Category: Columns

Joe Corallo: The Invisible Iceman

iceman-gay-marvel-comics

Uncanny X-Men #600 has come and gone, leaving us with a newly out present day Iceman, joining his time travelled past version in being out. I already wrote up my feelings on this here last month. Since then, we’ve seen three issues of Extraordinary X-Men featuring the present day Iceman, and one issue of All New X-Men featuring the past Iceman. If you haven’t read them yet, you may be thinking that surely in at least one of those four issues that have come out that at least one mention of Iceman’s sexuality would have come up.

SPOILER ALERT: It hasn’t. Not even once.

I was hoping we’d see something right away. Even if it was a quick scene. As I was reading the first issue of Extraordinary X-Men, I’m picturing Iceman coming into Storm’s office to talk to her about it, which seems the most logical choice to me. Or seeing Iceman trying out a gay bar or club for the first time. Even just makes a throwaway comment about how he just started using one of those dating/hook up apps and how that’s going for him.

None of that happens.

I figure that Extraordinary X-Men is a number one issue so they wanted to set the status quo for the book which would naturally include Iceman’s newly revealed sexuality. Apparently that wasn’t important, despite the fact that according to the powers that be at Marvel the Iceman decision was about a year in the making. And with all the press Iceman coming out received, you’d think that Marvel would have more of an interest in furthering Iceman’s story in the new X titles.

Okay, so if it wasn’t in the first issue of Extraordinary X-Men, surely it would be brought up in issue two. It wasn’t. I was growing increasingly displeased. As I finished the third issue it became harder and harder to not feel that Marvel used Iceman coming out as a cynical marketing gimmick with no intentions of an immediate follow through.

One hope still remained; All New X-Men. I was trying to make excuses for Marvel in my head. Maybe Jeff Lemire, writer of Extraordinary X-Men, didn’t want to tackle this in his story and Dennis Hopeless, the new writer of All New X-Men, would.

Maybe they felt that the present Iceman having just recently come out would still be taking it slow. Perhaps it’s going to take a while for him to talk with his teammates about it. Past Iceman made it very clear in his conversation with his present self that he was going to live his life openly gay as well as openly mutant. It was written to be a touching moment. Present Iceman even cried an ice tear over it.

So what happened in All New X-Men #1, which has past Iceman as a key team member? Past Iceman just went about his day. Nothing in reference to his sexuality at all. He even had a page where he was making ice statues for people where they easily could have worked in a quick nod at him being openly gay now. They didn’t.

What was the point of retconning Iceman in both the past and present to being gay if we’re not even going to address it outside of a few pages in two X books? Was it for sales? Was it just to get money from guys like me that are starved for LGBTQ representation? Was it to be acknowledged for having more diversity in their comics without actually being more diverse?

Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is currently yes, and I’m very disappointed by this. Instead of delving into Iceman’s newly discovered sexuality in Extraordinary X-Men, they’re delving into the awkwardness of two former lovers, Jean Grey and Wolverine. Finding different versions of the other still alive, one of which is now much younger and the other significantly older, they need to decide if they’re going to join together and help the X-Men. I don’t know if they intended for this to be as creepy as it reads, but man is it creepy for me to read.

I may also be taking this hard because Jeff Lemire is one of my favorite writers in comics right now. Please go out and pick up Descender if you haven’t yet. It’s great. Also Plutona. Or if you didn’t get around to Sweet Tooth when that was coming out, pick up the trades.

Want a book that is absolutely killing it in terms of how to write a gay superhero right in every possible way? Read Steve Orlando on Midnighter. Issue seven came out last week, and every single one of his issues have addressed Midnighter as being gay in some way or another while not distracting from the main plot of Midnighter needing to kick ass and take names. If you aren’t already reading Midnighter, please pick it up. This book deserves the support of every single reader that wants to see an LGBTQ character in a comic done right.

Michael Davis: Welcome Black My Brother

Mail Attachment

Something good this way comes!

Not the first but perhaps the best black superhero, Brotherman is returning in 2016.

After more than 20 years the Brothers Sims will publish what has passed cult status to become full on legend. All over the comics world people are rejoicing as this beloved Black Universe of characters gives old and more important new fans of color something all too rare for us, stories about people who look like us.

