Anyone else think Dr. Mid-Nite should have a theme song and back up singers?
God dammit, Garth!
The first rule of burger joint is you DO NOT TALK ABOUT BURGER JOINT!
Why couldn't you have said Island Burger on 51st and 9th? Or, I don't know, Peter Lugar's or something. I mean, yeah, if you've set up in the Flatiron building, the Shake Shack really is at your feet, and that was a nice scene, but still... burger joint is crowded enough as it is without having every fanboy in Manhattan jamming the booths hoping to get a glimpse of you or Darick!
And while you're here, there's a few other things I'd like to tell you. First, pick up the GOD DAMNED PACE! I've paid good money for "my favorite heroes getting the crap kicked out of them" and we're only getting to that in issue 6? C'mon! That should have happened back in issue 4, or 3 even. By now the Seven should be already be moving against the Boys, or at least we should have been given a wider view of your world (how many super teams ARE there? and where are the super villains?)
And Lamplighter, your Green Lantern analogue that Homelander implicitly killed, is he really dead or merely crippled, so that he can join the Boys later when they bring down the Seven? And who was the guy A-Train replaced? Was he killed by the Homelander too?
That said, I am, in fact, enjoying the series, which drops just enough humanizing details in along with the obscene and ridiculous to keep me emotionally tethered even while pushing my envelope. But I may just switch to trades, which is, after all, how I read Preacher, so maybe that's what works best for you.
Thanks,
Steven
p.s. The Frenchman. That's Grant Morrison in a pair of goggles and a outrageous accent, isn't it?
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?
On the surface, Jack Kirby's Fourth World saga is a simple adaptation of Manichean philosophy: there's a world of Good, New Genesis, and a world of Evil, Apokolips, and all of human existence is in the narrow strip where they overlap and conflict.
But the crucial story of the New Gods, what, if this were a "real" mythology, would be the central myth, (and incidentally, one of Jack Kirby's favorite stories of his own,) is "The Pact." The Pact is a very un-Manichean story in which Highfather (Good) makes a deal with Darkseid (Evil) in the name of peace, and seals this deal with the extreme measure of trading sons (which is a step up from just spitting in your palm, I guess).
In any morality as black and white as Manicheanism, such a pact would be doomed to failure (Mr. A would not approve!) because Evil would not honor any such contract, placing Good in the weaker position that they could only get out of by breaking the contract themselves, erasing the difference between Good and Evil. And, indeed, Darkseid intends to subvert the pact from the beginning.
But instead of leading to the downfall of New Genesis, The Pact works out in Highfather's favor! Because, despite Darkseid's plotting, the actual result of the Pact is that the traded sons--Orion, who has the nature of Apokolips and the nurturing of New Genesis, and Scott Free, who has the nature of New Genesis and the... ah, "nurturing" of Apokolips--BOTH end up fighting for the side of Good!
There are a few lessons to be drawn from that. First is that Good is not something that resides solely in one's blood or one's environment, but in both. Secondly, Good is inherently more compelling than Evil. Evil is NOT a force equal and opposite to Good. Evil may, in fact, be the mere absence of Good, a void that can be filled through whichever medium, genes or education, that is available to Good. Third, there are therefore no truly evil people, even beings that supposedly embody Evil. Any being capable of choosing, any being capable of change, has the potential to be Good!
Consider Big Barda. Unlike Scott and Orion, she is Apokolips born and bred. It is therefore neither in her nature nor her nurture to be Good. As a pure creature of Apokolips, there should be no Good in her. And yet...
And yet, by meeting and getting to know Mr. Miracle, the character who perhaps best embodies Kirby's ideas about what Good is, she falls in love with him and the idea of freedom he represents. He inspires her to be better, to treat others with respect, to demand the freedom that he himself refused to ever relinquish, and fight for the freedom of others. (Also take note that their ideal of freedom, their escape from the high fantasy drama of the Fourth World saga, is a mundane suburban existence as husband and wife. Which just goes to show you don't need to be a punk to be a rebel.)
