In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night...

This guy could be onto something.

Or, on the other hand, he could just really really need to get laid.

It's not like I haven't written stuff like this about various comic stories with unfortunate, and obviously unintended, subtext. So I won't, you know, start spewing death threats. But, still. Dude. Take yourself in hand. You'll feel better afterward. I swear to God.

Strange bedfellows

Does this ever happen to anyone else? Over at Mike Norton's blog, I recently confessed to always getting Roddy McDowell confused with Meadowlark Lemon. It makes no sense, but it's hardly the only case where I have some sort of inappropriate dysphasic linkage going on. For example, whenever I think of Richard Chamberlain, haplessly good looking actor some of you may remember from the best version of The Three Musketeers as well as that dreadful Thorn Birds thingie, I find his image hopelessly conflated in my brain with that of infamous 16th Century Welsh poet Robin Clidro.

I can't help myself. It's a disease of some sort.

It's not just people. I deeply admire Angelina Jolie, and not just for her puffy lips and fine, fine rack, either. Despite all this, however, whenever I think of Angelina Jolie, I cannot help but associate her with the rind of salt around a drunkenly discarded margarita glass, as well as the distinctive stench of maple flavored ether. It's madness, and I know it, but there it is, and I can't deny it, either.

Meanwhile, the concept of antipodean hurricanes always puts me in mind of Da Vinci's drawings of people with six arms pretending to be windmills, and that singular design for a pedal driven velocipede he drew on Lorenzo DiMedici's left shoulderblade with a squid-bladder one night after they'd both been drinking far, far too much schnappes. I don't know why, unless it's because I know such windspouts blow in the reverse direction from those closer to home, and I've long suspected something similar about the Menace from Venice his damn self.

I can also never look at a camel, one hump or two hump, either in the zoo, or in a movie, or standing on the other side of our backyard fence leaning its hideous, hairy head all the way over to nibble at some of our badly untrimmed hollyhocks, without immediately conjuring up a vivid image of the entire front line of the 1986 Chicago Bears, universally garlanded with leis and bedecked in grass skirts, as they slowly and sensuously sway their hips to the langourous rhythms of Don Ho singing "Tiny Bubbles" through a tinny AM radio speaker.

It's a curse, I tell you.

And I've just discovered that whenever I hear the name Cyrus Schulte-Hordelhoff, I am suddenly paralyzed by the sensation of falling out of the sky at high velocity and slamming hard into a stand of crisp winter aspens. Go figure.

I have to put my head down on my desk for a while now.

Another one bites the dust

Oh, it's fabulous. Here's this thing I just found, that some amazing, astonishing person I do not know posted on their blog nearly a year ago, back when a bunch of dumbass dimbulb Kyle Rayner fans got their hair all mussed up and their panties in a bunch about the fact that I told someone somewhere on the Internet that Hal Jordan is better than Kyle, and they could in no way argue with or refute this inarguable truth.

I'm serious. This is brilliant. As with pretty much everyone else who decides to insult me at length behind my back, this utterly and completely validates not only every opinion I've ever held, but my entire existence in and of itself. Not that I need it from humanoid blotter paper like this particular blogger (whoever they are), but it's always nice to stumble across it on a slow day:

Who says Zombies can't make good detectives? Ok, so I was chatting with Ragnell recently about some trouble going on the details of which can be found here. The star of the show is Highlander, oh and what a show he puts on for us. "If you can't figure out what I mean from what I say, then by God, my much vaunted condescension is entirely justified." Alright I can take that, I hate stupid people to.

Me also. My loathing is especially reserved for stupid people who can't punctuate their poorly constructed sentences correctly, and who especially do not know how to spell basic phrases like "all right", and who do not understand that the 'too' which is a synonym for "as well" is spelled, well, "too", not "to".

But it gets way, WAY better.

"Y'all are young, and clearly enjoying it, and that's mad kewl, but I am old, and I'm going to enjoy it, too, to the best of my ability." Woah slow down there. A comma is for a break in the sentance, sorta like a pause. If you actually sound this out he's doing a damn fine Shatner impression.

Assuming Shatner can spell and punctuate correctly, sure. Unlike dweeb, here, who can't spell either "whoa" or “sentence”, and doesn't seem to understand that in the sentence "Whoa, slow down there", you need a comma after the first word. Which seems especially ironic, as Stands With Their Head Up Their Ass here is lecturing me on the proper use of commas.

"I dislike snottiness in young punks who have little clue what they're saying, but that doesn't at all apply to me. When I speak of the Silver Age/Modern Age dichotomy, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, or HeroClix, well, goddamit, I speak with authority. " The authority of being old! God damn it you can't argue with th-- Wait I've seen all the episodes of Buffy to, why does he know more then me again?

Because I'm smarter than you, and I think better than you do, which is to say, more analytically, and in far more depth. I also have enough of a sense of humor to understand that when I say things like 'I dislike snottiness in young punks... but that doesn't at all apply to me' I'm being somewhat ironic, and even vaguely self depreciating.

"If you would like to play with me, you will have to play with me on my level." Because, damn it, he's old and he says so!

No, because pretty much anyone has the right to set the rules under which they will interact with others.

"Anyway. I will tell you this: it's never been clear to me that Scipio loves Hal Jordan. My experience is, when I go out to a young Modern Age punk's blog and I see them rejoicing in Kyle Rayner's apparent disco-ing abilities and gushing on and on about his adorable ass, and then I see further down some post rejoicing in Hal Jordan's seeming penchant for banging his head on a giant brick building, I tend to take away from that that here is yet another Modern Age punk with absolutely no respect for the Silver Age, especially for Hal Jordan." Well... Firstly Mr. Scipio is probably not a punk. In fact he seems to be a highly intelligent and reasonable man. Secondly, and in your old age you may have forgotten this, they're fictional characters. Yeah I don't respect Hal Jordan, but I don't respect Kyle either, because they aren't real.

Whatever. If someone is going to come after me for referring to fictional comic book characters as real, then that someone is going to need to carry a great deal of ammunition to fire off at a great many more people, including "Mr. Scipio", who "is probably not a punk". If Scipio really "seems to be a highly intelligent and reasonable man", well, I won't argue with that; I'll simply note that the phrase 'punk' in no way denotes either lack of intelligence or a lack of reason, it simply connotates someone who is young, callow, lacking in experience, and therefore, who one can easily dismiss. And, for the love of God, if Scipio seems "highly intelligent and reasonable", well, I must at the very least seem one out of those two.

Beyond that, I would like to point out that in my description of Scipio as a punk, I list my reasons for coming to that conclusion, which is to say, when I state a viewpoint, I support it with actual examples. So far, my anonymous critic here has pretty much done nothing to refute anything that I've said, he or she has, for the most part, simply agreed that I'm old, and then put their fingers in their ears and blown me a raspberry. This is why I love Modern Age fans. Every word they type is a landmine that they promptly trip over and trigger their own damnselves.

I admire what they stand for but I don't have to respect anything about them.

I will, as Mr. Potter might say, go further than that. I'll say that as a Modern Age punk, you can't respect ANYthing about ANYthing. Except Scipio, I guess.

"You'll have to forgive me for that, it's over a decade of conditioning. I've spent years being spit on, jeered at, ridiculed, and otherwise trolled by idiotic Kyle Rayner fans every time I've even typed the name 'Hal Jordan' into a comics related comment thread. I tend to reflexively regard any and all Kyle Rayner fans as boorish, ill mannered little louts with no respect for their betters." I hope we've all learned todays valuable lesson: If people call you names don't turns the other cheek and be the better man, call them names right back!

That's generally how it's done on the Internet, I've discovered. And, um, gee, it seems to be what you're doing in this very very long thingie-bob you're writing, too... but, you know, at least when you do it, you're leaving apostrophes out of "today's" and sticking an improper 's' on the end of "turn", just to make sure you put in my place.

Here we see the begining of a trend.

No. Here we may well see the beginning of a trend. The ‘begining’ of a trend, or anything else, is non-existent, as it is not actually a word.

Highlander justifies everything he likes by lumping it together in his vauge "Silver Age." Nevermind the fact that the Silver age is a time period in comics and has absolutely nothing to do with the product put out. Need proof? Go look at some old Spectre comics, those things are hardcore.

It's possible I do justify everything I like by lumping it together in my vague "Silver Age", but, on the other hand, at least I can spell 'vague' correctly. As to the Silver Age being a time period in comics that has absolutely nothing to do with the product put out, well, that's kind of true. And then, it's kind of not true, too. Nonetheless, when someone says "that has a real Silver Age feel to it", experienced comics fans who are not deeply retarded have a pretty good idea what is being said.

As to the Spectre being 'hardcore', first, it's very difficult to understand exactly what is being said here, but I'm going to imagine that this idiot means that out of the many, many appearances of the Spectre from, say, 1955 through 1985 (DC's Silver Age, roughly), some of them were rather violent (specifically, the Fleischer/Aparo run in ADVENTURE COMICS during the early 1970s). And it's true; that particular run of the Spectre was rather more Modern Age in its tone than it was Silver Age, in that the Spectre killed a great many inextricably evil people in horribly gruesome ways.

Of course, it could also be argued that this run on Spectre was rather Golden Age, in that it was deliberately evocative of the grisly crime/horror comics of the 1950s that led directly to the implementation of the Comics Code, and the bankruptcy of William Gaine's EC Comics. In order to make that argument, though, you'd need to have some actual knowledge of the actual history of comic books, which would mean you wouldn't be a Modern Age punk like this weenie here.

Now to break up the doldrums theres a post by Kalinara here. If you read it she very accurately describes comparisons between Buffy and Kyle. It's funny because she's secretly ripping his argument about "Modern age punks" by giving him absoluetly no tether that Buffy is any different!

I can't remember what Kalinara was doing, although I always appreciate any time or attention she can spare from her busy schedule writing erotic fan fic in which living planets hump each other. I do, though, want to point out that 'absolutely' is spelled as I have, and the phrase 'no tether that Buffy is any different' makes no sense in any human language, or even in Dolphin, as far as I know.

So now we go back to our show: "I can't really comment on Kyle Rayner in that much depth, as I refuse to read his comic. I hate him. Maybe he's not a slacker, I don't know. I don't think I ever said he WAS a slacker. I just hate him. Primarily, because we already had a Green Lantern I loved, and Kyle replaced him, for reasons I will never acknowledge as valid. " Dude, I think I found out why those "Modern age punks" made fun of you. It's because your opinions aren't Silver age vs. Modern Age, it's what you like vs. things you just hate. It's not because your older or wiser, it's not because they are any different from what you currently like, it's because some things you "just hate." You're an ass.

I will never argue with the supposition that I'm an ass. However, I'm way smarter than you are. So if I'm an ass, you're a dumb ass.

Now that I got that off my chest and you read this far you may be wondering what secret I found. Highlander is really John Bryne.

There are simply no words for how delighted I was to read this. If ever an observation clearly indicated the absolute staggering stupidity and blind, gaping, drooling, nearly asphyxiating level of ignorance of its observer, it's this one. I'm John Byrne. Oh, you brilliant genius, you. I'm John Byrne. Oh. Oh. Oh. I am rendered nearly inarticulate with glee as I attempt to comprehend the mind boggling brainlessness that underlies that pronouncement. I swear. It's like trying to intellectually grasp the infinite reach of the universe. You just can't get there. Seriously. What a maroon. What a ultramaroon.

