Against All Odds

I never want to type again.

I think I came into Tuesday a little over 20,000 words shy of 50,000. Maybe more than that. I've written more in the last week than I did for the entire rest of the month (as my profile bar graph will clearly demonstrate). I love those first 30,000 words, though. They represent something real and neat, and the next 10,000 words might be some of my best writing ever. But those last ten thousand? Those last ten thousand, and a couple thousand besides, are the product of today's work. One full chapter is almost entirely unnecessary filler. The final chapter contains a rough outline of what I wanted the final scene to look like, but it's caught up in a torrential downpour of padding. And then, just to round out the last 1500 words, there's an epilogue that I considered doing back when I thought this might be a comedy, which now goes completely and utterly against the tone of the novel, and really doesn't even fit into the continuity. And when I discovered, after two pages of stupid epilogue, that there were still 200 words needed, and it was something like 11:20, the characters broke the fourth wall, and I broke it right back at them.

But I can honestly say that the few extended quotes I used actually do have something to do with the novel. So, I don't feel like I cheated with those. At least, not much.

But, now, I'm going to leave my computer chair and find out what the rest of my apartment looks like again. If I don't post anything for a couple of days, it's because my hands have fallen off.

(Yes, I'm being melodramatic; I just finished writing a book about the Apocalypse, how else could I be?)

Making Action Comics look much better

You know what sucks? The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. I mean, I didn't even drop the last series during that awful, awful last arc. I've bought every issue of this current new title, hoping with each one that the story would get better, and after that little glimmer of promise in the Kerschl-drawn issue, I thought maybe my hopes had been fulfilled. They hadn't. This is easily the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel worst book I buy each month. And this latest issue was doubly terrible, from inconsistent art to a lame, continuity-lax recap of the events that led to Bart becoming the Flash, to the cheeseball ending line. What utter and disgusting crap.

So, I'm no longer buying this book. I know it's getting a new creative team in a few months, but I haven't been shown anything--anything!--to suggest that having Bart as the Flash is a good idea. And if you can't sell me on the most basic concept of the book after six issues, then there's a good chance that it's a bad #$@&ing concept.

The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive is a bad comic. Do not buy it. Force DC to realize that 'angsty teen trying to fill the shoes of his predecessors and being all depressed about it' is not only clichéd (especially for the Flash), not only antithetical to the whole Flash dynasty that has been established over the last several decades, not only goes against everything in Bart's character, but is far, far, far less interesting than 'can even the fastest man alive juggle superheroics, a job, a wife, membership in the JLA, and newborn twins?' which should have been the direction after Infinite Crisis. But, instead of trying something new and playing with the toys they had, they decided to walk one of the most well-worn paths in comics and pretend it was revolutionary.

So, DC, you just lost a loyal Flash reader. Good job.

On Bizarro Blog, us do opposite of all blogohedron things!

I love Kurt Busiek's Superman.

The Geoff Johns/Richard Donner Action Comics? Not so much.

Analogy time: Anyone remember the electric-era Superman Red/Superman Blue storyline? One element of it that didn't get quite the amount of attention that I think the writers wanted was that the split Supermen had different personalities. Superman-Blue became uptight, methodical, calculating Felix Unger, while Superman-Red was wisecracking, lazy, sloppy Oscar Madison. The thing was, it wasn't until they ramped up the Felix-ness of Superman-Blue that you really noticed; I mean, he acted pretty much like Superman. With Red, as soon as he started wisecracking like Spider-Man, you knew something was up. Blue had to become even stiffer than the stick up his butt before you noticed that he wasn't just Superman.

That's kind of how I feel about the current Superman comic situation. The collaborative "Up, Up, and Away" storyline was fantastic, mainly for its examination of character, and all the great character moments. Sure, the action was well-done too, but it was the character moments that kept the story afloat. Especially as it bore some striking resemblances to The Best Movie Ever.