Sound familiar? It should, Milestone 2.0 announced its return at the start of this year, and now at year’s end, Brotherman follows suit. This would be the first time Brotherman followed Milestone in anything. Brotherman has always been ahead of Milestone, they published first; found alternate distribution first (something Milestone never understood fully) and realized first the revenue being ignored by the big two, Marvel and DC, namely the black market.

Genius.

This in no way takes away from the vision and brilliance of Denys Cowan and his creation of Milestone. I’d say to think such would be stupid but I don’t want to insult the stupid. Denys’ idea was a black comic book company. That was a first in the modern day of comics as there have been black comic book companies before Milestone. The most notable, Golden Legacy, started in 1966 and still publishes material today.

The black market is so underserved is easy to tag someone as a copycat because there are so few black endeavors into certain areas like comics. When Image was formed I didn’t notice anyone pointing out that the founders were ripping off Marvel. Nor did anyone say Malibu was ripping off Image.  There were quite a few comic book companies that sprung up around the same time as Milestone, Image, and Malibu but nobody compared those other guys to Ania a comic book company that many mistook for Milestone. When asked to comment on each other’s companies and what was the difference, Milestone’s response was-‘they do what they do we do what we do. There’s room foreveryone.’Ania’s response?

“Them be some House Niggers.”

That’s not exactly how they said it, but they did say it and that’s how real niggers talk so I wrote it that way.

Black comic book content is always being compared to each other if its black people in control of the project-it’s a knee jerk reaction so it stands to reason Brotherman would get the “following Milestone” tag.

That’s not what they are doing but it certainly will look like that to a public brainwashed to think all black people follow one another in all things.

20 plus years ago Brotherman’s creators chose family over their publishing endeavors. 20 years later they return as family.  Despite hardships and outside pressure, they chose family. You can read about it here.

African Americans have faced challenges in America since we were brought here in chains. We are stronger by far when we stand as one. For many that’s hard to do. That’s one of many purposes of the song, slogan, or anthem within our culture, to strengthen resolve. Most preach courage hope and/or perseverance like these:

We shall overcome

Keep your eyes on the prize

Lift every voice and sing

Some are defiant:

Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.

A few are hard truths:

Brothers gonna work it out

The hard truth is, we can be our own worst enemy.

“If not us, then who? If not now, then when” John E. Lewis said that. Others have used different words to say the same but it took the great Mr. Lewis to make it short, simple, urgent and easy for those to understand how completely fucked up it would be not to work it out. Brotherman did it right.

Those brothers worked it out, that’s family. Family doesn’t stop at blood. Blood or not family doesn’t come to your mother’s funeral, stand in front of her casket and say; “we’re family” then crush you without a word to you months later. Funny, I’m still grateful he attended the service because I know at that moment we were family.

Then we weren’t for reasons still unexplained, some “brother” he turned out to be. Gary Byrd said every brother ain’t a brother. Sometimes every brother ain’t a brother or a man.

Guy, Dawud, Brian, well-done and welcome black.

 

Mindy Newell: On Being Fucked Up

new-york-108The President: What’s his plan? Ohila: I think he is finishing his soup. • Hell Bent, Doctor Who Season Finale, Series 9

“Sometimes I think about what my mom told me. How I was really, really sick when I was first born and the doctors thought I was going to die. But there was this one doctor who wouldn’t give up. And sometimes, when things are really bad and fucked up, and I’m just so fucking tired of hauling myself out of the abyss one more goddamn time, I wish he had.” • Mindy Newell, On Her Depression

18 October 1990

Dear Ms. Newell,

Thanks for the letter and the story, which I liked enormously. I’m glad you liked my little book and that it may have helped in some way.  I’m sure you’ll avoid your Jack the Ripper and pull through with grand success; remember that most people do. I did. So will you.

Sincerely,

William Styron

Postcard I received from William Styron after I sent him a copy of “Chalk Drawing” along with a personal note after reading his “Darkness Visible.” I treasure it.

I recently had the fun experience at my day job of assisting with ECT – electro-convulsive therapy. While the procedure has come a long, long way from the days of One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest, it ain’t – to put it mildly – pleasant.

Oh, the patient is put under general anesthesia with a hit of succinylcholine to control tonic-clonic activity, so it’s not exactly Torquemada’s House of Medieval Torture, but there’s still something ugly and uncomfortably sadistic about purposely sending an electrical charge through a brain, isn’t there? Even if it has proven to be a successful intercession against intractable depression. And something profoundly impersonal that disturbs me, too, in the way a human being is treated like a slab of meat on the grill. “How would you like that, sir?” asked the waiter. “Well done,” said the diner, to twist W. C. Fields.

