dont care for it as much as if its just random chance and bad luck. Sometimes bad things
happen to good people because no ones there to stop them, so Bruce Wayne becomes the thing that does.
Along the same lines, Im equally displeased when writers portray Bruce Wayne as a unhappy child or arguing with
his parents. Bruce Wayne should be the happiest kid on Earth, because if hes not, then the change when his
parents get killed isnt as drastic, and it needs to be drastic because he decides to dress up like a bat and karate
people every night. Hes a character of extremes, and in order for him to be driven to the extreme of Batman,
Bruce Wayne has to have an equal and opposite extreme. If hes going to have the motivation to become Batman, to
drive himself to physical and mental perfection, then the thing he loses his life with his parents needs to be
the best life anyone has ever had. He needs to understand loss better than anyone, because his loss is greater. If
hes a sullen, brooding kid who grows up into a sullen, brooding adult, then wheres the change? Its not there.
In short, its Crime that needs to make Batman, not the other way around.
And now that Ive met my mandatory thousand words about Batman, a few quick Q&As:
Q: Whats the best way to sell or donate excess comics? tobascodagama
A: If youre looking for money, youre better off doing just about anything but selling them to a comic book store.
Thats not a knock on shops, its just the nature of retail that they need to pay less than theyre worth so that they
can make a profit and in six years of comics retail, I cannot even count the number of times that I had to explain
to people that yes, we were going to sell them for more than we paid for them, because that is how capitalism
works. Its better to go directly through the buyer, through eBay or however.
If youre more into giving them away, check with your local library, or better yet, a childrens home. Ive got a
friend who sorts out everything thats appropriate for kids and then donates them that way, which not only gets
comics into a kids hand and can foster a love of learning, but also has the potential to genuinely brighten
someones life who might need it. Along the same lines, I used to give stacks of unsold kids comics to the middle
school where my mother teaches, and her students absolutely loved em.
Unfortunately a lot of places dont know how to deal with comics and donations just end up getting thrown away,
so make sure to call first and check around with local charities to makes sure theyll know what to do with them,
and always screen your comics first. Im no fan of censorship, but the last thing anyone needs is a twelve year-old
getting a copy of Tarot #53 and spending puberty worried about haunted ladybits.
Q: if you became a pro wrestler, what would your ring name be and why? (either WWE or luchador, or
both) cell23
A: El Hijo de Murcilago

Q: Man, that The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen trade really is The Best, isnt it? Velcrobinson
A:

Yes. Yes it is.

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Read More: Ask Chris #19: Manga Recommendations and What Makes a Batman? |
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Ask Chris #18: Character Revivals and Why Comics Are Marginalized
by Chris Sims July 16, 2010 12:30 PM

Q: What one character from each decade (70s, 80s, 90s, 00s 4 in total) deserves a reboot/resurgence
and whod you task to handle it? neuroticmonkey
A: There are a ton of characters that Id love to make more prominent (and a handful that Id like to do away with
forever), so the difficulty here isnt coming up with them, its narrowing them down to one. For the 70s, though, its
easy: ROM: Spaceknight.
He barely makes the cutoff for the 70s (the first issue of ROM is cover dated
December 1979), but if anyone in comics needs a comeback, its him. Ive been
saying so for years, if only because ROM is way, way better than he ever had to be.
For those of you who dont know, ROM was one of Marvels earliest attempts to
cash in with a toy tie-in comic, something that theyd have plenty of success with
in the mid-80s with their G.I. Joe and Transformers titles. ROM, though, managed
to not only outlast the toy it was named for (the ROM line had exactly one figure
and was pretty short-lived), but virtually everything about it was created by
writer Bill Mantlo and woven into the Marvel Universe.
Unlike G.I. Joe and Transformers (but much like Mantlos other toy tie-in,
Micronauts), ROM was a Marvel Universe book through and through. He hung
out with the X-Men, faced off against Power Man and Iron Fist and guest-starred
with the Thing in an issue of Marvel Two-In-One that involved fire-ghosts and
space witches. Heck, Rick Jones was even his sidekick for a while, and when you
get right down to it, theres nothing more Marvel Comics than that.
Its very much a Marvel book in its premise, too: A man gives up his humanity to
become a fighting machine that can stand against a secret invasion of Earth by
sinister shape-shifting aliens (sound familiar?), with circumstances (blasting Dire
Wraiths with his neutralizer while theyre still in human form) making it look
like hes the bad guy.
Unfortunately, despite how well he was woven into the universe, Marvel actually doesnt own ROM, and copyright
issues have kept any of his adventures from being reprinted they even had to leave Power Man and Iron Fist
#73 out of the Essential when it came out although they do own the word Spaceknight and everything else
Mantlo brought to the table. In my hypothetical world where I could cut through the red tape with no trouble,
however, Id pick Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning to helm a ROM resurgance, as theyve pretty much cornered the
market on telling awesome cosmic-flavored Marvel stories already.For the 80s, its a little trickier, but Im going to
go with U.S. 1, and if that sounds crazy, its because youve never actually read U.S. 1.

And thats okay: Im pretty sure that there are only about three people on the face
of the Earth who have, and that includes me and series writer Al Milgrom. It ran
for twelve issues and focused on one Ulysses Solomon Archer, a truck driver who
could mentally control his big rig due to a metal plate in his head and put these
abilities to good use battling evil truckers, obstacle course-building aliens, a guy
with a blimp painted to look like a shark, and a super-villain named Midnight
(and her HYPNO-WHIP!) who was actually the split personality of a sweetnatured fry cook, all while romancing a lady trucker named Taryn Down The
Highway OConnell.
If it sounds stupid, thats because it is, but what nobody gets is that its all
intentional. In his twelve issues, Milgrom and the artists who worked on it
(including Herb Trimpe and Michael Golden) created a masterpiece of over-thetop silliness thats easily one of the most underrated comedies in comics. And not
in a so bad its hilarious way either; its actually great. I mean, theres an issue
that is narrated by the truck itself, and one where the aliens who make U.S. 1
race through a gigantic maze that contains a tornado and a volcano learn English
from CB transmissions and thus speak in Breaker Breaker trucker lingo. Its
fantastic.
As for who should revive it, Id go with Jason Aaron, who judging by his use of
U.S. 1s arch-enemy The Highwayman in the pages of Ghost Rider is the third guy to ever read it.
For the 90s, theres no question who Id bring back:

ADAM X: THE X-TREME!!

Nah, just kidding. Id bring back Aztek!

Imagine if you will a time when a book co-written by Grant Morrison and Mark
Millar was canceled due to low sales in less than a year. It sounds crazy, but thats
exactly what happened here.
And its a shame, too: From reading through the first issues (which are, as you
might expect, awesome), it had the potential to be Morrisons version of what
James Robinson was doing with Starman. Both books introduced entirely new
characters and settings that were constructed with an ingrained character from
the start, but while Starman and Opal City drew upon the past and reflected the
greatness of the Golden Age, Aztek and Vanity were very much rooted in being a
commentary on the now. Or at least, the now of 1996, right down to brutal
parodies of Liefeldian heroes and the engrimmening of lighthearted super-heroes,
which still goes on today.
Aztek did get an ending in the pages of JLA where the title character sacrificed
himself to help stop Mageddon the Anti-Sun, but most of the potential that was
built into the series itself was left unrealized. Morrison and Millar even went so far
as to tease a handful of plots that they wouldve done in future issues on the last
page of the last issue including a super-hero groupie setting her sights on Aztek
to add him to her collection of caped conquests as a look at what mightve been.
As to who could bring it back, well, Millar seems like hes moved on, but I dont see
why Grant Morrison himself couldnt helm a relaunch, other than the fact that, you know, hes the dude who killed
him off.
And that brings us to the past ten years, and honestly, this was the toughest one. There are plenty of franchises I
wouldve loved to see continue past the points where they ended, like Matt Fraction and Barry Kitsons The
Order, Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirks Captain Britain and MI:13, Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonens
Nextwave, and Cassandra Cain (who got her own ongoing series in 2000) still hasnt come back from walking offpanel in Batgirl to make way for a plucky blonde who already had a secret identity, and pretty much anyone from
Seven Soldiers, from Frankenstein to the Manhattan Guardian could use another shot.
If I could only pick one character, though, then I know exactly who it would be: The Sentry. No, not the one who
hung out with the Avengers and apparently had sex with Rogue. I mean this guy:

The Silver Age version of the Sentry that Jeff Parker, Paul Tobin, Nick Dragotta, Ramon Rosanas and Colleen
Coover used in the truly incredible Age of the Sentry mini-series. The stories were meant to evoke the feel of
Silver Age Superman (the Sentry himself being based entirely on the question what if Superman was a Marvel
character?), and like those books, they manage to capture that sense of boundless, no-limits creativity. Ive
referred to the series as the apex of the artform (a quote that landed on the cover of #6), and while thats
a slight example of hyperbole, it still ranks as one of the most enjoyable comics Ive ever read, for the sheer amount
of fun that comes through on every page.
Also, considering that Marvel never really had a Silver Age in the way that DC did, it was interesting to see Stan
Lee and Jack Kirbys characters and elements crop up in a world of Otto Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger style
imaginary stories, especially as it led to Truman Capote working for the Daily Bugle, Cranio: The Man With The
Tri-Level Mind, the Continuiteens and, of course, Harrison Oogar: The Caveman of Wall Street. It totally
embraces the Silver Age style, and since I cant see Superman himself doing anything remotely like this these days,
the Sentry makes a handy substitute.
If I had my way, this thing would still be coming out monthly by those same creators. I mean, we never even got to
see X-Rex.
Q: Why are comic books so marginalized? What happened between the 1930s and now? Why does
readership seem to be at an all time low? Soranomaru

A: The short answer to this one is easy: I honestly dont know. If I knew what was keeping comics from having
readership in the millions, I probably wouldnt be here answering questions. But if I was asked to speculate
which is, in fact, exactly what youve asked me to do Id probably say that one of the big keys to the answer is
right there in your question. What happened between the 30s and today? In a
word, television.
I havent done as much research on the subject as I probably should before tackling this,
but it seems to me that the Golden Age of Comics came at a very unique time, in that they
filled a void for visual entertainment that other things didnt quite capture. When Action
Comics #1 hit stands, the average price of a movie ticket was around a quarter. For that
price, a kid looking for an adventure story could get a cartoon, a newsreel and Errol
Flynns The Adventures of Robin Hood, two solid hours of entertainment, albeit with a
feature in black and white.
Comics, on the other hand, were 64 pages with multiple strips and text pieces that were
as the old saying goes all in color for a dime, and it was yours. If you wanted to
experience Robin Hood again, you had to drop another quarter, but if you wanted to
read about Superman lifting a car over his head and smashing it something that nobody
had ever seen before it was right there waiting for you, in bright, vivid color.
But times changed, and as television became more popular, it removed the need for an an alternative to movies,
supplanting comics as the primary source of visual entertainment and radio as the electronic device people
gathered around at the end of the day. They still persisted, of course, because they offer a unique experience that
cant be duplicated in other media (and one that I obviously think is pretty top notch), but they were no longer the
only game in town, especially once color TV rose to prominence.
As to why they were marginalized, I have to imagine that that they were a victim of their own popularity, especially
among children. Whether they get them from TV, movies or comics, kids love super-heroes, and since Jerry Siegel,
Joe Shuster, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had hit it big with super-heroes and everyone else had bum-rushed the show
in an attempt to follow their success, American comics became a super-hero-dominated medium from the start.
And thus, since kids like super-heroes and comics had super-heroes, comics became
something for children.
Crime and horror comics made a good run at superseding the popularity of the cape-andtights set, but by the 50s, the popularity of super-heroes among kids had already
classified them as an entire medium strictly for kids. Nobody was worried about the
impact that seeing Johnny Craig draw a severed head would have on an adult comics fan; it
was the first in a long line of Think of the Children! logic that would go on to plague
virtually every other form of entertainment, but especially cartoons and video games.
That in turn started up a cycle: Because comics were seen as being for children, comics
became things for children, when just a few years earlier, they had been seen as just
another form of mass communication. The content had been confused with the medium,
which still happens today how many times have you heard people say comics when
they mean super-hero comics? There were certainly comics that werent for kids; future
Doom Patrol writer Arnold Drake, Leslie Waller and former Phantom Lady artist Matt
Baker put It Rhymes With Lust out in 1949, and its a sharp, stylish 125-page graphic novel that owes more to
Raymond Chandler than it does to Jack Kirby. The fact remains, though, that for all its quality (and it is an
absolutely fantastic piece of work), It Rhymes WIth Lust didnt sell well and is little more than a footnote in the
history of sequential art. The market had already spoken.
There were other events that changed things up: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were both veterans of the Golden Age, but
in 1961 they essentially created the first ever new reader friendly comics and changed the landscape of the
industry with stories that were aimed at the teenage market rather than just kids. They found success along with
the rise of counterculture, but the popular notion of comics was still that they had no value as art. Look at Roy
Lichtenstein, the pop artist famous for doing large-scale panel reproductions, like his version of this scene from
All-American Men of War:

The significance of Lichtensteins art isnt necessarily the art itself, but rather that its a transformative act, like
Warhols famous painting of the soup can: It makes art out of something artless, and the starting point of that is
that comics are intrinsically without artistic merit.
There was an eventual backlash of comics are too art!, but the cycle continued: Because comics had already
become marginalized, they became more insular. The second generation of comics creators were people like Roy
Thomas, who had grown up as comics fans. Thus, they were able to learn not just from the things that influenced
their predecessors, but from their predecessors themselves. Thats how the language of comics, the meaning of
panel shapes and lettering and visual cues and thought balloons and everything else that Scott McCloud likes to
talk about came about. And thats not necessarily a bad thing as Ive mentioned before, its allowed comics to
hold onto the anything-goes ideas of experimentation that it started with, and its something that sets comics apart
as a medium where pretty much everyone involved actually cares deeply about what theyre doing.
Well, until everyone who cant sell their screenplay decides to turn it into a comic, because, psh, theyre
just comics and its not like they actually matter, like movies and TV.
And now, a few quick hits:
Q: Who would be the better frontman for a black metal band, Angar The Screamer or Banshee? rockstep
A: Theres not even a question here: Angars first name is Angar and he has never worn a shirt.
Q: What are the best video game adaptations of comic books? chrisloxley
A: As you might expect, Im partial to Batman: Arkham Asylum as it allows you to just straight up wreck dudes in
slow motion and hang them from indoor gargoyles, which have no reason to exist.
Q: What is your least favorite media adaption (movies, videogames, etc.) of Batman? colinmcgonnigal
A: The 1989 Tim Burton Batman film. I know its not an especially popular opinion, but that flick gets it just about
as wrong as it can.