Now, with the authors split, I think I see who contributed what to the story. Kurt Busiek put in his intimate understanding of the characters and his ability to reconcile everything into a coherent story, while Geoff Johns contributed his encyclopedic knowledge of modern comic history and his love for the Superman movies.

So, we have Kurt Busiek writing the Superman-Blue book. It's a comic that looks and acts so close to Superman that you'd really have trouble seeing how it's different. He's got a little bit of nepotistic continuity going on, but it's not blatant, and I for one would love to see more of the Power Company wherever possible. But it's been interesting, if leisurely-paced, and I want to see where everything's going. So far, it seems like Kurt wants to touch on all the classic comic hallmarks in a new way. We've had the big superhero team-up against a giant cosmic entity, we've had the ex-girlfriend who re-enters the hero's life and brings trouble with her, we've had the misunderstood monster battle, and now we've got the magical prophecy and the dystopian future. Oh, and the mysterious über-powerful mastermind behind the scenes, too. Kurt's getting his silver age groove on in a very different way from Morrison (and in a very similar way to Will Pfeifer, now that I think about it), and I dig it. I dig it a lot.

And we have Geoff Johns and Richard Donner writing the Superman-Red book, the one that, right off the bat, seems a little 'off.' Maybe it's the way Superman refers to humans as 'them,' or the way he talks to his (oddly youthful) parents as if he doesn't really know them, or the way Bizarro acts in general, but it seems like Action Comics is adrift in the same "not quite continuity" that kept me from really enjoying "Trinity" and was just one of dozens of strikes against "For Tomorrow." Okay, Geoff, Richard, I get it. You love the Superman films. I love 'em too, I love 'em to death. They've got their flaws, but they're fine movies. I even loved The Best Movie Ever, and I'm sure your super-kid is tapping into that. But...can't we try something new? Or, if we're going to try something old, could we at least pay some attention to continuity?

I mean, Bizarro's a perfect example. Since his re-introduction in the Emperor Joker story, Bizarro has been very consistent: ridiculously powerful, not too bright, talks backwards. He's not exactly a homicidal maniac, and certainly not the brutal monster I just read about, he's a semi-goofy character. There are plenty of monster-villains around, Bizarro's always been either goofy or sympathetic and misunderstood, and that's something that allows him to stand out as somewhat unique. There are any number of dopey superpowered brutes running around the DCU, and it wouldn't have taken much tweaking to replace this Bizarro with Solomon Grundy or Blockbuster or Doomsday or Mammoth or Shakedown. The DC's littered with those guys, but there's only one backwards-talking grinning sorta-villain anti-Superman. Taking that away from him makes him anonymous.

And there's the whole thing with Jor-El. I don't remember whose blog I was reading recently, but they were talking about the strange Jor-El fascination that some people have, and how his story ended when he pressed the launch button. The guy was a sperm donor. Clark Kent has a father, and he's neither Kryptonian nor dead. And the Superman of the DCU, the Superman of "Up, Up, and Away," who clearly saw himself as Clark Kent first, is not an alien living among humans, he's a human with the powers of an alien, and that's a very important distinction. Consulting Jor-El's ghostly hologram while talking to Pa as if he doesn't really know him...that's not the DCU's Clark Kent. It might be the Clark of some other medium, but not the comics, not as he's been established since Byrne and re-established OYL.

Speaking of things established by Byrne and re-established OYL, what bug crawled up Perry White's butt? Clark Kent's not the dopey, klutzy milquetoast of the movies, and Perry's not such a jerk that he'd wonder what Lois sees in him. He's known the couple as individuals for years, and he knows full well what she sees in him. Just a few months ago, Perry was complimenting Clark on how put-together and on top of things he's been recently (and then threatening to fire him for getting distracted and unreliable again). Did Clark's backslide cause Perry to forget all his good qualities? To forget that he and Clark are friends?

