Tagged: Lois Lane

THE LAW IS A ASS Installment # 440: DID SUPERMAN BOUNCE A CHECK

…And then he ducks the guns.

Last column we discussed what happens to those criminals on Adventures of Superman who shoot at Superman only to have their bullets bounce off him. Bottom line, they get charged with some crimes. But that’s just for shooting at Superman. There are still two very important questions that remain unanswered.

First, why did the invulnerable Superman, who already had bullets bounce off of him, duck when the bad guys threw their guns at him? Actually, we need to answer a question before that one – hey, if airplanes can pre-board, I can pre-first – namely did Superman actually duck a thrown gun?

From my research, inextensive though it was, I can say it definitely did happen. Once. In the first season episode “The Mind Machine.”

Theories abound, as to why Superman ducked but the one I think the best is that in parts of said scene, Superman wasn’t being played by George Reeves but by a stunt double named Dale Van Sickle. Van Sickle bore a slight resemblance to Reeves, but it wasn’t enough to survive close scrutiny. Or even the level of scrutiny you could get on those small, grainy, not-hi def, cathode-ray TVs of the 50s. If you study the scene, you’ll note that after the gunshots, Superman is standing erect and smoke obscures his face. That’s because it was the stunt double who nobody wanted you to see very well. Then, when the bad guy winds up to throw his gun at Superman, the Man of Steel avoidance ducked, again hiding his face. I think Superman ducked so that no one would notice the stunt double or that “Superman” wasn’t Superman.

The more-important question is this: if one of those bullets ricocheted off Superman and rabbitted into an innocent bystander could the criminals be brought up on charges for that injury? For once I have an easy answer for you. Yes.

With what crime could the criminals be charged? Okay, now we’re back to our usual complicated answers.

Before we can answer that question, we must answer another question or three. Such as, did the poor bystander die, or only get injured? Meaning is it homicide or assault? Then there’s, did the criminals know the bullets would bounce off of Superman? (Yes that again.) And finally, what were the criminals doing before Superman confronted them?

Let’s take the easy question first. If the bystander is only injured, then, irrespective of whether the criminals knew the bullets would bounce, the crime is going to be what the Model Penal Code calls aggravated assault.

Aggravated assault is knowingly causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon. A quick show of hands, how many of you think a gun is a deadly weapon? (Come on, it’s not a trick question, even Wayne LaPierre cops to that one.) But there’s a second prong to the definition, aggravated assault can also be recklessly causing serious bodily injury while showing indifference to others.

If the criminals knew the bullets would bounce off Superman, they knew a rebounding injury was as likely here as in a Basketball game. The law dictates that people intend the reasonably foreseeable consequence of their acts. So if the criminals knew the bullets would bounce like an inflated Bumble, they knowingly caused the reasonably foreseeable physical harm resulting from a bouncing bullet.

Even if the criminals didn’t foresee the bouncing bullets might hit another person, firing at something, or someone, that is going to make the bullets bounce when other people were around would be a reckless act showing indifference to others. Which constitutes an aggravated assault under the second definition.

If the criminals didn’t know the bullets would bounce then they thought they’d injure Superman and shooting at Superman would be aggravated assault. But, the bullets didn’t hurt Superman, they hurt a bystander. Ha! The law covers that possibility. The law may be an ass, but sometimes it’s smart enough to anticipate things.

The law anticipated this possibility with the transferred intent doctrine. If criminals intend to cause harm to person A but end up harming person B instead, the criminals’ intent to hurt A is transferred to the injury to B and the criminals are guilty of assaulting B. Because our criminals knowingly tried to injure Superman their criminal intent transfers to harming the bystander and they’re guilty of aggravated assault of the bystander.

What if the bystander dies? Obviously, we’re talking a homicide, but which homicide?

If the criminals didn’t know the bullets would bounce off Superman and thought they would kill him, then the criminals are guilty of aggravated murder or murder in the first degree; whatever that crime is called in Metropolis, other than antisocial. That’s because the criminals tried to kill Superman but ended up killing another person. Once again the transferred intend doctrine transfers the intent to kill Superman onto the unintended killing of the bystander.

If the criminals did know the bullets would bounce, then we have to know what the criminals were doing that attracted Superman’s attention. It’s not like Superman was flying around until he got bored then decided to go hassle some guys to see whether they’d shoot at him. No, true to their names, the bad guys were doing something bad and Superman was trying to stop them.

If the criminal were committing a major felony when Superman intervened, then the felony murder rule comes into play. Criminals who cause a death while committing a major felony like armed robbery or kidnapping – and most of the crimes in Adventures of Superman involved one or both of those; especially kidnapping Lois Lane (Adventures_of_Superman) or Jimmy Olsen (Adventures_of_Superman) – commit first degree murder under the felony murder rule. This is true whether the deceased is the original victim or a bystander.

If the underlying crime was a lesser crime that wouldn’t trigger the felony murder rule, we’re in the realm of manslaughter. In some states, like Ohio, causing a death while committing a felony or misdemeanor that didn’t trigger the felony murder rule is an involuntary manslaughter. So if the criminals were committing a minor crime and killed someone by shooting at Superman, the criminals would be guilty of an involuntary manslaughter.

But what about Superman? Can he be brought up on charges for allowing bullets to bounce off of him and strike a bystander? A criminal charge of negligent homicide could apply to a person who allows another person to die through negligence. Superman allowing bullets to bounce off him without checking to make sure other people weren’t around is probably negligent homicide, provided a prosecutor wanted to risk reelection by bringing Superman up on charges. Nowadays, to prevent the possibility of Superman negligently killing someone, Superman either melts the bullets with heat vision or plucks them out of the air.

But what if Superman intentionally kills someone by, say, snapping his neck in battle?Oh no! Once was enough. I’m not going there again!