Q: Something I dont hear people ever talk about Do you listen to music while you read? Or is that too
distracting? deebeemonster
A: I didnt use to, but these days Ive got music on when Im doing just about anything. For reading, I prefer to have
stuff without words I found that the first track of the Justice album synced up pretty well with Batman
#701 this week.
Q: How did you get into mashups, and what are your particular favourites? likeanaddict
A: I like mashups for the same reason I like a lot of comics: They take two disparate ideas and make something
new, whether its gorillas and jetpacks or Miley Cyrus and Notorious B.I.G. Theres something about that that just
appeals to me, and that I think appeals to a lot of people who have aspirations of writing super-hero comics: You
can take existing elements and combine them in new ways.
I cant remember which was the first one I ever got into, but it was either DJ Dangermouses The Grey Album,
which mashed up the Beatles White Album with Jay-Zs Black Album, or the Kleptones A Night at the HipHopera, which mashed up Queen with a everything from the Beastie Boys to Electric Six to Morris Day and the
Time. As for all-time favorites The Hood Internet did a track on their Chicago-based album that combined Kanye
West with the Chicago Bears Superbowl Shuffle (which I could listen to all day) and Jaguar Skills did a 60-minute
history of hip-hop from 1979 to 2009 that I actually havelistened to all day.

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Ask Chris #17: Should You Judge Art Based on the Artists Views?
by Chris Sims July 9, 2010 1:00 PM

Q: Who has the lamer lamest enemy Batman or Spider-Man? adampknave

A: Now that is a tough one, if for no other reason than in order to answer it, I have to first figure out who each
characters lamest bad guy is.
Batmans generally considered to have quite possibly the greatest Rogues Gallery
of any super-hero, and with good reason: If the Jokers not the best villain in
comics, hes in the top three with Dr. Doom and Vince Colletta. Ras al-Ghul, TwoFace, Catwoman, the Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, even the Riddler can be way better
than he as any right to be, whether as an antagonist or as Paul Dinis been using
him lately a semi-reformed rival. Theyre all great characters with solid hooks.
But you dont stick around in comics for 70 years without racking up a few
stinkers, either: Hellgrammite, whose super-power is that hes a six-foot
cockroach, Cluemaster, who has no reason whatsoever to exist as long as the
Riddlers still around, Signalman (see above), and I dont care how many moody
noir pieces you stick Calendar Man in, hes always going to be lame, albeit in a fun
way. And its not like they stopped making bad Batman villains in 1980, either: I
think Ive made my love of John Ostrander pretty clear in this column, but his last
foray into the Batman titles saw the creation of Grotesk, a dude who engaged in
the time-honored villain pastime of shouting your own name in bold red font, and
then presumably sticking around to make sure the reporters got the proper
copyrightable spelling.
Of course, that arc also involved Johnny Karaoke, the Asian-American assassin
who pretends to have an accent and sings hits into a microphone stand / sword while stabbing people and comes
complete with his own kung fu backup dancers, and if it wasnt for Dr. Hurt, Im pretty sure hed be the best new
villain of the 21st century.And then theres Larry Hama. Guys, straight up: I love Hama. His work on G.I. Joe has no
business being as good as it is. But his Batman run not only introduced The Banner, a right wing militiaman that
managed to beat out even Frank Millers Nuke for the most over-the-top character to ever wear an American flag, it
also involved the legendary Orca the Whale Woman:

Im not sure if Orca actually is Batmans worst villain, but shes the one who immediately springs to mind when I
think Lame Batman Villain, and given how many Batman comics Ive read, thats saying something.
For those of you who dont know, Orca is actually marine biologist Grace Balin (get it?) who used science to turn
into a half-whale and blah blah blah stole some jewels blah blah she and a Batman action figure fought for two
issues while yelling each others names:

She is basically awful, and was killed off in her third appearance ever.
Spider-Mans pretty much in the same boat. Almost fifty years of being Marvels
flagship character have left him with a gang of villains that are all over the map in
terms of quality. Like Batman, youve got great top-tier villains like the Goblins
(both Green and Hob), Kraven and Doctor Octopus and his amazing singing voice,
a bunch of really interesting mid-carders, and then a bottomless pit of awful.
Seriously, I think that on the whole, Spider-Man might actually have the worst
villains in comics, if only because of how bad the average gets thrown off by the
animal-themed guys. Yes, we all love the Rhino and the Lizards been in at least
one really good story (this years Shed), but its a big step down from the
Scorpion to the Tarantula, and then way further down to the the rest of the crowd.
The Jackal, the Puma, the Iguana, the friggin Kangaroo. Theyre rough.
Throw in Carnage and Spidercide (SPIDERCIDE. THAT IS HIS NAME.) and the only
thing keeping Spider-Man at a net positive is the fact that he can claim the
Enforcers, the greatest and most underused villain team in comic book history.

Spidercide, though I mean really.

For my money, though, the worst of the lot is a one-shot villain-of-the-month from 1989 called Banjo:

For starters, I just want to pause for a moment and recognize the fact that Banjo got his very own logo on the
cover of this comic book. Seriously, someone designed that, and all things considered, whoever it was actually did a
pretty good job, which means that there was probably a lot of thought put into a special trademarked logo for a
super-powered hillbilly mutated by radioactive waste.
Dont get me wrong: Radioactive Hillbilly is not a bad concept in and of itself (its actually the premise of my sadly
unpublished script for Smokey and the Bandit 4), but believe me, this issue is amazingly stupid, if only because
the hillbillies in question live in the Marvel Universe and yet are completely surprised to learn that building their
house about two feet from a power plant is a bad idea.
Also, he comes with his own team:

Theyre like the X-Men, only the family tree is complicated because of inbreeding, not time travel.
So there you go: Whale Woman vs. Radioactive Hillbilly, no matter who wins, we lose. Theyre both pretty lousy,
but while Orca is more or less standard fare for the DCU, Banjo completely mystifies me. Ive read that issue, and I
still dont know what Spider-Man was doing out of New York and in the middle of Stan Lees Snuffy Smith. Hes
the pits, hands down.
After all, once youre worse than Spidercide, theres not much competition.
Q: Whats your approach when reading artists whose views run counter to yours? How much of artists bio
should you consider? neuroticmonkey
A: As necessary as it can be to actually do it, separating the art from the artist is often really challenging, especially
in a medium like comics, where readers get extremely emotionally invested in things. Its one of the reasons Ive
been really pleased that a good 90% of the people Ive met in the comics industry have just
been super-nice folks.
It does come up, though, and what it really comes down to is how much I disagree with the
creator and how much of that disagreement becomes an unavoidable aspect of the work.
Which, really, is like that with every aspect of the comic: If I dont agree with a creators
take on a character, Im probably not going to like his comic.
Take Fables, for instance. Im a pretty liberal guy, and I understand that Bill Willingham
is a lot more conservative than I am he was, after all, the right wing creator involved
in that flawed-from-the-moment-of-conception DCU Decisions book from a few years
back but that knowledge doesnt keep me from enjoying Fables. In fact, its one of my
favorite books, and while the idea of Fabletown as a metaphor for Israel has been
explicitly stated in the text itself, I dont feel like he puts so much of his personal politics
into it that the story itself is obscured. There are a variety of characters with a variety of
viewpoints, and even if the whole thing is a grand political metaphor (which, beyond the
premise, I dont think it is), its a very entertaining one.
Conversely, Im pretty sure that Id probably agree with Judd Winick the other side of the DCU Decisions coin
on a lot of the issues, but that doesnt make me love his comics. Its not that I necessarily disagree with
the message, Im just not a fan although my favorite thing hes done, the Barry Ween books, are probably his
most apolitical work.
But like I said, there are certainly moments where personal beliefs become a factor. Even though ComicsAlliances
own David Uzumeri has been telling me how masterful it is, Ill probably never read Cerebus because I dont like

things that Dave Sim has said, and I will never,ever read a anything by Orson Scott Card. That guy could be writing
the best thing to hit comics since staples, and Id never know because he literally advocated rebellion against the
government if same-sex marriage was made legal. I dont often take moral stands, but theres no way I could bring
myself to give money to someone whose views I disagree with that strongly.
Most of the time, though, I try to let the work stand on its own merits. If anything, the way it affects me most often
is that I give stuff a shot that I might not otherwise if the creators a nice guy or gal. And most of the time, they are
even the ones whose work I dont care for which makes it pretty easy.
And now, a few quick hits:
Q: A Herbie Popnecker reboot would be the greatest thing, but who would you get to draw/write it?
DrShenanigans
A: I dont know about art, but if I had my way, Id be writing it. Seriously Dark Horse. Call me.
Q: What is your pick for the best wrestler debut? itsjago
A: Assuming that by best you mean most entertaining, it is, of course, The Shockmaster. Is there any other
possible choice?
Q: Whats the optimal amount of freezer time for chilled chocolate milk? emorimiku
A: Fourteen and a half minutes, although it depends on your freezer. Thats enough time for it to freeze just a little
bit, so that you get some ice in there that melts as you drink it.
Q: How do you pronounce Mxyzptlk? Elliot, via email
A: I say it Mix-yez-PITTLE-ick, but Mix-yez-SPIT-lick is also acceptable. And gross.

Read More: Ask Chris #17: Should You Judge Art Based on the Artists Views? | http://comicsalliance.com/askchris-17-the-lamest-enemy-judging-art-based-on-the-artist/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #16: Comics, Politics and the Suicide Squad

by Chris Sims July 2, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: Did comics shape your politics at all? For example, Messner-Loebs Flash run taught adolescent me that
its ok to be gay. dustc
A: Its almost inconceivable for me to think that comics didnt influence my politics in at least some way. I mean,
theyve influenced pretty much everything else about me, from my job all the way down to the way I talk to my
friends as unforgivably nerdy as it may be, when my Awesome Hospital co-writer Chad got married, my pals
and I didnt call it Chads wedding, we called it Chad #500: The Wedding Issue.
Even so, when I try to think of specific things about comics that wouldve shaped
my political views, I cant really put a finger on much. I mean, despite my love of
Batman and the Punisher, Im pretty sure Id come out against real-life costumed
vigilantes (although I imagine Id be more in favor of it if the alternative was being
poisoned by a clown), and while I do think the inspirational speeches that Captain
America gives about the nature of the American Dream are really moving, its
more because I already believe that stuff. I didnt come to a lot of comics until after
most of my political opinions had formed.
I will, however, cop to the fact that the one issue of Cap that I did have as as kid
that dealt with political issues the Kirby issue where Cap and the Falcon
infiltrate a gang of separatists, and a giant disembodied head on a TV screen
(where the background is an American flag with the stars replaced by a hangmans
noose) commands an angry mob to rip a strung-up effigy of a freedom freak limb
from limb and beat it with pipes scared the living hell out of me, though that
was less about the political implications of the story and more because I was six
years old and completely unprepared for Jack Kirby to blow my mind.
But whether or not it influenced my development or just reinforced what was
there, there is a comic that shaped the way I think about a lot of
stuff, and I dont think anyones going to be surprised here when I
say its The X-Men.I dont talk about it as much as my other favorites, but when I was a kid, there
were three comics that I read over and over and over again: Untold Legend of the Batman, The
Very Best of Spider-Man (which contained both The Final Chapter and Whatever Happened to
Crusher Hogan) and a black-and-white paperback that collected the Chris Claremont / John
Byrne story where the X-Men fought Arcade. I mustve read that thing a hundred times, and
because of that, I developed the kind of love for the X-Men that only a kid can have.
I dont think anyone needs me to tell them this, but while Marvel perfected the idea of the outsider
hero with the Thing and Spider-Man, the X-Men took it to a completely different level by
expanding that metaphor to encompass a whole race, specifically once the book got relaunched by
Claremont, Byrne, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. I dont think its a coincidence that a book where
the protagonists were literally identified as a race was created during the height of the Civil Rights
movement, but once the international team of New X-Men arrived, the message was solidified: A
group of people who were different from each other in virtually every respect, uniting not just for

