Tagged: Martha Thomases

Dennis O’Neil: Krypton and the End Times

From the totally unauthorized history of the late, great planet Krypton.

dedicated to Sandy

Fer-El waited until the building stopped shaking, stepped around a slab of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, and entered the senator’s office. He crossed to the desk and, without waiting for an invitation, slouched into a chair.

Senator Ban-El brushed plaster dust from his shoulder and asked, “Did you feel it?”

“Didn’t feel a thing,” Fer-El answered. “Building didn’t shake, not a bit, and even if it did, that’s happened before. Plenty of times. But enough of that. I bring good news. I just topped off our coffers. Put another four billion in your campaign fund. No problem with the election now.”

The windows rattled and a picture fell from the wall.

“Did you feel that?” the senator asked.

“Nope. Feel what? Say, you haven’t been listening to that Jor-El buzzard, have you?”

“He spoke to the combined chambers this morning. Said there’s still time. We can fabricate a substitute for –”

“And you bothered to stay awake? Banny, I’m gonna tell you once more plenty of what you already know. That Jor-El…not just him, all those so-called scientists with their ‘facts’ and ‘data’ – all wishy washy sissies. Not a real Kryptonian man in the lot! What is it they say again?”

“We’ve exhausted the planet’s supply of dragonbreath and without it there’s nothing anchoring us to the space-time continuum.”

“All lies. There’s plenty more dragonbreath where that came from.”

“All the dragons died out five million years ago.”

“Piddykrunch! I believe I saw a dragon on my way down here. And anyway, our beloved Krypton’s only about four hundred years old. That’s in The Scrolls and you know what else’s in The Scrolls? Nothing bad’s ever gonna happen long as we obey the Rules handed down by our beloved senators –”

“I’m a senator,” the senator protested.

“See? My point exactly. Proves that nothing bad can happen or you couldn’t do it. See how simple it is? And anyway, it’s all happened before and nothing bad came of it then.”

“A continent crumbled and forty million people died.”

“You believe that?”

“My mother was one of the forty million.”

“See! Your mother was and Jor-El’s mother wasn’t. That’s in The Scrolls , too, if you know how to look for it. I’m a little disappointed. I shouldn’t have to tell you this stuff. Maybe I can find another home for my four billion.”

Senator Ban-El half rose from his chair and said, “No no no. I didn’t mean anything.”

The senator sank down and sat on the floor. His chair had vanished. Then the floor suddenly wasn’t there and as the senator fell, he heard Fer-El screaming, “It’s happened before.”

RECOMMENDED VIEWING/LISTENING: Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind, presented by The Teaching Company and taught by Professor Eric S. Rabkin. Note: These Teaching Company courses are generally offered in two formats, audio and video.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Martha Thomases: Say Good Night, New York­

Here’s where my plan went wrong.

Ever since Friday, the media have been telling New Yorkers to prepare for the storm. Be sure to have candles and batteries and water.

I do.

Still, I am not prepared. I am too high maintenance to function without electricity. If this was the NBC series, Revolution, I would have died before the opening credits began.

It is not until the power goes out that I realize how much I depend upon it. My hand automatically goes to the light switch when I walk into the bathroom. I know the coffee-maker won’t work, but I don’t know that the gas stove also requires electricity to light. I have to drink my coffee cold, like a Neanderthal. Luckily, I have a friend who only likes instant coffee, so I do not have withdrawal.

There is also no cable, no Internet, no cell service. My iPad is fully charged, but I can’t watch anything on Netflix because I can’t stream.

I can’t send in my column by deadline. With no subways or buses, I can’t go to a Starbucks for the WiFi because no place is open. I can’t even buy a newspaper.

Things are happening outside. I can hear sirens. Because I am old-fashioned and have a landline, I can talk to people. Friends and family from California, Michigan, Ohio and Brooklyn, all exotic foreign lands that have power, have called to tell me what is happening across town.

It would be a quiet day except for the wind blowing over the scaffolding on the building across the street. I have been reading the pile of graphic novels on my coffee table, saving my Kindle battery for later, when there is less natural light.

