The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Joe Corallo: Amazing Grace

Okay, let me clear up a couple of things first.

One: This is not about the song “Amazing Grace” by poet John Newton. It’s about comic book professional Sina Grace.

Two: I shamelessly took the concept of this column title from Christmas at Pee Wee’s Playhouse when Globey says that in reference to Grace Jones’ performance of Little Drummer Boy.

Now then, if you aren’t familiar with Sina Grace I’m here to help change that. Especially since Sina has a few new comics hitting the shelves on Wednesday.

He’s someone entirely unique in comics. He’s worn nearly every hat you can in comics as a self-publisher, imprint editor, writer, and artist. His skills have graced most of the comics publishers here in the States that you can name, he’s edited The Walking Dead, put out deeply personal memoir comics, and is most recently taking on Iceman over at Marvel… but more on that later.

I first got into Sina Grace’s work as an artist with The Li’l Depressed Boy, written, colored and lettered by S. Steven Struble. He happened to be in Manhattan signing at Carmine Street Comics in 2014 just after my birthday so I picked up the first two volumes. He was incredibly sweet and welcoming. I even got a sketch of Jem (as in Jem and the Holograms) from him, which he seemed to look up reference for on his phone, but I like to think he could have done from memory. Fun fact about me; I prefer this version of the Jem theme song that basically everyone else hates.

Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked. Anyway, The Li’l Depressed Boy is a surrealist take on unreqited love with an indie film aesthetic filled with music and youth. It’s the kind of comic that checks a lot of boxes for me in terms of what I like, so it both was a comic I enjoyed and something that put Sina on my radar.

That really paid off when Self-Obsessed came out in 2015.

Self-Obsessed is a deeply person memoir. Prior to this, Sina had put out another memoir, Not My Bag, back in 2012. Whereas Not My Bag dealt with Sina’s personal struggles working retail, Self-Obsessed cuts deeper. It’s filled with comics, essays, photos, and interviews. It’s an incredibly blunt, raw, and unapologetic reflection on life. It’s a brave graphic novel and I have a great deal of respect for Sina putting this out. If you like memoir comics and the kind of books you see over at the likes of Top Shelf and First Second and you haven’t checked out Self-Obsessed yet, then you need to add it to your list. Seriously. Do it.

Sina Grace was back in New York for NYCC in 2015 to promote Self-Obsessed. Needless to say, I picked up a copy then and read it on the train home after. Self-Obsessed went on to become a web series starring not only Sina but Amber Benson, Colleen Green and more. It’s currently two seasons in.

I’m stressing how much I enjoy Self-Obsessed not only in the hopes that maybe you’ll go pick it up but because his new graphic memoir, Nothing Lasts Forever, is one of his new books hitting the shelves Wednesday and may turn out to be even more personal than his other memoirs. A lot has happened fairly recently in Sina’s life and he’s gonna lay it all out for us. I’ll be picking it up on Wednesday, and I hope you do the same.

One of the other books with Sina’s name on it coming at us on Wednesday is Iceman #1. This book is part of Marvel’s X-Men ResurrXion reboot. Now, I made my feelings clear the other month based on the first book in the series, X-Men Gold #1. TL:DR, I wasn’t a fan. X-Men Blue #1 was better, but still not quite there for me. And I’ll be honest, I picked Jean Grey #1 off the rack at a shop and skimmed through it only to find that in the first issue they are already talking about the Phoenix force so I’m gonna hard pass that one. No offense to the creative team, really, but the idea of dealing with the Phoenix force again is just too exhausting and a wasted opportunity to make Jean Grey something more. Because of all that, I’m relying on Iceman to restore my excitement in the X franchise.

Seriously though, this book has a lot going for it. Though editor Daniel Ketchum has been let go from Marvel, this is certainly in part his baby. I got to talk to Daniel briefly back at NYCC 2015 about Iceman and my reservations to how the character had been handled in All-New X-Men. Daniel told me to stick it out and see where the character was going. This book is where it was all going. Between Daniel Ketchum editing, Sina Grace writing, and Kevin Wanda doing the cover, we have three queer men of color working on a queer superhero. That’s really huge and means the world to me. Many of you familiar with my column know I bitch about diversity and inclusion here a lot, and Iceman is the kind of book I’ve been demanding over at that big two. Please, if diversity in comics is important to you, or if the X-Men are important to you, pick up this book. We all need Iceman to succeed.

No pressure, Sina!

Finally, Sina also did a pride variant cover for the latest issue of The Walking Dead and it’s gorgeous! Image is doing pride variants for multiple titles, and 100% of the proceeds will go to the Human Rights Campaign. Considering the kind of rollbacks in LGBT rights we see happening all across the country, this is an important stand for a comic company to be making and I applaud Image for taking a stand against bigotry.

This Wednesday, comic shops will be stocking up on three different projects that Sina Grace has poured his heart into. When you hit up your local comic shop tomorrow, go out and take some of those home with you.

Mindy Newell: A Doctor, A Princess, And Some Left Over

Some quick reviews this week. Well, not quite reviews, as I’m not going to get much into plot synopses, but as always I will express some definitely personal opinions. (You know me.) There will be S*P*O*I*L*E*R*S inferred, so caveat emptor!

“The Lie of the Land” (Episode 8, Doctor Who, Series 10): The final episode of a three-episode arc – the first two being “Extremis” and “The Pyramid at the End of the World” – in which alien “monks” have taken over the world through the consent of Bill Potts, the Doctor’s newest companion. She did this in order to have the monks cure the Doctor’s blindness – which occurred in Episode 5, “Oxygen.”

I wasn’t sure where the show was going with this, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t much engaged by our hero’s disability; I found it more annoying than anything else, as the good Doctor only seemed to be afflicted with blindness when it suited the story, as in “Pyramid,” in which our Time Lord had no trouble putting together a bomb, or navigating winding hallways, or walking the streets of a London city, but couldn’t open a simple combination lock – not even with the sonic screwdriver, and would somebody please explain to me why the screwdriver couldn’t open a simple combination lock when in the past it has done just about everything else? It’s now clear to me that the only reason this “tragedy” was written into the show was to engineer this storyline.

I also found the ending, in which Bill subjected herself to the monks’ “brainwave booster” incredibly cheesy, with Bill thinking about her mom – who is, the storyline established, nothing more than artificial construct herself, built out of Bill’s childhood memories, imaginings, and the Doctor’s pictures of her…honestly, I was waiting for Bill to start singing:

“M is for the million things she gave me.

“O means only that she’s growing old.

“T is for the tears she shed to save me.

“H is for her heart of purest gold.

“E is for her eyes with love-light shining.

“R means right and right she’s always be…”

The only thing I did really love about this episode was that, beyond the by now humdrum plot of aliens taking over the world, it was a sly and sarcastic bit of political commentary, attacking revisionist history, fake news and alternative facts. Oh, and Donald Trump:

Bill: “How would I know the President?” asked a baffled Bill. “I wouldn’t even have voted for him. He’s …orange.” 

Tonight (as I write this; Sunday, June 4) I will be watching the season finale of The White Princess on Starz and the series finale of The Leftovers on HBO. Obviously, I won’t comment on things I haven’t yet seen, but here are my thoughts going in…

I’m a British monarchy nut. It started long ago when I read Forever Amber in high school. Written by Kathleen Winsor and first published in 1944, incurring the wrath of the Catholic Church, banishment from 14 states as “pornography,” and banned in Australia, Amber is actually an amazingly well-written and researched historical romance that takes place in the late 17th century during the English Restoration, when the monarchy was reestablished and Charles Stuart became Charles II.

And no, my parents had no objections to my reading it. I then read Katherine, by Anya Seton, another well-researched and well-written historical fiction novel set in the 14th century, chronicling the story of Katherine Swynford, the mistress and later wife to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and son of King Edward III. Katherine’s children through John were the Beaufort family, and her great-granddaughter was Margaret Beaufort, whose son was Henry VII, the first Tudor King. And the Tudors and their dynasty captured my imagination, as it has for so many, many others.

The White Princess, adapted from the book by Phillipa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) is the story of Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward VI, and niece of Richard III, and the Lancastrian claimant, Henry VII. Their political marriage ended the War of the Roses, a civil war between the two royal houses of England, the Yorks and the Lancasters. However, it wasn’t as if the priest said, “I now pronounce you man and wife” and all was, if you’ll excuse the expression, roses. There were still many who believed that Henry was a “false king,” a usurper, and his reign, especially in the early years, was one of paranoia, political intrigue, treason, and death.

The mini-series concentrates on the machinations of the women behind the throne of England, and although a little bit liberty has been taken with historical facts for the sake of the drama, it adheres closely enough to what happened to serve as an excellent opening to England’s bloody royal history.

The Leftovers, based on the book by Tom Perotta, is ending tonight after three seasons. Created by Lost’s Damon Lindeloff and Mr. Perotta, it is the story of what happens to the people “left over” after a rapture-like event erases 140 million people from the face of the Earth

I’m not sure how much I like The Leftovers, though paradoxically I have been watching it since it debuted on HBO three years ago, and even read the book after the first season. There’s not a lot of explanation – certainly the “Sudden Departure,” as it is called, is never really explained, though the characters have their own interpretations…or none. By the end of the first season, there seemed to be an acceptance of what had happened, a “life goes on” attitude, but by the second season, it was clear that this was mostly a façade.

Despite the “Rapture” leanings, it’s not really a show about religion and faith. It’s not really a show about faithlessness, either. I think it’s really a show about grief and acceptance. Or maybe it’s a show about grief and the inability to accept. Maybe it’s a show about defiance in the face of ruin. Or maybe it’s a show about defiance in the face of madness. Or maybe it’s just a show about madness and futility. I don’t expect tonight’s episode to be rife with definitive answers, the number 1 being, of course, why did all those people just disappear?

I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out.

But aren’t we all?

 

Ed Catto: Live and Let Love the One You’re With

Last week, the front page of The New York Times mourned the death of Roger Moore. Shockingly, they ran a photo from Live and Let Die showing the actor, as James Bond, in bed with Jane Seymour, right there on the front page.

How fitting. But there’s a catch. While I’m a big James Bond fan, amongst 007 fans, Sean Connery is always revered at the “real” face of Bond. I get that. And if fact, when I read James Bond prose adventures I generally conjure up Connery’s face and voice as I visualize the scenes.

On the other hand… there was a 70s sentiment that admonished us all to love the one we’re with. And growing up, Roger Moore was the Bond I was with.

I clearly remember the day when my parents were debating the merits of taking my brother, Colin, and me to see a movie. Now, my family reads a lot, so it was natural my parents read the James Bond novels. And Mom and Da, like much of America, had enjoyed the Sean Connery movies. So they knew the deal about James Bond movies. But my mom also read, and loved, Charlotte’s Web. The animated version was playing locally. But also in the local theaters was Roger Moore’s first outing as James Bond in Live and Let Die.

We were little boys at this time. My mom suggested that we all have a sweet, charming night out and enjoy the Charlotte’s Web movie. My dad, usually an easy going guy, roared, “I’m not going to take these boys to see some movie about a pig!” We went to see Roger Moore in Live and Let Die and our lives were changed forever.

Do you remember how this one starts out? Instead of being summoned into M’s stuffy office, there’s an urgent need for Britain’s top agent. It’s so urgent that the head of the British Secret Service and his secretary, unable to reach James Bond, travel to Bond’s apartment to fetch him for the mission.

And I do recall there’s also some exposition about Italy’s diplomats being upset because one of their top agents is missing, or “off the grid” as we’d say today, after completing her last secret mission.

Well… in a scene that would make any modern HR manager cringe, M, the head of the Secret Service, and Miss Moneypenny, his secretary, arrive and knock on the door of Bond’s flat.