And then, we get (is it a spoiler at this point? It came out almost a week ago, right? Well, stop reading if you still care) General Zod. And Ursa and Non, of course. And it seems like they must have met Superman before, but unless the movies are comic continuity now (and they shouldn't be), we've never seen that story.

But I'm not entirely opposed to General Zod and the Kryptonian criminals, at least, not on principle. I've got a post draft waiting in the wings about how much I hate General Zod, but that'll wait (though not for too long, not with Zod's recent re-emergence). It's just...Lex Luthor, super-kid, crystal Fortress, holographic Jor-El, Kryptonian criminals...it's all pretty well-worn, and recently-worn, territory, isn't it? Does Donner really want us to think that he's only got one Superman story in him, and so he has to keep telling it?

It's not like this is a bad story, but it suffers from a lot of easily-corrected continuity issues, which shouldn't be showing up when continuity-god Geoff Johns is co-writing. Would it have been so hard for Geoff to say "well, the modern Bizarro talks backwards, and we should really give some reason for his change in attitude," or "Superman considers himself human first, and Kryptonian second, so referring to humans as 'them' is really kind of out of character," or "hey, since we're naming this kid with a 'C. Kent' name, we really ought to mention Superman's recently-deceased 'son', admittedly my favorite Teen Titan. I'm not saying we should name the new Super-kid 'Conner,' but someone should mention it. Maybe Clark could then look a little morose and say 'no, it's too soon' or something like that," would any of that have been so hard?

So, hopefully Action Comics-Red will shape up a little with the next couple of issues. Donner's new to comics, and if the trend continues, by the end of the next issue he'll really have kind of gone through the plots of the movies he's already done, so maybe the next few issues will be more tight, more original, and more in-continuity. It's not a bad comic by any means, even a sub-par Johns Superman book is still better than a lot of the comics I read, but it's the overall quality that makes the flaws stand out. And since this is the Superman book with hype, it looks bad that Busiek's quiet little comic is better. Not as bad as it looked when Rucka's underpromoted Adventures of Superman was 20,000 leagues better than Azzarello's overhyped "For Tomorrow" arc, but still bad.

By the way, about the "freezing fire" thing, I think people have misinterpreted the scene. The frozen swirls don't look like flames, they look like plumes of gas, which suggests that Superman's burst of super-breath was cold enough not only to solidify the melted pavement that erupted around Bizarro, but also to instantly solidify the smoke. It's a suspension of disbelief (and physical law) scene, but not nearly so bad as 'freezing fire.'

An open letter to Will Pfeifer

Dear Mr. Pfeifer,

I've been absolutely adoring your Catwoman run, and the most recent issues are no exception. I could lavish all sorts of praise on your excellent character work, your fast pacing, and your overall sense of fun, but that would take far too long, and would inevitably lead me to discuss in great detail how much I miss H-E-R-O, which for awhile was one of my favorite books on the shelves.

But I'd rather focus my attention on one specific aspect of your most recent story arcs: the Film Freak. Many in the blogohedron have criticized this run, calling the Film Freak all sorts of nasty names. I have a distinct love for the character, though I'm not certain if it's because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia (something I aspire to, a little), or because he reminds me of the (admittedly stereotypical) film snobs I've encountered several times in my life, and it's nice to see them get a little vicarious comeuppance.

But what I really like about Film Freak is the purpose he's served in this story. Throughout the current arc, Film Freak has acted as a narrator, punching like Superboy-Prime at the fourth wall, but never quite managing to break through. Even so, his running commentary on the events as they transpired was metafictional brilliance, and his over-reliance on film clichés (coincidentally ones that also happened to be comic clichés) combined with that metafictional streak turned what otherwise was an excellent Catwoman arc into something greater.

It became a parody of Grant Morrison, and to some extent, the modern DCU as a whole.