This is a much more nuanced, much more hopeful, meditation on the struggle between Good and Evil than most superhero stories; heck, there's more depth in this story than in a lot of mythology. The idea that even demons can be redeemed, that all that separates a Fury from a Goddess is a light to show the way, shows a more sophisticated system of thought than naming the villain "Dark Side" would imply.
And, perhaps, that is Darkseid's true villainy: that he disguises the world as one of sharp divides, Us and Them, black and white, Good and Evil, in eternal conflict, never-ending battle, where causes are defended not by their inherent value but by the force of arms. It takes a (Mr.) Miracle to show the folly in this ideology, that the New Gods of both sides have more in common with each other than differences, and that the Good can trust the rightness of their cause to appeal through dialogue and contracts.
It suggests that the best way to combat true evil in the world is negotiation, compromise, listening. Because compromising your goals does not compromise the good of your cause, and somehow, in some way, Good will out!
... and for learning to solve interpersonal problems the superhero way, indestructible cheerleader Claire Bennett takes the top position as best character on Heroes, knocking heavy favorite Hiro Nakamura into a solid second.
Perennial underdog Peter Petrelli came through with a surprisingly strong showing this week, and don't forget dark horse contender Matt Parkman, who had a by.
However, Mohinder? Has got to go.
Bought Final Fantasy XII yesterday.
Going away for a while.
Would appreciate a phone call now and then reminding me to eat.
Word balloon I expect to see before the end of 52:
After yesterday's post, I think it important to point out that DC isn't limiting its reader education program to the female anatomy. From the cover of the All-New Atom #8:
the penis!I'm looking forward to meeting you.
I like your influences, both the original and the robotic Red Tornadoes, and from what little I've seen of you, you strike me as a fun character, a cheerful presence that the Justice Society and the DCU in general just doesn't have enough of.
And let me tell, I LOVE your costume. It might just be my thing for redheads, but well, look at you.
Your hair is shiny and voluminous, your wrap is playing in the wind, and I like the tornado symbol on your chest. You even remembered to smile for your portrait, which is more than I can say for that grump Hawkman.
Though, if I can offer some advice: I know you're super excited about joining one of the big teams and having your own superhero codename ("Cyclone," I like), but please remember to put on some underwear before going out to fight crime.
No reason for Solomon Grundy to get a peak at your secret garden.
(by the way, three makes it a conspiracy, so I have a new tag)
Second hardest character in fiction to write? A protagonist that's smarter than the you are. If someone is a certifiable genius, if, in fact, her super power is being a genius, then how are you ever going to come up with something so clever and wise that it earns the distinction of intelligence beyond the merely human.
There's ways of writing around it, I suppose. The Richards Method is to have your character be a genius in a completely made-up field of study. If Richards expertise is Cosmic Radiation collection and manipulation, if he builds the world's best energy transmitter and no one else can, then he's a genius and no reader could say otherwise.
There's the Batman Method, where the character figures out instantly what took the writer three years to figure out, and without the advantage of being able to change the facts to fit the theory.
And there's the Ozymandius Method, in which the character does something completely insane, but since it causes everything to work out in his favor, he must, ipso facto, be a genius. Because it's the only explanation.
But when the character is a master strategist, who has all the time in the world to perfect her magnum opus, then anything you could have her do is, by definition, not something that requires a 12th level intellect to conceive of.
But that's the second hardest job. The hardest is coming up with an ANTAGONIST that's smarter than you are. Because then, not only do you need to come up with a plan so fiendishly clever that you wouldn't have thought of it in a million years, you then have to come up with someway of foiling said plan that doesn't invalidate the genius of it in the first plan. So you have to outthink yourself, and then outthink yourself again. And if you found a flaw, an obvious flaw, then your genius villain should have caught it in the first place.
Your only recourse is to hide said flaw in your villain's particular blind spot. Superman #2 is the almost Platonic Example of how to do it. Lex Luthor fairly ruthlessly and easily discovers Clark's secret in the space of one issue, proving that he is, in fact, an evil genius. But he dismisses the answer out of hand because he can't imagine someone with that kind of power not using it to subjugate others. That fundamental distrust is what makes Lex a villain, and what makes his thinking flawed.