Then I will hunker down in the darkness, with candles and backlighting. I will eat my cold food and drink my room-temperature water.

There are rumors of light and power uptown. I may gather my devices for recharging and walk the three or four miles necessary to ascertain if this is true. If you are reading this, then I was successful.

I will feel like Kamanda, the Last Girl in Earth.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman, “Team” Player

 

Dennis O’Neil: Superman and the Big Blow

This week I thought maybe I’d do a few hundred words on Superman. Instead, I find myself sitting here wishing that Superman really existed and I knew him and he owed me a favor and I had him on speed dial.

Another big blow coming. Here we go again.

I saw my first hurricane when I was on an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean. I watched gigantic waves breaking over the ship’s bow and thought, wow – this’ll make a man believe in an Almighty. It was a glorious experience and I’m glad I had it.

A couple of years ago I had dinner with old friend/colleague Annie Nocenti, who was shortly to leave to teach a film class in Haiti. She was there when Katrina decimated that eternally tormented island nation. For while, I lost touch with her and I worried. But she was okay and we’ve exchanged emails since.

Next came a trip to the Midwest and a tornado that passed about a half mile from our hotel. The next morning Marifran and I drove through the suburb she grew up in. It looked like a toy town kicked by a careless child.

Then home again and soon…our gal Hurricane Irene, the fifth costliest big wind in U.S. history. We lost two trees, one of which hit and damaged the car. It could have been worse.

And now, on a gloomy October 27, the weather folk are saying that Sandy will be worse than Irene. “Widespread devastation” – that was the phrase one forecaster used. What to do? Not much. Fill jugs and sinks with water. Put inside the stuff on the lawn. Make sure we have batteries for the radio, and canned food that can be eaten cold if necessary. And…hold on to our asses. Tuesday morning’s when the fun is expected to start. It will all be over by Wednesday; Thursday at the latest. Happy Halloween.

Enter he who isn’t – Superman. Surely a guy who can “change the course of mighty rivers and bend steel in his bare hands” can deal with a lot of feisty wind. (Though, I admit, bending steel is pretty small potatoes.) Part of the reason we invented superheroes – and, cynics might aver, deities – is that sometimes we feel helpless and sometimes we are helpless and we want…no, we need to believe that some great something who likes us, some mamadaddy who offers unconditional love, will come along to save us. Imagining such a being might be better than nothing. Believing in such a being might be even better.

Deja vu, anyone? (And yes, I know that one of the synonyms for deja vu is “boredom.”) Okay, I’ve perpetrated this kind of blather before, less than a year ago. So let me make a deal with the universe: you stop throwing monster storms at me and I’ll stop whining.

I mean, I lived the first 71 years of my life having experienced only two total hurricanes (and a couple of tornados, but maybe they shouldn’t count.) Now – two in two years? C’mon, universe!

Ah, but the universe doesn’t negotiate, does it?

Maybe Superman does.

 (Editor’s note: Denny wrote this before Hurricane Sandy hit our area, and Ye Ed is ye editing it the same day. So whatever Sandy did to us… right now you know more about it than we do.)

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases, if the creek don’t rise.

 

Martha Thomases: War! What Is It Good For? Comics!

Having watched all three presidential debates and the vice-presidential debate, I’m in the kind of stupor that is recognizable to other political junkies. With about ten days to go, I am chewing on my fingernails, tensely watching the polls as if it is only my focused attention that will allow things to go my way.

The last debate, about foreign policy, made me think about war, and entertainment inspired by war, and my response to it.

There are brilliant war comics, written by people like Archie Goodwin, Larry Hama, Garth Ennis and, especially, Harvey Kurtzman. I admire them. And yet, I don’t particularly enjoy them.

I think the problem is that I am so repulsed by the reality of battle. I don’t find it dramatic nor exciting. It may reveal character, but I don’t want to see it. I don’t entirely believe that war reveals nobility, and even if it does, I think there are better ways to get to the same place.

And yet. And yet. I do like action movies, and I like cartoonish action movies that include war. I love The Dirty Dozen. I can get a good laugh out of 300.