Let us begin with Film Freak. While it would be natural to assume that the character's monochromatic pallor is a result of a lifetime of watching movies in darkened rooms, devoid of exposure to sunlight, and consequently a physical feature to tie him to the black-and-white movies that are the subject of his obsession, we cannot overlook that a very similar artistic style was used when Grant himself graced the pages of Animal Man. But this artistic flourish is the least of Film Freak's connection to the Seven Soldiers scribe. I've already discussed his tendency toward metafiction, through his narration and deliberate manipulation of the plotline, playing with a tactic that has come to be primarily associated with Morrison's writing. Furthermore, despite working in the medium of film (or perhaps because of comics' associations with that medium), Film Freak is very much a Silver Age comics villain, straight out of an old issue of Detective. He sets a giant gorilla loose on the city (a mainstay of the Schwartz-era DCU), he sets up a bomb with a ticking clock and broadcasts a clue to the city (and the hero), but best of all, he does it all with the same gimmicky flair that one would expect from the 1960s Joker.
What this all adds up to is a character who employs metafictional elements as well as pulling in standard comic fare from the Silver Age. His attempts to dress up his actions with classic movie dialogue (similar to the way intertextual thematic elements litter works like Animal Man, 52, Sandman, and the like) give his story the feel of something new and 'highbrow,' but there's no disguising the fact that this is a by-the-book Silver Age superhero adventure.

Except, of course, that it isn't, as Selina reminds him in the climactic scene of issue #61. The Film Freak's Silver Age antics are antiquated. And, where we expect to see a colorful battle, filled with back-and-forth superhero/supervillain banter, ending with the hero racing against time to disarm the bomb as the villain escapes to fight another day, instead we receive a brutal beating at the hands of Catwoman, whose 'banter' is "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" She derides his methods, his flair for the dramatic, and ends his film by stomping his face into the floorboards.

And calling him "geek."

And so the silliness of the Silver Age, the same wacky fun that fueled the last several issues, that drives All-Star Superman and danced around in Seven Soldiers, met the brutal boot of modern comic realism.

And Selina's right; Film Freak was the height of geekiness. He traded the outside world for cinematic escapism. He dredged up ancient genre history as a part of his ancient genre scheme to thwart a superhero and achieve immortality of a sort. But what does this say as a pastiche of the Morrison era of comics? Perhaps that it's okay to reminisce, it's okay to play Smarty McMetafiction and wax self-referential on the conventions of the genre, but there's got to be more to comics than smug retreads of the old school.

And indeed, as the filmstrip panel borders fade away, so too does the escapism of the conventional Silver Age plotline. Zatanna is shown to be fallible yet again, and the battered Slam Bradley shows up in Selina's apartment to force the truth about her child, while Film Freak lies unconscious with his head in the floorboards.

Is this it? Have you, Mr. Pfeifer, condemned the sensationalistic primary-colored action of the modern Silver Age, in favor of the harsh realism of the modern comic? Has he outright dismissed Morrison's metafictional Silver Age-inspired comics as nostalgic navel-gazing geekery? Has he smashed the collective head of fandom into the floorboards with a leather boot?

Indeed, I believe you have not. After all, the audience would be negligent to see anyone but Film Freak as the more entertaining character (at least, from a classical comics perspective) in this final battle. He makes with the witty banter, the monologuing, the grand gimmick schemes, and Selina's response is a boring, mundane, gritty admonition of his methods. We are forced to see the dissonance between her proclamations that 'this is the real world' and the bright, vibrant sound effects, stereotypical hallmark of the Silver Age superhero. Selina does not appear to be the character the audience, the geeky superhero-loving audience, is meant to like. Indeed, if her methods are the alternative, exchanging melodrama for brutality, then who among us would choose to walk with her? We saw that world, it was the 1990s, and it was unpleasant.

No, I believe that the final-page spread, with a scarred, battered, almost Sin City-esque Slam Bradley, holding the unblemished, brightly-colored, wide-eyed innocent Helena Kyle, represents, as the last several issues of your run have represented, the real ideal: a world in which gritty realism and innocent Silver Age wackiness can exist side-by-side. After all, that seems to be the hallmark of your run: the ability to seamlessly mesh the realistic issues of motherhood and illegal vigilantism with the classic superheroics of guest stars like Zatanna, and the classic supervillainy of the Film Freak. Modern Age meets Silver Age in the pages of your Catwoman, and I think neither you, nor your fans, would have it any other way.