Oh, by the way, I suspect this person really meant ‘John Byrne’. But never mind. It could have been a typo. Given their abilities to date, though, I wouldn’t bet a great deal on it.

Cranky, Old, and sometimes Insane. I was going to go to Bryne Robotics forum and ask them but sadly they had rules I couldn't follow.

So does the game Chutes and Ladders, most likely.

But while looking at the rules I discovered that this rabbit hole went far deeper then I thought...

...or could even roughly begin to comprehend with the feeble, vestigial, near insensate and constantly spasming tendrils of my mind.

Let me ask you who else would have rules like, "Do not respond to a post addressed specifically to JB until he himself has replied. Wait your turn!" "Posts that presume to read JB's mind will be automatically deleted, regardless of content." "Do not link to sites with pop-up ads!! Posts with such links will be deleted. " and, "Membership in the JBF is strictly limited to fans of the work of John Byrne. But ... why would you want to be here otherwise? " Still no guesses? Let me rephrase them, "Do not respond to a post addressed specifically to Doom until he himself has replied. Wait your turn, minon! "

That would be ‘minion’.

’Posts that presume to read Doom's mind will be automatically deleted, regardless of content. For no one can understand his supreme brilliance!" "Do not link to sites with pop-up ads!! Posts with such links will be deleted, for they annoy Doom!" and, "You may live in Latveria! But only if you love Doom! Then again why else would you have come here? To be crushed!?!?!" So in summation. Highlander = John Byrne = Dr. Doom And he's an ass. A great big one.

I just... honest to God, there are no words. Except, whoever you are... thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Whenever I even momentarily doubt myself, the universe always sends me a blithering blotard whose finest thoughts and most brilliant ideas are constantly coursing down his or her chin in a river of drool, as they rant and rave about how big my ass is, and who I really am, and how badly they hate me and wish I'd just go away.

I swear, there is no greater validation than finding such stuff. So thank you, whoever you are, for being the latest in an apparently unending line of cretins who despise me, because without you, I could probably go on, but it sure wouldn't be as much fun.

Panther's rage

So, I gather that the Black Panther is getting married to Storm, and a great many people are upset by it. Even avid, obsessional DC partisans have taken a lesson from this development, and apparently, their lesson is, Reginald Hudlin (current Panther scribe) must never be allowed to write anything in the DC Universe.

Me, I... well. It's not that I don't care. It's just... well... okay, I don't care. I enjoyed Black Panther when Chris Priest was writing it, not because Chris Priest was a great writer, but because he was a good one and he was respectful of the character and the character's history and because, for that brief period when he was writing Panther and Busiek was writing Avengers, the Silver Age lived again at the Marvel Universe... for a little while, before they went away and the darkness came rushing back in again.

The current Black Panther I know nothing about. If he's marrying Storm, well, honestly, it just doesn't matter to me; he's not my Black Panther and this isn't my Marvel Universe.

Oh, I can get overwrought about it if I let it catch me in an unguarded moment; if I relax and let myself forget that the Modern Age isn't my age, that it is peopled largely with brutal, moronic parodies of the characters I once knew, whose exploits are largely created for and consumed by shallow, provincial, spoiled, overstimulated perpetual adolescents, well... yeah, then I can get a little pissy, I grant you, at the thought that T'Challa, King of the Wakandas, is for some reason passing all rational understanding getting hitched to some frickin' Claremont mutant with utterly retarded, completely unworkable powers whose personality varies from panel to panel and who, other than relative epidermal content and continent of birth, has as much in common with with him as an open toed sandal does with a boot-jet...

But... nah. No. For the most part, I really just don't care. This isn't my Black Panther, and no All New All Different X-Man means much of anything to me. So let 'em get hitched. At most, it just leads me to wonder what happened to the days when being progressive meant promoting interracial relationships, when Misty Knight and Danny Rand were pushing the envelope, and why is it that the Black Panther, if he's going to get married, has to do it with the only black female superhuman anyone has ever heard of in the entire Marvel Universe?

It's like Sisko, on DEEP SPACE NINE. He's surrounded by human babes, alien babes, shapeshifting babes, holographic babes, cybernetic babes, he's the friggin' commander of the entire space station and a studly looking piece of man-ass, he clocks frickin' Q right in the coconut, you know there wasn't a dry pair of panties in the Alpha Quadrant when he did that, and does he ever get laid? No. For three solid years, he's holding his load, getting tenser and tenser with every passing second, so obviously in need of a blowjob he practically has backed up semen dribbling out his ears... but apparently, he has to wait until the only frickin' African-American woman for fifty parsecs around finally shows up in his docking bay before he can get his rocks off.

T'Challa wasn't that bad, at least, not under Priest he wasn't... we know he got laid by at least one white chick, although Priest did depict that relationship as being a fairly furtive and unhealthy one. But, apparently, if T'Challa is going to get married, it can't be to a white woman, or an Asian woman, or an Innuit woman, or a Polynesian woman, or some hot Filipina or some bootylicious latina or even a Kree or a Skrull or a Shi'ar, oh no. If T'Challa is going to get married, he has to marry a black woman, because otherwise he's betraying his race, or some such shit.

So, okay, it bothers me a little.

But, still, as I've noted, this ain't my T'Challa, and to my way of feeling, it ain't the real Black Panther. So marry him off to some frickin' mutant with moronic powers. I don't care.

But still, I think the debate/uproar has raised some interesting points. In an interview, current Panther scribe (and apparently, President of BET Entertainment) Reginald Hudlin says --

Why did you choose T'Challa's first love over his ex-fiancee, Monica Lynne?

RH: Because Superman should be with Wonder Woman, not Lois Lane.

Well, that's an interesting opinion. Wrong headed, dumb ass, completely pig ignorant, and entirely retarded, but, still, interesting.

Where do I begin? Okay, let's try here --

Wonder Woman should be gay, or at least, bisexual. Why? Leaving aside her upbringing (although I hesitate to; if any culture would have raised an infant to lesbianism, certainly it's the one on Paradise Island/Themascyra), the simple fact is, one of the things that has always crippled Wonder Woman's sales is the fact that they constantly couple her up with a man, and the biggest audience demographic in superhero comic books -- teen age boys -- isn't comfortable with how that always works out.

It's the power dynamic that kills her. When she dates a non super powered man, her boyfriend is repeatedly put into the typical supporting character/romantic interest role, which is to say, he's always getting kidnapped or otherwise endangered, and needing to be rescued by his babe. Teenage males hate this, and, frankly, on an emotional level entirely beyond the reach of my intellect, it makes me queasy, too.

If she dates a super powered man, well, either the guy is boring and nobody cares and there's not much point in introducing an element into your series that nobody is going to care about, or the character is cool and Wonder Woman becomes a supporting character in her own book.

Best possible solution -- she dates a chick. Whether non powered or super powered, another woman simply doesn't annoy and repel potential male readers the way seeing Wonder Woman date (and infrequently rescue) a male romantic interest will.

Any objections to Wonder Woman being gay, besides "ICCCKKKKKK!", I'll listen to, but I've thought this through, and it works much better than any Wonder Woman/male paramour dynamic I can come up with.

Beyond this, it has two other merits -- (a) we can do it nowadays, for perhaps the first time in the history of comics, and if we're going to have a gay superhero, why not make it an A lister?

(b) it will be fabulous for her sales, and she could use it.

Now, there are those who might object that it's wrong headed to worry about Wonder Woman's appeal to teenage boys, when in fact, she could be the best selling comic of all time if only somehow, someone could find some way to make the character appealing to teenage girls.

Certainly, if a serious eitorial attempt was made to turn the Wonder Woman title into a comic book that would appeal to a potential female target demographic, with an emphasis on natural, nuanced characterization and more subtle and complex social relations than male audiences normally care for, one could almost certainly pull off the typical Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor relationship. Any title, even a superhero(ine) title, aimed at the chick market is going to be short on battle and long on prattle (sorry, couldn't resist) and the fact that Wonder Woman could wad her boyfriend up one handed and pad her bra with him isn't going to be particularly important.

And that might be an interesting discussion to have. But I doubt anyone at any major comics company would ever greenlight such a radical departure from the Boy's Town norm, so all in all, I'm just going to say that, given the givens of superhero comics in general, and the cultural zeitgeist at this moment, matching Wonder Woman up with a female love interest is an idea whose time has come. It would generate a great deal of buzz, boost sales enormously, give DC mad points for being progressive, and certainly, if we want to try to make Wonder Woman into a title more for women than for men, that particular target demographic isn't any more (or less) likely to object to a girlfriend for Wonder Woman than superhero comics' traditional predominantly male audience will.

Another point people seem to be bringing up a great deal in this 'debate' -- if that's what it is -- surrounding Panther's upcoming nuptials to Storm is that it's somehow degrading to Storm for it to happen. The Panther, after all, is now and pretty much always has been a second string carrier, someone who, when he was in AVENGERS, was little more than a (forgive me again) spear carrier, and whose own individual titles, while generally generating a great deal of buzz, have never sold particularly well. He's got no cross media presence, although I guess there's an Ultimates Black Panther in the recently released cartoon, or at least, there's someone who looks like one on the DVD cover, and I've been hearing about a BLACK PANTHER movie featuring Wesley Snipes being in pre production for at least ten years now.

Compared to this, Storm... well, she's been in three successful movies, and she's a member of a team that has, at various times, supported nearly as many monthly titles as characters like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. She is, or so I read, pretty much the Marvel equivalent of Wonder Woman.

To me, though, that just seems sad, and it does point out something that the Marvel Universe lacks -- any A list superhuman women, at all.

Think about it. There are plenty of superheroines in the Marvel Universe, but how many of them have their own series at any given time, or have had their own series at all over the span of the MU's existence? The majority of them originated as The Inevitable Girl in some Silver or Modern Age superteam; the rest of them -- all of them I can think of at the moment who have now or have had their own titles in the past -- are distaff versions of more powerful male predecessor superheroes, like Spider-Girl, Ms. Marvel and, most notably, She-Hulk.

Storm clearly falls into the Inevitable Girl category, and pointing out her cross media exploitation, as well as her near constant presence in many very popular team titles, as justification for her being 'Marvel's version of Wonder Woman' is extremely deceptive. Storm does very little and contributes pretty much nothing significant to any of the X-Men movies. She's clearly there as the token minority in the middle of all that whitebread; for that matter, that's pretty clearly the role she served for years if not decades in the X-Men comics themselves, once the only other ethnic minority members were dropped (Sunfire) and/or killed (Thunderbird).

(I do understand that Kurt Wagner is an inhuman appearing blue skinned elf/demon thingie; however, it's always been pretty clear to me that if he'd been born a normal human, he'd have been about the most Caucasian one imaginable.)

Storm's constant presence is owed to her token stature, not her worth as a character. And her 'popularity', as such, is pretty much nonexistent, from what I can see. If any one character carried the X-Men movie franchise, it was Wolverine, and he's been doing most of the heavy lifting in the comics titles for the last thirty years, too. Comparing Storm to Wonder Woman is pretty much specious; I hit the local geek shop at least once a week, and I've yet to see a Storm piggy bank, lunch box, or beach towel in there anywhere, while Wonder Woman is plastered over dozens of different pieces of merchandise.