Or is that I feel it more deeply because of my own acquaintance with the Darkness Visible, as Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Styron titled his memoir of his own battle with the disease.

At any rate, as I stood looking down at the patient as the doctor was about to go to Defcon 5, I couldn’t help thinking…

There but for the grace of God go I.

At the time I co-wrote “Chalk Drawings” (Wonder Woman #46, September 1990) with George Pérez, I hadn’t told anyone about the depression since I hadn’t been officially diagnosed with it; in fact, I didn’t even know that I had it, only that something was “off” and “wrong” and had been for a long time…a very long time, actually. IIRC, the only one I had ever even mentioned my anxiety episodes to – which are frequently symptomatic of the condition, though they can stand “alone” – was my editor Karen Berger, and even that discussion was on a friend-to-friend basis one night over dinner in a restaurant on Columbus Avenue (I think) in Manhattan, and only because I was in the midst of having a giant panic attack over my plate. So the story of teenage depression and suicide was a bit – well, the word serendipitous comes to mind, but I usually use that word connoting something good happening, as in good karma.

So I can’t say that the depression made the story easy to write – I only know that it came pouring out of me like milk from a carton. At the time I guess I thought it was because of my empathetic ability – not in the way of Betazoid Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, of course – to get inside the head of my characters. At least, that was what everybody (editors, fellow writers, and so forth) was telling me.

It’s well known that many creative people have suffered from depression, and you can Google “creativity and depression,” or “writers/artists and depression” and get a zillion hits. While the psychiatric community is still out on the actual conclusive evidence, i.e., the biological/genetic/chemical linkage, there is a lot of subjective support out there. And while by no means am I putting myself in the category of writers like David Foster Wallace or Virginia Woolf or F. Scott Fitzgerald or William Styron, I do somehow just know that my illness, while certainly fucking up my life in so many god-awful, totally horrible ways, has also led me to that oft-touted “empathetic ability” to get inside my character’s heads

But can I get into my head?

I have a dream, a dream to write a “personal memoir” in the form of a graphic novel (of course, I can’t draw worth a damn so I’ll have to find an artist) about my experiences with the “darkness visible” of depression.  It won’t be a “my mommy and daddy fucked me up” account, as in Prozac Nation or in Girl, Interrupted, although, dearest family, you’ll be in there; you’ll have to be. I think, rather, that it will be more along the lines of Carrie Fisher’s Postcards From The Edge, vignettes or short-short stories.

Like the time, way, way back in 1976 (I told you it’s been around me for a long, long time) when I ran from my dorm room at nursing school through the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan to the L train subway station because I thought the clouds were falling down on me. And if you know the L train subway line, you’ll understand just how crazy I was, that the L train subway station at 14th St. and 1st Avenue could be a sanctuary.

That’s a great visual, isn’t it?

•     •     •     •     •

Holy Shit! Holy, Holy, Holy Shit!

Awesomely Amazing!

Abso-fucking-lutely Brilliant!

That’s my review of Hell Bent, the Season 9 finale of Doctor Who.*

SPOILER ALERT! As I told editor Mike Gold on the phone last night after the broadcast, I though that Stephen Moffat was about to pull some time-winey stuff when the Doctor and Clara stole the TARDIS – taking us back to the very beginning of the story, with Clara “renaming” herself Susan, i.e., the Doctor’s “granddaughter.”

Ed Catto: Comics and Retailing Done Right

Lululemon

My daughter is a college freshman, and she’s going to be working at the popular yoga and athletic apparel retailer Lululemon over her holiday break. It makes all the sense in the world as she’s focused on fitness and is a certified yoga instructor. She told the family a little about her training, and I was struck by some of the very thoughtful and progressive business practices the company embraces in order to make customers feel like they are truly guests. And at the core, they want to hire people who are passionately involved in fitness so that the retailer can best connect and care for their customers’ needs.

And then I thought about that “front line of pop culture,” our nation’s 2,000 comic shops. One of the reasons comic shops are thriving, while other, more established retailers are stumbling (I’m looking at you, Wal-Mart), is because comic shops know how to shift customers out of that “us vs. them” conundrum and into a “we’re all in this together” mindset.