So thank you, Mr. Pfeifer, for this symbolic, metafictional look at the state of the comics industry today. I look forward to the next issue, and to the next inevitable appearance of Film Freak. Knowing that you put so many layers into the story really enriches the experience for me, and I can't wait to see where the story goes next.

Sincerely,
Tom Foss

Next, I'll be discussing the oeuvre of Mr. Rob Schneider

A brief exploration of the career of...Keanu Reeves.
Things Keanu Reeves has played convincingly.

• A time-traveling stoner doofus.

Things Keanu Reeves has not played convincingly

• A dashing Victorian gentleman.
  
• The bastard brother of Don Pedro.
  
• An explosives expert.
  
• A ruthless hotshot attorney with a perfect success record.
  
• A cynical blond chain-smoking Brit.
  
• A star-crossed romantic construction worker.
  
• Jesus Christ.
  
• An actor

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Black Friday with Freakazoid!

Let this video give you a glimpse at some of the horrors I have seen on this day.

SCREAM!

The Rocket Shoes

You've all heard "The Christmas Shoes," right? The worst Christmas song ever made? The schmaltziest song ever recorded? Well, after reading a fun parody of it, I decided to try my hand at making the perfect comic book version.

Yeah, "perfect" isn't what I have right now. What I have is a couple of versions of the chorus running through my head. There's "The Christmas 52's"...

Could you hurry, sir?
Charlie says there's not much time
He's been sick for quite awhile,
And I cannot see his smile,
ba da da da da da da
If Charlie fights Mannheim, tonight.

And there's my Green Lantern version, though I'm not sure who's supposed to be singing it...

Sir, I need to get this ring
To Hal Jordan, please.
You see, the world's at risk and a Lantern's going to die.
Need to hurry, please,
Abin doesn't have much time.
You see, his ship crashed into the ground,
And Jordan is the one he found,
And I want him to be powerful
If Hal meets Sinestro tonight.

Terrible, right? Well, that's where you come in. Everyone with a sense of rhythm and a few poetic bones, take a shot at turning superheroics into a saccharine contemporary Christmas song. I'll post the entries 'roundabout Christmas time, and we'll all have a good laugh. Sound like fun?

I knew it did. So get to it! Fill up on eggnog, and let's pass this Christmas meme around like a bad fruitcake!

Edit: I'd be a terrible person if I let this post go by without linking to Chris's post on this song from last year. I may still be a terrible person, but at least now I've got a link to the ISB in this post.

Killer Serial

Anyone else watching (and loving) Dexter? The serial-killer-as-hero idea is one I had a year or two ago, after reading a couple of the Hannibal Lecter books, but I may have to shelve it after seeing this series, since it's almost exactly what I would have done, only light years better. It's funny, it's intriguing, it's well-acted, and the last-second cliffhangers make Brian K. Vaughan look...well, no, BKV still pretty much looks amazing. But the cliffhangers here are well done also. Uh...yeah.
Anyway, it's not often that I'm able to really figure out a mystery as it unfolds, so when I predicted the reveal at the end of tonight's episode in the first ten minutes, I felt pretty damn good about it. And it's not because of bad writing, mind you, this mystery's been building since the pilot.
I'd like to read the novels that the series is based on, but it seems like the plots are pretty close, and I'd rather not spoil the rest of the series for myself. But that's a relatively minor inconvenience--it's nice to be so interested in a series that I'm upset when I can't get enough of it.
I'm not totally sure where I'm going with all this. I guess I just wanted to pimp my new favorite non-Law & Order primetime drama. It's a fantastic series, and if you can watch it (and you can--the first two episodes are available for free on the website), please do so. It's a scream.