their own benefit, but for the benefit of a world that hates and fears them. As cheesy as that might sound to readers
who have heard it a million times, thats an incredible hook.
From there, the political implications were barely even subtext: Not only were the protagonists of the book a
different race, they were a literal oppressed minority, and the people who hated them for no better reason than
they were different or who allowed their fear to get the best of their humanity were the villains in no uncertain
terms. Thats a powerful message, especially when its being wrapped up and given to children. Kids can be pretty
unforgiving of differences, and while not every child came away from reading about Wolverine with the message
that our differences make us special, there were plenty on both sides of that equation that either learned a life
lesson from the X-Men or took solace in the fact that their heroes had to deal with it too.
Which is another thing that makes it such an important metaphor: Its fictionalized in the
world of comics just enough to be adaptable. Way back when the ComicsAlliance staff did
our roundtable of Second Coming, I talked about how depressing it was that as much as I
want to see them advance, the X-Men are always going to have to have that aspect of being
persecuted because theres always going to be real-life persecution they can symbolize.
But the flipside to that is that people are always going to have the X-Men to identify with
and learn from. They work whether the issues being addressed are explicitly metaphors
for race (the Holocaust imagery of the Sentinels and mutants being rounded up into
camps) or sexuality (the anti-mutant religious leaders of God Loves, Man Kills certainly
read a lot like the bigots who literally want to outlaw homosexuality) or just a more
general symbol of oppression. The franchise has a pretty well-deserved reputation for
getting bogged down with the intricacies of its own minutiae, but underneath all the
alternate futures and cybernetic arms and memory implants and Fake Xorns and alien bird-people, that core idea is
still there, and still relevant and gripping. It can still teach us something, and considering the franchises enduring
popularity, it still is.
Also, I love any comic where dudes beat the crap out of Nazis. Because screw those guys.
Q: What are your 5 favorite moments in Suicide Squad? Michael, via email
A: Normally, when people tell me I forgot something in one of my columns its just a
matter of me not including something they wanted me to or ending a Top Ten list after ten
entries instead of the 11th they cant believe I didnt include. In this case, though, my
memory did slip: When I listed off my all-time favorite runs in last weeks Ask Chris, I
totally forgot about John Ostranders 66-issue run as the writer of Suicide Squad, easily
the best ongoing series DC was putting out in the 80s.
For those of you who havent had the pleasure of reading it, its essentially the Dirty
Dozen in comic book form: Super-villains are given the chance to commute their
sentences by going on suicide missions (hence the title) for the government, with the
overarching hook being that someone dies in every story arc. Its phenomenal stuff, and
its the direct predecessor of books like Greg Ruckas Checkmate and Gail Simones
Secret Six, and despite having never been reprinted (though a Showcase has been
solicited twice without ever actually coming out), its one of the true cornerstones of the
modern DC Universe.
As for my favorite moments in the series itself, I flipped through my run and found five great moments from the
first half:

#5. Oracle
In one of the series more prominent contributions to the DCU, Squad was where Barbara Gordon made her first
post-Killing Joke appearance as Oracle. Her role here was what led directly to her role as both the mastermind of
Grant Morrisons JLA and, through Ostranders strong character work, led to her being able to carry BIrds of
Prey.

#4. Apokolips
One of the nice things about a book built around disparate characters coming together is that it can lead to some
pretty interesting things, like when Lashina (under the identity of Duchess, an amnesiac metahuman) dragged
half the squad to Darkseids planet of Apokolips in order to regain her position in the Female Furies. And if that
makes sense to you, congratulations: Youve read some Jack Kirby comics.

In either case, one of the best moments of the story happens when the extremely arrogant Count Vertigo decides to
smack-talk Kanto, the personal assassin of a guy who can kill you just by looking at you, unleashing the full-force of
his powers and then getting stabbed on the very next page.

#3. Captain Boomerang vs. Zombies

Since the book focused on villains as its protagonists, Ostrander was able to develop them in ways that their own
titles (or rather, the titles starring their arch-enemies) never had, and in some cases, he was able to pull it off with
an incredible sense of humor. Captain Boomerang, for instance, earns his freedom by surviving missions on the
Squad, but then decides to commit crimes while dressed as Mirror Master, only to be captured and pressed into
Squad service under both of his identities, and sent to fight zombies in an elaborate con to teach him a lesson about
why you dont lie to Amanda Waller.

#2. Deadshot
More than any other character, though, it was Deadshot who was revitalized in Suicide Squad. Steve Englehart
and Marshall Rogers may have brought him back after decades in limbo, but Ostrander made him the breakout star
of the book, and everyone since has been building off of his characterization as a nihilistic, pragmatic assassin with
a death wish.

In one pivotal story, Squad member Rick Flag goes rogue in order to keep the task forces secret by killing a senator
whos about to reveal their existence. Amanda Waller sends the Squad out to stop Flag by any means necessary,
and Deadshots solution is to kill the senator himself, because Flag cant kill him if hes already dead, for the sole
reason that he likes Flag more than the senator. Ice cold.

#1. Amanda Waller vs. Batman

It shouldnt come as any surprise that my favorite Suicide Squad moment involves Batman, but its actually less
about him and more about Amanda Waller, the Squads director. Shes shown up everywhere from the
aforementioned Checkmate to Justice League Unlimited to Smallville, and her defining moment is right here in
Suicide Squad #10.
Batman figures out whats going on, and as he spends most of his time trying to put super-villains in jail, he doesnt
really approve of a program that lets them out. And hes Batman: Unstoppable force. But Amanda Waller is the
immovable object, and she essentially stares him down with the threat of exposing his secret identity, and he backs
off. He comes back a few issues later with the Justice League in tow (hes still Batman, after all), but it establishes
Waller in a way thats hard to pull off, building her up by having her defeat Batman without
throwing his character under the bus. Its good stuff.
Like I said, its yet to be collected, although Ostrander did a solid follow-up called From The Ashes a few years ago
thats available, and a quick check of Amazon reveals a non-Showcase trade paperback called Trial By Fire set to
hit shelves in February 2011. Its a hard run to put together, but its worth it.
I mean, if Id gotten to the second half of the run, I couldve talked about the on-panel death of Grant Morrison!
And now, a few quick hits:
Q: I was big into Marvel in the 1990s, but Im largely out of touch with this decade. What should I read to
jump back in? beeandcat
A: They dont really have much in common with what Marvel was doing in the 90s, but if youre looking for a few
good Marvel titles to jump on, Id recommend Atlas. You can jump on the current series pretty easily, but for the
backstory, check out the original Agents of Altas mini-series, which was released in paperback with a ton of
bonus material, including reprints of the Golden Age stories that introduced the characters.
You could also do a heck of a lot worse than to check out what Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente have been doing on the
Hulk and Hercules books for the past few years. Pak gets started in Planet Hulk, which leads into World War
Hulk, which is where Incredible Hulk makes the change to Incredible Hercules and becomes one of my favorite
comic books ever.
Its less complicated than it sounds.
Q: Who wins in a Falls Count Anywhere match, Anita Blake or Tarot? WBXylo
A: Considering that Tarot actually does stuff, shes got the advantage in anything that isnt a Stand-Around-Waiting
match.
Q: For my entire life, if Ive had a son Ive wanted his first name to be Bruce, middle name Wayne, but I just
realized that Bruce Waynes parents are MURDERED. Am I dooming myself if I name a child this? Should I
do it anyway? bradcandoit
A: As Jordan White told me, you need to ask yourself how committed you are to making Batman a reality.
Q: In your opinion, has there ever been an Aliens or Predator story worth reading? sadlyhilarious
A: Nope. But RoboCop vs. Terminator is awesome!

Seriously. I didnt believe it either, but its Frank Miller and Walter Simonson doing a story where reality is
changed by time travel at least four times and it all makes perfect sense.

Read More: Ask Chris #16: Comics, Politics and the Suicide Squad | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-16comics-politics-and-the-suicide-squad/?trackback=tsmclip

Ask Chris #15: Favorite Runs and Volstaggs Love Life

by Chris Sims June 25, 2010 12:30 PM

Q: Over the years, I learned a few things about you: You are THE Batman guy, every week something comes
out that may be the best thing ever, and you have a special love for Herbie Popnecker, Punisher, SpiderMan, and Jack Staff. But besides the awesomeness that is Simonsons Thor run, is there a top 5/10 Chris
Sims Favorite Runs EVER!. If you answer this, I promise I will spare you and 2 humans of your choice in
the upcoming Monkey Revoultion. G.Grodd, via email
A: Huh. Its not every day that I get an email from a telepathic talking super-gorilla, but I guess thats the life of a
professional Batmanologist.
Anyway, as to my all-time favorite runs, youve pretty much named most of them in your question: Walt
Simonsons Thor is in the solid #1 spot as the Best Run of Comics Ever, and Paul Grists Jack Staff, Garth Enniss
eight-year tenure on The Punisher, every single Herbie appearance and most of the first
150 or so issues of Amazing Spider-Man (especially #33 and #50) would make the cut
pretty easily too.Chief among them: Alan Moores run on Swamp Thing with artists
Stephen Bisette, John Totleben and Rick Veitch, my second favorite run of all time. Im
pretty sure that nobody reading this needs me to tell them that this Alan Moore guy
is pretty good, but Im continually amazed by how often Swamp Thing gets overlooked
by more casual readers, especially given how its the book that started Vertigo. Seriously,
not only is it an excellent run that manages to blend in the strongest character work of
Moores career into his incredible talent for generating true horror, but its the series that
led directly to Hellblazer and Sandman.
Cain and Abel and their respective Houses being part of the kingdom of dreams? Matthew
the Raven? John Constantine? Zatannas nebulous status as the one character that can
move back and forth between Vertigo and DC? That all started with what Moore was doing
here. Even Sandmans recurring themes of identity and what you have to give up to fulfill
a role chosen for you have their roots (har har) in Swamp Thing.
Plus, it inspired some pretty great comics after it wrapped, too: Rick Veitchs run as writer/artist is phenomenal,
although its criminal that he didnt get to finish comics best time travel story the way he wanted to, leaving the
book due to editorial interference, especially since the freedom that wouldve come from the inception of Vertigo
as an imprint would arrive just a few years later. Also, while its probably the comic of his that the least amount of
people have read, Mark Millars run as Swamp Thing writer is easily some of his best
stuff, and heavily influenced by Moores run. So yeah, Swamp Thing is definitely on the
list.
And speaking of underrated comics by popular creators, my next pick would be Garth
Ennis and John McCreas Hitman. Its never been fully collected in paperback
(although DC seems to be remedying that currently, though theres a long way to go), but
Im of the opinion that its actually better than both Preacher and Punisher, and thats
saying something.
For those of you who havent read it, its about a Gotham City hitman (hence the name)
named Tommy Monaghan who got super-powers during the Bloodlines crossover and
uses them to become a better killer-for-hire, albeit one who only kills bad people. Thats

the surface. Beneath that, however, its Enniss strongest character work (again, thats saying something) and
stories that alternate between absolutely hilarious, thrilling, emotionally resonant and genuinely moving, dealing
with everything from zombie animals to the corruption of absolute power to the nature of a man who kills for a
living. It is absolutely incredible.
And its not just Ennis that makes it that great. McCrea does exceptional work here, not just in drawing great pages
(Tommy at the wedding. Those of you who have read this know what Im talking about) but in everything from his
distinctive, note-perfect character designs all the way down.
My pal Ken Lowery is another big Hitman booster, and while I was talking to him about it, he pointed out that as a
series, its the only book that really shows off both Enniss total frustration with super-hero comics and the fact
that he is really really good at writing super-hero comics. Theres a Green Lantern story that is basically just Ennis
and McCrea bashing him like a piata for four issues (I remember an interview around the time it came out where
Ennis talked about an utter hatred of Green Lantern and how if you ever see him writing GL, youll know he
desperately needs the money), but he also uses characters like Catwoman and Batman and especially Superman
and does great stories with them. There was even a two-issue follow-up with the JLA that reuinted Ennis and
McCrea that was easily the best Justice League story since Grant Morrison left the book, and again, goes from
hilarious to resonant in the space of a page, sometimes hitting them at the same time.
On the complete opposite end of the scale, my next favorite would be Bob Haneys original 1960s Metamorpho
stories with artists Ramona Fradon and Sal Trapiani. Ive gone on record as a pretty huge fan of the Silver Age,
but virtually everything Haney wrote captured the anything goes wildness of the era, and Metamorpho was his
peak. I mean, just look at this thing:

That is an entire story on the cover, complete with Haneys signature 60s hipster slang and Fradons smooth, clean
artwork. Every page of every issue of Metamorpho is just brimming with excitement. It just pops off the page with
this brilliant, almost manic energy to it that just transmits the joy of comic books directly into your eyes. Its pure
unfettered imagination, thrown directly on the comics page with no limits and a good faith attempt at educating
readers thrown in for extra craziness.
Its also got my favorite comics-based contest of all time, where readers were invited to send in suggestions for
stuff that Metamorpho could turn into

with the prize being a page of original Sal Trapiani art and the inexplicable sum of $24.98, which assuming you
spent it all on comic books at the going rate (12 cents then, $3.99 today) is the equivalent of over $830 in 2010
money. It was brilliant, beautiful, and amazingly ahead of its time.
Finally, a run that I think is severely underrated: Ann Nocentis run on Daredevil,
which (give or take a couple of fill-in issues), she was on from #236 to #291, and which
also featured some of my favorite artwork from John Romita Jr.
I almost never hear anyone talking Nocentis Daredevil, which I think has a lot to do with
the fact that she took over the book a relatively short time after Frank Miller left, and on
one level, thats understandable. Anything as definitive as Miller on Daredevil is going to
overshadow what comes after it. But the tragedy is that while so many people who have
done that book in the time since have followed in Millers footsteps (and a lot of them have
done so very well), Nocenti took it in a different and incredibly interesting direction.
Her run is marked by an incredible sense of surreality that sets it well apart from Millers
gritty, crime-oriented take, full of dream sequences and hallucinations and people who are

profoundly psychologically broken. The idea of identity as a thing that can be lost and taken away and regained is
also really prevalent. I mean, she does a story where Bullseye dresses up as Daredevil and kills people so Daredevil
dresses up as Bullseye and saves people and then they fight each other and they both go crazy and neither one
really knows whos who because theyre both going crazy and it is awesome.
Also, its set aside by its villains, mainly in the fact that this is a comic where Daredevil fights Ultron and Mephisto.
Hell, Mephisto is pretty much Daredevils arch-enemy for half the run

which makes it a run where a good guy dressed as the Devil fights the actual Devil. And then theres the issue
where Daredevil ends up beating Ultron to death with a stick. A stick! He also fights a vacuum cleaner possessed by
demons fro two issues, and I will guarantee you that those are the best two comics where a title character fights a
demonic appliance you will ever read. And yet, even with all that craziness, it never rings false, and the Kingpin is
never completely gone. His presence is felt throughout the series in what amounts to a masterful use of a villain.
Sadly, most of the run hasnt been reprinted, although whats out there is really good. For a while, though, it was
only the Typhoid Mary storyline that was available, and while its great, its also the story thats most like Millers
work. Still, the run isnt too hard to find (like I said, a lot of people just dont know about it), and if you like
Daredevil, you oughtta give it a read.
There are other comics I love when its all said and done, Morrisons Batman stuff will probably end up on the
list too, but I could also probably spend a whole column talking about my favorite Batman comics, as though thats
not what I do here already but along with the ones you mentioned, those are some absolute favorites.
Q: Im reading through Simonsons Thor on your recommendation, and in issue #355 I was thrown for a
loop when Volstagg casually mentions that he has a wife, but Ive never heard of (let alone seen) her before.