I can admire more realistic war movies, like The Hurt Locker, but I don’t enjoy them. I don’t want to go see them. I avoid them as carefully as I avoid actual battle. I go only when it is necessary to be part of the cultural conversation. Oh, and Apocalypse Now.

It’s possible that I don’t like war movies because they are so stereotypically masculine. Even modern war movies, the ones that acknowledge that women serve and sacrifice, are models of machismo. A movie like Since You Went Away, which shows life on the home front, is just as much inspired by war as my other examples, but is considered a “women’s picture,” or a soap opera because it is about women.

I can think of two exceptions in comics where I actually enjoyed a war comic I was reading. The first is Blackhawk when Howard Chaykin was doing it. I think this had less to do with the military aspects, and more to do with Chaykin’s sense of humor, which is very close to my own.

The other is George Pratt’s Enemy Ace: War Idyll, which is, sadly, out of print. It’s beautiful and moving, as all entertainment should be.

When you vote, don’t just consider the impact of this election on the economy. Think about the wars that can happen as a result of your vote. And then think about the schlock comics those wars will inspire. Personally, I don’t want to see Dan Didio get his hands on Iran.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Martha Thomases: Attack of the Con Brain!

People with cancer describe a phenomenon they call “chemo brain,” a side effect of the tumor-killing drugs that also destroys their short-term memory. I would like to coin another term.

Con brain!

Con brain is what happens to an otherwise mature adult after several days spent in the company of a hundred thousand comic and pop culture fans enclosed in a relatively small space for a comic book convention.

My experience started out simply enough. My friend, Vivek Tiwary, was on a panel at Jim Hanley’s Universe on “A Celebration of Pop Music Comics”, and he wanted me there, since I helped him to get the deal for his graphic novel with Dark Horse. The panel included friendly faces like David Gallaher and Jamal Igle. To my surprise, it also included Punk Magazine editor John Holmstrom, whom I’ve known for decades and who, in my opinion, is the most ripped-off person in comics and graphic design (a bold statement, I know, and too long an explanation for this column. Ask me later). Both Vivek and John gave me shout-outs, proving that I am the most important person in the rock’n’roll/comics intersection.

The next day, I went to the Javits Center early for a meeting. As it turned out, the hall was closed to anyone but exhibitors until later in the afternoon, but I know how to stride in with a group like I belong, so that wasn’t an issue. Everything went swimmingly. Alas, I made the mistake of leaving the hall, and had to use my hard-won knowledge of the building’s labyrinthine tunnels and hallways to get back in.

By the time the show actually opened, things quickly got so crowded and noisy that I couldn’t hear any of the people with whom I was walking, nor could I see where I was going. I went home, put a cat on my lap, and chilled.

On Friday, I had the most surrealistic experience of the show. I attend a bereavement support group that meets near 34th Street. When it was over, I walked to the center, going past Herald Square and Macy’s, Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, and large swaths of Manhattan with office buildings. And, interspersed with tourists, people with jobs on their lunch hour, and the normal New York horde, were people in costumes heading west. If anybody but me thought it was odd to see anime characters and guys with capes and masks walking down the street, they kept it to themselves.

From then on, all is a fog. I saw more people I like (including Walter Simonson, whom I might have hugged a little bit too long). I got hit in the face with more backpacks. I ruined more pictures by walking between the photographer and the subjects, because, I’m sorry, but just because you are in costume doesn’t mean you get to take up an entire aisle.

Still, I noticed a few things. It seemed to me that almost half the attendees were female, a huge change since I started going to these things. I don’t know if shows like The Big Bang Theory have reassured girls that they can handle geek culture, or if there are simply more of us out of the closet, but it’s a much better feeling from my first shows, when women would confide in me that they were followed into the bathroom by guys who couldn’t believe they were really girls at such an event.

Perhaps as a result, there were fewer artists in Artists Alley promoting characters with gigantic breasts and other impossible tricks of anatomy. I only remember one, whose super heroine had breasts started just under her clavicle and ended at her armpit. I mean, I like a little uplift, but, you know, ouch.