Comic shops can be fun and engaging in ways far beyond those of ordinary retailers. Many times it starts with the people, and like Lululemon in the example above, the best-in-class comic shop retailers also recruit fans and “experts” to not only sell merchandise, but to help the clientele find what they need.

My great friend Greg Price used to tell a story about Seattle’s Zanadu Comics. At one point, they sent him a copy of a comic that they knew he’d like – even after he had moved to New Jersey the year before. That’s dedication. And that goes far beyond an Amazon recommendation, doesn’t it?

My exposure to comic shop retailing started in the 70s. I was a voracious reader, and I loved and collected comics. I made a weekly pilgrimage to the local convenience store (even though we called it a “Food Store” back then).  I even studied the on-shelf patterns so I could predict when different comic titles would be on sale.

While I was riding my bike back from one of these weekly pilgrimages, I saw an astounding sight. A man and a woman were moving boxes of comics into a small store. Boxes of comics? A store? At that time, I was vaguely aware that there were some stores dedicated to selling comics. But all those stores were located in mythical, far away lands with names like “New York City” and “Rochester.”

I introduced myself and wanted to dive in a right away. They told me, politely but firmly, that they’d be opening tomorrow and I could return then to peruse and purchase. I had to wait a whole day. I’m sure I muttered something like, “What a rip-off!”

But I returned the next day and many days after that. To me and my little gang of hoodlums friends, this comic shop was more than just a retailer. It was our entry point into a wonderful world full of stories, collectibles and adventures. And we knew even then that the swimming pool of pop culture was so big and wide that we would dive in and never have to come out. That retailer, Kim Draheim, knew it too and as an apostle of Geek Culture, helped foster a love of the industry that continues for all of us to that day.

I’ve caught up with Kim and next week we’ll catch up this early comic shop pioneer and explore the days of the direct retail market from his unique point of view.

Maxwell's Food Store

Box Office Democracy: The Good Dinosaur

There’s a quote from [[[The Tale of Genji]]] that has stuck with me since I read it more than a decade ago (and I swear this is going to be a review of The Good Dinosaur so stick with me a moment here) in which they describe a painting Genji made for a painting contest thusly: “this, done at undisturbed leisure by a genius at the art, was beyond anything.” It’s become a kind of shorthand used by me and a couple of my friends who took the class with me when we describe something particularly good we’ll describe the creator as “a master at leisure” but there might be a second way to interpret the quote. It might not just be that a phenomenal talent with unlimited time will make the greatest art, it could also be that an exceptional artist freed from the turmoil of their normal routine could make something not just good but quieter, more subtle. That’s what I think The Good Dinosaur is, a work freed from the turmoil of modern filmmaking that focuses on these sublime emotional moments and nails every last one of them.

It was a long road to the theaters for The Good Dinosaur and it missed its original release date by over a year to go through what was, reportedly, a major rewrite and an almost complete recasting. After all that, the story we get here isn’t terribly complex or original. The first act feels like an agrarian rewrite of The Lion King and the film ends terribly abruptly like a student film that ran out of stock. In between the movie is good but not terribly ambitious; it seems like a terrible waste to give us a world where dinosaurs never died and developed agriculture and society and then only show us the tiniest slices of that society. We see a single farm of brontosaurs (or whatever long necked herbivores they are), a family of tyrannosaur cattle ranchers, their raptor rustler antagonists, and a strange pterodactyl death cult. That’s all fascinating and frequently well executed but it left me wanting much more.

The plot of The Good Dinosaur is quite basic and there probably aren’t many sequences that will stick with me the same way Buzz Lightyear flying or Marlin and Dory going through the jellyfish did but the character work is rock solid and the movie packs a real emotional punch. I might be a little oversensitive to father/son stuff but the relationship between Arlo and his father, Henry, just killed me. Jeffery Wright does such nuanced work as a father struggling with feelings of frustration and disappointment but also profound overpowering love for his son. When the movie decides to linger on emotional moments with Arlo and Spot it’s also very effective, surprising because Spot doesn’t talk and is less like a human and more like a dog but something in his animation or voice acting or some other aspect of his “performance” makes it work. I’m not too proud to admit that I’ve cried in Pixar movies before (or even to admit that I was tearing up at the end of The Croods) but I was surprised at how frequently devastating The Good Dinosaur could be. Somewhat less surprising is what a treasure Sam Elliott is as a voice actor and how his thick drawling voice lends such a satisfying quality to a very important monologue.