As the internets foremost Volstaggologist, perhaps you could tell me whether the Lion of Asgard truly is off
the market or if he is too much man for one woman. Marcus, via email
A: You wouldve found this out reading through the rest of the Simonson run eventually, but the answer is yes:
Volstagg the Voluminous is indeed married to a lovely Asgardian lady. Say hello to Gudrun

who I think its also safe to say is Voluminous.

Whats more, Volstaggs not just a husband, hes a proud father of five kids: Alaric, Rolfe, Gudrun, Flosi and Hildy,
the last of whom is actually pretty important later on in Simonsons run. Gudrun and the kids were created by
Simonson [or not, see below], presumably to set Volstagg apart from his companions, Fandral (the dashing ladies
man) and Hogun (who is pretty antisocial).
It also reinforces both the idea of Volstagg as a cool uncle sort of figure to Thor (as opposed to Fandral, Hogun
and Balder, all of whom are more buddies of a similar age), and the idea that hes old enough to be a little past his
prime as a warrior. Maybe its just me, but given Volstaggs general role as comic relief, Ive always had the idea

that he wasnt always a huge fat dude, but in his youth actually was the Lion of Asgard, before he decided to settle
down and have kids, only returning to adventuring later. The key to his character is that for all his bluster and
rotundity, he actually is a brave, stalwart, and extremely formidable guy, even among the gods of Asgard.
EDITED TO ADD: Shortly after this was posted, Simonson emailed me, which is pretty much the highlight of my
writing career thus far. He adds:
Volstaggs wife was first mentioned and shown (albeit in a very small drawing) by Stan and Jack in the Tales of Asgard
story that introduced the Warriors Three in the first place. This would have been about 1965 or so. I dont remember if
she actually had a name mentioned or was only shown. The comedic suggestion in that story was that Volstagg
wanted going on the quest as a way of avoiding going home. Id have to look it up to get more detail but this would
have been around Journey Into Mystery 119, 120, 121 or so. I didnt invent her, so credit where credit is due.
Thanks for the correction!
And thats Volstagg for you: Always going on journeys to Midgard to avoid household chores:

And now, the Quick Hits:

Q: Where would you recommend starting on Silver Age comics, DC in particular? Brian, via email
A: DCs put out some great, relatively inexpensive black-and-white Showcase volumes that are well worth picking
up if you want to get into the Silver Age. Id say start with Metamorpho (see above), Superman, Superman
Family, Metal Men and Legion of Super-Heroes. Together, that pretty much encompasses all of the best and
craziest Silver Age DC books.
Q: Which Bat-logo do you prefer, the yellow ellipse or the black-on-grey? SantFarrell
A: When I was a teenager, I thought the black-on-grey logo was awesome, but as i grow older, I find myself wanting
the yellow oval back more and more. I really hope that when Bruce Wayne makes his eventual return as Batman,
hell go back to the blue/grey/yellow costume.
Q: Which is worse- Nazi Monkeys, or Monkeys Dressed As Nazis? JMReynolds
A: Heres the thing: You know where you stand with an actual Nazi Monkey. In the words of Walter Sobchek, say
what you want about the tenets of National Socialism but at least its an ethos. Monkeys that are just dressed as
Nazis, however? Theyre clearly just going for a reaction. Those monkeys arejerks.
Q: As a man who enjoys the occasional mixed drink, do you have any comics-related cocktail recipes?
Perhaps a fruit drink and Jaegermeister mixture thatll knock you out in One Punch? Steven, via email
A: I actually make a drink I call the ROM Collins, named in honor of ROM: Spaceknight, the long-running Marvel
toy tie-in written by Bill Mantlo. Originally, it started as an attempt to combine the Tom Collins with the Rum
Collins (get it?), but the way I make it now is:
1 part Coconut Rum
1 part Gin
1 part Lemonade
Mix with ice in a shaker, then pour into a Collins glass with an equal amount of Sprite.
I think its pretty tasty, but its very sweet.

Q: If all the different versions of Batman fought, which would win? xiombarg
A: Short Answer: They wouldnt fight! Theyd team up and eradicate crime.
Longer Answer: Back when Countdown was coming out and they did that Arena book where different versions
of heroes fought each other, I thought that was crazy. The best Batman has to be our Batman, or else why have we
been reading comics about him for the past 70 years? Therefore, regular ol Batman wins.
Actual Chris Sims Answer: Jim Aparos Batman, because he is the only guy who will straight up slap you in the face.

And that is real.

Read More: Ask Chris #15: Favorite Runs and Volstaggs Love Life | http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-15favorite-runs-and-volstaggs-love-life/?trackback=tsmclip

Books Without Pictures

by Chris Sims June 18, 2010 12:00 PM

Q: What are some Spider-Man stories that you would consider underrated or underappreciated? YGSuben
A: If youve read this column before (or talked to me for more than two or three minutes), then you probably
already know that I consider myself to be the Internets foremost Batmanologist, which mainly means that I talk
about Batman pretty much all the time. What I dont often mention is how much I love my other favorite character:
Spider-Man.
I love Spider-Man. Im actually of the mind that hes probably the best comic book
character ever created, as he nails the concept of the super-hero who could be you better
than any character that came before him, and most of the ones that emulated his success
after (including Marvels own attempt at recapturing the magic with characters like Nova,
Speedball and Darkhawk). Hes got great powers with a quirky twist to them theres
that story about someone telling Stan Lee hed never work because people hate spiders,
apparently forgetting that people also generally hate bats and, Jimmy Olsen aside, the
best supporting cast in comics.
But its no secret that Spider-Mans pretty awesome, and the end result is that for the most
part, the great Spider-Man stories are generally rated exactly where they should be.
Things like the deaths of the Stacys, Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut, Kravens Last
Hunt, Amazing Spider-Man #33s The Final Chapter (the single greatest Marvel comic
ever produced), and even the short, sentimental tear-jerker that is The Kid Who Collected
Spider-Man are all (rightly) ranked among the greats. Even recent stuff has been getting
its props: Our own David Uzumeri called Zeb Wells, Chris Bachalo and Emma Riosss Shed the best Spider-Man
story of the decade, and if you dont think Marcos Martins work on Amazing stands up to the best artists that
books ever seen, well, youre wrong.
That doesnt mean that there arent a few truly great Spider-Man stories that have slipped through the cracks over
the years, so to answer your question, Ive picked out five of my favorites that could use a little more love!
For starters, one that got a lot of praise on the Internet, but unfortunately seemed to pass most people by:

Dan Slott and Ty Templetons Spider-Man and the Human Torch. Its no secret that Slott loves Spider-Man (and
pretty much the Marvel Universe in general), and over the course of five issues, he and Templeton basically create
the worlds most entertaining love letter to the history of the characters. Each issue takes place during a different
era, playing with everything from Spider-Mans relationship with the Black Cat to the Torchs ever-inflating ego to
the connection between the Spider-Mobile and the golden age of the Hostess Fruit Pie ad. Like so much stuff Slott
and Templeton have done, its pure fun distilled straight to the comics page, and while it was out of print for a few
years, it was given the oversized hardcover treatment fairly recently.
And speaking of trips through Spider-Man history, my second choice would be pretty
much all of Untold Tales of Spider-Man. Primarily the product of writer Kurt Busiek and
Pat Oliffe, Untold Tales came out during a pretty rough time in Spider-Man history, when
the main titles were saddled with clones, impostors, Lady Octopi and a bunch of other
stuff that rendered them all but thoroughly incomprehensible. Untold Tales, on the other
hand, was not only released at a lower price point (99 cents, compared to the thenstandard price of $1.50), but was written to tell stories that fit between the early
Lee/Ditko/Romita issues (an enterprising reader can actually figure out exactly where
thanks to clues in the dialogue, though its not at all necessary to enjoy the book) in one of
comics best examples of making continuity work for the story.
And whats more, they were really good. A couple that stick out specifically are #16s The
Boy Next Door, which follows a young Mary Jane and explores the fact that shes known
Peter Parker was Spider-Man since before they met. Id originally thought that was an
invention of Busieks, but he later left a comment on my blog about how it was actually
Gerry Conway who started it in the Parallel Lives graphic novel. Even so, its done so well here, and this story and
her reaction at the end of the Death of Gwen Stacy are the two things that made me love Mary Jane as a character.

The other is the 96 Annual, where Busiek is joined by Mike Allred for a story where Spider-Man goes on a date
with the Invisible Woman

only to have their pizza dinner (what do you want, hes a teenager!) interrupted by a jealous Namor. Its perfect
lighthearted fun, and it also includes Aunt Mays recipe for Wheatcakes. Really.
Unfortunately, theres only ever been one collection of Untold Tales, and it doesnt include either of those issues,
but theyre not too hard to track down in back issue bins.
Looking back over my list, I apparently like a lot of stories that follow up on bits of Spider-Mans past, but this next
one is a solid story: Amazing Spider-Man #271s Whatever Happened to Crusher Hogan? Hogan is, of course,
the pro wrestler that Spider-Man fought (and pretty much humiliated) in his first appearance in order to test out
his powers. Fast forward to 1985, though, and Hogans career is over and hes working as a janitor at a boxing gym,
telling everyone a very different story:

In the story, Spider-Man meets Hogan after hes been telling these stories, and its a great moment that not only
humanizes Peter Parker, it also plays to one of the strengths of the book: its rich, compelling supporting cast. Its
not the only good Crusher Hogan story, either: Ive talked about it before elsewhere, but the issue of Tangled Web
that was written by Brian Azzarello and Scott Levy (a.k.a. Raven, of WWE and ECW fame) focusing on Crusher
Hogan is one of the high points of that run, and probably the best comic about pro wrestling ever.
Im not sure if this next one counts as underappreciated, as its actually a very important story that I imagine a lot
of people have read, but I very rarely hear anyone actually talk about it:

1987s Spider-Man vs. Wolverine, by Jim Owsley (now Christopher Priest) and Mark Bright (who drew the
famous Batman-Throws-A-Car-Battery scene). Its one of the best-written crossovers in comics history, largely
because it inverts the normal fight-then-team-up formula for super-hero meetings by as the title implies
having no team-up at all. They just fight, and while there are some great funny bits to it, it goes to some pretty dark
places.

So dark, in fact, that Spider-Man trying to pound Wolverines indestructible head through a tombstone in a German
graveyard isnt even close to being the most intense moment of the story. Its a great Spider-Man story, but as far as
Wolverine stories go, its up there with the original Claremont/Miller mini-series.
But again, Im not quite sure it qualifies as underappreciated: To my knowledge, its only been reprinted once (a
Prestige Format version released in 1990), but Jeff Parker, Paul Tobin and Clayton Henry did a What If based on
it in 2008.
Finally, a story I think is great thats probably the most obscure of the bunch:

Brian Lynch and Sean Chens Slyde into Destiny, the second story from 2004s Spider-Man Unlimited (v.3) #1.
For those of you who dont know, Slyde is a pretty obscure Spider-Man villain to begin with, being a dude with a
suit that lets him wait for it slide around, sort of like a figure skater minus the skates. In his return, Lynch and
Chen use him to thoroughly lampoon the idea of the extreme reboot by bringing him back as the ludicrously over
the top newer, better, more ultimate Slyde!