Martha Thomases: Superhero Summer Love

Summertime summertime sum-sum-summertime. Long days. Sultry nights.

Summer is hot. Literally. We are very aware of our bodies, and the bodies of those around us. We wear lighter clothes. We wear sunglasses and/or glamorous hats.

Love is in the air, or at least lust.

Naturally, I asked myself, “What do superheroes do about this?”

I mean, skin-tight costumes are hot. Literally. And while certain superpowers like invulnerability might make it easier to wear synthetic fabrics or leather, that still doesn’t explain how a Batman can get through a humid Gotham summer.

I guess he’s had his mind on other things. Last month, he proposed to Catwoman Selina Kyle, on a rooftop, both dressed in their superhero outfits.

Neither one of them appeared to be sweating. Although it’s raining, so maybe that made a difference.

I like the Batman/Catwoman romance. I liked it in the old comics I read as a kid, and I liked it in The Dark Knight Rises. I loved it. I loved the Alan Brennert story, The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne, where they got married the first time.

I’m not sure I love this Batman and this Catwoman together.

There are a lot of iconic relationships in comics. Because some characters have been in existence for more than 75 years, these relationships have gone through a lot of ups and downs. If you’re a continuity geek (and sometimes I am, but not about this), you can make yourself crazy with the seeming contradictions over the years. Is Lois Lane a jealous snoop, or an independent professional dedicated to her craft? Is Carol Ferris a stuck-up heiress or a lonely little rich girl? Is Iris West a busybody nagging busybody or simply a person who doesn’t like to be lied to? Is Steve Trevor a macho man or a wimp?

Instead, I choose to see these relationships as reflections of both their times and the people (usually men) who write them. This is especially obvious in stories from the 1970s and 1980s when the modern day feminist movement achieved its first successes. You can tell that the writers (and, probably, editors) know something is happening, but they aren’t sure what they are supposed to do about it. So you get a lot of female characters proclaiming themselves “women’s libbers” while wearing hot pants.

(Note: I’m not saying no feminist ever wore hot pants, or that wearing hot pants is anti-feminist. I’m just saying it wasn’t as common in real life as it was in say, Metropolis.)

Today, with movies and television as well as comics, we have a lot of different versions of the same relationships from which to choose. I enjoy Lois and Clark in the Superman comics, who are comfortable being married and being parents. I enjoy Barry Allen and Iris West on the television Flash, mostly because Candice Patton is so refreshingly straightforward. I thought the Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor dynamic in the new Wonder Woman was totally believable, way more than it has been in the comics for decades.

I’m not so sure about the current versions of Batman and Catwoman. Bruce Wayne has been through even more trauma than usual lately, what with losing Tim Drake and everything. If I were his shrink, I would advise him to wait at least a year before making any life-changing decisions. I know he’s hurting, but divorce would hurt even more.

At least until the next ret-con.

Martha Thomases: King Arthur, Lois Lane and Gefilte Fish, Oh My!

Diversity is in the news!

Warner Bros. spent an estimated $145 million on a movie about King Arthur, directed by Guy Ritchie, hoping to have a new tentpole hit like his Sherlock Holmes films. Instead, the movie opened in third place, far behind Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which had already been out for two weeks, and Snatched, starring Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn.

In other words, a movie based on a male hero of white culture (albeit one with a random but beautiful black man) flopped behind a movie about a multi-racial multi-species space gang and a movie about two women, one of them old enough to have grown children and one of them not conventionally movie-star beautiful.

I’m not here to say that King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, failed because it is not a good movie, or that the two other movies I mentioned here are of higher quality. I like Guy Ritchie, or I did when he made movies like this. Instead, I want to talk about how the modern American audience, the people who pay for our popular entertainment who buy movie tickets, books, comics, music and television subscriptions, is more accepting of diversity than the people who sell them.

That’s the facet of the discussion about the Marvel story that I think gets neglected. Marvel Vice-President David Gabriel did not say that the inclusion of more non-white, non-male characters was the reason for Marvel’s sales slump. He said that a few retailers told him that was the reason.

By itself, this does not mean that books with diverse characters don’t sell. This means that they don’t sell in those retailers’ stores.

There are all sorts of reasons this could be true. I don’t know where these stores are, or what their surrounding communities are like. I don’t know what the capacities of these retailers might be in regard to advertising, promotion, and outreach. Are they located near colleges or other kinds of schools? Are they rural or urban? Do they see themselves as a community asset for everyone, or a safe haven for their loyal Band of Bros? Any of these factors can have an impact on the kinds of books a store sells best.

It is this very variety in the kinds of markets comic book stores serve that should encourage publishers to produce more diverse kinds of books, not only in terms of the characters but in the genres and packaging of the stories. Saying that books about people of color, or books about women won’t sell is just as stupid as saying the same things about movies.

I can understand that many readers of superhero comics are tired stories where an established character is suddenly replaced by someone of another race, gender or sexual orientation. It was daring and interesting when it first happened 40 years ago, but today it’s neither new nor newsworthy. Anyone who tells stories like these today should have some different insights than we’ve seen before.

It’s much more interesting, to me anyway, to create entirely new characters. That’s what Milestone Media did back in the day, and it’s what Catalyst Prime from Lion Forge Comics seems to be doing now. I haven’t seen them at my local store yet, but I have faith in any comic book company that does this.

My real reason for encouraging diversity is entirely selfish: I want more, and I want different. I want to have the time and resources to sample as many different things as I can in this life. Whether that means strange foods or different kinds of stories, I want the opportunity to try the new and exotic.

By the way, the article in that last link (about the growing Jewish community in Berlin) has one of the funniest things I’ve ever read in The New York Times. I don’t know if the Gray Lady meant to be so snarky, but it’s hilarious. See for yourself:

“Jewish culture here is a bit superficial,” said Elad Jacobowitz, a 39-year-old real estate broker from Tel Aviv who moved to Berlin 13 years ago. “It doesn’t fit,” he said, sipping horseradish-infused vodka while listening to a klezmer band at the gefilte fish party during the Nosh Berlin festival.