I’m a little concerned my affection for The Good Dinosaur is some kind of Pixar elitism, and if this were the latest effort from Sony or Dreamworks I would be going on and on about how boring this movie was. I hope that’s not true, I hope I’m not that biased, but that’s also the cachet you get for making good movies for decades and never once making me sit through a Madagascar film. This feels not like a boring failure but as the work of a master at leisure, content to make something simple but haunting and beautiful. I love the spectacle and the completeness of a Wall-E, or an Up, or a Toy Story and that’s ok, they don’t all need to be that but they should all feel this real.

John Ostrander: Not Your Father’s Superman

batman-2nd-amendment-550x345-5253711

My friend Paul Guinan put an interesting post up on his Facebook page yesterday. It sparked an equally interesting discussion, and, evidently, you can have discussions on Facebook that are not all salvos of rants.

Paul wrote: “I grew up with Superman being a character of pure good. Every once in a while something like Red Kryptonite would cause him to do some bad things – nothing too bad – and he would be forgiven and once again beloved. He wasn’t a morose, frowning, reluctant hero, he enjoyed his life and mission.

Batman With Gun“Batman was a victim of gun violence. Bob Kane flirted with the idea of Batman carrying twin pistols for a very brief moment (a holdover from Batman’s inspiration, The Shadow), but seminal writers like Bill Finger solidified the code of Batman not carrying firearms. It made great thematic sense. Batman would sock a villain on the jaw, or throw his Batarang at a them – not beat them to a pulp and wind up with bloodied gloves. Batman is a scientist, detective, and martial arts expert. Such training develops character that’s in contradiction to being a rageaholic.

“Wonder Woman is the Princess of Peace, an ambassador for justice. Yes, she’s descended from Amazon warriors – but who had come to live a life of peace and tranquility on a secluded island. The Wonder Woman I grew up with wouldn’t carry a sword or shield, as that would be a sign of using men’s instruments of war to resolve conflicts. Her weapon? A Lasso of Truth! The villain would be socked on the jaw, tied up with the magic lasso, and be calmed.

“If the evolution over generations of an iconic character reflects society, then such indicators reveal we are becoming way too cynical and mean. Shouldn’t that be an opportunity to provide role models who inspire us to be greater, rather than reinforce our negative natures?

“I write this after seeing the second trailer for Batman v Superman, in which the DC trio is constantly angry –  even Clark Kent! The trailer climaxes in a shot of the DC trio. Superman is wearing a suit more dark and sinister than the outfit worn by “evil” Christopher Reeve in Superman III. Wonder Woman is dressed in a dark monochrome knockoff of the outfit worn by Xena, brandishing a sword. Batman looks as he should be is carrying a rifle. WTF? Sigh.”

I’m a founding member of the dark “grim ‘n’ gritty” hero (or anti-hero) club. GrimJack, Amanda Waller, my remaking of some established heroes – if I can find some tarnish to put on a hero’s armor, I’m known to apply it. However, I’m also not without sympathy for Paul’s point of view. The notion appears to be that if it’s darker, the story is more “realistic,” it’s more relatable to the reader/audience. That notion pervades not only comics but the movie and television adaptations of them.

And yet, what is my favorite superhero adaptation right now on TV? It’s not Gotham, it’s not Arrow – it’s The Flash. The main reason is that Barry Allen is presented as a hero, that he wants to be a hero, and that people respond to him as a hero. The show doesn‘t pretend it’s easy but that it is worthwhile. The show also really honors its roots and is often very funny. It’s well written and acted. It’s also very much in the tradition of the character as published by DC for the past few decades.

One of the issues raised is that many of the movies (Man of Steel was cited and, potentially, Suicide Squad might be another) are not meant to be for all ages. The attitude of some appears to be that superhero movies should be, at best, all ages or even kid centric, that superheroes are essentially a child’s fantasy, but this flies in the face of what movies are about commercially: studios want to put as many butts in the seats and eyes on the screens that they can. The movies that have been made so far have reaped tons of money and that tells the studios this is what the audiences want. If a little of this is good, more is better. Don’t fool yourself; plenty of kids went to see them as well and bought lots of the paraphernalia connected with it (and that’s where the real money is made).