Its not a world-changing story, but its solidly and hilariously written with a great hook to it, and is thoroughly
entertaining.
There are other great, relatively obscure Spider-Man stories out there Darwyn Cooke and J-Bone did two issues
of Tangled Web based around Valentines Day and Christmas, but I dont really think I need to talk those up
as theyre by Darwyn Cooke and J-Bone but those are five solid issues that theres a good chance the average fan
hasnt read.
Q: You recommend lots of comics, movies, & music, but what about prose books? What are some bookshelf
gems youd recommend? Doubting_Tom
A: Ive always been a pretty voracious reader, but one of the downsides of reading comics for a living is that I dont
get to read nearly as many prose books as Id like. Yeah, I know, Aw, Chris has to read Spider-Man all day. Boo
hoo.
There are plenty of books that I love, though. Ive mentioned the series before, but I just
finished reading Changes, the 10th novel in Jim Butchers Dresden Files series, and I
think theyre fantastic. Ive described them as What if Harry Potter grew up to be Philip
Marlowe and I think that about covers it, but Butcher has created a great synthesis of fantasy
and private detective, and his use of language is immediately engaging and frequently
hilarious. Also, I was introduced to his work by pals Caitlin Kittredge (writer of the Black
London and Nocturne City novels) and Richelle Mead (writer of the Vampire Academy series),
and theyre not exactly slouches either.
Another good one that springs to mind is I Love You Beth Cooper
by Larry Doyle, a former writer on The Simpsons. It gets a little
silly towards the end, but as you might expect, its solidly
entertaining, although I never saw the movie made of it. Theres a
comic book connection to that one, too, as its got a cover and chapter break illustrations
by Milk and Cheese creator and Beasts of Burden Writer Evan Dorkin!
As late to the party as it makes me, I only got into P.G. Wodehouse a couple years ago
when a friend bought me a big omnibus of his Jeeves stories as a gift, and I cannot get
enough of them. Wodehouse is quite possibly the greatest humorist of the 20th century,
with a deft, razor-witted writing style thats easy to imitate but impossible to duplicate. In

fact, one of the major criticisms of his stories is that theyre meant to be first-person accounts by the character
Bertie Wooster, who is a complete and utter idiot, but theyre written by someone obviously brilliant at the use of
language, and when your major flaw is that you write too well, youre probably in a pretty good place. The only
other drawback is that the stories are all essentially the same, but theyre pulled off with such amazing skill that it
hardly matters; the destination is the same but the trip is incredibly enjoyable.
Probably my favorite book of the last decade, though, was Sarah Vowells Assassination Vacation. Vowell is
probably most familiar to comics fans as the voice of Violet in The Incredibles, but shes also well-known as a
contributor to Public Radio Internationals This American Life, and Vacation is basically a feature-length
version of one of her bits for the show. In it, she traces the causes, effects, and in some cases travels the literal
escape routes of the Leon Czolgosz, Charles Guiteau and John Wilkes Booth, the men who assassinated Presidents
McKinley, Garfield and Lincoln, respectively.
Its a pretty grim subject and she doesnt shy away from that, but she also manages to be equal parts informative,
incisive and actually hilarious, too, and it re-sparked my own interest in learning more about history. If you get it,
Id recommend the audiobook version, though, not only because Vowells work as a radio contributor and producer
makes her a natural at reading, but also because its got an all-star cast to read the quotes, including Conan OBrien,
Catherine Keener and Jon Stewart. Vowells also got a similar book on the Pilgrims and their arrival in North
America (Wordy Shipmates) thats well worth checking out.
Finally, Id be remiss if I didnt mention Glen David Golds two great novels, Carter
Beats The Devil (based on the life of 1920s stage magician Charles Carter)
and Sunnyside (based on film icon Charlie Chaplin).
Theyre both phenomenal books with incredibly complex plots that mix historical fact and
fiction together for a reading experience thats thoroughly enjoyable and very compelling.
Carter is one of the hardest books to put down that Ive ever read, and the climax is
incredibly thrilling Gold manages to pull off the trick of writing great sequences of
escape artistry and stage magic in prose, which I cant imagine was very easy but for
personal reasons, I prefer Sunnyside.
Specifically page 208 in my copy (218 in the UK edition). Youll know why when you see it.
And now, a bunch of quick questions about Batman:
Q: Just for clarification, whom do you like more; Batman (anyone wearing the outfit
and using the title, provided that your affection towards them is restricted to the
character only when they are in costume) or Bruce Wayne (both in and out of costume)? I can probably
guess, but the Internet needs this for its records. LGCochran, via email
A: I dont dislike Dick Grayson as the current Batman, and I definitely enjoy Terry McGinnis as Batman Beyond (I
do not, however, care one bit for Jean-Paul Valley), but for me, Batman is Bruce Wayne. As much as I tend to like
the idea of legacy characters, I feel like Batman is so intricately tied into Bruce Waynes story and the way its been
refined and honed over the past 70 years into something that cant be duplicated without another character.
Its something you can play around with again, I love Batman Beyond because its basically What If Spider-Man
Was Batman Too, and I could only like that idea more if you wrapped money around it before you gave it to me
but so many elements of what make up Batman (the tragedy, the wealth, Alfred) are intricately linked with Bruce
Wayne, and even a similar character doesnt have the element of being inspired the way Bruce Wayne was. They, in
turn, are inspired by Bruce Wayne, and its a big difference.
Q: Do you sleep full nights, or does your experience as a Batmanologist allow you to use Crime-Solving
Microsleeps to get by? elwang
A: Well, I almost never get a full nights sleep, but thats less because of crime-solving microsleeps and more
because Im a freelance writer.
Q: I have a poser for you- what is Batman like as a lover? Does he change technique significantly when
boffing a lass as Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy? And does he cuddle? James, via email
A: Batman trained for 20 years to be the best at everything. EVERYTHING.
Q: Im staring at the cover of Detective Comics #241, you know the Rainbow Batman, and stumped like
Robin, would like to know: Why? Why must Batman wear a different colored costume every night? Can you
do a rundown of the issue? Zaki Zakaria, via email
A: Ah yes: The Rainbow Batman.

Its actually pretty simple: Dick Grayson hurts his arm while pushing someone out of the way of a carload of fleeing
gangsters, and since a bunch of people (gangsters included) see him hurt his arm, Batman dresses up in
flamboyant, lurid, headline-making colors in order to provide an extremely garish distraction that keeps anyone
from noticing that Robins arm is also hurt, which would give away his identity.
Also, I can only assume that they included this panel

because they knew the Comics Internet would one day need to make some easy jokes.

Read More: Ask Chris #14: Spider-Mans Top 5 Underrated Stories and Books Without Pictures |
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Ask Chris #13: Batman vs. Psychiatry and Supermans Strangest Powers
by Chris Sims June 11, 2010 1:00 PM

Q: From Taryn (Age 8): Why are so many of Batmans villains psychiatrists? Angry_Jake
A: An excellent question from a very perceptive young lady!
The fact of the matter is, as Polite Dissents Dr. Scott has noted on several occasions, the
overwhelming majority of psychiatrists and psychologists in comics are villains already Im
pretty sure the only notable longstanding exceptions are Brother/Doctor Voodoo (until recently a
fairly minor character), Dr. Druid (who sucks), and Doc Samson, and even he recently took a heel
turn.
But, as Taryn points out, while most heroes would only have to deal with one evil head-shrinker,
Batman has way more than his fair share: Simon Hurt, Hugo Strange, Jeremiah Arkham, Harley
Quinn, and of course, the Scarecrow. And there are a couple of pretty good reasons for that.
For one thing, Batmans villains tend to be crazy, and since 1974 and Denny ONeils introduction
of Arkham Asylum, theres been an emphasis on the psychological aspects of his foes. This creates
the perfect breeding ground for stories that are about psychology, and just like its a natural fit for
Superman (the Man of Tomorrow) to battle against mad scientists with death rays, its a pretty
easy leap to get from psychologically scarred villains to villainous psychiatrists. Its a
pretty fertile ground that nobody else had really tapped into, and it fits his
character.Which brings me to the deeper reason: Batman has always been about
psychology in one form or another. Even discounting the popular notion of him being a traumatized
child in the body of a vigilante lashing out at the forces that took his parents away, theres been a
mental element to the character since his earliest appearances. Even his costume is designed to strike
terror into the superstitous, cowardly hearts of criminals, making him an eerie figure who relies
primarily on psychological warfare as one of his greatest weapons.
This is at the root of everything, both in the direct creation of the Scarecrow (who uses the same tactic
of inspiring fear for evil) and more indirectly with characters like Harley Quinn (whose origin story
couldve only come about with a mechanism like Arkham Asylum at its core). These characters lend
themselves to stories with the psychology of Batman and his enemies at its core, writers realize thats
a really good storytelling core, and the cycle repeats.
Or, short version: Batman cant punch meteors out in space, so he has to make do with evil doctors.

Q: I was just wondering if you could give me a full rundown on Supermans powers, in all his iterations,
Golden Age, Silver Age, etc. I know the big ones, but I was thinking some of the lesser known/used powers
like Super-ventriloquism and Super-Hypnosis. I have a vague memory that at one point he claimed a SuperImagination power so he could sort through a bunch of possibilities, but that just might be my own
imagination. Charles, via email

A: Back in the Golden Age, Supermans powers were a lot less than they
would eventually become, with his toughness (though not quite
invulnerability) and strength (which gave him the ability to jump long
distances but not actually fly) explained as being similar to that of
grasshoppers and ants, meaning that he was rocking the proportionate
strength of an insect long before 1963, when another guy in red-and-blue
tights would show up to claim that little epithet.
By the time he hit the Silver Age, though and even as early as the 40s
the creators were basically just pulling out new super-powers, throwing them
against the wall and seeing what hit. This was when he developed absolute
mental and physical control, becoming able to recall any moment of his life
with perfect clarity or stop his heartbeat, or pretty much anything else the
story required. He even had the power of telepathic will control for one
story in 1947, and although that was never mentioned again, his ability to
drop super-hypnosis on people (including himself, which kept him from
remembering details about the past when he was off in the future with the
Legion of Super-Heroes) stuck around.
Also of note during the 40s: Supermans plastic features, which allowed
him to reshape his face in order to disguise himself.
In my research, I havent been able to find anything under the name super-imagination, although according to
Michael Fleishers Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes v.3, there are plenty of references to a power
that does fit the bill: Supermans super-mind, which, in the famous (and often-reprinted) first appearance of the
Fortress of Solitude, allows him to defeat a robot at super-chess even though the robot can think and play with
the speed of lightning and plans a million moves at once!
Fleishers encyclopedia also contains maybe the single greatest sentence on Supermans lesser-known powers that
Ive ever read: Action Comics No. 306 suggests that Superman can perform feats of lovemaking of which an
ordinary man would be quite incapable. But thats a story for another time.
As for my personal favorite lesser-known powers of Superman, there are two that I really like. First, Supermans
New Power, from Superman #125:

Supermans New Power is not, as the cover suggests, to shoot rainbows out of his hand, although I think we can all
agree that this would certainly be miraculous. Instead, when hes caught in the explosion of a miniature space-ship,
Superman loses all of his regular powers, and instead gains the ability to shoot a tiny super-powered version of
himself out of his hand.

Superman eventually gets jealous of all the attention his pint-sized doppelganger is getting and tries to kill it, but it
dies saving his life and then he feels badly, and as you might expect this is never mentioned again. Just
another Tuesday in the Silver Age.
Its mix of bizarre pathos and pure bat-sh craziness makes it a pretty good candidate for one of the defining stories
of the era, and Grant Morrison has often cited it as one of his favorite Superman stories, which led to it being
homaged in the truly incredible All-Star Superman #10:

My other favorite is of a more recent vintage, cropping up in 2007s Action Comics #857 by Geoff Johns, Richard
Donner and Eric Powell, and it is, quite simply, Superman Vision.

Yes, Clark: Superman Vision.

Under the light of Bizarro Worlds blue sun, Superman gains the mysterious ability to shoot red, blue and yellow
beams out of his eyes

that give people (in this case, Pa Kent), all the powers of Superman. It makes absolutely no sense, but in a
gloriously awesome I Love Superman sort of way, and its probably my hands-down favorite thing about the
three-issue arc and considering that that arc has Eric Powell drawing the Bizarro Justice League, thats saying
something.
And now, some quick hits:

Q: What did you think of the Watchmen movie adaptation? And, comic book movie adaptations in
general? chainmailchick
A: Didnt see it. Not really on a matter of principle; I just had no desire whatsoever to see Watchmen as
something other than a comic book, and really cant understand the people who did. Which, again, sounds like Im
judging them more than I am; I just dont get it.
As for comic book adaptations, well I like comic books as a medium because you can accomplish things with them
that you cant with other media, and I tend to think that the closer a movie hews to specifically trying to recreate a
comic, the worse it is. The best comic book movies in recent memory (Nolans Batman films and Favreaus Iron
Man flicks) succeed largely because they keep the essence of whats good about their characters without trying to
slavishly put stories that were already great in comics on film. Like pretty much every nerd, I like seeing stuff I
recognize on a movie screen, but when it comes at the expense of telling the best story you can, its a hindrance
rather than a benefit.
But on the other hand, I liked the Sin City movie a lot.
Q: Other than Transformers, what is the geeky thing you are most often told you need to get into?
talestoenrage
A: Lately, the Kick Ass and Watchmen movies. Just not interested.
Q: My son recently asked whos the King of Atlantis. Im Orthodox Namorian, but his Mom is strict
Arthurian. Whos correct? jason1749
A: Mom, Im afraid. I like the Sub-Mariner more than I like Aquaman, but if you want to get technical about it,
its Prince Namor, not King.
Q: Eddie Argos goes bonkers crazy for Booster Gold. Where does one even start? clairbearattack
A: With Eddie Argos or with Booster Gold? For Eddie Argos, Id say you should pick up Art Bruts Bang Bang Rock
& Roll album, as it is an all-killer, no-filler radsterpiece.
For Booster Gold, Id say youre best off sticking with the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire/Hughes Justice League /
Justice League International stories, although the current ongoing has been pretty solid as well, especially the
early issues.
And finally, in honor of this columns 13th installment
Q: Chris, what is the spooOOOookiest comic you have ever read? kenlowery
A: Theres an issue of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (an excellent horror manga you should all be picking up
from Dark Horse) where a little girls ghost is haunting an apartment because she got trapped in the wall during a
game of hide-and-seek and died, but for sheer terror, that one issue of Swamp Thing shortly after John Constantine
shows up where they fight the Brujeria cult and the Invunche.
That things so creepy of it that I dont even want to post a picture of it, so heres Spider-Man as an adorable baby:

Huh. In retrospect, thats also pretty creepy.