Michael Davis: “I don’t grab pussy. It grabs me.”

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I was so stunned by the election I just couldn’t bring myself to write a damn thing for the last few weeks. Hell, in the case of Bleeding Cool it’s been months that I blame on my depression and trying to figure out how to fix a problem no one sees yet but with depression I couldn’t care less.

Then something magical happened. Call it a Thanksgiving comic book miracle. It was no less than that. So I hope to be reset at Bleeding Cool, ComicMix and my site Michael Davis World. MDW had an outstanding and loyal following.

I messed that up big time a week after I began talks to partner with a massive site. Shit. That was stupid. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. My depression was/is a motherfucker.

Once I become fixated on something I just kept at it regardless if I’d achieved my goals. I’d change or add new goals. I’m told this allows me to spend less time thinking about putting a bullet to my head.

I haven’t written for my site in almost three years, and one by one lost every columnist except for Martha Thomases. She singlehandedly kept MDW afloat. I haven’t told her thank you. I can’t muster up the balls to call because (it sounds nuts) but as long as Martha is owed my gratitude I’ve got a marker and I never welch on a promise, a bet and especially not a friend.

Or in Martha’s case… family.

She’ll read this and think it’s a thank you. In a way it is, but to me it’s a promissory note. I’m not 100% well and never will be, but I know I can do a bit better and besides it’s almost Christmas…

I do know that Martha does love a ridiculous MOTU story and Lord knows in three years there has been few. Well, thanks to Joe Illidge here’s one just for you Martha consider it a down payment.

Thanks Joe. BTW – My New Boo, Lois Lane copyright Michael Davis 2016

Joe asked this question on Facebook: As a writer, name one thing you would do with Lois Lane in the comics, if you could do anything.

So here’s my answer:

MY NEW BOO, LOIS LANE

…or how I gots me a white woman

Lois is pissed. Instead of date night with her, Superman choose to save Donald Trump from a crowd of angry maids upset because he said “Cleaning is for losers; those domestics chicks are ugly, fat, most likely Mexican rapist criminals who are responsible for the one missing sock from the dryer. I mean who else could it be?”

Lois would be hurt and Michael Davis the black new owner-publisher of the renamed Mostly Daily Planet (remember, black new owner-publisher) would be there for her.

Then one night listening to her sob stories I would give her the real skinny…

“Why, oh, why didn’t he do what any sane person would do? Let those maids tear his little hands to bits? I mean miss date night??” Lois said this while sipping on what she thought was a wine cooler. It wasn’t. It was 100 proof down right up right Colt 45 I kept next to the wine coolers. She’d been crying, so it was apparent to me with bleary eyes she may mistake one for the other.

No, I didn’t tell her when she did and when asked why it tasted like beer, I said I didn’t know and I don’t. Do I look like a damn brew master?? No idea WTF barley is and if it there is no hip in front of it I could give a fish what a hop is.

“He’s just not into you Lois.” I began while refilling her class with Mad Dog 20 20, the wine cooler of the hood. I continued “I hear, not that I have a problem with it. I just like pussy; he’s into men. I’m convinced he’s doing Clark Kent. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Clark running into a closet tugging at his belt and tie while unzipping his pants. I’m a man Lois, only two give or take situations make us run like that while taking off our clothes it’s the ole S and P index someone gotta take a shit or someone giving up some pussy…or in Clark’s case…well you know.

What? Were you were expecting Standard and Poor’s? You foolish reader, this is a Michael Davis article. There are no standards because I grew up poor.

Yeahhhhhh, that was a pretty broad reach for that yuk.

But I digress. Yeah Peter, I used it. So what?  You killed Jean Dewolf, so what?  Denys Cowan and I killed Jason Todd. Robin! Not only that we did it from a phone in DC’s offices. Gangsta.

But I Digress… Lois inched closer…because I was slowly pulling her now drunk ass towards me. Keep your mind out of the gutter if not she would have fallen on the floor.

I proceeded. “Now, I’ve come close to shiting in a closet only once in my life. Then I decided the hell with that. She said her husband wouldn’t be home, but there he was. I ask you, Lois, why should I have to crap like an animal in a cage when she got his schedule wrong? I simply opened the closet door, picked up my Black and Decker condoms from under her pillow said, “Send me some of those photos,” smiled at her husband and left. I’m not an animal, so unless Clark is one filthy nasty mother sucker, then he and ‘Kal-El’ be knocking them red boots because guess who comes flying out the closet fixing his belt?”

“Yep, the man of ‘steal.’ Yes, Lois. Steal. Why? Because he’s out the door maybe two seconds after Clark runs in. Clark comes out of the closet sometimes minutes sometimes hours later looking like he’s been in a fight and seems like he carrying a weight of massive, dare I say, super load of tension with him.”

“Why can’t I be in love with Batman?” Lois slurred as I poured her some vintage Thunderbird an extraordinarily expensive and rare wine made by Hindu monks but drank only when lighting hits a bird on Budda’s Birthday.

Most of you won’t get that. I wrote it for my boys in the hood. So just assume it’s true. I mean y’all idiots think Donald Trump is fit to be President so what the hell do you have to lose if you don’t get the joke?

“Batman??” I said not believing my luck; I’ve waited years for this moment!

I reached under the couch for a copy of Seduction Of The Innocent. I kept one there as well as under my bed I have a travel copy also.

I found the page where Batman had Robin locked in a deep French kiss (What?? So I took it upon myself to illustrate the damn thing). I then looked at Lois with sad eyes and told her “Oh Bats is ooooh sooooo gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that; I just like a side order of tits to go with my main course of well you know.”