By the end of the show I sounded like every character in every action movie ever made, muttering “I’m getting too old for this shit.” I’m starting to feel that, as a short older person, I need to be lifted up on a chair and taken around the rooms carried by four shirtless body-builders, like a sultan from a Bob Hope sketch.

Still, I was moved by this story on the Bleeding Cool website, comparing four days at a comics convention to a religious experience. I envy those of you who get to experience this for the first time.

It’s a treasure. Don’t bury it.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Dennis O’Neil: Green Arrow and Lance Armstrong

Okay, sue me. Last week I blathered on about trying to know as little as possible about movies and television shows before seeing them. So comes Wednesday, the day the new Green Arrow series, catchily titled Arrow, was to debut and what to my wondering eyes should appear, in the arts section of the New York Times, but a review of that same series. What the hell, right? I read the piece and very favorable it was, too, and later I was in front of the set, tuning it to the CW, waiting for the latest incarnation of the emerald archer. And waiting. And waiting. Because what I was seeing was two hours of programming about football.

Football?

I mulled scenarios. Somebody screwed up getting Arrow and the show scheduled to follow it to the various broadcast outlets? Something in both of them outraged some easily offended poo-bah with enough clout to kill hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars? The football lobby got the shows pulled so it could hype images of big dudes bumping into each other?

The next morning, Mari met a friend at the swimming pool she frequents. Friend told Mari how much she’d enjoyed Arrow. Friend lives in our area.

Time to get seriously paranoid. I was having an acid flashback and I only imagined I was watching sports…The universe was punishing me for not keeping faith with the ComicMix readers…

Maybe not. But then, what? As of right now, I don’t know. If any explanation of the hijacking of the archer by the gridiron mob has appeared, I missed it.

But I did see a story about another hero that appeared on the front page of the Times and jumped to the sports section. It concerned a real-life American athlete who won cycling’s most prestigious event, the Tour de France, seven times.

And doped himself for at least two of those wins and maybe more.

And pressured his teammates to use performance-enhancing drugs.

And lied.

Lance Armstrong, take a bow, and try not to moon the crowd while you’re doing it.

So I missed Arrow and that might be a bigger cause for lament than it, at first glance, seems to be. Because maybe fictional heroes are the only ones we have left. The people we once admired – priests, law-enforcers, athletes, lawyers, and especially politicians, both in and out of office – seem to have feet of clay up to their eyebrows. Admire them? Hell no. Despise them, maybe.

Green Arrow wouldn’t have done what Lance Armstrong did. Unless he was a real human being and the pressure to compete,, to win, was so great that he virtually had to use any means necessary. Then he might go seeking an affable pharmacist. You might be right behind him and I’d be there, too, holding your coat, waiting my turn.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: The Teaching Company is my favorite business organization. Wiggly, mind-wandering me has never been easy in classrooms – unless I’m standing at the front of them professoring, in which case I enjoy them ­but I kind of like knowing things. So, with its Great Courses program, The Teaching Company fills a vacuum for me. At very modest cost, it sends me audio and/or video recordings of the teachers you wish you’d had doing what they do best. The range of courses is long and large, and most of those I’ve sampled were terrific. I particularly want to recommend Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity. Presented by David Christian. Absolutely the best course I’ve ever taken, in or out of school.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Martha Thomases: My NYCC Shoes

New York Comic-Con starts today. Almost as big an event as San Diego, but closer to my refrigerator, it is a monolith in the comic-book calendar. NYCC attracts fewer movie and television folk but more people who work in publishing – a (mostly) Manhattan-based business – since NYCC is at the Javits Center, which is technically in Manhattan but more difficult to get to than many parts of New Jersey.

Also, the food choices are terrible, expensive, and such small portions! It’s like being a modern high-school student, but without the calculus. Like high school, I am still filled with anxiety about getting to hang out with the cool kids. I can see from the schedule that I’m already missing out on the cool parties, sold out before I even heard about them.

I am not a person who attended comic book conventions since they started. The first ones I went to were the Phil Seuling shows, and I only went to the parties because I was a struggling freelance writer and there was free food. A hat-tip here to Denny O’Neil for sneaking me in.

When I worked at DC Comics in the 1990s, I went because they paid me to go. Even the big shows then were mostly about comics, not so much movies and television, so being with one of the Big Two made me feel like a vital part of the industry. When I see my friends who are still at DC at recent shows, I don’t get the same feeling from them.

Still, for four days there is a large comic book show in New York. The hotels, especially on the West Side, will have paying guests who are here for the show, who will meet each other in the lobbies otherwise full of foreign tourists. Bars and restaurants host private parties for publishers, studios, and industry-related non-profits. In other words, we’ll be spending a lot of money, which is the easiest way to get respect in this town.

(The other way is to actually accomplish something, and that is much more difficult. Or be British.)

Anyway, this is a long way to say that I’m kind of frazzled, and I’m not sure what there is I can say about comics this week. There are probably some trends that reflect on How We Live Now, but I’m distracted wondering what shoes will best protect my feet from the hard, cruel Javits Center floor.

It is at times like this, when I’m wary and distracted, that comics are most likely to come through for me. This time, I need to thank Grant Morrison. If you haven’t read this yet, check it out.

You can even enjoy it barefoot.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

Dennis O’Neil: Arrows

So okay, we can get our superhero fix without leaving the house. (And isn’t this what we all desire? And pass the chips…) SyFy’s Alphas, which is watchable, is back doing its weekly thing and this week we’ll see the debut of Arrow, based on a character who’s been around for 71 years. I mean, of course, Green Arrow created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp and, shall we say, “inspired” by The Green Archer, first a novel by Edgar Wallace and later a movie serial, and further inspired by the success of another costumed vigilante, Batman, who was getting mighty popular along about 1941.

I know very little about the television incarnation of – let me confess – my favorite arrow slinger beyond this: the TV folk are using the character’s first origin story, which has Oliver Queen, one of those soigne millionaires who littered the pop culture of the pre-war era, shipwrecked on a deserted island and learning to be a whiz with a bow in order to survive. That’s what I know. I don’t want to know more.

We are saturated with information about our entertainments and I wonder if that doesn’t get in the way or responding to them as evolution intended. We know that this actor is feuding with that actress and they’re both mad at the producer and… I guess we can still perpetrate a willing suspension of disbelief (which your English teacher told you was vital to enjoying fiction). But maybe such suspension doesn’t come as easily as it did in the pre-information age and maybe we bring to the story expectations fostered by show-biz venues which influence, for better or worse, how we respond to what we’re being shown. Maybe it’s becoming a chore to bring to the enterprise what some meditators call “bare attention” – simply responding to, and being amused by, what’s there in front of us. As for being surprised by plot twists and the like, once a staple of light drama… good luck!

Am I blowing smoke? If I am, I’m blowing it into a fan.

I used to enjoy Mel Gibson movies. But I can’t, not any more, not after his anti-Semitic ravings and espousal of Neanderthal Catholicism, all of which was thoroughly reported in the media.

A few months ago, I saw a Batman movie. I thought it was a fine movie and I still think so. But I knew that Talia – let me confess – my favorite daughter of a maniacal mass murderer, was in the story somewhere and I kept trying to jump ahead of the screenwriters and guess exactly when she would appear who she would turn out to be. (I was wrong.) Yep, nifty flick, all right, but maybe my enjoyment of it was just a bit dimmed.

On the other hand…Marifran said that if she’d known that the cult portrayed in the fine new film The Master was based on Scientology, she would have enjoyed it more.

It is not a one-size-fits-all universe.

But, dammit, I know that there’s information about Arrow available on the net. And I’m not going near it.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Martha Thomases: Could Obama Rescue Michelle From The Joker?

Deadlines being what they are, I’m writing this before the first Presidential debate, and you are reading it after. By now, all the various news agencies, pundits and comedians will have picked out the most salient points and decided who “won.” I’m sure I also have opinions by this time, and I assure you that I am right.

However, this has nothing to do with pop culture in general, nor comics in specific. And I’m having trouble thinking about anything else.

As the kind of nerd who was on the debate team in high school, I’m a little bit affronted that they call these televised events “debates.” There is not a thesis, and it is not set up so that one side argues for it and the other side against. There are no definitions of terms. Instead, there are specific questions, defined amount of time for each candidate to answer, the other candidate to respond, and so on, for an hour and a half. Everything is micro-managed, from the height of the podia to the lighting, and both sides have minions who will run out and declare their respective candidate the winner, no matter what is actually said.

It’s about as spontaneous as a Papal mass. And about as persuasive.

You know the debates are boring because, when they are presented in popular entertainment, suspense has to be added. For example, in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, when they depicted the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates, they added, well, vampires.

What if candidates for elected office debated the way characters do in comics? You know, with fighting?

My personal favorite examples of this are the Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories by my beloved Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. The two main characters argue about their respective world-views while shooting arrows, leaping over rooftops, flying through the air, and, sometimes, facing off against little blue aliens.

It would be wonderful if there were similar obstacles presented in our political debates. We would have the opportunity to not only hear the different viewpoints of the candidates, but also observe their problem-solving skills in action. Obama might have rescued the auto industry, but can he rescue Michelle from the clutches of the Joker? Romney boasts of his business experience, but can he fend off a hostile takeover from Intergang? Forget Ahmadinejad, would either man allow a Doctor Doom to speak at the UN?

And after they fight, can they team up and solve the problems together? That would not only increase the ratings for the debates, but improve our level of discourse.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman and the Old Guys League of America

 

Dennis O’Neil: Son of Naughty Words

With apologies to my friend Martha (and more on this anon)…

Now where were we? Oh, yes. We were discussing naughty words. Last week, I mentioned that every civilization seems to have had them, though their content changed from culture to culture and even from time to time within the same culture. And the kinds of things they referred to – and still refer to – wasn’t consistent either. At one end, and forgive the pun if you dare, they refer to the stinky stuff that comes out of your alimentary canal, what television’s Dr. Oz refers to as “poop,” and at the other end, well…God or god, depending on whether we’re talking about my religion or yours. They have uses. The aforementioned Dr. Oz, on his TV show, actually recommended that they way to unwind is to shout s#%t! (I may have the gralix wrong – and note that the suitly fellows at Fox Broadcasting seem to feel that “poop” is acceptable, but “shit” would corrode the souls of the innocent.)

To a writer, they can be useful, these verbal no-nos, regardless of exactly what they are, because they’re rare. Save them for the big moments and then, when you drop the bomb, you get your audience’s attention and they indicate that whichever character uttered them is seriously disgruntled.

There’s an analogy to violence here. Once, in what we might (smirkingly?) call “classic dramaturgy,” violence was used to relieve tension or, again, to indicate that a character’s more than just upset. Now – it’s often just screen clutter. We’ve all seen what I think of as video game movies, in which the good guy slaughters evildoers in wholesale lots, faceless cannon fodder who exist solely to be slaughtered and demonstrate the hero’s aptitude for mayhem. Exciting as watching a faucet drip? Well, no. The stuff involves movement and noise, both of which we’re wired to respond to, but the prevalence of these scenes deprives writers of the earlier uses of extreme action.

Same with the words. If “fucking” is the all-purpose modifier, it loses its capacity to signify emotion extremity.

It was once used to indicate that the speaker was either a thug or a tough guy or at least someone of low estate. But, hey, if altar boys use the word…

A screenwriter of my acquaintance observes that this is how modern people talk and if your story is to be realistic, your characters can’t sound like refugees from a Jane Austen novel. No argument. I’m just reporting, not pushing an agenda.

And what might happen if, from overuse, naughty words vanish from our vocabulary? Anyone else find that an interesting question?

Two last items: “Gralix” is what cartoonist Mort Walker, of “Beatle Bailey” fame, calls the miscellaneous symbols that stand in for ^&##$%* words he isn’t allowed to use in family newspapers.

And finally… Martha, I’m sorry I poached your turf. I wrote last week’s column before reading the very similar one you wrote recently, and first. Mea culpa...

THURSDAY: The aforementioned Martha Thomases!

 

 

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