Read More: Ask Chris #13: Batman vs. Psychiatry and Supermans Strangest Powers |
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Ask Chris #12: Worst Place To Live and Comics For Kids
by Chris Sims May 28, 2010 3:30 PM

Q: Whats the worst comics universe to live in?

DC the place where recently a chemical bomb man was dropped on Bldhaven, Darkseid ripped apart
time and space and enslaved humanity, the dead came back to life to rip people hearts out, a big chunk of
Star City blew up, and Supermen from space came to earth and killed most world leaders by ripping them
apart.
Marvel The place where recently Solider Field was blew up during a Bears game, Asgard was destroyed
and the its rubble fell on Broxton, Oklahoma, you have the remains of the Sentry floating in the Sun, and a
hole in deep space leading to another universe that is Anti-Life!
Im sure there are many more horrible scenarios I cant think of at the moment.
Edward Suarez, via email
A: Im not sure its as much a matter of which universe youre in as much as where you
are in that universe. If youre in the Marvel or DC Universe version of, say, Albuquerque,
its probably not going to be all that bad. The neighbor kid down the block might be a
mutant or you might see Doomsday plowing through town every now and then, but
generally, youre not going to have a bad time for super-heroic reasons. The problem
comes when you go to the places that the comics are actually set in.
Gotham City, for instance, should by all rights have a population of around twenty. There
is no reason whatsoever for people to live there, even when you factor in the radness of
sharing a ZIP code with Batmanwhich youd actually only do if you lived across the river
in Bristol, because even Batman himself knows not to actually live there.
Even if you managed to get through the twothats TWOplagues and the 1998
earthquake, theres still the very real day-to-day possibility of being Joker Gassed, stabbed
with an umbrella sword, dosed with fear toxin, ordepending on the political climate of the daystraight up
poisoned by the KGBeast.
I imagine the insurance premiums are through the roof.And then theres the job situation. God help you if youre a
museum curator, especially if youre dealing with anything Egyptian (like, for instance, priceless cat statues),
because you might as well just leave the door unlocked and get out of town while you can. Same goes if you work in
the lucrative crossword-puzzle industry, hold a teaching position at a university, perform any sort of scientific
research, have a twin, or are named Alice. In fact, now that I think of it, Gothams only
growth industry is the treatment of criminal psychotics, and really, you dont want to work
at Arkham, no matter how great the bennies are.
No wonder so many Gothamites turn to crime.
At first glance, Metropolis seems like a much safer bet, and while its far more likely that
youll be rescued rather than have your murder investigated, it brings a whole new set of
problems.
First of all, theres a severe public safety issue. I mean, Ive never met someone who has
fallen out of one helicopter, while Metropolitans have an average of three per month

though admittedly, thats an average thrown off quite a bit by Lois Lane, who plunges towards death on a semihourly basis.
But really, that just points to a bigger problem: Are there no safety railings in the entire city? Im going to go out on
a limb here and guess that Lex Luthor bought off OSHA for the entire reason so that he could cut corners in his
ongoing corporate war against Superman, but really, thats just going to end up costing him more in the long run
with the cost of death benefits and training new employees to replace the ones who took the wrong step off the
77th floor.
Oh, and there was also that time he tried to blow up the entire city with missiles and then blamed it on his clone so
he could run for President. So yeah, pretty unstable, even before you throw in the fact that reality itself gets popped
like Bubble Yum every 90 days.
If I had to pick a comic book city to live in, though, Id probably go with Marvels
New York. Yes, theres the distinct possibility that youre going to get trampled by
the Juggernaut, mistakenly pulped by a Sentinel, thrown off a bridge by a flying
businessman in a Halloween costume or erased from the timestream by Mephisto,
but its not that bad, and the sheer concentration of super-heroes has to mean an
increase in public safety. Just make sure to follow these rules:
1. Avoid Matt Murdock. And whatever you do, do not, under any circumstances,
date him.
2. Try to get a job at the Baxter Building. Surprisingly safe, even though theres
a portal to the negative zone in the 44th floor and it occasionally gets blasted into
space.
3. If you see Spider-Man, take a picture! The Daily Bugle pays top dollar for
those, and their regular photog, Peter Parker, is notoriously unreliable. Plus, all his
shots look like he just put a timer on it and set it on a ledge somewhere.
So there you go: Im coming down on the side of the Marvel Universe, if only
because (with the exception of the early 90s) there arent mass-murdering
asylum escapees just wandering through the streets in ice cream trucks.
Of course, DCs New York has significantly less danger and also features Power
Girl So maybe we should call it a tie.
Q: Need to get my 6-year-old nephew hooked on comics. How awesome are Marvel Adventures? Anyone
else publish comics for kids? ninjarobot5000
A: So awesome!

The Marvel Adventures line has been unfailingly top notch since it rose out of the ashes of Marvels previous allages effort, largely because theyve gotten incredibly talented people to work on them. Ive gone on before (and will
again, Im sure) about Jeff Parkers run on the MA Avengers title, and for good reason. In addition to boasting
great artists like Cameron Stewart, his run includes highlights like the Avengers all getting turned into MODOKs
and weirding out the populace, Ego the Loving Planet macking on Earth, and a baseball game against Galactus.
These are all fantasitc, fun ideas that just probably wouldnt have flown in the mainstream titles, but they make
great stories.
Lately, though, its Paul Tobin whos been knocking it out of the park, specifically with his run on Spider-Man.
Starting with Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #53 with Mateo Lolli and continuing through the recent relaunch,
they are absolutely perfect Spider-Man stories, introducing great new characters and using old characters (like
Emma Frost) in great new ways. Its well worth picking up.
As for other titles, Id be remiss if I didnt point out Landry Walker and Eric Joness
absolutely fantastic Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, which is just pure
fun from beginning to end. Like the Marvel Adventures books, one of its core strengths lies
in doing new things with existing concepts, like the Bizarro version of Linda Lee (Belinda
Zee), who ends up being the super-popular Mean Girl.
Its solidly entertaining stuff that is genuinely fun for all ages, and well worth picking up in
trade.
Beyond those, Boom! Studios has a kids line, and while I havent read a lot of their stuff,
theyve got Mark Waids Incredibles (which is very fun) and they recently republished
one of my favorite all-ages stories, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. They split it
into two hardcover volumes, so its more expensive now than it was when Gemstone
released it as a softcover, but its still well worth it, and does a great job with the Ducks
(although Don Rosas explanatory text pieces will probably be boring to a youngster).

If youre willing to dive into back issue bins, the Kelley Puckett/Mike Parobeck Batman Adventures (which tied
into Batman: The Animated Series) arent just great kids comics, theyre some of the best Batman stories of all
time, and Mark Millars run as writer on Superman Adventures were the best Superman comics of the 90s and, as
far as Im concerned, a high point of Millars career.
Theres a ton of other great stuff out there too, so ask your local shop, and check to see if they have a section for all
ages titles. And if they dont, find a new shop.
And now, some quick hits:
Q: Which ongoing series right now needs dinosaurs? franzferdinand2
A: All of them.
Q: Degeneration X or the nWo? MarkOfZurEnArrh
A: Ironically, I am D-X fa-fa-fa-fa life.
Q: Best Beastie Boys video?
A: The obvious answer is Spike Jonzes incredible video for Sabotage, but Im also partial to the live version of
Brass Monkey.
Q: Your status as a Batmanologist is established. Do you have a degree in your 2nd favorite character,
Spider-Man? phillyradiogeek
A: I actually minored in JJJournalism.

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Ask Chris #11: Jumping On the Legion and the Riddlers Greatest Hits
by Chris Sims May 21, 2010 1:00 PM

Q: Assuming you only have $300 (or less) to spend on getting caught up, whats vital for Legion of SuperHeroes? StoopidTallKid
A: Ive said before this very week, in fact that the only way to really get the most out
of the Legion of Super-Heroes is to drop $600 on a full set of DCs high-end Archive
hardcovers, and while thats the way I did it, thats probably not actually true.
The problem with jumping on the Legion (and one of the selling points for fans) is that by
its very nature as a story set in the far future that tied in with a second-tier version of
Superman, it developed alongside the rest of the DC Universe in relative isolation. From an
academic standpoint, this is one of my favorite things about the Legion; because it doesnt
tie in with anything and is yet an undeniable product of the DCU, it functions as a
microcosm of comics as a whole. In one relatively small amount of stories, you can chart
the development of storytelling trends, starting in the Silver Age, moving to the X-Men-ish
Bronze Age or rather, see how the Legion influenced the rest of the Bronze Age, as
Nightcrawler and Colossus were actually Dave Cockrums rejected designs for new
Legionnairesinto the grim-n-gritty 80s and through the development of retro and
revisionist themes that cropped up in the 90s. For me, thats a huge part of the appeal.But
theres a side effect to all that, and its that the Legion brings its own substantial amount of baggage to the table.
The isolated development, along with the fact that it was one of the first comics to use continuity to drive stories,
means that its developed its own level of shorthand and self-referentialism that persists even when the entire
franchise is rebooted. There is, for instance, an underlying tension to the mid-90s Reboot Era story where Ferro
suggests a suicide mission to kill the Sun-Eater that just isnt there if you dont have a prior knowledge of the
Legion.

If you dont, theres really no reason to expect that he wont make it through. If you do, then you know that the
original Ferro Lad died fighting the Sun-Eater in 1967s version of the 30th Century, and its a genuine surprise
when he survives the second trip. Its a series that benefits from knowledge, and that means that it requires a

certain amount of commitment, which really appeals to some readers, which is why there are very few casual
Legion fans. Instead, you tend to get a bunch of people who either love the Legion with a passion or think that stuff
like Bouncing Boy and Matter-Eater Lad is the lamest thing theyve ever heard, with very little in between.
Even beyond the storytelling aspects, though, Id still recommend starting from the beginning, if only because those
stories are insane. Superman and Jimmy Olsen are the poster children for the lunacy of the Silver Age, but the
Legion boiled down into its purest form. Its the Weapons Grade Crystal Meth of Silver Age Craziness, as evidenced
by the fact that theres a story where the Legion is being spied on

by a little man with a radio who lives in Sun Boys ankle.

Which is another point: If you have a low tolerance for madness, the Legion is not for you.
But if you do, then youre in luck, because in the years since I made the leap into the
Archives, DCs put out three volumes of Showcase Editions, each of which reprints about
500 pages of Silver Age LOSH from the beginning for about $17 each. Theyre in black and
white, so you might be surprised down the line to discover that Brainiac 5 is green, but the
stories are great, and while they lose a little from not having the vibrant colors, the same
bunch of stories would run you about $300 in the Archives.
Theres also some really good stuff from later years available in trade: The Great
Darkness Saga is currently out of print (which never fails to mystify me), but its a high
point for the series, and occasionally you can find one warming the shelf at your local
comic book store, and its not hard to find at all in back issues. DC recently reprinted the
first two story arcs of the Levitz/Giffen 1984 series, and the first, An Eye For an Eye, is
one of the best comics of the 80s. By its nature, though its a story where the Legion of
Super-Villains decides theyre done screwing around and they swear to just flat-out kill
the Legionnaires AND SOMEONE DIES!!! it works a lot better if you know who these characters are already.
Seriously, you will believe Princess Projectra is a badass.
If youre looking for something that requires a little less knowledge, Mark Waid and Barry Kitsons threeboot
version is all in trade, and while it lags after Waid leaves, it picks up again when Jim Shooter comes on to (sadly)
finish it out. Also, Geoff Johns and Gary FranksSuperman and the Legion of Super-Heroes is a very, very solid
story that leads into the current stuff, although again, Im not sure how much of it relies on the reader already
having affection for those characters.