“Oh poo!” Lois spits out while looking at my closet. “Pussy, Lois, not poo, pussy,” I said.  But just in case she meant poo I spoke while pointing to the bathroom and front door simultaneously not taking any chances she was not one filthy nasty mother sucker.

Now she was lit, and I was looking for some matches to do the same in case she was with fart. She looked at me and said “I can’t have Batman?”  Well, she literally said, “Eyes clamp clad atman” but I speak drunk.

“Cope bults dew cam clad blazman.” (Nope but you can have Blackman). I told her and she smiled.

“Clump fluLks zee bigger!” She screamed.

I won’t insult you with the translation. I responded “Oh, shit! You must be out of your damn mind you crazy drunk ass female puppy dog!”

I said that but she heard “I love you and always will.” That’s advanced drunk. It’s harder than Japanese and you have to have game to begin with so no. No fan by, no. So far only Joe Illidge and I have mastered it, so you have no chance nor a girl so you really don’t need it remotes don’t speak drunk.

No, I didn’t take advantage of her that night. Only a punk ass bitch would ply a woman with drinks or regale them with tales of wealth to pry their way into their undergarments, flip a tick tack into their mouth, or kiss a woman without her permission.

I don’t grab pussy. It grabs me.

However telling her someone is gay is perfectly acceptable as is inventing a wife and family he deserted. I don’t use those tactics but Joe Illidge…

Lois and I are doing very well. But damn if that sister, the new Iron Woman don’t be looking kinda foxy. That could be the kind of gal that will make a brother an egg sandwich or Clark some … Martha wait for it… wait for it … wait… for… it

… you know

The End

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What Peter? You feel strong? Bring it!

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Applesauce.

 

Dennis O’Neil: Superman – What Do We Really Know?

lois_lane_1964_by_ shawn vanbriesen

“Someone has just thrown Lois Lane from an airplane and she’s plummeting Earthward. But today is Humtyglumf Day, the most sacred day in the Kryptonian calendar – a day on which it is absolutely forbidden to rescue falling females. But if I do nothing, in about a nanosecond Lois will squish…”

Full disclosure: I don’t really know if Kryptonians celebrate Humptyglumf Day. On the other hand, I don’t really know if they don’t. Superman seems to have a lot of information about his shattered home world – he seems to knows a lot more about Krypton than I know about, oh…McCausland Avenue where, I have it on reliable authority, I spend the first four years or so of my life. But nothing about politics or religion.

The profit motive partly explains this. I’m thinking of one of my favorite novelists, now deceased. His name was John D. MacDonald and his best known character was/is Travis McGee. McDonald and McGee were, for me, buy-immediately-upon-sighting as I checked out the fresh paperbacks. I don’t know how many McGee novels I read before I realized how little I really knew about our hero. McDonald gave us what seemed to be a heap of personal data about his creation – his friends, his houseboat, his car, his workouts, his opinions of certain cities, his party-timing, all this and more well covered. Yessir, after reading two or five of the books you knew ol’ Trav. But did you? Tell me about his parents, his siblings (isn’t a brother mentioned somewhere?), his home town, the schools he attended, his political preferences, where, if anywhere, he worships…You might be tight with Trav, but you couldn’t fill out his census questionnaire.

I think what McDonald was doing, consciously or not, was employing a bit of literary legerdemain – what Penn and Teller might call “misdirection.” He gives you lots of detail and maybe you don’t notice that he withholds anything that is crucial – anything that might prejudice you against the character. (You don’t like Presbyterians? Well, he’s no Presbyterian!) It’s fair to say that most, if not all, writers of mass-consumption worked a similar dodge. The radio programs and television shows and movies were populated by…well, Americans! Probably ate white bread. Probably went to church (though which church we didn’t have to know.) Probably voted. (But which lever they turned is really none of our concern.)

Comic books? Let’s see…there’s Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker and Tony Stark and Steve Rogers…Nope – not an ethnic name in a truckload. And none of these guys have lapel pins indicating political preference, either.

I can’t decide if this pop culture homogenization has been helpful or harmful to the general welfare. Maybe a bit of both? I have a hunch that its time is almost past, but that’s not today’s topic. Nor is Humptyglumf Day.

Art by Shawn Van Briesen

Mindy Newell: Denver, Stormtroopers, and Farts

X-Wing @ DCC, 2016

So as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by fellow columnist Emily S. Whitten calls “Convention Crud” and I called, last week, “Airplane Adenovirus”…

Me & R2I had an ABFAB time at the Denver Comic Con 2016!

That’s “Absolutely Fabulous” for those of you too young to remember the BBC show.

Overseen by the Denver-based Pop Culture Classroom, a non-profit organization whose aim is to use comics and other pop culture media to educate kids and inform the public, the con is held annually at the Colorado Convention Center, an edifice that puts the Jacob Javits Center here in New York to total shame, in downtown Denver. Incredibly yuuuge – it stretches over four city blocks – with many atriums letting in the sunlight of the Mile High City, the con never felt crowded, despite its 100,000+ attendance.

I was invited because of my connection to Wonder Woman, who was created by William Moulton Marston 75 years ago this year. I must admit to having some trepidation, because, to be completely honest, I didn’t think that my work on the Amazon Princess was remembered, and I had images of sitting alone and ignored for three days. To make it worse, I hadn’t thought to bring any samples of my work to put out on display, so my table was white and bare in comparison to my nearest neighbors, authors and artists whose work was exhibited in beautiful and multi-colored presentations.

(To be fair to myself, I actually have very little of my work here at home. Over the years I have given out 99% of my work to my daughter’s friends, to cousins and the children of friends for birthday, communion, and bar-or-bas mitzvah presents, and for Halloween treats.)

Getting Timey-Winy, DCC, 2016But those little fears disappeared immediately as I became entranced by everything at the convention. The first thing I saw when I entered the Exhibitors Hall was a “life-size” beat-up and dented X-Wing fighter, looking as if it had just returned from a rendezvous with the Imperial fleet. (I immediately took the above picture.) The next thing I saw were two Stormtroopers, and I handed my phone to the volunteer who was leading me to my table as I stepped between them; she obligingly snapped a photo.

I was, as my daughter had put it as she drove me to the airport, “with my people.”

I was on many panels, not all of them to do with “Women and Comics.” Pop Culture also features educational classes for kids and adults at the convention, and I was slated to lead “Creating a Four-Panel Comic,” which was for kids [I would say] from eight-years old and down. That experience is one of my most treasured memories!

When Alix was in elementary school I gave some “lectures” on creating a story for her English class, so I wasn’t at all nervous. I immediately involved the kids in the audience, not staying on the stage, but going into the audience and letting them talk into the microphone. The kids proved to be incredibly imaginative and involved. A young girl volunteered the superhero, named FlashDash for her super-speed. The villain was Lunchbox. This bad guy carries a lunchbox, and inside it are burritos. “Burritos?” I laughed along with audience, who were obviously enjoying themselves. “And what do the burritos do?”

“They explode,” said the young boy, who was about seven, and whose name I can’t remember, damn my menopausal memory!

“And when they explode, it smells like the worst fart ever! The smell will kill you!”

Well, I don’t know about you, but fart jokes crack me up. Just the mention of the word fart makes me go silly. So imagine the reaction of the audience and those within hearing distance – remember, me and the kids were using a microphone – when the young man said this. A gigantic Bwa-bwa-hah-hah! went up and echoed in Exhibitors Hall.

I didn’t want to embarrass the boy. “That is absolutely fantastic,” I said, still smiling and laughing a little. “Lunchbox uses the exploding burritos the way Hobgoblin uses his pumpkin bombs. That is so great.”

“So how does FlashDash defeat Lunchbos?” I asked. The creator of Lunchbox shot up his hand, and even though I really wanted to involve some other kids, everyone was looking at him, so I went with the flow.

Me & 2 Buddies, DCC, 2016FlashDash waves her cape super-fast and blows away the fart,” he said.

I’m tellin’ y’all, this kid is going to be a comics superstar in about 20 or 25 years, or even sooner!

Meanwhile, up on the podium, my artist, a really talented young guy named Colton, was drawing all of this out on an easel in four panels. We had three, so far.

“Okay,” I said, “So FlashDash, in the first panel, meets Lunchbox. The second panel shows Lunchbox throwing the burrito and it exploding.” Colton used wiggly lines to show the farts’s uh, “waves of stink.”

“The third panel has FlashDash waving her cape at super-speed, dispersing the fart cloud. So we have one more panel. What happens?”

A little girl, a very little girl, she must have been four years old, bashfully waved her hand, and I walked up to her. “FlashDash’s dragon uses his fire breath and burns up Lunchbox’s lunchbox,” she said softly. I’m telling y’all, this child was absolutely adorable.

“Oh, FlashDash has a pet dragon?” I asked her. She smiled shyly and nodded. I turned to Colton, who was already adding a little dragon hovering over FlashDash’s shoulder to the preceding panels. I said to the audience that this was an example of a writer and an artist “editing” their work, meaning changing it to make it better.

Then Colton drew the final panel, with the dragon’s fire breath melting the burrito-containing lunchbox.

DCC, 2016“And that’s the end of Lunchbox and his exploding fart burritos,” I said. “FlashDash and her pet dragon have saved the day.”

We weren’t able to photocopy the story, but many parents and kids came up to the podium and snapped photos of the “Four-Panel Comic.”

Yep, I had an AbFab time in Denver. I caught up with old friends – Andy Mangels, Barbara Randall Kesel, Timothy Truman, Trina Robbins, Peter David – and made new ones – Cat Staggs, Yannick Paquette, LJ Hachmeister, Joe Staton, Hannah Means Shannon (a.k.a. Hannah Menzies), Marguerite Sauvage, and Jeff Hendon and his wife.

I met so many terrific people, I could fill this whole column with their names alone. I met that at the convention, I met them at the hotel. I met Jae Lee on the ride back to the airport.

I sat on panels and signed autographs and took pictures with fans. Oh, yeah, remember how I talked about my white, bare table? I found Mile High Comics, and bought a bunch of my comics, including issues of Wonder Woman (including what I consider mine and George Pérez’s best work on the title, #46, “Chalk Drawings”), “Lois Lane: When It Rains, God Is Crying,” and “Legionnaires Three.” (I then gave them as a gift to my Exhibitors Hall neighbor, the aforementioned Jeff Herndon, an amazing illustrator in the Denver area, and his wife in exchange for a beautiful painting of Gail Godot as Wonder Woman. I wanted to pay for it, but he and his wife wouldn’t hear of it, so instead we did the “barter.”)

Comics. Celebrities. An X-Wing, Stormtroopers, and R2-D2. The TARDIS.

And farts.

It was a helluva’ weekend.

Molly Jackson: Editing Strength!

 

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I’ve beaten back the technological revolt happening in my apartment! It’s a time for celebration and joy. So two days ago, I saw the Batman Vs. Superman Ultimate Edition at a special event in theaters. On purpose. Seriously.

Batman v Superman BRI purposefully dragged my fellow ComicMix columnist Joe Corallo because I couldn’t suffer through it a second time alone. For the record, he agreed to go and then was confused as to why he agreed. Also, I purposefully did not tell Mike, our fearless editor, that we were doing this since he tried to talk us out of seeing it the first go-around. (I only wish I could see his face when he reads this.)

A little backstory, I hated it the first time. I remember stumbling out of the theater wondering how the studio executives could have let that happen. How? Why?! Still, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I wanted to see it again. Perhaps to reconcile the movie in my mind.

I feel obligated to say spoiler alert. So hey, if you keep reading, you may be spoiled on the Ultimate Edition. Just sayin’.

After the first time around, I remember thinking that script and direction were the biggest issues with the film. That hasn’t changed much but I did discover a bigger issue was editing the film. The first release cut out parts that made the film coherent. Whole explanations were removed, which contributed to a lot of the complaints. You don’t have to guess as much at the characters’ motivations or decision making. Some, but not all, plot holes are closed and the scene transitions are better for it.

About those critical scenes. There was a naked Bruce taking a shower. There were a few scenes showing Clark investigating Batman and his actions against the people of Gotham. He talked with mom and Bruce had a really nice extra few lines with Alfred (who also chops wood, because…). Those really helped flesh out small parts of the film, adding connections to disjointed scenes. Now, from what I remembered from the original release, it appeared that the most significant extra (a.k.a. deleted) scenes were female-led storylines.

I wish I was surprised, but I’m not. Why should companies focus on Lois Lane being a fearless investigator when Batman can have an extra-long fight scene with a truck? She spends a whole story arc to find the pathway to Lex’s maneuverings. We watch Lois push back against Perry White and Clark Kent in her desire to find the truth. She works with lab tech Jenet Klyburn (as played by Jena Malone in her unreleased role) to realize the metal bullet is experimental. She investigates the suicide bomber’s apartment, only to realize that he wasn’t planning on killing himself. And then she connects the pieces when she finds out from Jenet that the wheelchair was lined with lead. Look at the plot holes cleaned up with one paragraph.

The other storyline covered up was lead by Kahira Ziri, played by Wunmi Mosaku. Do you remember the woman who testified against Superman in the beginning of the film? She actually carries a storyline that humanizes Clark more while dehumizing Lex and still shows her finding her strength. She reveals to Holly Hunter’s Senator Finch that she was being threatened by Lex to denounce Superman. In the meantime, Clark tries to search her out and instead gets pointed towards the misdeeds of Batman. It added a crucial human connection to his story while showing a woman stand against corruption. All of this was cut, despite adding a compelling connection to multiple characters and storylines.

Upon seeing the Ultimate Edition, I realized that women were used to tie the story together completely but when it came down to a coherent story or a big fight scene, action won. And in a movie with two male leads, they will take center stage. Still, when your entire story movement hinges on women, maybe they should actually be included.

DC is trying with diversity, I won’t deny that. But for every male superhero, there is a traditional support system in place. For Batman, it’s Alfred. For Superman, it’s Lois Lane. But just like Alfred, Lois is a strong character independent of the hero. She has proven herself in the comics time and again, as a woman who doesn’t rely on a man to carry from place to place. Lois, as a realistic hero of the people, is a role model for girls and women everywhere. Sadly, she will never get her own solo film, so her chance to shine is in these films. Superman deserves a strong partner who can fight in her own way, not just at his side but on her own.
After seeing this, I still am not a fan of Batman v Superman. However, the extra scenes took the trainwreck of random scenes and made it a coherent, if not bad, story. With every successful superhero film, it works because the support characters are given the chance to develop and grow. Their story only serves to make the hero, and the film as a whole a triumph. Regulating the women to the DVD extras makes the story weak and the superhero star suffer because of it.

Michael Davis: Back In The Day

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Lois LaneBack in the days of “I am Curious Black,” a 1970 Lois Lane story about Lois using a machine to become a black woman; she does so to see what it was like to be black.

Back then the good folks at DC did not think twice about a black artist or writer. Now, if a story with a black character comes down the pipe, the net is in an uproar if black creators are not involved.

Me? I say the white boys have at it. A good story, like a good character, is colorblind. Trying or even wanting to ban white people from writing black characters is as horribly short sided, stupid, and as prejudiced as banning Muslims from America.

A white writer telling a story featuring a black character is one thing. Telling a story where they try and define the black experience on some level is quite another. To do that… well is not easy.  However, it can and has been done. Stephen Gaghan pulled it off in the film Traffic. That is a textbook example of the black experience written wonderfully by a white person.

On the other hand, the English writer Mark Millar, one of the great comic book writers of his or any generation, gave us Tyrone Cash. Tyrone started out Dr. Leonard Williams, a renowned, brilliant African American scientist who figures out how to gain the powers of The Hulk while retaining his intellect.

What does Dr. Williams decide to do with his newfound power? Why, he does what any black brilliant scientist would do after figuring out how to gain the power of the Hulk yet retains his intellect.

He changes his name to Tyrone and becomes a drug dealer.

As a child, I was happy to see black people in a comic book. Happy even after my mother read the Lois Lane story and asked me, “Why didn’t they make Superman black?”

“Because it’s Lois Lane’s comic!” I said with pride, I mean duh.

If this was such an important story, then why indeed didn’t they make Superman black? That’s what she was saying that my eight-year old brain couldn’t grasp. Seeing such, she moved to the next best thing.

“Why don’t you make a black Superman, Michael?”

“Because DC Comics would commence a legal proceeding against me for copyright infringement. They have the means and the will to do so. My God, woman perhaps you should stop working seven days a week at those silly two jobs and get with the program.” I said.

Yeah, right.

I didn’t say that I was eight. To me copyright meant copy something right.

What I did say was “Because Superman is white.”

Turns out decades later I co-created Icon, a black Superman if ever there was one.

Icon, Static, Hardware and the Blood Syndicate were met with overwhelmingly positive reviews from most. I heard ‘its about time’ so often I was convinced people thought the books were about a black Doctor Who.

Many met these heroes with a deep anger and resentment. Nobody talks about the hate mail received but as always when black people make significant inroads into a category once denied then made difficult there’s always a “stay in your lane nigger” component when finally, people of color arrive at then enter the door.

Those letters were scary, but what was scarier was the attack those heroes took from other black creators, attacks that were brutal, horrible, and damaging. The company line was never to respond. I didn’t agree then, and I do not agree now. I feel you cannot let others define you.

That’s why I’ve spent the last 20 plus years setting the record straight.

I realized something the last time I spent part of my weekend in jail.

Yep, you read that right.

I was in a restaurant in a lovely neighborhood – mine. Two white guys ran across the floor and attacked me. Little known fact: although it’s called something different, California has a stand your ground law not unlike what they have in Florida.

I stood my ground, and I was arrested.

I realized something while I was unjustly locked up (again, yep again) I realized no matter why we were there, we united like brothers. Black or brown, it didn’t matter.

There was no beef between anyone; no one acted like they owned the place and no one pulled rank. A few hours later, a well-dressed white kid around 20 was let into the cell. It had taken around 12 minutes before he was beaten to a bloody pulp.

No. That did not happen.

The white kid was led to a private cell, we all stopped and looked as the guards walked him pass. “No handcuffs.” Someone noted. I said “They only make them in black or brown.” Even the black guard bringing us our grill cheese and diarrhea sandwich laughed then said; “Maybe if you used that quick wit for something you wouldn’t be here. Ya think?”

Or maybe the powers that be could look at the video and listen to eyewitness accounts instead of arresting the black guy who was defending himself.

Ya think?

No one got upset when the white guy was given a private cell, although nothing would have happened to him if placed in with us. Why would it? No one was upset the white guy received special treatment because we all knew this was the way it was.

Back in the days of Lois Lane’s “Black Like Me” moment DC and Marvel gave little if any thought to black creators when deciding to do a story about a character of color. They didn’t have to; they do now.

I am glad they do now if Marvel and DC would stop giving the general pubic the impression they are the kings of diversity that would be nice. The so-called black Avengers, black Captain America, black/Latino Spider-Man, black Batman, black Superman and the rest did not issue in the modern age of diversity.

Icon, Static, Hardware and the Blood Syndicate did that, 23 years ago and Brotherman did it 25 years ago.

Notwithstanding a full quarter century of remarkable black content, the perception among most black and white young fans is still, if Marvel and DC don’t do it, it matters little if at all.

That’s important; I’ll revisit that later.

There exists a serious movement among some in the black comic book community to bring black comics to black and mainstream audiences. Notable among those fighting the good fight, Mala Crown Williams and MECCA Con, the Black Age of Comics Convention, Ryn Ryonslaught Fraser and his wonderful World of Black Heroes website… and no one works harder than John Jennings. Still, there also exists an insufferable discord among some black creators.

Now is the time for that shit to stop.

Back in the day when successful black comics received hate mail black creators were in charge of their voice. If we responded or didn’t, we had a choice to do so or not. That was our right. That a right many of us take for granted

When DC Comics ran the Lois Lane story “I am curious Black,” that was a noble attempt to show people what life was all about in the community. DC Comics spoke for us because we had no voice to do so.

Yeah, we had a ‘right’ but no voice within comics to speak for ourselves.

I had little choice but to love seeing Lois Lane as a black woman. Love it or leave it was my only option there was nothing else out there for me.

Some choice exists now in comics for kids, and I’ve always had a choice rather or not I’ll be arrested again.

I can stay out of restaurants where I’d be one of a handful of people. I could avoid specific concerts, plays, sporting events or anywhere where being an African American man would be an issue.

I could just stay home.

That’s my choice and the choice of every man. But I have a right to live where I want, eat where I want and do what I want within the law. That sounds grand, but the reality is the ‘law’ hasn’t worked for me.

I love America and “truth, justice, and the American way” is a nice slogan, but the sad truth is I think twice about running for a bus. I expect no justice, and the American way is a myth to me.

The comic book industry, such as it needs to face some serious certainty. Yes, we can voice our opinions but even today those of us who create African American content for the mass market are taken less seriously unless it’s from Marvel or DC.

Bitch all you want. Them’s the facts.

Donald Trump has a real shot of becoming President. Once thought of as a joke that joke is no longer funny. However, it’s not Trump that scares me. What scares me is the massive support of a man who denounces the KKK only after days of defending reasons he didn’t denounce him.

He’s insulted Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, women and the physically challenged. He’s never once apologized for insisting President Obama show his birth certificate which is just another way to have a nigger show his papers.

Who supports that kind of person for President? An awful lot or people.

That guy may become President we may be well on the way to the days when Lois Lane and Superman have to speak for us again because what little voice we have now will be even less. What little power we have as comic book creators will be even less than that.

I was in jail six hours before my lawyer got me out. The guard first walking to the white guy’s cell assuming he was “Davis.” When he finally got to me I said “I’m mistaken for short blond white guys often.” No laughter this time.

Leaving the cell, I felt instantly less empowered. You would think I’d feel more empowered. Nope. Locked up, I was part of a group of people who regardless of why they were there were united. Out of jail, I can’t run for a bus if a white lady is ahead of me doing the same.

Regardless of our differences, the comics community would do well to consider what we have to lose if there are so many who want Trump to win.

One last word about Tyrone Cash. Millar should be forbidden to enter America until we figure out what’s going on.

 

Box Office Democracy: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

It’s easy to kick a studio while they’re down, and a little of that seems to be happening with the reactions to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Warner Bros. has struggled mightily in bringing their heroes to the screen in recent years (recent decades if we don’t count Christopher Nolan’s work) and there’s an attempt to pile on. If Batman v Superman were a Marvel Studios film I suspect it would be getting more positive coverage as people dug to find the good things and used them to redeem the things that don’t work; instead people are endlessly picking at the numerous mistakes. Don’t get confused, Batman v Superman is an awful movie and Zack Snyder should be stopped at all costs but in the hands of literally any other director I could believe there was a salvageable property here and there’s time to right this ship.