Kids are not all that sheltered, either. Take a look at some of the video games that are popular. Kids know more than when I was a kid; take a look at the world around us. ISIL, climate change, the very real possibility the seas are dying (and with it all of life) – when I was growing up, we only had the specter of World War III to cope with. If movies are darker it’s because the world that the kids must cope with is also getting darker.

However, it’s not simply the dark and the grim that makes money. Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man were very successful at the box office and they were for a more general audience. They were brighter and more fun and more hopeful. Meaning what? That, as usual, it’s not all one thing or the other.

I believe that all characters and concepts cannot stay stuck in one time or era. To remain viable, they must be re-interpreted for the time in which they are in. They have to be part of the world that the reader/audience inhabits. That world, our world, has grown darker in the past few decades. The comics and the movies did not cause that; they reflect it.

That said, there also has to be hope. There desperately needs to be hope today. That also should be reflected in our movies and our superheroes.

If that sounds like I’m conflicted, I am. I see both sides’ views and sympathize with all of them. I’m looking forward to the Suicide Squad movie; the trailer suggests to me that they got what I was doing and it will be part of the movie. That said, I’d also like Superman to be a bit brighter than they seem to be making him, to represent the best in us. That was my Superman.

Oh, and he should wear red trunks. Definitely they should bring back the red trunks.

Marc Alan Fishman: How Gotham Got Great(ish)

gotham

The past Monday, Gotham had its fall finale. While the episode itself was a bit meh to not-bad, the show thus far this season has been darn good to dare I say great. Since I last wrote about James Gordon and friends, the show has really settled into a fantastic groove. It’s been so good, I’ve privately sang its graces enough to ComicMix‘s EIC, Mike Gold, such that he mentioned it on his rockin’ good radio show. When Mr. Gold recognizes your opinion as valued, then you know something must be going right.

With the new season dubbed “Rise of the Villains,” Gotham has added a bit more serialization to its previously procedural format. We started with the entrance of the never-been-comic-booked nemesis Theo Galavan. Introduced as a scene chewing billionaire by day/evil criminal mastermind by night, Theo’s been mostly a high point to the proceedings. Especially when he flipped the script and murdered the Joker. OK, should I have said spoiler alert? Nah.

One of the worst parts of any prequel is knowing where everything and everyone is headed. Gotham smartly sidestepped that and showed that it has no problem playing its audience a fool when Theo sliced the throat of the proto-Clown Prince of Crime. And while the ginger-haired Jerome was an astounding would-be Joe Kerr, the powers-that-be recognized that there can be too much of a good thing. One knife slit later, and suddenly the show is a bit more unpredictable than it was the week prior. When Gotham remembers that it need not follow any known scripts to see means to the eventual communal ends we know and love, things have been never better.

Gotham from the starting gate was clawing over itself to debut as many proto-villains as it could. The need for world-building outweighed the need to build and establish emotional arches for the bloated cast. Take the curious case of Edward Nygma.

When first we met the horn-rimmed medical examiner, most of us smacked our foreheads in frustration. Nygma was easily one of the worst parts of the show when it began. The fact that the writers shoved him unnecessarily into the fold at the GCPD felt like the cold, lifeless hand of the boardroom trying to script doctor its way into good synergy. Each time Nygma popped up, the show got goofy. And while camp has proven useful to lighten Gotham’s macabre production design, with Edward it always felt like a chore.

However, in season two we get to see the fruit from those wicked seeds. Halfway into “Rise of the Villains” and Eddie is a murdering, piano-dueting, BFF with Oswald Cobblepot. Remember when I said camp is useful? I beg you to answer the riddle of how taking the character 1000% away from anything resembling even the Jim Carrey performance somehow ended up with the Riddler being one of the high spots of the series. Maybe it was the slick turn from Nygma’s actor, Cory Michael Smith, in showcasing the dormant dichotomy within Nygma. Or maybe it was the writers leaning into the shared psychopathy of seemingly everyone in the show, allowing all problems to be eventually solved with murder. Whatever the specific answer to that riddle is, I assure you, making me care about Edward Nygma has been a huge win for the season at large.

And how could I forget the last son of Gotham? At the end of the first season, Bruce Wayne found his father’s secret cave of wonders (behind the fireplace, don’t ya’ know). I half gagged over the triteness of it all. Somehow, my silent prayers were answered. Season 2 has shown young Wayne to have finally gotten a dose of needed testosterone. Somewhere between firing, re-hiring, and demanding a fight education from Alfred to staging his own abduction to glean information from Silver St. Cloud, I saw the necessary glimpses of the man who would become the Bat.

