Tagged: Martha Thomases

Mike Gold: Worst … Villain… Ever!


Gold Art 130313Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins • Interior illustrations by Terry Beatty • Hard Case Crime • Paperback: $9.95 • Digital: $6.39 • Audio: $9.18

So… Who is the worst, most evil comic book villain ever? Well, if you’re a hard-core comics fan and/or comics professional, the worst comic book villain ever might very well be Dr. Fredric Wertham. He’s the guy who spearheaded the comic books breed juvenile delinquency movement of the late 1940s and early 1950s that led to Senate hearings, state-by-state censorship (Can’t have the word “crime” in the title of your comic book? Really?), massively plummeting sales, and the dissolution of more than half of the comics publishing companies and the jobs that went along with them.

An entire generation of fans grew up loathing the man. His so-called study, which was lacking in any real scientific evidence, was called Seduction of the Innocent. Suffice it to say that a lot of us have had a “thing” about the guy… perhaps none more than massively talented and successful novelist/comics writer/filmmaker/musician Max Allan Collins.

Collins was in a rock band called Seduction of the Innocent that played, among other venues, the San Diego Comic Con pre-show party – his bandmates included Bill Mumy, Miguel Ferrer and Steve Leialoha. It was… loud.

Now he’s repurposed the Evil Doctor’s seminal title in a mystery novel, the third (and hopefully not last) of his Jack Starr private eye stories that revolve around the comic strip and comic book business. Collins writes novels almost as often as I consume barbecue beef sandwiches – for one thing, he’s been co-writing, finishing off, and/or editing the plethora of unpublished material written by his friend, the late crimemaster Mickey Spillane. I wish I could come anywhere near keeping up with his output, but I’ve cut back on the barbecue beef.

But if you’re a comics or a popular culture fan and you only read one Max Allan Collins book this week, make it Seduction of the Innocent. I’d like to say it is one of the best books ever written, but that’s a stupid concept. However, I can say it is one of the most fun books I’ve ever read.

Collins incorporates his massive knowledge of – and enthusiasm for – 1950s popular culture. In addition to pastiches of Wertham and the folks at EC Comics and Lev Gleason Publications, he nods (often with the energy of a bobble-head on meth) towards Dragnet, Mickey Spillane, Al Capp, Dick Tracy, paperback culture, and mid-century culture. Mostly, though, he infuses his mystery novel with a smokepot of comics effluvia – aided by his long-time researcher George Hagenauer. However, if you’re not up on this sort of thing and/or couldn’t care less, it doesn’t get in the way of this clever yarn.

Indeed, I must compliment the author on a great diversionary move. For those of us who are up on comics history, he directs us towards one likely suspect – and then makes a crosstown turn worthy of a Manhattan cabdriver. I won’t spoil this for you, but if you’re curious read Joe Simon’s My Life in Comics.

I must point out that Collins’ long-time comics collaborator Terry Beatty (artist on the current Phantom Sunday pages) supplied the illustrations for each chapter. They are brilliant. Beatty even found an old Leroy Letterer to exacerbate the effect of reading an old (and relevant) EC Comics story.

If you’re looking for a good time and yet want to keep your clothes on, you’ll do well with Seduction of the Innocent. Max Allan Collins’ version, not Fredric Wertham’s.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Dennis O’Neil: A Comic Book Convention… About Comic Books?

O'Neil Art 130307…wind down through the labyrinthine passage to the farthest depth of the cavern and there find a wire, and from the wire will come a spark, and from the spark a flame and from the flame a light that will illuminate the truth…

Well, sometime, maybe. But not today. Today is for blobbing – or, if you prefer a slightly classier and more contemporary work that I learned just this afternoon, chillaxing. Yesterday was the ordeal of being pulled for hours through a tube that’s a teeny bit narrower than I am while breathing sulfur or, as some would call it, airline travel.

I’ve been doing it pretty regularly for almost half-a-century and so you’d think I’d be used to it by now. Okay, I’m resigned to it, but that’s not exactly the same as being used to it.