Storm's status as a token brings me back to my previous point -- the reason she's being paired up with the Black Panther is the same reason she gets written into every X-Men spin off franchise, and she keeps showing up in the various comics -- she's a two-fer. When you put her in a property, you get two minorities for the price of one; you fill in the Inevitable Girl slot, and you also get your token minority, too, so you can cast the rest of the characters from hot Caucasian OC types without worrying too much about being picketed by Al Sharpton.

Wonder Woman is a much better, and much better marketed and therefore more recognizable, character than Storm is. However disturbing various features of her character design may be when closely scrutinized, and however questionable her ability to carry her own title would be if she hadn't been propped up by the peculiar requirements of DC's licensing arrangement with the estate of William Moulton Marston for decades on end, still, it remains an undeniable fact -- any real attempt to compare Storm to Wonder Woman is specious at best... nearly as specious, come to think of it, as comparing the Black Panther to Superman.

Which brings me back around again to Hudlin's original point, which I have to admit, makes no sense to me at all. I'm not even going to bother debating whether Superman should be with Lois Lane, or with Wonder Woman, because the comparison is just ridiculous. At base, Hudlin seems to be saying that super powered characters should only ever marry other super powered characters, which strikes me as being a fairly idiotic notion. (Not least of which because, in this context, well, T'Challa actually has no super powers.) But for him to indicate that he somehow regards the Black Panther as being a Superman surrogate... honestly, I can't see how this makes the slightest amount of sense at all.

But then I realize that this is the same guy who said "All characters change. Or else Batman would have died of old age by now and Spidey would be middle aged." And I realize, once again, that this isn't my Black Panther, I shouldn't expect him to be written sensibly, and, well, he isn't being, so... whatever. Have him marry Storm. Or Wonder Woman. Or Superman, I suppose, if they want to set the wedding in Massachusetts, and really see some fan uproar...

She don't want nobody near

But you can't get away from that
They appear and disappear
And they all get a string attached
Pretty soon they got you hanging on a line
Pretty soon they're singing
one by one the same old rhyme
They say, I'm alright, I just can't get home tonight

She don't want nobody home
Cause it's a little too crowded then
But she don't wanna be alone
So they just keep pouring in
Pretty soon they got her headed for the door
She comes home to find
that they're not hanging 'round no more
She says I'm alright, you just can't get home tonight

Don't you wonder what she looks like in the light?
She says I'm alright, I just can't get home tonight

Pretty whitewashed lies
Endless alibis
And the reasons that need cleaning every night
Half a world away
You can't wash away
the stain of the deceiving
And the things that you cannot believe, and well...

She don't want no one around
Cause she don't want anybody to see
What she looks like when she's down
Cause that's a really sad place to be
Pretty soon she gets them crawling up the walls
Then she wonders why they beg her please to never call

She says, I'm ok, it's alright,
Hey, look who's on TV tonight
She says, I'm alright, I just can't get home tonight

Don't you wonder why it's dark outside at night?
She says, I'm alright, I just can't get home tonight

Reinventing Blogging

Now, having done those two panels as a tribute to Scott, I'll lapse into the much easier text style we're all more accustomed to. Much though I'd enjoy blogging in a visual, comics style format, to the best of my knowledge, there is no program set up to make it easy, and even if there was, it takes a lot longer to draw the pictures than it does to just type in the words.

I still might be willing to do it... it would certainly make the blog stand out, as I don't think I've heard of anyone doing a blog in panel to panel continuity, and hey, more attention must be a good thing, right?... but pictures also take up a lot more space than simple words, and when your free blog provider places a limit on what they'll show on your front page, that's a problem, too.

What we need is for someone to come up with some kind of streamlined template for online comics production, similar to what has already been put in place for online blogging. And, of course, we need a breakthrough in visual storage technology that makes clear graphics take up much, much less space.

Until then, stunts like the above are all I can do. But, this one's for you, Scott.

Postscript: Looking at how this came out on my blog, it seems you not only have to click on each panel in order to read it, but you're also going to have to find the little floating icon down in the lower right hand corner that expands the graphic, before you'll be able to make out the text in the word balloons. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, well... ::scratching head:: I don't know. I guess you'll just have to look at the not-pretty pictures and wonder what the hell I'm saying. But then, that's a big boat with a lot of people in it, usually...

Meanwhile, back at the idiots...

When last we left our dauntless hero, he had sent off to his potential publisher the following missive:

Dear Ms. Garcia,

My most profound apologies. With three girls in the house, ranging in age from 6 to 17, things are always in a state of low grade chaos around here, but with school starting again in two weeks, well, it's been a circus lately, and I'm not the ringmaster... I'm not even the chief clown! And it's not likely to get better any time in the immediate future.

I'm working on those questions you asked me. In the meantime, I've done some studying on your site and would very much like to check out some of your other publications. I went over to Amazon and it seems as if [Singalong Sue]'s [MONKEY MASTER] is one of your better sellers. I'm also very interested in [Hung Lo, Chinese Porn Star]'s [FRITO BANDITO] series, and [Chupa Lupa]'s [BLUE CHEESE FOR AN ERMINE COMMANDER] sounds very cool to me, too.

I have a big road trip coming up this weekend, due to a family event, but I'm planning to work in some errands and a little shopping too. I'll be all over the Louisville/Southern Indiana area Saturday and Sunday. Could you please advise me as to a bookstore where I could pick up these titles? I'm happy to invest some money in your line so I can hold one or two of your volumes in my hands, turn the pages... get a real feel for where I'll be going with your company.

If you could let me know by this Friday so I can work this into my itinerary, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you very much,

[Happy Little Me]

A few weeks went by, and the publisher finally answered, which ain't bad, if you've ever corresponded with publishers. Anyway, the answer from Ms. Garcia was to, basically, say "We haven't heard from you, what about all those questions we sent to you, what's the deal?"

In other words, they just straight up ignored the note I sent, above, probably hoping I'd been struck very hard in the head since composing it and thus would not recall ever dispatching it to them.

In response, I turned around and sent them the exact same note back again. After all, they couldn't exactly protest or call me a dipshit for sending them another copy of a note they weren't acknowledging receipt of in the first place, right?

And that was three weeks ago and I honestly figured they'd just given up, since to anyone who knows anything about what's going on here, that note should be pretty obvious notice that, you know, I'm onto them -- I know they're a Publish On Demand outfit that is desperately trying not to let me know that, and if they can't point me to a bookstore where I can find their books, I'll have nothing to do with them.

But today, well, I got this:

Darren,

If you're looking for an example of the current quality of our publications, then you'll want to make sure that you get a book that was printed recently. Two of our bestsellers are"Virtual Rock" (more than 100,000 copies sold) and "Bones Become Flowers." Both been reprinted recently.

The slim volume "Monkey Feces" is not a bestselling title (it's a collector's edition) and has not been recently printed so it wouldn't be a good example of our print quality. {whobejoozus]'s feminist fantasy novels ("YaYas" and "Gigantic YaYas") have both been reprinted. To make sure you have the most recent printing, make sure the covers are the pastel covers by artist [la la la]. [life is a cabaret]'s "Blue Steel Penguin" is only available in a recent edition, so any copy would be a good choice.

As for what specific bookstores carry our books, Darren, chainstores buy through Ingram so we don't have a list of stores (Ingram doesn't release that type of information). You can order directly from [us, the miserably lying POD outfit] for 20% or simply order through Amazon or any offline store. Sorry I can't be of more help here.

Please contact me after you've completed your research and reached a decision.

[not Jerry] Garcia
Director of Contracts, Rights & Legal
Whacking Day Creative


So, let's take this one point at a time.

First, while I've changed the names to protect the... whatever, innocent isn't the word but what the hell... I haven't changed the fact that in this letter, from the Director of Contracts, Rights & Legal of a supposedly professional publishing company, I'm being recommended to seek out books by specific title, and I'm not being told who the authors are.

This doesn't exactly boost my confidence in these people. But it's nothing compared to what's coming a little further down, where we discover that these people are apparently publishing books and getting them distributed by a company that will not tell them what bookstores their product has been placed in.

Or, alternatively, they're just lying sacks of shit, and their distributor isn't a distributor, and they can't tell me any bookstores carrying their books because there aren't any bookstores carrying their books.

Now, what I need to figure out is

(a) do I simply not respond
(b) do I respond the way I'd like to respond, since I'm not planning on doing business with these morons anyway
or (c) do I try to be professional with them, which would aggravate the crap out of me, as it would require me to continue to act as if I actually believe their duplicitious charade and don't feel they're fucking assholes trying to exploit the desperate hopes and dreams of unpublished authors.

I don't know. I'll have to think about it.

Let's Chortle With Orto

Mike Norton was kind enough to hang a long and thoughtful comment on my last post. I sat down to respond to it in the comment thread, and then realized that if I did it anything like justice, it would just as well go as its own separate entry here, and who knows, maybe a few other people who read this thing might find points of entry and join in. That’s how it used to work in the Amateur Press Alliance I was briefly a member of, anyway, so let’s see if it might work that way here.

Mike’s commentary will be in italics, mine will be immediately underneath it, in plain text. If others chime in in the comment threads, the formatting could get really interesting.

Work is something I still don't want to talk about, so I'm with you on that.

As I’ve mentioned on previous blogs, nearly everything that moves us one way or another in terms of the stimuli we receive from exterior sources boils down to a question of attention, desirable and otherwise. A good day is one where we receive more desirable attention than we are accustomed to (or, in cases where certain segments of our lives truly suck, where we receive a welcome lessening of the amount of negative attention we normally get in our daily round), a bad day is one where we either don’t get as much desirable attention as we have come to expect, or where we get considerably more undesirable attention than we’re used to.

I no longer use the words ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ to describe this sort of attention, however, because they’re inaccurate and clumsy. Positive attention from someone we find appalling and wish would just go bother someone else is as annoying as negative attention (or no attention at all) from someone we want to like us. (Negative attention, on the other hand, is rarely welcome, even from sources we already dislike. It’s a sad fact of life that some, even much, positive attention can be undesirable, while the converse simply isn’t true for negative attention.)

Anyway, moving on beyond all that pedantic shit, I’ve realized – well, actually, I realized it a long time ago, but it’s especially true in my current situation – that the reason customer service jobs, and call center jobs in particular, are so stressful and generally onerous is that they are all undesirable attention, all damn day long.

Nothing is more irritating or stressful than being forced to pay attention to something you find completely uninteresting or actively unpleasant, and I get four ten hour shifts of that a week – people calling me up, none of whom I’d willingly choose to speak with on any subject under most circumstances, and all they want to do is bitch at me about some problem that, seven times out of ten, is only a problem because they’re a moron, and the other three times, while it may be a valid problem they really didn’t cause through their own ignorance or incompetence, and honestly can’t resolve themselves, I still can’t make myself give a shit out it or them.

It would be different if I thought that the product I service was essential or useful, and the people who use it were truly needy. But, basically, the accounts I provide service for are a tax dodge, and the people using them would get along just as well without them (as many of them inform me at least once during any conversation I have with them).