Kudos for denoting Bruce’s love of owls. Well-played, fancy pants. And double kudos to the writer who wrote Wayne’s parting words in the fall finale, which denoted the young scion’s predilection to planning the perfect escape.

Ultimately Gotham has come a long way. It’s traveled from a groan-inducing parody of noir and Mafiaso procedural to a semi-serious / semi-camp gallivant loosely playing with every known rule in the Bat-handbook. There’s no doubt we’ll never get to an actual man in a cape and cowl striking fear into the hearts of men. Instead, we’ll travel to every dark and dank corner with a murder-happy grin-scowler in James Gordon as he cleans up the streets just enough to eventually need the help from a sexy Ben Affleck and frowny Henry Cavill.

And while we’re making our way there, the writers and producers will ruin every single villain and confident we think we knew… laughing maniacally all the way to the bank.

Martha Thomases: The Smartest Catharsis

Bugs Bunny Elmer Fudd

I don’t know about you guys, but catharsis is kind of my jam. I seek out entertainment that expresses my dark and violent emotions so that I won’t act on them in dark and violent ways.

And these past few weeks have been rough. The terrorism in Paris, the terrorism in Colorado, the police terrorism in Chicago, all arouse in me a feeling of despair and helplessness.

I need violent media.

Not more violence, just choreographed fights, fake blood, and the massive destruction of props. I like to watch stuff get blowed up real good. Imagining the destruction of my enemies, or even just the assholes who wear backpacks in crowded subways, makes me feel better.

All without hurting anyone.

In decades past, there were arguments that excessive exposure to violent media dulled the audience, making them indifferent to the pain caused by real-life violence. It’s entirely likely that those who are mentally ill would have such an unhealthy reaction. I mean, mentally ill people can have unhealthy reactions to The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Adults, however, who are not mentally ill can use entertainment to engage their emotions in imaginary battles to the death against those who must upset us. Even the Bible will work, especially if you enjoy a deity who drowns everybody (including animals) for no good reason.

I think we should find a way for more people to enjoy imaginary violence, instead of the real thing. There is far too much of that in present-day America. If I might quote: “More than once a day on average this year, mass shootings have destroyed lives and families. President Obama on Saturday said this endless ritual of murder is “not normal,” but that is precisely the problem: In America, it has become all too normal.”

Wouldn’t it be great if the new normal was to simply go to the mall and see a movie? Isn’t that better than all of us getting a gun?

(Or at least, some of us.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, reading quotes from the GOP presidential candidates defending the Colorado terrorist is making me need to read Bitch Planet.

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #374

DON’T DO THE TIME, IF YOU DIDN’T DO THE CRIME

The law doesn’t work the way it did in The Twilight Children #1. Except for those times when it does.

Bundo, the town drunk, lives in a small seaside town somewhere in Mexico. According to the local kids who spent two panels giving us Bundo’s back story, Bundo passed out on a couch with a lit cigarette. His house caught fire. His wife and his three little kids died in the fire. Bundo was sent to prison because “mean people said he set that fire on purpose.” Later Bundo was let out of prison when, “they found out he didn’t do it on purpose.”

6a8abdb0d98987a2219bc96fb269ee55._SX640_QL80_TTD_

I don’t know what Bundo was convicted of. My efforts to find out were hampered by the fact that try as I might – and I did try – I couldn’t find any convenient source of Mexican laws online. At least not one I could read. I may have been a Spanish major in college, but that was more than forty years ago. Nowadays my Spanish isn’t even good enough to get me through an episode of Zorro.

Okay, there was this one site where a group of Mexican attorneys offered to provide “English translations of Mexican Laws, Regulations, and Standards.” And all for only $1,275 a year. I passed. It’s not that I don’t love you, my readers. I do. I just don’t love you that much. (Apparently, you can put a price on love and it’s $1,275 a year.)

So, I’m going to analyze Bundo’s situation using law I can find and research; Ohio law. My Yahoo weather app assigns random pictures from Flickr to the background screen for my home town’s weather. According to Yahoo, Cleveland has mountains, hot springs, icebergs, and castles in it. I see no reason why it can’t have a small Mexican seaside village as well.