The occasion, this brisk and, in some areas, snowy March, was a visit to a comics convention in a city I have fond memories of, Seattle. Now, some of you who are my age and have retained the ability to read and thus are reading this, may recall the early fanzines: generally produced on mimeograph machines on cheapish paper; these were not slick and often not very professional, but they had the charm of work done for the love of it, with no hope of gain other than the satisfaction of indulging in a cherished hobby. These publications often featured “convention reports,” accounts of visits to science fiction or comic book gatherings, written by the zine’s publisher or one of that person’s friends. About those conventions: some fans, a professional or two, maybe a movie, maybe – a real treat! – a reel of outtakes from film or television. And maybe…even the appearance of an actor from film or tv. (The first con I attended featured Buster Crabbe.)

Them days is gone forever, Clem. Any convention report would have to be quite lengthy to do justice to its subject. There were, give or take, 75,000 attendees in Seattle and a whole roster of show biz celebrities topped by Patrick Stewart or, as those of you adverse to reading credits might know him, Jean Luc Picard, captain of the starship Enterprise. This mammoth gathering is not the biggest convention – the ones held in New York City and San Diego are bigger – but its still pretty awesome and, I was told, has doubled in size since last year, so…watch your backs, New York and San Diego!

What can I bitch about? Not much. The accommodations bordered on luxurious and everyone we encountered – I’m talking everyone – was friendly and courteous.

What did I like? Well, let’s skip the women – hordes of lovely human beings in costumes, many with interesting tattoos and didn’t my dirty old man merit badge almost burn a hole through my vest! Let’s skip them and remark on how the idea of a convocation devoted to good ol’ comic books didn’t seem to be lost among all the show biz glitter and bling.

Yeah, I’d go back, even if I had to be pulled through a tube while breathing sulfur.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Mike Gold, In Praise Of Bad Taste

Gold Art 130306Solidly castigated for being in bad taste, Seth MacFarlane announced he was not interested in hosting the Oscars again. Watching his reception in horror, Tina Fey said “Hell, no.” So producers announced next year’s host will be Gilbert Gottfried.

To be fair, when it comes to MacFarlane I’m not necessarily your go-to guy. I thought Ted was good fun, but I have a hard time watching an entire episode of Family Guy. If I surf past it ten minutes in, I’m fine. If I watch it from the beginning but the phone rings and I actually decide to take the call, I don’t hit the TiVo button. American Dad doesn’t work for me, but it’s better than The Cleveland Show. Robot Chicken might be the finest show in the history of the medium. I loved him on Star Trek: Enterprise.

But I really enjoy MacFarlane when he’s on a talk show like Craig Ferguson or Jimmy Kimmel. Humor is in the eye of the beholder and I never, ever use the phrase “that’s not funny” without the tag “to me.” I think he’s funny, I think he’s clever, I think he might be the closest thing we’ve got in America to Ricky Gervais – except, of course, for Ricky Gervais. Who I also like. Who also was chastised for bad taste humor while hosting an awards show.

But here’s the thing. If you don’t want some bad taste on your teevee plate, don’t hire Seth MacFarlane. He’s not going to bow before the great Oscar god. That’s not what he does. He’s not Bob Hope, he’s not Johnny Carson. He’s not Billy Crystal either, although his Oscar ratings last month were 10% higher than Crystal’s the year before.

I don’t always watch the Oscars. I enjoy watching the show with my daughter because she does a fashion commentary that would make MacFarlane sound like Loretta Young. Come to think of it, that’s true of every woman with whom I’ve watched the show. Adriane wasn’t around this year, but I watched it because I like MacFarlane and, mostly, because I was hoping Ben Affleck would knock it out of the park. I might have wandered away had Christoph Waltz not copped the first award and, no, don’t blame MacFarlane or the show’s producers for Waltz’s nomination in the supporting actor category. They didn’t have anything to do with it. Grow up.

Hmmm. “Grow up.” Isn’t that Joan Rivers’ catch-phrase? Maybe she can be Gottfried’s co-host next year.