Amazingly, what I think is the most accessible stuff (and my favorite iteration of the team after the kookiness of the
Silver Age) hasnt been collected: Dan Abnett and Andy Lannings critically acclaimed 2000-2004 run on the title.
Theres one trade of a story involving Superboy from near the tail end of their run, but the rest of it is only available
in the back issue bins, which I just dont get. Presumably theyve got their reasons (and Im sure having four
different versions of the team and not wanting to confuse readers plays into it), but youd think with as much as
people like their cosmic work for Marvel, DC would be like Oh hey, you like it when those dudes do space stories?
Heres their run! Heck, its even got art by current superstar Siege artist Olivier Coipel!
If youre into tracking it down, it starts with a story called Legion of the Damned that started in Legionnaires
#78 and Legion of Super-Heroes #122, and closes out those series. Then its two minis, Legion Lost and
Legion Worlds, and then the ongoing series just called The Legion. A full run of those were some of the hardest
things to complete when I was putting together my Legion run, but as I opted to go with conventions and quarter
bins rather than just hopping on eBay, you might have an easier time.
The years before that, after the 1994 Zero Hour reboot, are also pretty solid, and the first few issues of that are in
trade too as The Beginning of Tomorrow. Theres also a DC Library edition of The Life and Death of Ferro
Lad, but if youre going to read that story, its going to work better in the context youd get from the Archives or
Showcases.
And that pretty much covers where to go and what to read for the Legion of Super-Heroes!
Oh, and one more thing: Whatever you do, dont read The Lightning Saga.
Q: What is (are) the best story (stories) that star The Riddler (not including HUSH)? angry_ngray
A: I appreciate that you specified, but dont worry Hush isnt even on my list of the best stories starring Hush.
The Riddlers a weird character. Youd think the appeal there would be a natural The Ultimate Detective against
The Ultimate Guy Who Asks A Bunch Of Questions but since his gimmick of asking riddles was largely already
covered by the far more popular Joker, hes rarely had much of a chance to shine on his
own. An obvious high point is Batman 66, where Frank Gorshins portrayal and the way
that he effortlessly snapped between manic laughter and downright sinister, wide-eyed
murderous intent (which would later be adopted into the Jokers portrayal, especially on
the Animated Series) brought a real sense of menace to the character.
But that doesnt mean that he hasnt had good comics, and there are a couple of really
excellent ones that spring to mind.
First up, The Last Riddler Story from Batman Adventures #10. The Kelley
Puckett/Mike Parobeck stories that tied into Batman: The Animated Series were easily
the best Batman comics of the decade (#3s Jokers Late Night Lunacy scared the living

hell out of a ten year-old Chris Sims and its downright criminal that its usually left off lists of the best Joker stories
ever), and this ones no exception.
The premise, as you might expect, is pretty simple: The Riddler gets out of prison and decides to give up crime
because he just cant outwit Batman, but his henchmen convince him to give it one more all-or-nothing shot: He
either comes up with the riddle that Batman cant solve or hes done.
Meanwhile, three other criminals all of whom are highly entertaining one-note crooks like Mr. Nice, a vicious
bank robber who feels bad about putting guards out of work with his crimes and cuts them in on the take so their
kids wont go hungry are also rampaging through Gotham. A ton of stuff is going on at once, but it all comes off
as fast-paced rather than confused, and the late Mike Parobecks art is phenomenal, working in the animated
style with a fluidity and personality that other artists just cant match. And like the show itself, its done smartly,
full of action but relying on more than just a punch-out at the end to tell a story. Its clever, its beautiful, and its got
a really well-done sinister undercurrent to the villains that sells the comedy.
My favorite Riddler story, though, is Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyers 1990 three-parter, Dark Knight, Dark
City.

Milligan had a short run of strange little Batman stories around the timemy favorite of which is one where a
psychotic librarian is murdering people and then putting them in leather jackets with the Dewey Decimal System
number for their profession stitched on the shoulder and then filing them in various parts of the city, because
that is hands down the craziest premise for a modern age story Ive ever seenbut for most readers, Dark City
(From Batman #452-454) is probably the most memorable.
To say its a Riddler story, however, is a bit of misnomer. Hes in it, but, well, I dont want to spoil anything here, so
suffice to say that there are multiple levels of villainy at work. Its a great story, though, full of macabre sequences
and events so bizarre that the reader cant help but be put into the same position as Batman, trying to figure out
why the Riddlers blowing up blood banks and shoving ping pong balls down a babys throat to choke it. The
Riddler stuff comes through perfectly in the way that its all a gigantic chess game of him putting Batman in

situations where he has to do one thing, one of the great examples of what makes the character work: Unlike
everyone else, hes actually able to stay one step ahead of Batman at least for a little while.
Also: Mike Mignola covers.
Its an obvious influence on what Grant Morrisons doing with the Batman titles today, and again, its not hard to
round up if your local shop has a good selection of back issues, or if you plan on hitting a con this summer, and well
worth the price of three 90s Batman comics.
And now, the Quick Hits:
Q: Flat-out no-messing-around hyphen-ated most insane thing you were asked when you worked in a
comic store? lukemckinney
A: Probably not the most insane, but: How many issues is 52 gonna be?
Q: Favorite band/musician in comics. switzke
A: Josie and the Pussycats, followed by Sex Bob-omb and the Amazing Joy Buzzards.
Q: I defer to your knowledge of all things Punisher what is the strangest object used by Frank Castle to kill
a man? JeffStoldthood
A: Oh, that ones easy:

Its bears!

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Ask Chris #10: Wolverine. And The True Beginning of 80s & 90s Comics
by Chris Sims May 14, 2010 12:30 PM

Q: I want to read more classic Wolverine stories. Ive read Origin and Weapon X. Is Claremont/Miller mini
any good? TheGothamite
A: Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss.
The original Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series is one of my all-time
favorite Marvel comics, and for good reason: its not only the product of two great creators
who were at the absolute top of their game, but it set the template for virtually every
Wolverine story that came after, with the added benefit that the character hadnt achieved
the level of popularity-driven invincibility that he has now. As such, theres both a physical
vulnerability to him which a lot harder to pull off once it gets to the point where he can
re-grow an arm in three panels and an emotional vulnerability as well.
The latter is something that you just dont see that often in Wolverine stories, and comes
from the fact that for all intents and purposes, Wolverine is a noir comic set in Japan, full
of ill-fated romances, crime bosses and a grim protagonist who is alternately betrayed by
his lover and himself, hooking up with The Wrong Girl and drowning his sorrows in a bar.
Its a masterpiece, moody, beautiful and resonant.
And also there are ninjas. Lots and lots and lots of ninjas.If youre looking for other good
Wolverine stories, however, there are a couple that spring to mind, chief among them being Mark Millar and John
Romita Jr.s Enemy of the State. Its one of Millars best stories, and one of the best examples of his signature big,
insanely over-the-top action-movie-style stories done right. And one of the best reasons is that Millar manages to
tell a story where Wolverines the unstoppable killing machine that we all know and love, but still finds that
emotional and physical vulnerability to him.
The emotional stuff flows naturally from the plot Wolverine gets brainwashed into becoming an assassin for the
Hand but its very well-done, with a surprising amount of depth to it. Its a rare example of a book where a
character has a dueling set of internal monologues where it actually works, and that alone is an accomplishment.
And the physical vulnerability well, that just results from the fact that Wolverine basically spends the first six
issues of the book getting his ass kicked by everyone from Daredevil to the Invisible Woman.
Also, more ninjas. And a shark.

Say what you want about Millar lord knows I have but the dude knows what to do
with a splash page.
Beyond those, theres one other key moment that youll need to complete your
Wolvereducation: The classic X-Men stories that are reprinted in The Essential XMen. Specifically, you and pretty much everyone else who wants to understand
modern comics should grab a copy of Essential X-Men v.2 and read until you hit
Uncanny #132, which is quite possibly the most important comic of the modern age.
Its the Hellfire Club story that serves as a prelude to the Dark Phoenix saga which is
itself pivotal because various creators have tried to do the same story ten or eleven times
since and in it, the Hellfire Club systematically takes out the X-Men, including Black
Bishop dropping Wolverine through an entire building.
Looking back from today, its easy to think psht, thats not going to stop Wolverine, but at
the time and if you happen to read the issue when youre 12 Wolverine wasnt the
star. He was an ensemble player, and the de facto stars were Cyclops and Phoenix. Its
essentiallytheir story, and Claremont and Byrne set it up that you think its going to come
down to Cyclops, which isnt all that an unreasonable assumption, since hes the guy who had to basically smack
Wolverine in the face and tell him to stop being a punk when they fought Proteus.
And then this happened:

And comics were changed forever.

That moment, with Wolverine coming out of the sewer, with something that shouldve killed him only serving to
piss him off, is my nomination for the dividing line between the Bronze Age and the Modern Age (or at least, what
we were calling the Modern Age 30 years ago). Its the first big escalation of Wolverine to what hed eventually
become, and its also the first and biggest OH SH-T! moment of the 80s.
And its one of many in that run. Its easy to look back on Claremont and Byrne from today and think its overrated
because its been The Standard for 30 years, but it actually is that good. I mean, itll make you love Wolverine, thats
for sure, if only because the next issue has the tagline WOLVERINE LASHES OUT! which makes it sound like hes
just being a jerk to everyone.
So now that Ive talked about how the 80s started
Q: Is there a particular moment you can think of that officially sparked the 90s in comics? What, in your
opinion, is the defining characteristic(s) of comics in the 90s that makes them 90s comics? angry_ngray
A: Unless youre talking about the Golden Age (Action Comics #1) or the Silver Age (Showcase #4), its pretty
hard to pin down when eras started. I mean, just above, I talked about Uncanny #132 being the start of the
modern age, but Ive got a friend who swears its seven months later in Justice League of America #184, where
George Perez takes over from the late Dick Dillin to draw the JLA, the JSA and the New Gods all team up to fight
Darkseid.
If I had to guess, though, Id say it was this:

The first appearance of Cable. Hes a pretty obvious choice, mainly because hes the poster child of what we all
think of as The 90s. I mean, its got a Liefeld/McFarlane cover, and that pretty much sums it all up. His creation
and success are driven by the art specifically Liefeld, the other poster-child for the 90s rather than story, or
even the union of art and story. And all the artistic elements that we associate with the are here: The shoulderpads, the glowing eye, the improbable reverse-Dr. Strange hair that was dropped toute suite, the guns, the crosshatching, the pointless accessories nice spiked bracelet there, champ, how was the Linkin Park concert? its
all here.
But even beyond that, he represents a huge shift on a meta-textual level. For one thing, he was created to be the
opposite of Professor X (a man of pure action rather than a man of pure thought) and while thats a pretty logical
counterpoint, its also symbolic of the rejection of the past that was so common in the 90s, and that preceded the
backlash of embracing the past sparked by James Robinson, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, and, later, Geoff Johns.
And in typical 90s fashion, hes got a name that doesnt mean anything. You can look at Cyclops and get how he got
that name, you can look at Wolverine and understand the leap there. But Cable? Itd make sense if his name was
Nathan Cable or something, but no, its his codename. And why? Why would a soldier from the future name
himself after rope? Was he just really into HBO? It makes no sense. It just sounds cool.
And really, thats what the 90s were about: Sounding cool. The era we all think of was marked by the end of the
shift from creators telling stories for others to telling stories for themselves not that one is inherently worse than
the other and part of that involves just hey, thats pretty cool, lets do it. Theres no room for what it means, its
all in the (sometimes literally) flashy presentation.

Plus, it was and still is a hot issue among collectors and speculators (as opposed to readers), the people who did
their best to kill comics back in the 90s and continue to be the barnacles dragging the ship down today. So its got
my vote.
And now, the Quick Hits
Q: If someone wanted to get into comics, but hadnt done so before (read: me) what comics need to be read
to catch up on the stories? LikeTheBookshop
A: It really depends on what you want to get into. If you want to get into super-hero comics, theres not much thatll
help you catch up on, say, the entire DC or Marvel Universe, but there are plenty of really great jumping-on points
for individual series. Grant Morrisons Batman run, for instance, starts off with whats in the Batman and Son
trade paperback, and the while the Incredible Hercules: Smash of the Titans hardcover is a big ol slab of comics
with a semi-hefty $30 price tag, its also got two complete arcs thatll fill you in on what happened in World War
Hulk and get you started with Incredible Hercules. And theres way more, depending on what characters youre
interested in.
Non super-hero stuff and even super-hero stuff from independent publishers is even easier to jump on, as it
tends to be a little more self-contained. You could, for instance, grab the first volume of Scott Pilgrim or Jack
Staff or Detroit Metal City or Empowered or Love and Capes pretty easily and be good to go from there. The
problem is that comics as a whole arent something you can really catch up on. But those are all good places to
start!
Q: Which is more bewilderingthe existing Swamp Thing movies, the Swamp Thing Saturday Morning
Cartoon, or the idea of an upcoming Swamp Thing 3D? Matthew Amylon, via email
A: The existence of Swamp Thing Chalk.
Q: Will it be revealed that Batman is actually Jesus in Return of the Bat? bestopheles
A: Sure. Right around the same time that they finally reveal Swamp Thing was the Cross.
Q: man why you got to even do a thing. chance_second
A: Family tradition, man. Im BOC.
Q: Who would win in a fight between Liara TSoni and Leliana in the Great Bioware War? And they make
out isnt an answer. MagicLoveHose

A: Are you sure? Because I think its the best answer.

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Ask Chris #9: Most Likely To Succeed

by Chris Sims May 7, 2010 1:30 PM

Q: Who is the most successful character created at the big two in the last 10 years? Jessica Jones maybe?
Success doesnt mean money, by the way. Im defining success as potential longevity, popularity, place and
profile in shared universe. FatAsteroid
A: I think youre on the right track with Jessica Jones. Alias was unquestionably
the best quote-unquote super-hero comic that Brian Bendis has ever done, and
despite the fact that to a lot of people, its defining moment (and the moment that
in a lot of ways set its starring character down the path shes on today) was
comics second-most infamous anal sex scene, its going to go down as a highlight
of his career.
Throw in the fact that shes one of Bendiss pet characters (to the point where
Alias was retroactively made a part of Marvel Universe continuity after starting
out with MAX as something clearly meant to function on its own), and that hes the
writer who has largely held the reins of the company over the past decade, and
she gets that potential longevity and popularity you talked about almost by
default.
Which isnt to diminish her as a character; if anything, it shows that shes got the
adaptability that a character needs to thrive. She was good in a a gritty, semirealistic crime story, she was good (if a bit overused) as a supporting character
in the Avengers, and now that shes going back into the costume next month, I
imagine well get to see how she fares as an actual costumed super-hero, too. Its
that sort of flexibility that allows for a character to have lasting longevity
Batman, for instance, works in almost any milieu, from crime noir to talkingtelepathic-super-hero-gorilla super-heroics although shell always be the foul-mouthed private eye to me.And
really, shes about the only one there is at the Big Two; its taken Renee Montoya since 1992 to get where she is
today, after all, and Batwomans still new enough that as great as her stories have been and as much as I want her
to stay around, theres no guarantee of it. Which leads to something Ive spent a lot of time thinking about, and
thats that with the way the industry is set up, theres a pretty good chance that theres never going to be another
character like Batman, or Superman, or even Wolverine. Theyre too entrenched, and the industry (and the fans)
are set up to support them. Why spend space and promotion on a newer character when the fansalready love what
youve got?

