I've been entering the Friday Night Fights for two weeks now, but last time Bully up'd the ante by throwing the nigh-omnipotent Dark Phoenix into the ring—then challenging us to come up with anyone, and I mean anyone, who could make her even sweat.
But let's face it, the best she managed to destroy was the Earth. Whereas for Mr. Mxyzptlk:
Dan Didio, re: new Infinite Christmas Special.
"we have the first solo appearance of Batwoman in a Hanukah story as well"
Ruh... really?
On the one hand, as one of the Chosen People, I appreciate the acknowledgment that not everyone celebrates Christmas this time of year. And it's always nice to see other children of Abraham running around kicking ass.
That said, I'm always a little weirded out by the off-handed shout out to the Torah people we get every December for what, in the larger picture, isn't really that important a holiday. "We got a good deal on the oil!" That's basically what it's about. It's only elevated because it happens to fall around the same time as Christmas, and if the Jewish calendar was a little different, you'd all be wishing me a Happy Simchat Torah.
I'd be much happier if, instead of getting 1 out of 8 pages devoted to Kate Kane lighting the menorah, the Infinite Christmas Special was allowed to be just the Infinite Christmas Special (And it has to be the Infinite Christmas Special because the pun wouldn't work otherwise), and instead we got a Passover special come April (and no, this doesn't count).
Heck, they could do a follow up to Day of Vengeance, called "Day of Atonement," where the Spectre goes around apologizing one by one to all the magic users he attacked.
Like My Name is Earl with phenomenal, cosmic power.
Which is a long way of saying, thanks for the shout out, DC, but where's the honey and apples on Rosh Hashanah?
Going on vacation for a week, so new post for a bit.
In the meantime, I leave you with some random thoughts.
Hey, Robert Kirkman, if you want to read about "an inexperienced hero who would get beaten up constantly and probably die," check out this week's Robin. Or Birds of Prey. Or 52.
The only thing that would have made the page of new heroes shouting their stupid names better is if they had shouted them in Logo Font.
Speaking of, Red Tornado looked beyond the veil of universe and saw 52... what? My guess: 52 other universes (which, including the universe he was in at the time, would be a full pack plus a wild card). And they're coming.
If the conversation on superheroes and class is going to keep going, we might want to start defining our terms. I realize in my own arguments I'm getting thrown off my point a lot by confusing aristocracy, wealth, style, education, power, and morality. The original question was whether the superhero genre perpetuates the myth of aristocracy, that some people are just born to rule. That's shifted a bit into whether Batman fights social injustice and why aren't more superheroes classy, with claims of anti-intellectualism thrown in.
The anti-intellectualism claims really bother me, for some reason. There's this odd assumption that having an education, particularly a post graduate education, is synonymous with being upper class, an influential figure on the course of society, which just isn't true. Most of the academics I know toil in obscurity (and read this blog! Hey, Aaron, David, and Jeff)!. As Cole points out, Kal-El is not a lost prince of Krypton. He's the son of a smart but not highly respected scientist. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (who we all agree runs Gotham, yes?) never even went to college. And back in the real world... well let's just say that being a total and complete moron doesn't stop you from getting elected President.
Casanova is a heck of good read. As is 100 Bullets, which has started barrelling towards its conclusion.
Has it really been a month since ANY issue of Superman's three ongoings have hit the shelves? And I have to wait till December for more All-Star goodness? C'mon! I'm starting to feel like a Green Lantern fan over here.
Speaking of, sort of, Morrison Batman run filled-in by The Spectre team of Ostrader and Mandrake? Yeah, I'll take that.
Yes, I heard about NextWave. No, I'm not surprised. No, I haven't rent my garments nor gnashed my teeth. Yes, that will be one less Marvel title I'm buying. Yes, I'll probably pick up whatever NextWave limited series come down the pike. No, I'm not buying Thunderbolts.
(huh, I can already hear Dr. Polaris agreeing. Anyway...)
Superheroing is an inherently dangerous activity. Let's face it, the guys in the capes aren't just the police. A superhero is cop, fire fighter, and soldier in one, and what these professions have in common is that each is a person who saves lives by risking and sometimes losing his own. Add to that mortal enemies with world shaking power, and you're looking at people whose day to day living is very precarious.