So, all goddam day long, I’m trying to write a blog post or read something on an interesting website or eat something out of the lunch SuperFiancee packed for me or drink a Pepsi or, you know, do something else involving paying attention to something I want to pay attention to, and ‘beep-beep!’, here’s another worthless miserable whiney piece of shit cocksucker in my goddam ear bitching at me because they didn’t fill out some paperwork correctly or they forgot to get it in by the deadline or they got something in the mail which they understand perfectly well but they just don’t want to DO what it tells them to do because they find it annoying and they want me to tell them it’s okay, they can just throw it away, but I can’t, because they can’t – and I don’t GIVE A SHIT. I JUST WANT THEM TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO AWAY.

And that’s how every one of us doing my job feels, but we can’t ever allow that to show when we’re talking to these no good dumbass motherfuckers, or we’ll get bitched at by our supervisors and maybe fired. So it’s just ‘beep-beep!’ followed by “I got something in the mail from you guys today and I can’t understand how you can need any more paperwork on these charges” or “I just got online and saw that there’s an ineligible code on my last claim I really don’t understand” or “I don’t understand why I can’t use the card to pay for snow tires after all this is MY money” and, honest to god, it’s enough to make you understand these people who bring a gun to the office one day and start firing indiscriminately.

That’s what happens, when every day, all day long, you’re constantly barraged with undesirable attention that demands you pay attention back to it.

We'll see what happens this upcoming Saturday as far as the local clix plans are going.

I set up a West Coast Avengers (Vet FF Hawkeye, Vet Tigra, Experienced War Machine, Experienced Mockingbird, Vet Wonder Man) vs a mostly Stern Avengers squad (Vet Captain Marvel/Photon, Vet Black Knight, Vet Hercules, Vet Sub-Mariner, Unique Wasp, and an Experienced Falcon, just for kicks) game downstairs last Friday, but I haven’t even done the opening moves on it yet. I thought I might today, but I slept in this morning instead so it seems unlikely.

Deadwood's been gnawing these past two episodes, I agree, though this most recent one had more oomph to it than the previous week. We got to see Al back in action this time, at least.

Knowing there's only two more episodes left is what is likely getting to all of us. There's too much future for these characters for that to take care of, even with two movies to follow next year.

That’s a good point, and having said that, let me voice an agreement with SuperFiancee that’s been growing in me over the past several weeks – these new subplots regarding the traveling acting troupe are an unconscionable waste of time and screenspace that could be much better spent on other, previously established characters we have more interest in.

I can certainly understand wanting to find a part for Brian Cox on an ensemble show if he’s available and willing; I think he’s a splendid actor and I enjoy watching him in any part he plays. But when I think that we’ve probably spent at least two full episodes worth of time on these fuckers that could have been used nearly anywhere else to better effect, it makes me crazy. DEADWOOD has way too many good characters in it already, and far, far too many of those have been given short shrift this season, for me to embrace an entire posse of new folks who don’t appear to be doing anything at all to advance the main plot.

My interest in and energy for blogging -- writing or commenting -- is at an ebb, too. I look around and read but generally can't bother myself to write much if anything in response. What comes to mind is broken and banal and not worth typing.

I’ve been disappointed in a great deal of what I’ve posted lately, too, but it’s always been that way, since back in the Doc Nebula’s Eastern Oregon Dum Dum Depression Blog days. At least I can comfort myself with the fact that however bad my material may be lately, few are reading it, and fewer still troubling themselves to respond in any way. Although I haven’t checked out Portal of Evil in years; maybe they’re still yukking it up over there every time I come up out with something new.

I've been following SUPREME POWER by the trade, too, but I believe I'm one unread trade behind.

A thought that struck me recently was to wonder what numerical designation the SUPREME POWER universe has. Which led me to immediately wonder if they’ve assigned such a designation to the Ultimates Universe, which led to several thoughts at once –

* * * God, I hope not; then someone would want to do a crossover and I’d have to find them and kill them first

* * * Say, SUPREME POWER is probably the story of the Squadron Supreme in the Ultimates Universe

* * * Hey, it’s kind of weird to talk about an alternate dimensional version of an alternate dimensional team in, you know, a dimension that is already an alternative to the mainstream continuity – just how many layers are there? But then, when I think of it that far, I realize that, in fact, the Marvel mainstream is just one universe, the Ultimates is just another, and the SUPREME POWER universe would simply be another, separate one… and that doesn’t seem right; somehow it seems like the mainstream Marvel Universe and its Squadron Supreme should be more closely associated than the Ultimates Universe and its attendant alternate universe concepts… and I don’t know. It’s making my head hurt. The Ultimates Universe shouldn’t be real, let’s put it that way, and neither should the SUPREME POWER Squadron Supreme.

As for Supernova, yeah, this is going to be a tough over two months for me, as they're likely not more than a couple weeks away from official announcements concerning the set, and photos and inside info have been leaking. As I've said several times, I expect that by the time the set hits I'll have heard most of who's in it, and that it'll really be the sculpts, dials and point costs for the figures I'll most effectively be able to keep hidden.

I know you’ve said that before, and I’ll say this – if I honestly felt I couldn’t keep news of what characters were going to be included in the set from myself, I’d never try to keep the dials a secret, unless I had faith they’d be well and accurately done. The last four sets have given me no cause to have such faith at all, so I’d want to be as prepared for the inevitable and shocking disappointment of looking at the new Vet Silver Surfer’s dial and finding out he has a starting attack value of 9, with a 3 damage value, and Psychic Blast, as I possibly could. (I’m just guessing on that last, but I’d take odds.)

Of course, knowing Seth, this will only be the starting attack value, and the Surfer will see his AV surge all the way to a godlike 10 for his second slot only, and perhaps it will get back up to 10, with no powers at all, on his final slot.

One wonders how all the weenies are going to respond to a rookie Thanos with an AV of 8…

People - with the best intentions, so I can hardly be angry - have brought me news of everything from Nova and Drax to Mantis and the Super Apes -- leading me to expect a Red Ghost, too. There's almost certainly more out there by now, but I'm not looking for it.

I’m sorry folks have leaked this stuff to you. I’ve been trying not to mention anything. I believe a few more than those you’ve mentioned have been confirmed, but I’m not going to say a word beyond that.

I really, really wish I had any hope at all that Mantis will have a decent dial.

Still, I'm dutifully avoiding Boneyard's lists and anything marked as Supernova spoilers. I really, truly want to be able to open boosters and be surprised.

Good luck with that. A recent character who is almost certainly going to be a Unique will almost certainly startle and delight you, if nobody advises you as to his/her/its presence before you find one in a booster.

I couldn't pick one of the Olsen twins out of a lineup unless someone made it really easy by making everyone else black, male, etc.

I pay more attention to this stuff than you do, I guess. I never watched Full House when it was on (although I’ve seen a great deal more of it than I want to now through Nick At Nite reruns, as SuperAdorable Kid loves the show), but I’d certainly seen enough of the Olsen Twins over the last decade or so, as they became more nubile, to understand that they were individually quite comely, and when you throw in that twin thing, which nearly all men seem to share as a common erotic fantasy, well, I can certainly understand the ‘Countdown to Legal’ that a lot of guys were closely following during the march to their 18th birthday.

As do all child stars, they seem to have had more than their share of personal issues, and in the real world, I wouldn’t crawl into a hammock with either of them without extensive blood testing first… but the real world isn’t where erotic fantasies take place.

Having said that, I sometimes just write for comedic effect, and have to admit, my erotic fantasies rarely center around celebrities, anyway.

Knowing how way leads on to way

Here's a slice of life for you --

I'm sitting here typing a longish blog entry. It's my day off, and I slept in this morning, and then SuperFiancee came home for lunch and that was lovely, and she asked me to throw in a load of laundry if I had time as she was leaving to go back to work, so I took a shower and then started the laundry and sat down at the computer. And after a while I start feeling parched and a little headachey, which usually means I'm dehydrated because I drink a lot of juice and milk and soda and very little actual undiluted water, so I go out to the kitchen to get myself a glass of ice water.

Fair enough.

But there are no ice cubes in the big ice cube hopper inside the freezer door. Rotten babies -- they'll snatch out ice cubes all the livelong day to put in their drinks; even the six year old can reach that high; but unless you threaten them with a bullwhip, they refuse to undertake the onerous task of wrenching and bending and twisting the plastic ice cube trays to get the ice cubes out of them and into the hopper.

So I do that, which takes much longer than it would if I weren't an incompetent at nearly every pragmatic matter, and which involves a great deal of cursing and beating the ice cube trays against the counter, which is probably either amusing or appalling to the girl who rents the small studio apartment directly above our kitchen, and as she's a devout Born Again I figure I know which.

This of course means I have to refill the ice cube trays, and being what Clumsy Carp used to refer to as a maladroit, in the process of doing this simple task I manage to splatter water all over the floor in front of the fridge, so I have to clean that up.

Pray remember: All I wanted was a drink of ice water, but it's starting to look like I'll never get out of this kitchen alive.

After I wipe up the floor, I realize that breakfast (which I blissfully slept through) and lunch (which SuperFiancee and I hurried through because we'd spent most of her lunchbreak doing things you don't want details of, or even if you do, you can't have anyway) have generated between them a decent sinkful of dishes. And there are clean dishes in the dishwasher to be unloaded, of course. Unloading and reloading the dishwasher is another one of those Bullwhip Chores in our household, and I could leave it until the SuperKids get home from SuperSchool and then relentlessly dump it on them (sometimes you just have to brandish that bullwhip; it's something all parents know but few of us are willing to talk about) but there are occasions when I don't feel like I'm pulling my weight around here (mostly because SuperFiancee makes more money than I do in her 'real job' which, as at least two of my silent lurkers would happily tell you, makes me a dreadful parent and not much of a man into the bargain), so, fukkit, I'm out here anyway, I may as well do that.

So I unload and reload and the dishwasher is currently running even as I type. (But most likely not as you read. Ha! Confusing time dilation stuff.)

So I get done with all that and now the washing machine should be finished so I open the basement door and stick my head past the entryway to listen and sure enough, all I hear is the sound of the various basement water heaters busily thrumming and/or hissing as they heat up water for the various different apartments in this large, converted, once-one-family home. So I troop down there and pull the clothes out of the washer and throw them into the dryer and start up the dryer and then hit myself in the forehead and go "D'oh!" as I realize I didn't clean out the lint trap which, you know, if SuperFiancee were here and she knew of my crime she'd just shoot me like a dog and I'd deserve it, too, so I stop the dryer (after casting around vaguely for several seconds looking for an 'off' switch, I finally just give up and open the damn dryer door) and clean out the lint trap and then close the dryer door again and push the start switch once more.

And now, here I am, typing all this to you.

I just wanted a drink of water.

And I have one, and feel much better now, thanks.

I should probably take the garbage out...

Everybody Beats The Crap Out Of Raymond With A Crowbar

I'm telling you, I could make a fortune doing programming for any major network.

So I got nothin' going on. Work still sucks. Nobody will play HeroClix with me. Can't find gamers for my RPG. T'ousands o' cool little plastic figures around the apartment, gathering dust. Along with twenty years worth of work on a roleplaying campaign I can't get anyone to play in.

Yeah. All I have in my life is the greatest fiancee in the world and the most fabulous kids imaginable. Woe. Woe is me.

The last two episodes of DEADWOOD have been way too short, too. Anybody who's paying for HBO just to watch this show should be pissed.

It's weird. Both my blog and SuperFiancee's seem to be in a slump. No one much is commenting on either. Now, with me it could just be that I'm obnoxious, but I can't understand why SHE doesn't get comments. She's fabulous! She should have a book deal. It makes no sense. Everyone go give her nice comments. Do it NOW.

Hey, I took SUPREME POWER VOL. 1 out of the library and read it last weekend. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. Squadron Supreme meets Watchmen. Interesting. I wonder who the fish guy is.

WizKids has confirmed quite a few of the figs that will be in SUPERNOVA, but I can't talk about that here or Mike Norton will beat me to death with his Spectre sculpt.

It looks like being an even better set than SINISTER for character choice. I assume the dials will make strong men weep, though. Seems like a safe presumption.

I should just give up on REINVENTING COMICS.

It amazes me that no one on the internet has ever published a Photoshopped picture of the Olsen twins tongue kissing each other.

Not that I've looked exhaustively, or anything.

Catch up

Finished A FISTFUL OF RAIN by Greg Rucka, started on RED THUNDER by John Varley.

I was correct in that I had successfully guessed two of the bad guys in FISTFUL, but there was a third I didn't get until I was told. I guess that's a triumph for Rucka. But I like it when writers surprise me, so it's a triumph for me, too.

RED THUNDER is okay so far, but Varley meanders too much. He's a Heinlein school writer, but, well, like most Heinlein school writers, he can't quite get to the point as quickly as RAH would. One of RAH's real strengths was the ability to do exposition and character work at the exact same time as he moved his plots along. This broke down quite a lot in Heinlein's last decade of life, but in his prime, he could tell you who his protagonist was, describe the world and society they lived in, all in the same terse, mostly monosyllabic sentence in which he also described his protagonist kicking a bad guy out a window on the 122nd floor of the New Age Hotel. The best of his students -- John Varley, Joe Haldeman, S.M. Stirling, Lois McMaster Bujold -- haven't managed to get that down. Some come close; others don't even try all that hard. Varley isn't one who works at terseness with any great energy; he seems to really like stylistic sprawl. Not as much as Samuel R. Delaney, but, well, hardly anybody likes it as much as Samuel R. Delaney.

Despite my determination to hack down my year old in stack of SF/fantasy/whatever novels, I grabbed a stack of comics related stuff out of the library when we went last week. I'm currently more or less grinding my way through my old college buddy Scott McLeod's REINVENTING COMICS.

I own a copy of UNDERSTANDING COMICS (a gift from SuperFiancee) and remember enjoying it a lot, but Scott's being a great deal preachier in this one, as he lays out his vision for how he feels the comic book art form could best develop and evolve. Since he starts this out with his usual "superhero comics are for retards, and god, if only the retards would stop holding the wonderful brilliant art form of comic books back, we could all live perfect, perfect lives" riff, well, he pissed me off right from the start. His 12 point manifesto as regards every direction/dimension comic books should be expanding in, including, but not limited to, more participation from both women AND minorities, because, you know, it's the stupid dumb ass white guys (who like superhero comics) who have oppressed this fabulous medium since its inception, honestly isn't doing anything to assuage my irritation, either. Let me discourse for a moment:

We retarded primarily white male superhero comic book fans pretty much invented the art form. And when we invented the art form, adapting it from the then very popular adventure and/or humor comic strips in the newspapers, we experimented with a lot of different types of stories. Detective stories, romance stories, Westerns, space opera, military, funny animals, adventure in lush exotic foreign locales... we tried it all. Then a couple of retarded white male superhero fans named Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster took a fairly standard white male adventurer type character, put him in long underwear, and let him leap tall buildings with a single bound.

And a great many people liked that and bought it, so another retarded white male superhero fan named Bob Kane took a fairly standard white male detective hero and put him in a pointy eared cowl and people liked that a lot, too, and bought it in droves, and suddenly a whole bunch of retarded white males were creating a great many retarded white male superhero characters. And a great many more retarded white males of all age groups bought them. And we retarded white male superhero fans have been horribly and grievously oppressing and limiting the potential of the wonderful brilliant comic book art form ever since.

Hully gee.

All right, enough of that. I also got... hrm... what did I also get? I can't remember. Well, a couple of the Alan Moore SWAMP THING collections, as I haven't read those stories in a very long time. And a lot of stuff I wouldn't normally waste money on if I saw it in a store, but I can't remember any of it right now. But it reminds me that last trip, a few weeks ago, I took out IDENTITY CRISIS and wound up liking it a great deal more than I expected to, so I'm buying Brad Metzler's new JUSTICE LEAGUE book now.

And I'm also about halfway through the SHOWCASE JUSTICE LEAGUE reprint edition. Goofy old stories, but a lot of fun.

Over at the Martian Vision site, as I alluded to in an earlier comment thread, I've picked up a couple of comments from a younger comics fan, who mostly seemed to want to point out factual errors in one of my longer articles. Despite disclaimers on the page itself, and at the top of the article, about how I write for fun, usually at work, where I don't have reference material available to me, and therefore, my articles are generally rife with factual errors, still, I get these people from time to time, who just seem to be unable to control their compulsion to send me a note advising me that B'wana Beast really never actually appeared in THRILLING JUNGLE STORIES, but actually had a seven issue run in its companion magazine, AMAZING TALES OF THE RAIN FOREST, instead.

Still, I always like to find out new things, and this fellow did point out to me that Brainiac 5 of the Legion of Superheroes is not, in fact, an android, and never has been one, and this so astounded me that I looked it up on the Internet, and found out it was true.

Now, at one time or another I have read virtually every member of the Legion of Superheroes, including Brainiac 5 himself, refer to Brainiac 5 as an android, and I clearly remember an issue of one of the rebooted post Crisis Legion series where he damned well WAS an android... but, no, apparently, the Silver Age Brainiac 5 was, in fact, the descendent of some guy who was the adopted son of Brainiac, the cybernetic/robotic/android Superman villain. And apparently, this green skinned humanoid guy who was adopted by Brainiac had some kind of brain surgery done to make him as smart as a computer, and those enhancements were passed along to his children, and that's where Brainiac 5 came from.

So, live and learn. And I appreciate the opportunity to improve my Silver Age superhero trivia database, too. And yet, I have to wonder what the hell is going on with all this android envy in the Legion of Superheroes. First Timber Wolf thinks he's an android, but he isn't, and now Brainiac 5 is running around telling people he's an android, but he's not. Very weird.

By the way, if you're a fan of the Silver Age Legion of Superheroes, this web site seems to have all the info you'll ever need. It does lack any data on the much too short lived Cary Bates/Dave Cockrum era of the Legion, which makes me sad, but still, there's a lot of great info here.

And we had a power failure yesterday after a heavy storm, and it lasted until around 9:30, and it was very annoying, and as always lately when things like this happen, it makes me wonder just how much longer our current technological infrastructure is going to last. And how I'm possibly going to survive when there is no electricity any more. (Our recent 40 days without a car had me wondering how I was going to survive when there was no gasoline any more, but the electricity thing is going to be even harder to live with... for me, if not for our society as a whole.)

My hero

My previous response to Bam-Kapow's Top Ten Manliest Superheroes Ever list has provoked a few more thoughts in me.

I admit it frankly; I was rash, and I went in guns blazing, without adequate reflection. What I should have done, prior to refuting a list already drawn up, or attempting to formulate my own, was first, define the terms adequately.

This would mean not only defining 'manliness', but also, well, 'superhero'.

The author of the Bam-Kapow list, Michael McDaniel, defined 'manly' in the following way: "I like to think a ‘manly’ man is best known for his lack of knowledge on fashion, his chauvinist attitude toward feelings (marked by a great emotional dysfunction), and his general willingness to fight at the drop of a hat."

I wouldn't argue with any of this, and in fact, the last point especially seems telling -- a big defining factor for 'manliness', as I understand it, is an aggressive, pugnacious willingness, if not absolute vehement insistence, on resolving any conflict whatsoever with another human being, or at least, another adult male human being, through enthusiastic application of violence.

This last bit, by the way, pretty much eliminates Superman from the contention, as for the enormous majority of Superman's appearances, fisticuffs haven't figured in his problem solving approach. This is largely because Superman is, well, Superman; if his plot problems could be resolved by a punch in the snoot, then none of his stories would run longer than three panels.

While I'm on the subject of eliminating folks, let me mention at this point that I in no way regard 'manly' as being a positive attribute. Testosterone poisoning is never pretty. Drawing up a list of the Manliest Superheroes of All Time should not be confused with assembling a roster of My Favorite Superheroes of All Time. There may be some slight overlap between the two lists, but if there is, it would be despite a favorite character's 'manliness', not because of it.

Anyway. So far, in defining 'manly', we have three factors, according to Bam-Kapow -- lack of fashion sense, emotional disfunction, and an absolute willingness to settle any argument with a hard right cross to the jaw.

Or, at least, these are the criteria set out at the beginning of McDaniel's article. Along the way, however, he slips in a few other standards, like, you know, cigar smoking, beer guzzling, and a willingness to only have sex with either very butch chicks, or emotionally disfunctional ones. I'm not sure on that final one, but if we boil all this down to 'manly vices', and read that to mean, smoking, drinking, and ho chasin', well, that's fine. Throw it on the pile.

In addition, I'd add in a few other factors. First, there's the ride. You can't be manly without an awesome ride... well, you can be, but it's waaaay harder. Certainly, having an awesome ride is going to add mad manliness points.

Beyond this, and growing out of the Will to Violence we've already placed on the list, you have perhaps the most important Manliness Factor of all -- if two contenders for manly stature have a fight, which of them will emerge triumphant? In other words, of all the alpha males in the vast pantheon of superheroics, which is the most dominant of all, said dominance which must inevitably be established by punching, kicking, or using focused particle beams to blast one's opponent through the nearest partition?

This is the definition of manliness I'm willing to accept, going forward, in any attempt to establish any sort of definitive list of The Manliest Superheroes Of All Time. For a superhero to be Manly, they have to be fashion impaired, emotionally disfunctional, violent, willing to indulge in the traditional manly vices, possessed of a unique, fabulous, trademark ride, and last but not least, able to supremely kick the ass of any other manly superhero (or villain) that so much as twitches an eyebrow at them in an even vaguely confrontational manner.

Which isn't to say that a Manly Superhero has to possess all these qualities, but if said Manly Superhero lacks any one (or more) of them, he/she/it is going to have to make up for that lack in some other area in a truly fanatical, nearly deranged fashion.

Coming up with this definition actually wasn't all that hard. The more difficult part is defining the other part of the subject line, which is to say -- what exactly is a superhero?

The easiest thing to do would be to say that a 'superhero' is any 'hero' who is 'super', i.e., is capable of doing things normal human beings cannot.

Unfortunately, purists will immediately protest this, and with some justification. After all, Batman and Captain America have no 'superhuman' powers, and for that matter, Green Lantern and Iron Man have no innate, natural super abilities, either.

Even more treacherous, if we let it get that far, is the furious debate that can spring up around the word 'hero'. And I should know, as I'm one of the folks in the forefront of the 'Wolverine and the Punisher are not heroes, they're goddam psychos' movement. Many Modern Age super-protagonists, especially those created by most of the Alan Moore wannabes like Bendis, Ellis, Millar, Ennis, et al, are in no way, shape or form anything resembling 'heroic'. And we can argue about that all day, but ultimately, if we're going to get any kind of list assembled, we're just going to have to agree (however grudgingly) that the word 'hero' jest ain’t what it used to be, and nowadays, a 'hero' can be anyone who maintains any kind of moral superiority, however thin, nebulous, or occasionally imperceptible, over the bad guys they routinely do battle with.

It's best to just sidestep all such debates entirely, and acknowledge that the phrase 'superhero' has taken on a meaning that transcends its two root words. There are, as mentioned, many superheroes who aren't superhuman; similarly, there are just as many or more who aren't particularly heroic. Still, if we're going to avoid egregious errors such as putting gigantic Japanese robots and/or prehistoric sword wielding savages on a Most Manly Superheroes Ever list, we obviously need to establish some kind of universally agreeable definition.

Here, here, and here I've discussed various specific aspects of the superhero as he/she/it has been consistently presented in comic books, and other media, for the last sixty years or so. Stuff like the cool code name, the costume, the secret identity, the super powers, the simplified morality, the fight scenes, and the heroic motivation.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that while these are all common trappings of superheroics, only one of them is absolutely essential to superheroism. After all, not only are there inarguable members of the superhero community who lack one, or more than one, of these attributes (there are superheroes who don’t wear costumes, there are superheroes who don’t have secret identities, there are superheroes who refuse to adopt a cool code name, there are superheroes who exist in worlds with very realistically complex morality), but there are many characters out there who have nearly all of them, and yet, that I would not consider to be superheroes – Baron and Rude’s Nexus, for example, has the cool code name, the alternate identity, the nifty costume, and the super powers, and he’s certainly the protagonist of his series and he certainly goes up against opponents who are morally much worse than he is. But I wouldn’t call him a superhero, and when I think of why, here’s what I come back to:

His motivation isn’t very heroic. Which is to say, yeah, he kills mass murderers, but he doesn’t do it because he thinks it’s a good idea, or he wants to serve humanity, or justice, or protect the innocent. He does it because the alien entity that gives him his super powers will kill him with ultrapowerful migraines if he doesn’t do it.

Which is to say, he does it for personal, selfish reasons.

So what is a superhero? For my purposes, I’m going to say that a ‘superhero’ is someone who regularly performs feats and demonstrates capacities beyond those of normal humanity as we, the consensus audience, understand the limitations of humanity to be, and who does so in service of some ideal that is larger than his own personal concerns, and which involves the ongoing protection of people they do not personally know or care about.

Within this admittedly broad definition, yeah, we can cram in Frank Castle and Wolverine. They may be nuts, they may do what they do out of personal, unhealthy and sometimes psychotic impulse, but, well, that’s just the Modern Age. Both of them routinely perform feats of derring do impossible to normal humanity, and both of them do so, for the most part, in pursuit of a goal greater than themselves, for no personal reward. They aren’t paid to do it, they aren’t in it for the glory, and as a general rule, while they may get a certain sick satisfaction out of kicking ass and taking names, that isn’t why they do it, either. They’re fighting for something other than their own selfish personal interests, they’re at least slightly morally better than the forces they fight, and while they fight this fight, they are routinely performing actions beyond the capacities of normal humans. Hence… ‘superheroes’.

Having settled all this, it seems I’ll have to revise my list.

In my initial response, my list was enumerated as follows: ”As to my own Manliest Superheroes Ever list, well, I suppose I'd most likely put Batman and Captain America both at Number One, Daredevil at Number Two, throw in Hawkeye and Green Arrow at a tie for 3 (they're both pretty seriously testosterone poisoned), let Hellboy in at 4, make Ben Grimm 5, give Wolverine and the Punisher a tie for 6, the Sub Mariner would swim in at a solid 7, Hawkman gets an 8 just for pummeling his enemies with a frickin' medieval mace, Tom Strong comes in at 9 just because he does, and Power Girl would end up at 10, for obvious reasons.”

Since posting this, I’ve had a few other suggestions for possible additions to the list. Opus suggested Swamp Thing, and Nate chimed in with an urgent perceived need to add Superman to the list. Agnosticuss submitted his own list, which mostly echoed mine, but which also included Luke Cage, Iron Man, Robotman, and Cyclops.

Superman I’ve already addressed up at the start of this thing. Yeah, he’s a superhero – he is, in fact, the first superhero, the very icon of superheroism. But in terms of the parody level ‘manliness’ we are trying to define in this article – a better name for which might be ‘machismo’ or just ‘macho’ -- well, he’s just not very ‘manly’. (Mind you, that’s hardly a bad thing.) Supes may not have much fashion sense, but he’s hardly emotionally dysfunctional, isn’t particularly violent except as an absolute last resort, has no vices we’re aware of, has never had anything remotely resembling a ‘ride’, and while he most likely can kick the ass of anyone else who ends up on the list ahead of him, he wouldn’t really perceive the necessity, which completely invalidates him from any claim whatsoever to being ‘macho’.

Batman, on the other hand – if Green Arrow says he’s more manly than Batman, Green Arrow can look forward to getting his ass kicked in short order. And vice versa; were Batman to ever advise Ollie Queen that he feels he himself is manlier than the Emerald Archer, Ollie is reaching for a boxing glove arrow. So either of them can stay on the list.

Swamp Thing – well, leaving aside the obvious lack of, you know, manly apparatus like spear and magic helmet, still, he’s way too calm to be macho. He’ll kick ass, but he has to have an excellent reason to do it. If Wolverine were to show up in Houma, Louisiana and strut around with a bullhorn calling Swamp Thing a big sissy, Swamp Thing would just ignore the little idiot. Swamp Thing is also a far cry from being emotionally dysfunctional these days, and as far as I can tell, he has no manly vices at all. So, sorry, scratch Swamp Thing off the Manly Superheroes list, too.

As to Luke Cage, Iron Man, Robotman, and Cyclops –

All superheroes are, to some extent or another, lacking in fashion sense. Cage, with his gigantic steel chain around his waist, his bright yellow open silk shirt, his skin tight midnight blue trousers, his banana colored buccaneer boots, his chromium headband, and his huge chrome wristbands, is a prime offender. We’ve seen him smoking cigars and drinking hard liquor, and he’s certainly been a ho chaser in his prime, although I understand that he’s recently gotten married to some appalling Brian Michael Bendis character, so those days are hopefully behind him. And as those of us who saw the knock down drag out fights between Cage and the original Power Man, or Cage and Black Goliath, can attest, he’s willing to fight anyone at any time for any reason until all the surrounding buildings are reduced to rubble and he and/or his opponent are exhausted masses of blood and bruises.

On the other hand, he has no ride, and he’s not particularly emotionally dysfunctional given all the shit he’s been through. Still, I think he more than makes up for this in other areas, and I have no difficulty imagining him picking up the nearest Yellow Cab and clobbering anyone ahead of him on this list over the head with it, just to improve his ranking. So, fine, he’s in the running.


Iron Man – well, he has a drinking problem, and when he’s drunk he tends to have behavior issues. But he’s a damn dapper dresser out of armor, he’s not particularly dysfunctional when he’s sober, he’s currently on the wagon, and he’s no more inclined to throw down at the drop of a cape or cowl than any other Marvel superhero. You could, if you want, count his armor as his ride, and if you do it’s a pretty cool one, but, alas, it’s not exactly a vehicle. So, overall… nah, I wouldn’t put Iron Man on the list.

Robotman – I have no idea. I can’t see how he can smoke, drink, or chase skirts, though; I don’t think he has a ride, and I’ve never heard of him squaring off against, say, Cyborg, for the title of Meanest Chrome Plated Man Machine of All. So I don’t think he measures up. Sorry.

Cyclops – No, sorry, Scott is way too disciplined to be in the running for Manliest Superhero of All Time. He’s cool, calm and collected, and if you don’t believe me, consider for a moment that Wolverine isn’t currently embedded in the lunar surface or spread all over several acres of Connecticut real estate. That should tell you all you need to know about Scott Summers’ compulsive need to settle every conflict with violence. Beyond that, Scott dresses pretty well, doesn’t have much of a ride, and for someone who can break anyone or anything in existence just by looking at it, he’s damn well balanced. He’s manly, sure; you can’t ramrod the X-Men in the field for twenty years and not be. But he’s not crazy ass macho-parody manly.

So how would I revise my own list? Well, first, I’d kick Captain America off it and replace him with USAgent. USAgent is, in every way, a macho parody of Cap. Tell USAgent that Batman is more manly than he is, and USAgent will go ballistic. Say the same thing to Cap, and he’ll shrug.

For similar reasons, I’d have to remove Daredevil. Yeah, he beats the crap out of people he doesn’t like with a club, and that’s pretty macho, and yeah, he once wore the most horrifying costume in the history of comics besides that gross Rocky Horror Picture Show thing Mike Grell once put Cosmic Boy in. But he has no ride, and like Cap, he’s just going to flip you the bird if you tell him someone is manlier than he is; he’s got no time for that nonsense. He’s gone through his psycho stage, to be sure, but he doesn’t smoke, drink, and while his love interests are on the skankier side (Heather, Karen Page, the Black Widow) still, it’s not like he’s out in the pick up bars every night cruising for snatch. So, I’d have to kick him off, too.

Tom Strong I’d take off, too. Tom’s entirely too reasonable to be a macho jerk.

Batman I’d keep on the list, but I’d move him back to Number 2. Hawkeye and Green Arrow would still tie, but this time at 3. Hellboy would come in at 4, with Punisher and Wolverine at 5 (and, again, I still encourage them to fight it out, especially if Frank has a flame thrower or a howitzer). Ben Grimm, Namor, and Hawkman can all stay on it; where doesn’t really matter. I’d keep Power Girl just for laughs, and, well, she deserves it, too. And with my more clarified definition of a superhero, I’d wedge Nick Fury in there somewhere, because, you know, he smokes and drinks and chases a lot of tail, he’ll beat the crap out of anything that moves at the drop of a hat, and he has both that utterly cool flying Lotus as well as the frickin’ SHIELD helicarrier, which are pretty awesome rides. And he’s a real man’s man for emotional disfunction.

And I'd need to add in Luke Cage, too, as Agnosticuss' arguments there are persuasive. He can slug it out with Ben Grimm for whatever spot they both end up at.

But who’s my new Number One? Who, with my new definition of both Manly and Superhero, skates past even the Batman for Most Testosterone Poisoned Superhero of all time?

James.
Tiberius.
Kirk.

YEAH, baby. THAT’s right. Captain frickin’ Kirk, head honcho of the U .S.S. Enterprise, which is in and of itself the biggest, baddest, most tricked out and asskicking superhero ride of all time.

What’s that you say? Captain Kirk is mad cool but dude, he isn’t a superhero? Hell, you even said yourself in your previous entry that he wasn’t a superhero, so what the hell is this now?

Okay. I know. But that was before I gave further reflection to the whole superhero deal.

Jim Kirk has it all. He’s got a costume. Yeah, it’s a military uniform, but so is the Green Lantern outfit; want to tell me Hal Jordan isn’t a superhero? No? Then shut up. Kirk frequently does stuff no mere mortal could possibly do, like survive a transporter accident that divides him into two separate bodies, and beat the crap out of Klingons and Romulans and alien gladiators and all that hoohah with his bare hands. He may not have actual super powers, but he’s got an indomitable will, galaxy class charisma, an invincible left hook, a phaser in his belt, and enough brains and resourcefulness to whip up a primitive mortar out of bamboo and charcoal if he needs to kick a humanoid velociraptor's ass in order to save the entire human race from extinction.

Most important of all, Jim Kirk isn’t out there cruising the galaxy, blowing up alien computers, kicking the shit out of telekinetic deities, rescuing green skinned cuties and beating holy hell out of entire busloads full of renegade genetically engineered supermen for his own personal gratification, or even because it’s his job. He’s an idealist, fighting for truth, justice, and the United Federation of Planets. He’s an explorer, boldly going where no man has gone before, and kicking the snot out of anyone who tries to get in his, or the United Federation of Planet's, way. He’s defending his ship and his crew. He’s fighting for an ideal, something bigger than himself, something he has no personal stake in.

He’s a superhero.

Yeah, I know. He doesn’t SEEM like a superhero, not the same way Batman and Green Arrow and even Hellboy seem like superheroes. I don’t care. He’s an iconic, larger than life character who exhibits superhuman qualities, he behaves in a heroic manner as defined above, and I’m going with it. Your mileage may vary, just as mine did from Michael McDaniel’s on the subject of Conan (and friggin’ Optimus Prime). But this is my list, and on my list, James T. Kirk is a superhero.

(Now, I know, this opens up an inevitable can of worms – if Jim Kirk is a superhero, then why isn’t Luke Skywalker? Or maybe that doesn’t seem inevitable to you, because you’re not as big a geek as I am, and if so, well, god bless and hand me that stack of Silver Age Captain America comics on your way out the door, would you? But if you were thinking that question, or even if you weren’t, my answer would be, Luke Skywalker is a superhero, he’s just a lame ass one who is about as manly as a frickin’ tribble and who probably couldn’t win a fist fight with R2D2, which is sad, since R2 doesn’t even have hands, and is easily toppled in a fracas.)

As for Kirk’s manly qualities, well, he drinks Romulan ale until he passes out and chases everything female from one end of the Milky Way to the other, and generally catches it, too. His most cherished unfulfilled fantasy was to beat the living shit out of some dweeb who pissed him off back in the Academy, and he’s proven himself more than willing to use violence as first, middle, and last resort whenever any kind of problem needs to be solved on his beat. And as to the final requirement of manliness – i.e., can he take anyone else on the Manly Superheroes List in a fight – well, I have six simple words for you:

“Mr. Sulu, lock phasers on target.”

Kind of makes a utility belt look pretty frickin’ lame, eh?

Martian Vision: The Complete Series

For those who care about such things -- well, even for those who don't, I guess -- I've now finished loading every Martian Vision article I'm going to. Although the articles are scattered over two different sites, due to the vagaries of Blogger, as long as you use the column of links on the right hand side of this page, or over at the main Martian Vision site itself, you should be fine.

A big THANK YOU, spelled out with Martian laser vision in the side of the closest sheer granite cliff, has to go to Steve Tice, who hunted up copies of my slightly infamous 4 part METAPHYSICS FOR METAHUMANS article for me. Without it, Martian Vision wouldn't have been complete. Posting that, along with the always controversial WHEN TITANS CRASH and the two part FREAK OUT, pretty much completes the series, other than the various other articles already published on my several different Angelfire sites.

Enjoy! Or don't. It really makes no never mind to me.

Manly, yes

SuperFiancee points me to Bam-Kapow!, where some blogger with no sense at all has listed his Top Ten Manliest Superheroes.

Naturally, I can't just leave this lie. I have to get into it.

Sometimes, I just have no impulse control.

Bam-Kapow! starts out by defining manliness, and right away, it’s all fucked up. Let’s take a look:

“Now what makes a superhero manly? I like to think a ‘manly’ man is best known for his lack of knowledge on fashion, his chauvinist attitude toward feelings (marked by a great emotional dysfunction), and his general willingness to fight at the drop of a hat.

Interesting definitions. Given that there isn’t a male superhero in the world who dresses as if he has the vaguest subatomic particle of fashion sense, I think this criterion hardly narrows the field, and in point of fact, given that B-K has thrown it out there as a factor, I would have to expect if the writer has a brain in his head then the guy’s #1 manly superhero judged on the basis of fashion-victimhood would have to be Daredevil, for that godawful red and yellow thing DD wore briefly in his first few issues. But in fact, Daredevil appears nowhere on the list, which is frankly insane, when you factor in not only the fact that Daredevil once wore the worst costume in the history of the world, but he also used to beat the living crap out of six hundred ninjas at once without breaking a sweat.

Now, Daredevil could lose points for being portrayed in his movie by the ultimate wussie boy Ben Affleck, but then we'd have to seriously ding Batman's manliness score for Michael Keaton and that George Clooney sissy from ER, and I don't want to, so let's leave that out, and stick with the fact that Daredevil's first costume was insanely horrible, and he beats the living crap out of ninjas and cyborgs and guys on giant stilts with a club.

Show me anyone else on this moronic list who does anything manlier than that. Well, you can’t, as we shall see.

10. Batman -

What the fuck? Someone makes a Manly Superheroes List and Batman is NUMBER TEN? Just how many times and how hard did this numbnutz get dropped on his head when he was a baby, anyway? Let’s see how he justifies this bullshit:

Some of you may be shocked by Batman’s placement in this list

Well, it certainly argues against any notion any intelligent reader might have had as to your capacity for rational analysis of even your own admittedly dimwitted subject matter, yeah.

but you should first consider some very telling signs that he may not be as ‘manly’ as he might first appear. For starters, he has to use all those gadgets and gizmos to get anything done, and while some may hail his utility belt as a wonderful piece of crime-fighting equipment, all I see is a glorified fanny pack.

Yeah. Okay. I’m not going to argue that there aren’t any ‘telling signs’ that Batman may not be as ‘manly’ as he appears, but the fact that Batman built himself the world’s greatest set of tools and he carries them around with him at all times and he’s really really proficient at using them to fix stuff and solve problems, mostly by blowing them into teeny tiny pieces, is certainly not one of them.

Making your own tools, and then employing them to defuse the Joker’s nuclear bomb before it blows up Gotham City, is certainly not something that makes anyone ‘less manly’, nor, for that matter, is wearing a belt around your waist at all times that is packed with thermite and nitroglycerine.

What else makes Batman less manly, according to Bam-Kapow? Well…

Batman, as Bruce Wayne, simply has way too easy of a life to be the manliest of men. He’s only Batman what, 70% of the time? That’s only 70% manliness while 30% of the time he’s the wussy Bruce Wayne who seems too able to match brown shoes with a brown belt to me, a real man doesn’t notice such color coordinating nuisances that keep him from wearing his favorite boots with his black and red plaid shirt.

First, Batman is Batman all the time, Bruce Wayne is a charade. Those of us who know anything about the character know this, just as we know that while Bruce Wayne may act like a wussy, and certainly, his name is Bruce and that’s just a cross he has to bear, nonetheless, Bruce Wayne can kill anyone he wants to at any time, with the cuticles of either thumb, or his eyebrows, if he feels like it. And Bruce Wayne can’t color coordinate shit; that’s what he pays Alfred for.

So while we like his dark nature, dysfunctional personality and propensity for violence, we don’t like the pansy routine (no matter how necessary to keep up appearances) or his general concern for others’ feelings.

First, Batman recently inundated the entire DC Universe with rampaging murderous cybernetic killing machines just because the other members of the Justice League pissed him off. That’s how much concern Batman has for other people’s ‘feelings’. So screw that noise.

Beyond this, Batman may very well be the manliest superhero of all time simply on the basis of his frickin’ car, which makes the powerful Mach 5 look like the Partridge Family tour bus.

And then you have to factor in all his other vehicles. I mean, for the love of sweet baby jebus, Batman has a helicopter, a submarine, a speedboat, a jet plane fully equipped with ground and air to air missiles, and a frickin’ rocket ship, dude. And he pilots every single one of them with a skill and ease and expertise that make Doc Savage look like a pansy; if Batman wanted to, he could punch the Riddler in the jaw while piloting his Bat-submarine down one railroad track through an unlit tunnel at 75 miles per hour with his cowl on backwards.

Assuming Batman gets one bazillion manliness points for each of his utterly cool Bat-vehicles, and then we give him another one bazillion manliness points simply for the fact that he can beat anything living in the universe into sobbing helplessness with the soles of his feet if he feels like it, and then we throw another bazillion manliness points into the hopper for his unbelievably cool utility belt/tool kit, I defy you to find me a manlier superhero anywhere.

Even when we deduct for the stuff that should truly be deducted for, like Batman’s unfortunate weakness for 12 year old orphan boys in scaly green underwear and peter pan booties, he’s still got to be about eight or nine bazillion points ahead of the rest of the pack (other than Captain America, for reasons we shall examine soon).

Let’s see what Bam-Kapow came up with for their next spot on the list:

9. Optimus Prime -

Ok, bear with me on this one, he’s the only Autobot who can fight worth a damn, being a true warrior and all. Plus, he’s a semi. He’s a truck, which can turn into a half truck, half robot that kicks Megatron ass and has a largely dysfunctional authoritarian complex. He’s a trucker! And everyone knows that all truckers are manly men right? So by all standards, Optimus Prime (with the deepest/coolest voice on this list I might add) is a manly man, er…robot-man…thingy.

Dude. Optimus Prime is a robot. He has no genitalia.

Retarded. Rejected.

Moving on --

8. Captain America -

Captain America is a lot like Batman in that he fights with his fists, is a bit of a rebel, and tends to take the moral high ground a lot. But unlike Batman, Cap is a badass 24/7. Steve Rogers (his real identity) is just as manly a man as Captain America. Cap also doesn’t need a bunch of fancy doo-dads like Batman over there, but gets things done with a simple shield. Like MacGyver before him, Cap can do just about anything with that darned thing.

I have no argument with some of this, although it should be noted that Steve Rogers, last I looked, was a professional commercial artist making his living drawing lingerie ads. I’m not sure where that comes in to the manliness thing, but I’m pretty sure it’s no better nor worse than being named Bruce and acting like a wussy so nobody suspects you can actually kill any half dozen Daxamites with the tips of your cowl-ears if you need to at any given moment of the day or night.

I would say Cap is as manly (if not more so) as Batman in terms of, you know, their general combat capacities; however, all Cap has for a ride is an admittedly cool motorcycle and the occasional borrowed Avengers quinjet. So Batman has him totally outmanned there.

As to the notion that Cap can do anything with his shield that Batman can do with his utility belt, well, I have a great deal of respect for Cap's skill with his shield, but I doubt like hell he can hack into a computer with it, plant a tracking device on the Red Skull's car with it, or blow up one of Batroc ze Leaper's giant robot assassins with it. So, again - retarded. Rejected.

But maybe Bam-Kapow has a little more to support this completely idiotic, unwarranted, and utterly unjustifiable positioning of Cap ahead of Batman on a Manly Superheroes list by two full rankings than what we've seen. Let’s continue --

It should be noted that, along with Optimus Prime, Cap is a natural born leader who is able to lead other manly men just as easily as he is going it alone.

First, this sentence is profoundly fucked up, but, I suppose that’s manly, so I’ll leave it alone. Second, when Batman gives someone in the Justice League or the Outsiders an order, they goddam well jump up and click their heels together, so Cap has no edge here.

He was once a chopper riding rebel (when he took on the identity of Nomad)

This simply betrays the author’s abysmal ignorance on his chosen subject matter. Cap became the first Nomad, yes, right after he got involved in the White House scandal and became disillusioned as to the America he was supposedly representing. But that Nomad never went anywhere near a motorcycle; the ‘chopper riding rebel’ referred to here is Jack Monroe, a one time sidekick of Cap’s who took on Cap’s Nomad identity for a while back in the 1990s, and who recently got killed at the start of the Winter Soldier storyline. Which isn't very manly.

and Cap’s only worried about feelings of camaraderie with his fellow soldiers. His women tend to be somewhat manly as well (we’re talking personality here), like his love affair with the attractive but deadly Agent 13, but note that he never commits to her. Partly cause he gets a little Atlantean on the side and partly cause a manly man can’t be tied down to dead weight ya hear?

This is bullshit. If sleeping with butch chicks makes you manly, well, logically, sleeping with butch guys is the manliest thing ever, and I’m not ready for the Village People to be spots 1 through 5 on this list.

Overall, I find this reasoning specious, disagreeable, and scurrilous. Certainly Cap should be on any Manliest Superhero Ever list, and he may very well be tied with Batman for Number One, but the factors listed above are odious, slackwitted, and without merit.

What we have to consider here are two things -- First, Batman completely Out Vehicles Cap. But he completely Out Vehicles nearly everyone except maybe James T. Kirk, and James T. Kirk isn't a superhero. Still, Cap just can't compare here.

However, the second factor may be more important in the Overall Manliness context -- if Cap and Batman had a fight, who would win? Better geeks -- well, other geeks, anyway -- than I have argued fruitlessly on this subject for decades without settling it, and I wouldn't presume to have any greater insights than any of them -- oh hell yes I would. It would be a tough fight, but Cap would win. This is undoubtable and inarguable and I will brook no insolence on anyone's part in regard to this.

So, all we have left to settle is, when it comes to Manliness, is winning the fist fight more or less important than being Out Vehicled?

I say it's a draw. Let's move on.

7. Grifter -

Grifter is the crude and tough cowboy type from the WildC.A.T.S. He enjoys spending his days doing things like cleaning his guns, shooting his guns, cleaning his guns again, and then smoking while shooting his guns before retiring for a one night stand with some licentious lady who he’ll never call again. He did have a thing for Zealot, but that’s understandable because she was a badass herself, coming from a long line of Coda warriors that were born for battle. Grifter is also the first on the list known to drink excessively, a very manly quality if there ever was one.

Grifter is an Image Comics character, and therefore a piece of shit. He may or may not be manly, I don’t know, but listing any Image Comics character ahead of Batman and Captain America on any list besides ‘Biggest Piece of Shit Character Ever’ is unacceptable, preposterous, and insane, regardless of how many guns Grifter carries and/or polishes and/or shoots.

Besides which, either Batman or Captain America could wad Grifter up and stuff him down the front of their jock straps with one hand tied behind them, and Grifter would probably like it, too. So let’s not have any more nonsense about how manly he is, especially in comparison to Batman or Captain America. He’s a weed. We’re moving on.

6. The Punisher -

Let’s face it, The Punisher’s all black attire and skull symbol won’t win him any Fab Five Fashion awards, making him all the more manly, and he certainly fits the bill of emotionally dysfunctional (a problem that goes back to his time in Vietnam). The Punisher is excessively violent, and he has no qualms about picking a fight, or ending it with a shotgun either. He even only has sexual relations with equally dysfunctional women (as he did recently in Ennis’ Punisher run).

I don’t object to the Punisher being on a Manly Superheroes list, as, well, yeah, he’s one brutally testosterone poisoned manly-ass buttkicker indeed. He dresses in black Kevlar and does indeed have a gigantic fucking skull on his chest and he carries around more automatic weapons than any four white militias, some of which he keeps in his battle-van, but most of which I believe he actually stashes in his ass. This is extremely manly, but it must be noted that if the Punisher were ever to get in a fight with either Batman or Captain America, any guns not at that point in his ass would certainly end up there by the time the conflict resolved, along with most of the Punisher’s Kevlar and both bumpers off his battle-van.

So while I have no objection to the Punisher maybe coming in at number 6 or maybe 7 on any such list, I certainly wouldn’t put him ahead of Batman or Captain America for manliness.


5. Gung-Ho -

A lot of the G.I. Joes could have made this list, but Gung-Ho stood out among the pack.

Okay. Fucking G.I. Joes are not superheroes, regardless of how manly they are. Retarded. Rejected. Moving on.

4. Hellboy -

These last four were all very hard to decide between because all three are loners, rebels, badmouthed cusses that all drink heavily and fight rough and dirty. Hellboy in particular is great at hitting the ‘big monster’ first and asking questions later. His giant stone fist is perfect for brawling with large bulbous demon creatures that look vaguely like butt-plugs. Besides, his rude behavior and general tough guy attitude are all what one would look for in a manly man. The only problem is that that tough guy attitude tends to cover up a big heart, not very manly. He’s also a bit attached to that gal, Liz Sherman, which owns his tail (so to speak), not very masculine at all, even if he does smoke a stogie while doing it.

Okay. I suppose Hellboy, despite the fact that he has 'boy' in his name, could be very manly. He certainly carries a very large gun. And unlike most of the other entries on this dumbass list, Hellboy could actually stand up to either Batman or Captain America in a fight. And I really liked his movie, although that speaks more to his dialogue than to his manliness. Still, I won't object to Hellboy. But he should come after Batman and Captain America. But definitely before the Punisher.

3. Wolverine -

Ah, now we are coming down to the real cream of the crop here.

The phrase 'the real cream of the crop' is an unfortunate one in the context of manliness, as it makes Wolverine sound as if he is fond of starring in bukake films. And I wouldn't argue with that, either. However, as much as I detest this runty little creep of a character, I have to admit, when it comes to sheer raw testosterone poisoning, yeah, he's pretty frickin' manly. Or, as Bam-Kapow puts it --

Logan is renowned for three things, boozing, fighting, and being a hairy little cuss. He’s good with the ladies, especially all those young girls who he ‘takes under his wing,’ and we all know that going after another guy’s girl (Jean Grey) is very manly. His claws and fisticuffs tend to get him the label of hard-nosed hellion who’ll do what it takes to get the job done, a very manly quality to have. He deserves to be on this list even if he is Canadian. Besides, Logan used to be a freaking lumberjack for Pete’s sake, there is nothing more manly than that.

Owning and driving every form of vehicle ever constructed by man, frequently at supersonic velocities while beating some masked lunatic about the head and shoulders with a Batarang, is more manly than being a frickin' lumberjack, as is fighting your way through World War II armed only with a glorified garbage can lid while personally delivering left jabs to every single member of the Wehrmacht. Still, I won't object to Wolverine being on the list. He's just well behind Batman, Cap, and Hellboy. Probably tied with the Punisher. And if they want to fight it out, it won't bother me, especially if someone gives the Punisher a grenade launcher first.

2. Lobo -

Sometime in the 90’s, Lobo was created as a backlash to all things ‘manly’ in superheroes. He was to be the ultimate parody of characters like Wolverine and Punisher with their ultra anti-hero manliness. But Lobo was SO manly, and just a badass in general, that he flipped off his creator and became the poster boy for modern manliness anyway. Prone to extreme violence, Lobo flies around on his 'hover' chopper-bike while smoking cigars and stealing candy from small girls. Lobo is the last of his race, the rest having died off from his own murderous drive to be the baddest mutha in the whole universe. Sometimes he takes on Superman, sometimes he kills Santa Klaus, but whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it with such ‘manitude’ (the attitude of manliness) that he often only needs to look at women and they immediately start ovulating. Then he hits them right in the ovaries.

This is actually pretty funny stuff, and I must admit, by my own yardstick of manliness (i.e., who can beat who in a fist fight) Lobo should rank pretty high on any Manly List. But, well, he isn't a superhero, he's a frickin' menace, and beyond that, I must believe that if they had to, either Captain America or Batman would find a way to take Hobo down. But it's mostly the fact, like frickin' Gung Ho, Lobo is by no stretch of the imagination a superhero, he's more a cosmic cataclysm on two legs, and if we let him onto the list, then we have to let Darkseid onto the list, too, and that would be totally wrong. So fergeddaboudit.

So now we come down to it, the Number One choice of Bam-Kapow for Most Manly Superhero Ever. After placing Batman at a lamentable (and moronic) #10, and stiffing Captain America with a mere ranking of 8, what paragon of masculinity could possibly come in at the number one spot? More manly than Bruce Wayne or Steve Rogers, more cock of the walkesque than Frank Castle or Logan? Who could it be?

1. Conan -

Oh, boy. This is the manliest man in comics today, or ever.

This could be true. But... at risk of sounding repetitive... Conan -- isn't -- a -- SUPERHERO.

Dumbass.

(Note I'm not even mentioning how gay 'Oh boy. This is the manliest man in comics today, or ever' sounds. I'm above it.)

He’ll just as soon knee you in the groin as he will kick you in the nuts, and that’s if he’s feeling nice and doesn’t elbow you in the nads. He’s every manly attribute I’ve talked about in this article so far including but not limited to womanizing, fighting, smoking, drinking, swearing, being arrogant, caring little for deep emotions or painful thinking and most importantly, he’s all of these things ALL of the time, and he's been doing it the longest by far. He never stops being the testosterone serving center that dishes it out one punch or ass slap at a time. He screws your girl, cuts your arm off, and tells you a crude joke all before eating your dinner with his bare hands. And you love him for it. He’s the crudest thing ever to pop out of a baby-maker whose taste for serving wenches, ale, and bar-room brawls is insatiable. He is the Manliest Superhero Ever!

Nearly all of this is true, despite the dangling participle that makes it sound as if there's a vagina somewhere with an insatiable, gluttonous appetite for serving wenches, ale, and bar room brawls. Nonetheless, I have no arguments with any of this, poorly constructed though it is, except for the last three words.

Once more, and ad infinitum -- Conan is not a superhero. He's a frickin' barbarian swordsman living in a sword & sorcery world. He doesn't wear a costume, he doesn't have a secret identity, he doesn't fight supervillains, and if you suggested he do any of that stuff he would kick your ass and eat your goat. I repeat yet again -- HE'S NOT A SUPERHERO.

If we let in every manly adventuring type who has their own comic book, well, we're going to have to give serious consideration to a great many Disney funny animals, and I'm not ready to do that.

So, while Conan is the very essence of masculinity by nearly any standard (although Batman and/or Captain America would kick his ass in a fight, and I expect Frank Castle could shoot several holes in his incredibly ripped, manly barbarian torso before Conan could get his two handed bastard sword unlimbered too), he isn't a superhero, and therefore, he cannot appear anywhere on a Manliest Superhero Ever list, much less at number one.

As to my own Manliest Superheroes Ever list, well, I suppose I'd most likely put Batman and Captain America both at Number One, Daredevil at Number Two, throw in Hawkeye and Green Arrow at a tie for 3 (they're both pretty seriously testosterone poisoned), let Hellboy in at 4, make Ben Grimm 5, give Wolverine and the Punisher a tie for 6, the Sub Mariner would swim in at a solid 7, Hawkman gets an 8 just for pummeling his enemies with a frickin' medieval mace, Tom Strong comes in at 9 just because he does, and Power Girl would end up at 10, for obvious reasons.

And at least they're all superheroes, which is more than you can say for half of Bam-Kapow's list.