One of the few things I did learn about criminal trials in Mexico is that they’re tried to judges, not to juries. If the judge in our strange hybrid world of MexicOhio believed Bundo did what he did on purpose, that judge would have convicted Bundo of aggravated murder.

The judge might have thought Bundo murdered his wife and children with prior calculation and design. That’s what we used to call “premeditated murder” back in those unenlightened days when we let Perry Mason define our crimes and not legislators who were paid by the word. If so, the judge would have convicted Bundo of aggravated murder with prior calculation and design.

Bundo’s children were described as “little kids.” They were probably under the age of 13. In MexicOhio, aggravated murder also lies if someone purposefully kills a person of tender years.

Finally, if the judge believed that Bundo set his house on fire on purpose that would be aggravated arson. As Bundo’s wife and children died as a result of the aggravated arson, the judge could have convicted Bundo of aggravated murder under a felony murder rationale.

It doesn’t matter under what theory the judge convicted Bundo. He could even have mixed and matched theories like socks in a Laundromat. What matters is that Bundo would have been convicted of aggravated murder.

Aggravated murder is a hefty crime. It’s not surprising then that it carries a hefty prison sentence. Not the death penalty – Mexico doesn’t have the death penalty – but a long, long sentence.

In the story, Bundo was released from prison after “they”determined he didn’t kill his family “on purpose.” In the real world – or even the semi-real world of MexicOhio – Bundo would not have been released just because, “they found out he didn’t do it on purpose.”

Ohio courts have the power to modify convictions if new facts come to light. Juries can consider lesser included offenses. So can courts. If new facts prompt a court to conclude the evidence no longer supports a conviction for one crime, the court can determine whether the evidence is sufficient to support a conviction any lesser included offense subsumed in the greater crime.

Bundo was so drunk that he passed out on the couch with a lit cigarette. Said cigarette started a fire which killed his wife and children. It’s my considered opinion that any judge who considered Bundo’s case would correctly find that even if Bundo didn’t do it on purpose, so wasn’t guilty of aggravated murder, he was guilty of reckless homicide.

After the judge found Bundo guilty of reckless homicide, it would have imposed a new Bundo, one appropriate for reckless homicide. Bundo wouldn’t have been released simply because “they,” whoever “they” were, suddenly discovered that he didn’t kill his family on purpose. He would have gone back to prison under the new sentence imposed on him. That’s why the law doesn’t work the way it did in The Twilight Children # 1.

But here’s why it sometimes does.

The judge might think the years Bundo had already spent in prison for the aggravated murder which he didn’t really commit was sufficient punishment for the reckless homicide which Bundo did commit. In that case, the judge could suspend the new sentence he imposed on Bundo for reckless homicide and put Bundo on probation.

Also we don’t know how long Bundo had been in prison before he was released. If Bundo had spent so much time in prison under his sentence for aggravated murder that he had already served the maximum sentence authorized by law for reckless homicide, what then? Due Process says you can’t imprison a person for longer than the maximum sentence authorized by law. In that case, the judge would have released Bundo, because he had already served the maximum sentence. Either way, Bundo would have been released from prison because “they found out he didn’t do it on purpose,” just like the story said.

And that’s why the law doesn’t work the way it did in The Twilight Children # 1, except for those times when it does. Under either scenario, Bundo would be free from prison and free to contemplate the mysteries of life.

Mysteries such as this. Bundo is a slang term meaning to become highly intoxicated. Why the hell would his parents give him a name that was basically a self-fulfilling prophecy? Parents who do that – especially comic book parents who do that – are a real E. Nigma.

Tweeks: Who in the Hellcat is Patsy Walker?

For those of you who are old enough to watch Marvel’s Jessica Jones on Netflix, you might have noticed her bestie, Trish Walker AKA Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat. Patsy Walker was the star of a comic book series from the 1940’s through 1960’s that reminded us a lot of the Archie comics, maybe even better. Then thanks to Jack Kirby & Stan Lee, Pasty was written into a Fantastic Four comic and slowly but surely found herself a superhero in a cool catsuit with retractable claws (watch the video…we explain it).

For those of us who might need to wait on the show, Patsy will be starring in a new comic series being released on December 23. We’re very excited about Marvel’s “Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat!” by writer Kate Leth and artist Brittney Williams and in this week’s episode will get you all caught up on Patsy’s backstory so the you will be excited too. And as a bonus give you some background on Jessica Jones and Anya’s She-Hulk impersonation.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks