It’s beginning to appear as though we’re moving away from one of the pillars of superherodom, the secret identity. Even though this movement started back in the early 1960s with The Fantastic Four, it’s moved slowly up to the breakthrough moment in the first Iron Man movie.
Of course, that was telegraphed a few years before by my pal Mike Grell during his run on the comic book, but Marvel squeezed that back in the tubes where it sat until the movie people showed them Mike was right in the first place.
Such pettiness aside, I welcome the departure from tradition. The secret identity was almost always a stupid idea. Clark Kent became Superman to protect his friends and loved ones from harm? Okay, fine. I can appreciate that even the Man of Steel can not keep an eye on Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris, Lex Luthor (well, they used to be friends…), Linda Lee, Lionel Luthor, and Leslie Luckabee simultaneously, 24/7. But let’s do a little reality testing here: all Toyman has to do is grab Agnes Applebee off of the streets and hold a gun to her head and Superman is in the exact same pickle.
There were worthy exceptions. I can see why Bruce Wayne covers up: he doesn’t want all those people inconvenienced by the Dark Knight’s activities to sue the poo outta him. Going back to the dawn of the pulp era, the incredibly wealthy nobleman Don Diego de la Vega was committing high treason every time he dressed up as Zorro: to the natives of California he was a hero, but to the Power he was a terrorist. Even then, Zorro revealed his identity at the end his first tale, The Curse of Capistrano, but author/creator Johnston McCulley overlooked this aberration in his five-dozen subsequent stories.
Arguably the first costumed hero (Spring-Heeled Jack was a villain, and was further disadvantaged by being ostensibly real) was the Scarlet Pimpernel, created 14 years before Zorro by Baroness Emmuska Orczy in 1905. He had the same excuse as Don Diego: he was committing treason, in this case against the French Revolution. He and his 19-member legion ran around rescuing their fellow aristocrats from the best of times, the worst of times. So, sure, he had a good reason for his secret identity.
But Superman? Not so much. Wonder Woman? Give me a break; army nurse turned Second Lieutenant Diana Prince was wasting her powers as anything other than Princess Diana. The X-Men? They had no lives; did they need masks because “Hey, Beast!” sounds better than “Hey, Hank!”? Doctor Strange didn’t have a secret identity; in real life, he was Doctor Strange. If the wrong people got the right idea, he’d mystically brainwash them. Spider-Man? C’mon, we’d be better off without Aunt May.
The man with one of the most famous secret identities of all time – or, perhaps, two – in fact didn’t have a secret identity at all. Were he to be unmasked, he would be nothing.
I’ll tell you about him next week.
THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil Talks About Mike Gold’s Old Boss
HOLLYWOOD TREASURE’S Joe Maddalena shares more of his reset finds with us, how the show has changed this season on SyFy and the one items he wouldn’t sell. Plus more with Gillian Jacobs & Jim Rash from NBC’S COMMUNITY and how they prefacing the future – meanwhile, The Dark Knight Returns again, this time animated.
COMMUNITY fans are still reeling from NBC’s plan to move the show to Friday’s and the firing of creator Dan Harmon, and the cast is as well. We sat down with Gillian Jacobs and Jim Rash about their reactions and where they stand looking at a 13 episode fourth season. Plus Joe Maddalena is back with new HOLLYWOOD TREASURES on SyFy and he’s grabbed his Holy Grail already. Meanwhile, the net is buzzing on who’s coming out at DC?
“The secret to Nancy’s success,” the classic story goes, “is that it takes as long to read it as it does to decide not to read it.”
When I heard that gag back in the 1970s, it was attributed to the great artist Wallace Wood. Chillingly, it’s possible it predates Woody’s career by decades. What somehow became synonymous with the bland and the banal started off as the offspring of a cheesecake girlie strip, Fritzi Ritz. It turns out Fritzi had this niece named Nancy who came to live with her. Being a gag strip, I do not believe the details of the demise of the spiky-haired girl’s parents were ever revealed, but it would be uncharitable to assume the spunky, independent girl murdered them in their sleep.
Nancy’s best friend was a Dead End Kids wannabe named Sluggo. Had Nancy shaved off her hair, enjoyed a sex-change operation, and donned a striped t-shirt, she would look exactly like her friend. So perhaps it was Sluggo who did the parents in after uncovering the results of a blood test.
Fritzi and Nancy lived in the nice part of town. Sluggo lived in the slums. For quite a time in the 1930s and, less so, thereafter, clearly what separated those neighborhoods was Wackyland. Had those adventures been published in the hippie era, we would have assumed writer/artist Ernie Bushmiller consumed a prolific quantity of LSD.
In fact, I am surprised a Nancy underground comic wasn’t published during those paisley days. Publisher/cartoonist/freedom fighter Denis Kitchen was, and probably still is, quite a fan of the stuff. He even produced a line of Nancy ties; I once wore the subtle power-tie version to a big-deal executive meeting at Warner Brothers, much to the chagrin of DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz.
Nonetheless, I suspect the secret of Nancy’s success was the decision to “dumb it down” for the general audience, a trick that saved Blondie’s ass during the previous decade. Remember, the only reason the even more surreal Krazy Kat endured throughout the ridiculously powerful Hearst chain was the fact that it was William Randolph Hearst’s favorite feature… and he signed the paychecks.
Despite its homogenization, Bushmiller produced a funny and often clever gag strip. The proof of this lies in the strips produced by others after Ernie died: even recycled old jokes looked pale and pathetic compared to the original. At its dullest moments during the later Bushmiller era, Nancy was sufficiently entertaining to maintain its role in the readers’ daily ritual at a time when comic strips gave subscribing newspapers their competitive edge. You know, back when they actually had to compete with other newspapers.
Fantagraphics Books has released a hefty tome reprinting Nancy’s mid-forties run, fronted by an introduction from Daniel Clowes. Given the feature’s undeserved reputation and the plethora of fine newspaper reprint books, I fear their Nancy Is Happy might get lost in the shuffle.
Nancy was good enough to keep our elders laughing through the Great Depression and World War II. Nancy is certainly good enough to keep us laughing through the 2012 elections.
Nancy Is Happy by Ernie Bushmiller • Edited by Kim Thompson • Fantagraphics Books, $24.99
Boy, I can’t wait to see what the search engines do with “NSFW Webcomics” and “Sweet 16” in the same headline…
It’s Round 2! Your votes and your donations have narrowed the field down to 16 contestants (and you raised $160 for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) and now it’s time for to vote again. Here are the updated brackets… and remember, be careful when you click through to look at the comics! (more…)
Hooray, hooray, the first of May– the Mix May Mayhem NSFW Webcomics Tournament starts today!
You nominated and voted for your favorite Not Safe For Work webcomics, and we’re taking the top 32 and putting them in a single elimination tournament where we whittle down the contestants down to one. Take a look at the brackets– and remember, they all link to NSFW comics, so be careful when clicking through…
Anna Torv & John Noble join in our coverage of the recently renewed FRINGE, with some interesting insight on playing duel roles – and speaking of that, Eddie Izzard talks more about his debut as Long John Silver on SyFy‘s TREASURE ISLAND this Saturday and how he seems attracted to unique roles. Plus with AVENGERS Mania days away, the SuperHero Movie News is flying in.
Fox has granted a 13 episode “final season” to FRINGE, but what does that all mean? We talk to producers/show runners J.H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner about how they are course correcting too be sure fans get satisfied. Plus TREASURE ISLAND comes to SyFy with Eddie Izzard as one of literature’s most famous pirates. Eddie talks aboutt life as Long John Silver.