But by the same token, there will be another Hellboy. There will be another Walking Dead. There will be another
Scott Pilgrim. Not because those comics are somehow less than their more mainstream counterparts, but because
unlike the Big Two, independent comics are all about finding the next big thing. Which is why in addition to Jessica
Jones, my vote for the most successful character of the past decade has got to go to Invincible.
Not just for the character himself although What if Spider-Man was Supermans kid? is one of those brilliantly
simple ideas that everyone and their brother kicked themselves for not thinking up first but because of the work
that Robert Kirkman has done in fleshing out his universe. Hes created dozens of super-heroes and alien worlds
and, thanks to the success that has allowed the book to run under his command for 5+ years, hes ended up with
something that he could hand off to another writer, watching it continue indefinitely. Heck, hes even expanded his
corner of the empire to include other creators by getting Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegarde to do the two Atom
Eve miniseries, and Cerenos cowriting the upcoming spin-off book as well.
Its got legs to it, and in todays market, being able to create something that stands that strongly on its own is a
monumental achievement.
Q: What is a better Batman story, Robin Dies at Dawn or The Jokers Five-Way Revenge? DavidUzumeri
A: Oh David. As my frequent cowriter here at ComicsAlliance (plug plug plug), you know full well that asking me to
choose between favorite Batman stories is like asking me to pick a favorite child and I dont even have kids. Still,
since I actually happen to have both of those stories sitting on my desk right now, Ill do my best.
The Jokers Five-Way Revenge (from Batman #251) is frequently (and deservedly) put into Best Of Collections.
It was done at the height of Denny ONeil and Neal Adams careers, andalong with The Laughing Fishits one of
the stories that defined the modern age Joker. Its thrilling, absolutely beautiful, and contains definitive images of
both the Joker

and Batman himself:

Robin Dies at Dawn, howevera Silver Age story that inspired a big chunk of Grant Morrisons current run on
Batman that involves Batman hallucinating that he went into space to fight a living statue on an alien planet and
then having hallucinatory flashbacks before conquering themnot only featuresthis line

it also includes a scene where Batman dresses up like a Gorilla and is menaced by tentacles.

Man. Sorry, David. Thats just too close to call.

And now, the quick hits:
Q: Which incarnation of Firestorm is your favorite, and why? bitterandrew
A: I actually like the Ronnie/Professor Stein version about as much as I like the Jason Rusch/Whoever version
pretty much equally (I wasnt crazy about Mikhail Arkadin and the less said about Ronnies solo adventures with
Extreme Justice, the better), although the edge probably goes to Jason, as he was in the issue where they managed
to explicitly lay out exactly how the Firestorm matrix works while still being fun and interesting.

Q: Is there a way for individual comic readers to break the Big Bang Theory stereotype in the public
mind? StoopidTallKid
A: Sure: Dont act like that. Dont define yourself by your interests (says the professional comics blogger), and dont
use them as an excuse to not learn how to interact with people. Theres nothing wrong with being smart, nerdy,
and having niche interests, but from what Ive seen of that abysmal show, those guys are pompous and
inconsiderate, and embody the worst superiority complexes of the nerd set. So, you know, do the opposite. Take
the advice Patrick Swayze handed down in Road House and be nice.
Q: How unexpected and awesome was the last page of Batman & Robin 12? Please use a scale of 1-10
Ultimate Warriors.
A:

Q: Whos the best looking man in comics? teamsmithy

A: Im not sure how I got to be the arbiter of all this, but while there are plenty of actually super-handsome comics
creators (John Cassaday, Georges Jeanty, reigning Marvel Hunk of the Month Paolo Rivera, and as Smithy himself
suggested, Derek Kirk Kim, and of course, Handsome Geoff Johns) but Im going to have to go with Lets Be Friends
Again artist (and CA contributor) Chris Haley (at left)

as he (and writer Curt Franklin, at right) is the only webcomic creator Im aware of that actually look better in
person than the way he draws himself.
See you at HeroesCon, handsome!

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Ask Chris #8: Epic Runs and Super-Hero Furniture

by Chris Sims April 30, 2010 2:00 PM

Q: I picked up Thor Visionaries: Walt Simonson v1 and it is as good as you say. Why are creators not given
epic runs anymore? deadlytoque
A: First of all, good choice in starting the Simonson run.
As Ive said before, its easily my favorite run of comics, right above Alan Moores Swamp
Thing and whatever issues of Batman I happen to be reading that week. And one of the
reasons its so good is what you mention: Its a truly epic run, not just in the sweeping
appropriately high-stakes storytelling, but from the sheer amount of it. Simonson wrote
Thor for five years, and as such, he was able to play the long game with his storylines,
juggling a complex cast and weaving together multiple plot threads. Hes the guy who
made you care about Volstagg, and whose best moments in the run arent only about Thor
himself, but Balder and Skurge the Executioner. And a huge part of why those stories are
so great is that he had the time and the room to let things play out the best way they could.
And also, you know, that Simonson was and is a phenomenally talented creator.
Today, however, things are a little different. My Awesome Hospital co-writer Chad
Bowers and I have often had conversations where we lament the demise of the Long Run,
specifically in the rise of creators signing on to for just a six- or twelve-issue arc. The
evolution of comics over the past 70 years has gone from issues with multiple short
stories to single-issue stories to single-issue stories that were united in a larger arc to story arcs made up of issues
that were dependent on each other, and coupled with the rise of the bookstore market and paperbacks (neither
one of which is a bad thing), the focus for a lot of creators has shifted to writing finite stories that can be read as a
single volume.
In theory, theres nothing wrong with that, but a side effect is that every team that signs up to do a single story
wants to tell THE story of that character, with the end result being that you get the same damn comics over and
over and over again. The ultimate example of this for me, anyway is Jeph Loeb and Jim Lees Hush. If
youve never read a Batman comic before, its perfectly fine, because you get everything you want to see from
Batman. Theres a (terrible) mystery, he fights the Joker and Catwoman and Poison Ivy and a shirtless Ras al-Ghul,
he throws around batarangs and stands on gargoyles, its the whole bit. But if you have read other Batman comics,
youve seen it all before and youve seen it all better.And you cant even really blame Loeb and Lee for that: If you
know youve only got 12 issues, then youre going to want to play with all the toys, and with as popular as Lee is,
putting him on Batman without letting him draw all the big villains wouldve been plain stupid. But the end result
is the same: a series of constantly re-released Greatest Hits albums where everyones retelling the same stories
because Thats What This Character Is, instead of bothering to try to advance things at all. And its not limited to
Batman by a long shot: How many stories have we gotten since Crisis On Infinite Earths where Superman fights a
guy named General Zod who has no relation whatsoever to the various other Generals Zod running around? Ill
give you a hint: Five.

It all comes back to the paperbacks: Everyone wants to have something evergreen like
Batman: Year One or Watchmen because those are meant to be the gateway drugs.
Theyre self-contained, so for the average reader who doesnt read comics but wants to try
them, theyre not the commitment that weekly or monthly books demand from fans, and
the idea is that theyll like what they read and come back for more. And obviously, that
works very well for some people. You could argue that the defining feature of Year One
and Watchmen isnt that theyre self-contained, but that theyre actually very good, and
youd be right. But that doesnt get them sold in stores.
Look at Preacher or Sandman, two comics that are both incredibly well-done and
generally pretty consistent throughout long runs. I will guarantee you that the first
volumes of both of those comics outsell the rest put together, and probably by a gigantic
margin. Not because people read Preacher v.1 and decide that it sucks, but because a lot
of them just cant be motivated to go grab the others, no matter how much they liked it.
Being able to jump on something with no prior knowledge required is a strong selling
point, but the side effect is that its also easy to jump off.
But to get back to your original question, the idea that there are no long runs anymore just isnt true there
are plenty. It might not seem like it when you think of Simonson on Thor, since that was also the era of Frank
Millers Daredevil,John Byrnes five-year run on Fantastic Four and Chris Claremonts sixteen years on XMen, but most of the best-selling titles in comics right now are part of long runs. Counting Rebirth, Geoff Johns
has been on Green Lantern since 2004, and before that he was on Flash a book that hes back on now for
61 issues. Brian Bendis has done over a hundred issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, masterminded the Avengers
since 2004, and wrote over fifty issues of Daredevil before turning it over to Ed Brubaker, who himself has had a
53-issue (and counting) run on Captain America. And lest we forget, Garth Ennis did eight years on the Punisher.
Eight. Years. All runs that are actually longer than Simonsons.
Talking this over with pal Andrew Weiss brought up a good point, too: Its not just the top-tier characters that have
enjoyed long runs, but also what are (sales-wise) the second- and third-tier books: Pak and Van Lente on
Incredible Hercules (the closest thing to Simonsons Thor weve seen in a long time), Abnett and Lanning on
Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy, Jeff Parker on Atlas. These are characters that have less pressure on
them to conform to What They Should Be, and dont lend themselves to the Greatest Hits run, which is why those
titles are some of the most dynamic and enjoyable books on the stands
.
So yes, Virginia: there are long runs.
Q: Rate their chairs by combined comfort & style: MODOK, Metron, Hector Hammond, Korvac, Shaper of
Worlds, 90s Professor X. EastWes
A: As someone who sits hunched like Gollum over a computer keyboard all day, Ive put a lot of thought into this
over the years.

At the bottom of the list is Hector Hammond, whose chair sucks almost as much as he does. Stylewise, its actually
pretty solid I quite like the extremely retro-futurist curves that make it look like it would be equally at home on
Star Trek or in Conan the Barbarian but its clearly one of the most uncomfortable chairs of all time. Even if
you throw a cushion into that U, the straight back is harsh, and worst of all, its got absolutely no support for his
gigantic head. Look at that guy. Dude at least needs a headrest, preferably something adjustable.

Hammonds chair sucks so bad that its actually worse than Korvacs, which isnt a chair at all. That, my friends, is
what we call a Standin Box. The hard lines and angles kill any of the style points he gained from having a screen
full of Kirby Dots, but nothing he can do will make him not look like he was custom made to be a Marvel Mini-Bust.

The Shaper of Worlds is pretty similar to Korvac, but manages to work around it by having a trapezoid with tank
treads thats not really a chair at all; its actually his lower body Still, I like it better than Hammonds, if only
because it reminds me of the bad guy from Smash TV.

MODOKs got a pretty good shot at having the best chair: Its stylish, ergonomically shaped to support his massive
head, accessorized in complimentary colors, and it even has (adorable) little holes for his arms and legs. But its
also got a gigantic rocket directly under his ass, which seems it would be, at the very least, distracting.

Ive always considered Professor Xs space-chair to be the height of artistic excess in the 90s, but I cant deny that
it is pretty sweet. Its basically a floating La-Z-Boy with built-in computer. Unfortunately, unlike MODOK, who has
the purple accents to offset the yellow, Professor X just straight up looks like someone dropped him into a New
York taxi that was halfway through becoming a Transformer. Its even got friggin headlights.

Now this is more like it! The height of Jack Kirby Chair design that began with MODOK, Metrons Mobius Chair not
only has an awesome name, it looks like a throne made of Kirby-tech and can fly through space and time. Yes, its
lime green, but if it clashes with your decorations, you can just fly through space and time to somewhere it goes
better. Seriously, as frowny as Metron is, you cant tell me he doesnt look like hes having an absolute blast riding
around in this thing. Best chair in comics, and thats real.
And now, the quick hits:
Q: What is your beef with Centaurs, anyway? Im not hating or anything, Im just curious. Einar, via email

A: I couldnt point to anything specific, I just straight up dont like them. Im generally not a fan of most mythological
creatures that are part-human/part-animal, like satyrs and minotaurs, but Centaurs I dont know. Theyre stupid
and I hate them. I cannot offer a better answer than that.
Q: Format question. Absolutes or Omnibuses which do you prefer? RvanceTal
A: Im actually not a huge fan of either. With very few exceptions, Id almost always prefer a paperback to a nice
hardcover, if only because theyre just physically easier to tote around or read in bed. I love DCs Kirby Omnibuses,
but Id be just as happy to get those stories in a softcover rather than with the added premium of a dust jacket
especially given how much of my job involves throwing them down on the scanner and trying to hold them flat.
I do have my share of both, though, so for the record: Absolutes, if only because some of the Marvel Omnibuses are
so thick that theyre just unwieldy blocks of paper.
Q: How do you cull your collection of old comic books when space and/or moving becomes an issue?
ouranosaurus
A: Thats a tough one. As you might expect, Ive got a pretty sizable amount of comics laying around the house, and
its especially difficult to cut down, not just because I love this stuff so much, but because theres a huge chunk of
my job as a blogger thats based on having a huge library at my disposal so I can grab panels from whatever I need
to illustrate a point.
Really, though, the only way to do it is to go through your stuff and ask yourself Am I ever going to read this again?
If I want to read this again, can I grab it in trade? Or, if youre me, Do I already have this in another format? Do I
really need these four volumes of Absolute Sandman even though the paperbacks totally dont have the new
coloring? If the answers are no, yes, yes, and no, respectively, toss it. Sell it back to your store, slap it on eBay, or
give it to a kid to start him or her on the path to loving comics too.
Q: Has Archie ever fought Nazis? This would settle a bet MichaelNoonanG
A: Actual Nazis? I dont think so. But he did fight racism several times in Life WIth Archie and Archie at Riverdale
High, the two serious Archie comics from the 70s. So thats something!

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