But if you want me to believe that, at any moment, a superhero could die, then every now and then, one of them has to actually die. The stronger possibility of an unhappy ending is one of the major advantages of on-going, episodic fiction that comics should exploit better. Because when the bad guy puts the hero in his unescapable death trap and looks like he's going to get away, there's a chance he really IS going to get away, if only for someone else to capture him three or four issues later. That's the way to ramp up the DRAMA.*
Now, I don't mean to be morbid about it. I'm not in the "kill 'em, kill 'em all" camp. The deaths should be rare, if only so superheroes don't look like complete incompetants. And while they don't all need to be heroic sacrifices, like Barry Allen--they could be fatal mistakes, like Booster's recent demise, or victims of effective villains, like Vibe's or Blue Beetle's, or even the truly tragic cannon fodder, like Pantha--the deaths need to have an impact, on the plot and on the surviving characters. And because I like deaths to have impact, I'd prefer the dead remain dead, but I understand that any fantasy genre in which The Spectre is one of the oldest characters will have a looser definition of what death means.
And the deaths certainly shouldn't be advertised in advance. One, it's kind of creepy. Two, it robs tension from issues in which a death isn't advertised. I know everyone is going to make it out of an issue if it's not solicited "Someone makes the ultimate sacrifice." Three, it robs tension from issues in which a death IS advertised. Even if it's obvious Captain Lamb is going down with the ship, the death has a lot more impact if you thought there was a chance he could have made it.
And some characters, of course, can't be killed. The editorially protected icons, of course, are practically immortal. No reader would really want Batman (or even the Joker) dead, and more importantly, no one would ever believe he was really dead anyway, no matter how graphic the death. I would have said protagonists of on-going books were safe as well, but blowing up Oliver Queen to make way for Conner Hawke was one of the best moves Chuck Dixon made on his run of Green Arrow.
I though Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's X-Statics nee X-Force handled death brilliantly. Killing off 90% of the team (including the narrator) in the first issue served notice that neither the characters nor the readers could take the success of any mission for granted, and then played out the emotional effect of such a highly dangerous life would have, and then what the effect would be if some people, but only certain people, came back.
Now, I can already hear some objections, notably "comics are supposed to be escapist fantasy and I don't want to be reminded about things I find upsetting, like death." To which I say, "Stop reading superhero comics."
Seriously.
Batman watched a mugger shoot his parents. That's the basics. If you want to remove violent death from superheroes, you have to give up Batman. And Spider-Man. And Superman. And Captain America. Heck, get rid of World War II and all those nasty Nazis.
Superheroes is NOT an escapist genre, not if by "escapist" you mean "a genre in which you don't have to deal with anything in the real world you don't like." Superheroes is kind of the opposite of that, a genre in which VERY REAL PROBLEMS are exaggerated and distorted to be scarier, which somehow allows the reader to deal with these problems through metaphor and analogy. A superhero universe is a worse place to live, where everything we have to deal with exists, but with superpowers. (Cue President Lex joke)
The danger, the very real danger to their lives, the fact that just by signing up for the Justice League a hero puts a target on his back, the fact that they might die alone, or suddenly, and possibly in a painful, undignified way, and they DO IT ANYWAY...
well, to me, that's what makes them a hero.
When it comes to discussions of vigilantism, I mean, superheroes, the question always comes up, "Why doesn't he just KILL him?"
Now, besides the fact that it deprives your ongoing series of a good villain, there's also the fact that a lot of people are anti-death penalty, including Batman and me.
I'm not talking about shooting criminals in self-defense or the defense of others (rabid dogs need to be put down), or in the middle of a war. That's fine, justifiable, and darn exciting storytelling. But EXECUTING captured criminals to keep them from escaping and killing again? I just don't hold with that.
Except for this guy:
But he has three major advantages over, say, Manhunter or the Punisher.
One, he's the wrath of God. So there's no question about his authority. God put him in charge, it's God's universe to do with as the Presence wishes, you can't really argue with that.
Two, he's omniscient. So there's no question of his accuracy. The Spectre will never kill an innocent man. No later DNA evidence will exonerate the executed. No false alibi will hide the true criminal. No confession gotten out of duress will convince the Spectre of anything other than the truth. If you're innocent, he knows. And if you're guilty, he REALLY know.
Three, he's dead. So there's no question of his impartiality. The world holds nothing of interest to a man with no body and no real connection to the living. He cannot be bribed. He cannot be threatened. He will not kill a man simply because he does not like him, or his kind of people. He will not increase executions so he can seem tough on crime. He will not decrease them to show concern for a minority group. An intelligence without a physical, fallible brain, the Spectre may be the single most rational being on the planet.
Only a being with the proper authority, absolute knowledge of the murder, and complete disinterest in the outcome of the event should be allowed to say who lives and who dies. Everyone else WILL make a mistake eventually (I cannot believe that the Punisher hasn't killed an innocent person at least once).
Plus, the Spectre gets all creative when he kills people. Anyone can just shoot a guy in the head, or break a neck. It takes someone pretty vicious to turn a doll collection into hungry zombies.