Hell, I’d watch that.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Dennis O’Neil: Fredric Wertham, Superhero?

O''Neil Art 130328Did Fredric Wertham imitate superheroes? And if so, did he realize that he was doing it?

But let’s back up and give you latecomers an establishing shot or two. Way back in the early 50s, Dr. Wertham, a New York City psychiatrist, wrote a book provocatively titled Seduction of the Innocent which claimed to use science to demonstrate that comic books were corrupting the nation’s youth. Comics were already being attacked by editorial writers and at about the same time as the book’s publication, a senator named Estes Kefauver was convening hearings to investigate the same charge. The result of all this accusing was twofold: comics publishers went out of business leaving over 800 people suddenly unemployed, and the ragtag remnants of the business created The Comics Code Authority to censor their publications and thus placate the witch hunters. The comic book enterprise went into sharp decline, both financially and artistically until the late 50s, when Julius Schwartz and Stan Lee reinvented the superhero genre.

A sorry story. But ancient history. Well, not quite. Dr. Wertham was back in the news last week. According to the New York Times, Carol L. Tilley of the University of Illinois, examined Wertham’s papers and found numerous examples of research that were “manipulated, overstated, compromised and fabricated.”

Wow. And ouch. Not only did the doctor help put hundreds of decent folk out of work and, arguably, cripple an American art form, but he cooked the books to do it. There have been, for decades, doubts about Wertham’s methods, perhaps the most prevalent of which was that he ignored the validity of control groups. (Okay, goes the narrative, the doc found a hundred young lawbreakers who read comics, but he disregarded the thousands of Eagle Scouts who were also comics readers.) But until now, nobody has accused him of outright lying

Apparently he did lie.

I wonder why. Did he find these entertainments so unutterably vulgar that he was able to convince himself that they were also malign? Was he a zealot who honestly believed that these comic books were pernicious! and corrupt! and evil! and were obliterating the decency of American youth? And did he feel that he was justified in using any means available to quell this menace? That seems to be how zealots like to think.

Or was he a superhero? Consider: the bad guys in superhero stories may blather about ruling the world or getting rich or attaining revenge or, like zealots, proving that they’re right, but the real reason they exist is to give the hero a chance to show his stuff. We like heroes, and we like them to do magnificent deeds, and villains provide the circumstances for superheroic action.  So, Dr. Wertham: did he see, in the anti-comic book excitement, a chance to get famous and cement his reputation and maybe grab a royalty check? Were comics his supervillains, giving him his big opportunity? He was already respected and, on the whole, he seemed to be a pretty decent guy, but maybe he had his share of hidden demons.

I don’t know. I’ll probably never know, and neither will you. But we might find a lesson in the Wertham saga: don’t trust authority figures. I hope that isn’t news to you.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Mike Gold: Death of an Obnoxious Rugrat

Gold Art 130227According to the hubbub, today is the day Robin dies.

Sigh. If I had to choose between becoming Robin and playing drums for Spinal Tap, I’d join a convent.

The Robin in question – and there’s been a hell of a lot of them – is the little brat who was the issue of Bat(Bruce Wayne)man and Talia al Ghul, a concept I never, ever bought. Subtlety named Damien, the li’l bastard finally came onto his own in the recent, tedious, overwrought, and too-damn-long “Death of the Family” event.

His obnoxious demeanor isn’t reason I detest(ed) his character. I do not condone his birth.

Batman – Bruce Wayne no longer exists – is the poster boy for obsessive-compulsive. All the Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Lexapro combined can’t help this sucker, and yet somehow we have come to perceive his behavior as noble. If we refused to sell guns to the mentally unstable, Master Bruce wouldn’t make it to his next fox hunt.

He sublimates everything into being Batman. Everything. If it doesn’t play a role in his work, he doesn’t have patience for it. This is clear, and as consistent over the past several decades as anything ever is in the DCU. More so. In fact, much more so.

Therefore, I simply do not believe Batman would ever have sex with Talia. But if he did, it wouldn’t result in Li’l Damien. It would result in the return of the Comics Code Authority.

It might even prompt the resurrection Dr. Fredric Wertham. Check out my colleague Denny O’Neil’s ComicMix column tomorrow.

I suspect there’s already a betting pool on how long Damien stays dead. If history is any guide, there will be still another Robin (I’m guessing a female, but that’s just a guess) and, sometime after that, we will endure another multipart pseudo-event that will result in the brat’s resurrection. And we don’t simply have the experience of Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake (Was he ever killed? I get confused.) We have Damien’s resurrection-happy grandpappy, who has been revived more times than Kenny McCormick.

What goes around comes around. Killing a Robin – or anybody else in the DC Universe – is as original as a bag of potato chips. “Bet you can’t kill just one.” Resurrecting the dead is even less original. It’s boring.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Dennis O’Neil, Cowboy Poet

O'Neil Art 130221Cowboys who gallop and ride

Know how to take things in stride

They always have their pride

Cowboys who gallop and ride

Atrocious! Add your own melody and hold your nose.

I made up that ditty, or one close to it, years ago and I don’t know why. (To provide a contrast to good verse? To avoid thinking about something I should have been thinking about?) Shrug.

But it’s in my head today, maybe, is because last night on what we refer to around here as “the cowboy channel” had a “six gun salute” to Tim Holt, who was one of my favorite actors when I was six or seven. Five old movies: I watched two and recorded the other three for watching late at night when I’m not ready for the trek to the bedroom but should be. He was a favorite of my childhood, was ol’ Tim, and he had credits beyond the many B westerns he acted in, including roles in The Treasure of Sierra Madre and The Magnificent Ambersons. Looking at him on a television screen last night, I think I grasped the reason the snotnosed version of myself liked him: he seemed nice.

But is this not a column appearing in a site devoted to comic books? So why am I blathering on about old old oaters?

I offer two reasons.

First reason: there is a connection between comics and Mr. Holt. He had his own comics title that ran in the late 40s and earl 50s. In issue #20, he began wearing a red mask and calling himself – wait for it – the Red Mask. Eventually, the Red Mask took over the title and the Tim Holt persona quietly retired. (Did the Red Mask meet up with the Lone Ranger, the Durango Kid, and the Two-Gun Kid and did they mosey on into town and drink sarsaparilla and talk about keeping masks purty and the finer points of shooting hog legs from the hands of owlhoots? Reckon we’ll never know.) If I were in a folksy mood I might say that Tim was let out to pasture, but, despite the previous sentence, I’m not feeling particularly folksy and besides, that wouldn’t be true. Which brings us to…

Second reason: Tim Holt the actor (as opposed to Tim the character) didn’t exactly go out to pasture and there was a connection between Mr. Holt and a friend of mine, the late and beloved Archie Goodwin. Those of you who have entered our world recently may not know that Archie was an excellent comics editor and writer and an incredibly nice guy. Archie once told me that, after his movie career, Tim Holt relocated to Oklahoma where he managed a radio station and knew Archie’s father. Who knew?

A final note: What I call the cowboy channel is really the Encore Westerns channel. For me, checking into it once in a while is a mini-nostalgia trip, a backward glimpse into times, places and attitudes that no longer exist. For you young’uns…I don’t know–maybe you’ll see a connection between what are sometimes called “horse operas” and what are often known as “space operas” and maybe you’ll find that interesting.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Mike Gold: Commuters Are A Superstitious and Cowardly Lot

Gold Art 130220Last week I had the distinct honor and privilege of dining with my fellow ComicMix columnist Martha Thomases. Whereas I’d love to squawk on and on about the finest fried chicken I’ve ever eaten in Manhattan, it was after I left to go home when things got interesting, weird, surreal… and dangerous.

I got to my commuter train just in time to make the 9:07. I’d be home by 10:15. Not bad. We arrived on time in Harlem at 9:17 and proceeded up to the Bronx… where we came to a dead halt at approximately 178th Street and Park Avenue. After a few minutes we were told we were being delayed by a “police action.” OK; that’s life in the big city. I commenced to read the latest issue of Futurama Comics on my iPad. Then another announcement: oh, geez, they were mistaken. No police activity. The train broke down. It was a brand-new train, built by the Canadian company Bombardier. They set about to fix it.

Then the power went out. The emergency lighting was fine and my iPad had its own luminosity, but there was no air circulation and the temperature started to rise – quickly. People began to look at those emergency windows; you know, the ones that you can pop out in case the train is derailed and Bruce Campbell is walking around with a machete.

Some time later they said they power pads that draw the juice from the third rail had been ripped off, probably due to debris on the track. They’re working on it. Yeah, right. I started wondering if a texted last will and testament would hold up in court. Then they announced the train was, in fact, broken, and they were awaiting a diesel engine to tow us back to Harlem where, “hopefully,” there would soon be a train to which we could transfer.

The crowd started getting testy. Perhaps hypoglycemic shock is communicable.

Later still we were rammed by a coupling engine and it was announced all they had to do was hook up the air brakes and we’d be Harlem bound. A half hour later, they admitted they couldn’t get the brakes to work. Plan B: they’d find another train, bring it alongside mine, shut down the third rail and we’d bridge over to the new train. A few people who had been around that block said that would take at least an hour because they only open two doors for the bridge and everybody would have to walk through all the cars to get to the transfer point, then walk through the new train to find a seat. A few people started to freak.

Two ladies who evidently flunked out of their Connecticut finishing school started swearing profusely. Aside: why is it women are not very creative in their choice of curse words? “Fucking liars” is simply not sufficient. The situation called for something like “Jesus fuck a shit soufflé, these in-bread assholes couldn’t stack a pile of Ritz Crackers without a goddamned schematic.” Note to self: look into conducting training sessions for the malediction impaired.

Before long one of my comrades-in-boredom started screaming. Another started wailing. The lady sitting next to me kept on tossing her used Kleenex on the floor, along with her half-eaten food. I looked around to see if anybody had grown a Joker smile.

Eventually a train pulled alongside and maybe 15 minutes later the train bridge was in place and the third-rail was powered down. We made the long march to our new magic carpet ride. Of course, the new train was two cars shorter. The third rail was powered up and the air brake checks started.

And… they didn’t work.

And people went nuts. Remember the “preparing for crash landing” scene in Airplane?

I reconsidered my attitude towards zombies. Finally, after a platoon of train people manually pumped the air brakes into action (and yes, that looks as obscene as it sounds), we slowly moved forward. They apologized and said the next stop was Stamford. I said to myself “yeah, but will we be able to stop?” Then some guy made that very same statement out loud. Nobody laughed.

As we picked up speed, I noticed that one of my fellow travelers was Green Arrow.

No shit. Look carefully at the photo atop this column. This was not Photoshopped.

I got home just before 1 AM. One of our cats was waiting in the window, tapping his watch. Yes, he’s got a Mickey Mouse watch. You need a sense of humor to make it through the day in my house.

Of course, this was a fart in a blizzard next to the horrors of those riding that Carnival cruise ship, but my respect for my fellow Connecticuttians hit a new low, as my enthusiasm for the creators of Futurama Comics grew proportionately.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Dennis O’Neil: Snow Business

O'Neil Art 130214I guess the angels were scratching their heads real hard, and so when I awoke yesterday there was three feet of white stuff all over everything. It’s still there, mostly, except for the streets, where our tax dollars have been at work, and the driveway where a nice man who didn’t ask for a king’s ransom shoveled it off.

I like it when the angels scratch their heads, except if I have to go someplace or the electricity kerfutzes, which it did during the recent hurricane – angels blowing out birthday candles? – and then the angelic behavior is plenty vexing and old folks have to seek shelter in hotels and if you think that’s easy to find, you’ve never sought shelter after a big wind!

I guess this is why some folks who have reached or exceeded their three score and ten choose to reside in places like Florida. You know – beaches on both sides of the state and plenty of sunshine headin’ their way, zippety-doo-dah.

Florida has the reputation of being paved with greyheads, but the last time I was there I saw more young than old. Maybe it helped that I was attending a comics convention. But I remember a movie in which the main characters were twenty-somethings who ended up in Florida. (Okay, one of them didn’t quite reach his destination due to dying en route.) I have to thank my man in another sunny locale, Ken Pisani, currently residing in Southern California with the lovely Amanda, for informing me that I have a small participation in the flick. Very, very, very small.

In the brief clip Ken sent me, Jon Voight is riding in a bus next to a little girl who’s reading a comic book – that I wrote. It’s one of my early Wonder Woman issues (though, come to think of it, arguably there were no later Wonder Womans by me because I didn’t last long on the title.) Well, golly!

I saw the movie, Midnight Cowboy, during an early run, probably the first and probably at a Times Square theater – one of the classy ones on Broadway, not one of the stick-floored grind houses on 42nd Street. But I don’t remember the bit with the comic book and that’s curious because I was still close enough to my Catholic boyhood to be aware that the film was considered to be…you know, smutty. Near occasion-of-sinny. And I sure as hell(?) wasn’t used to seeing my work anywhere except on newsstands and in editorial offices. I would have reacted and having reacted, I would have remembered.

But I didn’t and I’ll worry about that as soon as I deal with global warming and the legal implications of drone warfare.

I’m forgetting something…

Oh, yeah. Later today, Marifran will be reading this blather off the computer and when she gets this far, I’ll be wishing her a happy birthday.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Dennis O’Neil: Sea Hunt, Iron Man, and Me

Scrambled Television ScreenWay, way back in the day, when Harry S. Truman was president and that thing in the living room, that teevee set that daddy brought home, well, we watched whatever was on. I mean, it’s not like there were a lot of choices. In St. Louis we had no more than three channels, and back then, it might have been one or even two fewer. So you watched teevee, sometimes because there was a program you wanted too see, sometimes because, well…you wanted to watch teevee. You twisted the knob and whatever was on that wobbly, blurry, staticky screen is what you saw.

Sea Hunt, starring Lloyd Bridges, was sometimes what was on and what I watched. I thought it was okay – not a favorite, but okay. I couldn’t have seen it much because it debuted in 1958, which was my first year at the university, and you know what freshman college is: a new world, new friends, new disciplines, new activities and, oh yeah, there was this cute little brunette, senior at Xavier High, who was claiming my attention.

Later, watching one of the great movie westerns, I saw the same Lloyd Bridges have a dustup with Gary Cooper as the clock hands in the marshal’s office ticked closer and closer to High Noon.

I might have seen an issue or two of the Sea Hunt comic book. But maybe not, By then, I thought comics were a relic of my childhood, and if I ever did see a Sea Hunt, I probably didn’t read it.

Later still, in a northern California spa, I passed a guy standing at the checkout desk who, I was later told, was Beau Bridges, Lloyd’s oldest son. Oldest, but not only: Beau has a younger brother, Jeff.

Jeff is, like his brother and father, an actor. By any reasonable criteria, he is a movie star, but I think of him as actor and only incidentally star. There is something to be said for going into the family business, and I’m glad Jeff chose to do so.

I’ve never met Jeff Bridges, probably never will.  But I do feel some connection with Jeff. Actually, two connections.

Jeff starred in a movie titled Eight Million Ways to Die, adapted, loosely, from the novel of the same title. Not a great flick, despite being directed by the excellent Hal Ashby. The novel’s author, my old friend Lawrence Block, once remarked that it was strange, how they made a movie with the same title as his book…Eight Million Ways to Die is connection one. I know the author of the original story.

Then I saw and liked a bunch of other Jeff Bridges performances, not the least of which was the remake of True Grit. Dad was in a cowboy show and now son was in one, too. Call this the circle of life, cinematic edition.

Connection two: Iron Man. The first movie incarnation of the Marvel Comics armored do-gooder, starring Robert Downey Jr. and – wait for it – Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, the flick’s main villain and – now hold your breath – my creation. I introduced stinker Obadiah into Iron Man continuity over 20 years ago and pretty much forgot him. No reason to remember him, really. But sometimes the universe smiles and so Stane is resurrected by one of my favorite actors and life is good.

You may be asking: What’s all his got to do with anything? Okay, I’ll tell you: the preceding 572 words are a lead-in to this week’s –

REC0MMENDED READING: The Dude and the Zen Master, by Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman.

Happy to be of service.

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases and That Game

 

Mike Gold: Stupid Decisions

Gold Art 130206Last week my colleague Ms. Thomases and I were sharing a movie experience at a Manhattan multi-mega-complex. Running the gauntlet of promotional material we passed the familiar poster advertising the franchise-saving event, Man of Steel. Once we were settled in the theater and the obnoxiously repulsive commercials started playing – most were for television shows – I mentioned to Martha that the new management of Warner Bros. hasn’t truly green-lit the Justice League movie. “They’re waiting to see how Man of Steel works out.”

Her Oh-Oh Sense flared up. While both of us were hoping for a killer Superman flick, nothing we have seen thus far has promoted any sense of confidence. Do we need another origin story filled with the Els and the Kents? Most of us have cable teevee or DVDs or streaming video or all three, and there’s plenty of filmed presentations of that origin story. My favorite remains the one from the 1950s teevee series where Our Miss Brooks’ Phillip Boynton played Jor-El while wearing Buster Crabbe’s tunic from the Flash Gordon serials… but that’s just me and a few other decrepit baby-boomers. The rest of you probably never heard of Professor Boynton, and some of you haven’t seen the Flash Gordon serials. You should fix that.

I’m certainly willing to give it a shot and I’ll enter the theater with all the optimism I can muster. It has a good cast, and Michael Shannon certainly has the gravitas to be a great General Zod. But there’s one problem that I’m unlikely to get past.

That damn costume.

OK. I’m sure somebody in Hollywood said “That guy wears his underpants outside his leotard! It’s stupid! We’ve must fix that!” Actually, it’s an old joke. But Superman is a genuine American icon, right up there with the flag, apple pie and third-world health care. Whereas we can fix the latter (but won’t in my lifetime) and the second is fattening, you do not change the flag. You do not change the Coca-Cola bottle, even if they’re reduced to printing a silhouette of it on their cans. You do not give Donald Duck Prozac, you do not copy Johnny Carson’s golf swing on your teevee show.

I’m not suggesting things cannot change. But there’s a reason why certain things reach iconic status. It’s like granting historical status to New York’s Grand Central Terminal (100 years old last week) or Chicago’s Rookery (Daniel Burnham rocks!). Society has deemed Superman’s trunks appropriate, dating back to the time Joe Shuster employed the imagery of the 1930s circus strongman for the Man of Steel’s costume. We may not have very many circus sideshows these days, but we do have Superman.

Besides, if there’s one stupid element in the big guy’s costume, it’s that cape. One of Clark Kent’s undisclosed superpowers must be a psionic ability to keep that thing from flapping over his face while in flight, or doing an Isadora Duncan on Lois Lane when they fly out to the Fortress of Solitude for a weekend of melting the crystals.

But I would not drop that cape, just like I wouldn’t gawk at our flag and ask “gee, do we need all that red?”

Because Warner Bros. is the dog and its DC Entertainment is the tail, Supe’s trunkless costume debuted in the ever-changing yet never-evolving New 52. I get this: a lot more money is riding on the movie franchise than on the comic books. However, there’s a reason why Superman has lasted 75 years – Man of Steel comes out pretty damn close to the actual 75th anniversary date – while other characters from that era that were more popular at the time (The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, Buck Rogers) have fallen out of favor. And that reason is wrapped in a red cape and red trunks.

When I see Man of Steel, I’ll have a hard time looking at the Big Guy and not thinking “Jeez, these morons got it wrong!”

Sometimes, fixing a stupid idea… is a stupid idea.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

 

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