Superman as depicted in Batman v Superman isn’t fun to watch, nor does he feel faithful to the character. I’ll be honest: I stopped reading comics on a weekly basis in the winter of 2012 and I haven’t been keeping up since then, so maybe Superman has become an extremely violent, petulant baby in that time— but I sort of doubt it. The Superman in this film is terrifying to consider. He’s quick to anger and never particularly nice to anyone that isn’t Lois Lane; more like Miracleman than Superman. The only never ending battle on display in this film is the one Warner Bros. fights for Superman to appear cool, but they’ve succeeded in creating a character that would only seem cool to an edgy teenager or the 90s comics industry. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be rooting for Batman or Superman when they come to blows, but I’m almost certainly not supposed to be thinking Lex Luthor is right about everything— and yet that’s just where I was for 80% of this movie.

The non-Superman characters were mostly pretty good. Ben Affleck should release a video where he makes it very clear he’s addressing all the people who doubted he could be a credible Batman, drop the mic, and then walk away. He’s a great Batman; I’m ready to put him in the upper echelon with Bale and Keaton (and Kilmer but let’s not get sidetracked) after seeing this movie. He’s believable physically, and he captures that kind of arrogant paranoia that I think Batman should embody. The scenes with Wonder Woman in costume are a giddy rush, and they represent her so well in the fight scenes without any clunky exposition or holding anybody’s hand. We all know who Wonder Woman is, we’ve been alive in the world. The scenes before she puts on the costume are less good; they kind of play her like an off-brand Selina Kyle, but they might have been going for an air of mystery and were betrayed by the PR team. Jesse Eisenberg has the most off-beat take of any established character, and while there isn’t a strong comic book foundation to what he’s doing, it does feel like what a billionaire megalomaniacal industrialist would look like in the modern start-up culture and he’s so unsettlingly creepy that I’m going to give him a pass.

I generally find Zack Snyder’s work to be unappealing visually, and Batman v Superman is no exception. Things are too slick, slow motion is used too much, only a handful of scenes take place in daylight. Gotham City and Metropolis look the same because there’s no room for points of contrast. I suppose Gotham’s abandoned docks are supposed to feel seedy and give the city a dilapidated edge but Metropolis has a crashed alien ship taking up a huge part of their downtown so there’s no contrast there. The contrast between Superman and Batman should be reflected in every part of their environment and instead everything takes place on the same dreary streets and rooftops.

The common refrain after seeing a movie like this is that it “destroys their childhood” of the viewer, and that’s always nonsense. No one from Warner is going to break down my door and set any of my trade paperbacks on fire or draw a bunch of bloodstains in the margins or anything like that. However, superhero movies are trading on nostalgia. If they can’t get a dyed in the wool DC Comics person like me to feel a connection to this film (and if you go back and read paragraph three of this review I desperately want to feel this connection) then I can’t imagine who does. They’ve made a misanthropic film, an ugly film, and worst of all they made a Zack Snyder film.

Review: BvS Is A Four-Letter Word

Batman v Superman

Did you ever endure some sort of traumatic injury knowing full well that a minute or two after the moment of disaster it was going to hurt a hell of a lot worse?

That’s how I felt after seeing Batman v Superman. Bright-eyed fanboy that I am, I walked into the theater with the highest of expectations. I had heard from a couple of friends who saw the Los Angeles screening that it was pretty good. Now I’m reconsidering my position on medical marijuana. Maybe the fault here is mine: I had been on OxyContin following some dental surgery earlier in the week and I guess I quit taking that shit too early. I wanted to like the movie – for one thing, it took two and one-half hours out of my life. For another, successful movies inure to the benefit of the comics medium and, arguably, my cash flow.

Here’s the good stuff. The camera really loves Gal Gadot, particularly when she’s in her Diana Prince guise. I enjoyed her work so much I even briefly considered watching her Fast and Furious movies, and I lamented the fact that I lacked the foresight to join the Israeli army when she was a part of it. Also, and I guess this is critical, Ben Affleck was fine as Old Man Bats. Granted, standing next to Henry Cavill would make Emo Phillips seem like Robert Redford, but Ben did just fine. Diane Lane is always a joy to behold and her talent exceeded her part. And Jeremy Irons seems to have found Michael Caine’s Miraclo stash and became Alfred the Butler for about an hour.

All that in the aggregate does not come close to balancing out Jesse Eisenberg’s turn as Lex Joker Junior. If you saw him in any of the trailers then let me assure you that what you saw is what you get. Spoiler alert: he channels Gene Hackman at the end. Somewhere Kevin Spacey is buying him a condolence card.

And, holy crap, why does everybody in the damn movie have serious mommy issues?

The story is irrelevant. And negligible. Clearly, director Zack Synder thought he wasn’t spending enough money so he finagled a nice big CG Doomsday for reasons so oblique they do not bear repeating. Lois Lane starts out as the awesome investigative reporter she’s supposed to be and then quickly devolves into perpetual rescue bait. Jimmy Olsen turns out to be something Jimmy Olsen would and could never, ever be. The Flash zipped through just long enough for the audience to realize the filmmakers are idiots. And Aquaman was portrayed as an angry deep-sea fur ball with a fork.

The blame for this fiasco is squarely on the director. Zack Synder should not be given a blank check. By the end of the movie I was hoping the after-credits scene (note: there is none) was of John Wayne Gacy returning from the dead to eat Zack’s brains. Gacy, of course, would have been played by Samuel L. Jackson.

I’ll see Suicide Squad because I was there at its conception and because Affleck was swell. I’ll see Wonder Woman because Gal Gadot is that impressive. But the Justice League movies? If I succumb to peer-group pressure (the comics world remains a small donut shop), I’ll be hoping for that Gacy scene.

The best part of Batman v Superman? The trailer for Civil War.