There’s a quick scene where a groggy James Bond, played by Roger Moore for the first time, checks his watch. But it was a digital watch, and those were bleeding edge cool at the time. My brother and I were had never seen one before and were captivated by it. And then we realized that the missing Italian agent was naked in James Bond’s bed! Wow! My brother and I had never seen that before and were even more captivated by that!

I think this introduction, doubtlessly duplicated by millions of boys across the world, helped a generation embrace Roger Moore as their James Bond.
Sean Connery was great – but wasn’t he the guy who complains about the Beatles? Kind of like my grandfather?

No, Roger Moore was our guy.

A Dashing Rogue in a Pre-Bond Phase

The Saint, often called the Modern Robin Hood of Crime, was a globe-trotting adventurer created by Leslie Charteris. The character appeared in way too many books and short stories. Although largely ignored today, the Saint enjoyed very healthy cross-media exposure in radio, comics, serials, movies and television. To many, the first actor to portray the Saint on television, Roger Moore is regarded as the best. Moore brought a dashing sense of unflappable whimsy to the role, romancing beautiful women in gorgeous cities around the globe, while inevitably being drawn into some mystery or crime by a dastardly foe.

I discovered Roger Moore as the Saint after I discovered Moore as 007, although he played the character before becoming James Bond. It all seemed like a Junior Varsity warm-up to the James Bond series.  It was all there – the car, the bravado, the globetrotting, the casual affairs. But, there was no ignoring it was Bond-Lite compared the cinematic James Bond,

I lived in upstate New York, and watched one of the New York City stations, WNEW, that used to run episodes of The Saint after their “Late Movie.” The problem was that the movies were all of different lengths, so The Saint would start at different times each night. There was a stretch where I’d scour TV Guide to discover the precise time that the Saint started, and set my alarm so I could sneak downstairs at 2:20 am or 3:05 am to watch an episode. It was important to never miss the beginning of an episode.

The theme song had that Rat Pack coolness to it, and each week Roger Moore would break the fourth wall right before it played. In the show’s teaser, before the theme song, the Saint would be in Rome or Madrid or some other exotic locale and another character would recognize him. “Wait, aren’t you Simon Templar… the Saint? ” they’d always ask. Then Roger Moore would sheepishly smile and look upwards, at the animated halo (he was the “saint”, get it?) above his head. This bit never got old and to his credit, Moore made it work for six seasons and 118 episodes.

As the story goes, one reason Roger Moore kept doing The Saint series was because he was saddled with overbearing alimony payments following an acrimonious divorce. I can only imagine.

Persuaded by the Riviera

But then the crew of The Saint magically transformed everything into another show called The Persuaders! This was bromance adventure of two wealthy rivals who became chums and started gallivanting across Europe. Roger Moore played a British aristocrat named Lord Brett Sinclair and his counterpart was a Brooklyn-American, charmingly overacted by Tony Curtis.

One can’t help but wonder if there might have been some financial or personal incentives to filming this series on locations across Europe. In The Persuaders!, viewers were taught that if you were clever or rich enough, all of Europe was just one big cocktail hour and there were more than enough beautiful women waiting to be charmed off their feet. Nice work if you can get it, eh?

Although The Persuaders! was shown during primetime on ABC in America in the early 70s, I discovered the show much later in syndication. While I certainly didn’t romance beautiful women as frequently as Lord Brett Sinclair did, I think the easy-breezy attitude of confidence and mischief was good to learn, at least in moderation.

Years later, after one of my business partners Joe Ahearn and I assumed ownership of the character Captain Action, we created a female counterpart. It was partially in as a result of exhibiting at comic shows, and partially a desire to create “James Bond’s daughter.”  Of course, we couldn’t make our character actually be James Bond’s little girl. Instead, we named her Nikki Sinclair and alluded to the fact that her father was an English Lord. So in essence, since Roger Moore played a similar character in The Persuaders!, we kind of found a way around making her James Bond’s daughter.

Oh sure, we saw Roger Moore as a mercenary in The Wild Geese (a kind of pre-Rambo Dirty Dozen movie) and we suffered though him as Sherlock Holmes (somehow it just didn’t feel right). He was also Beau Maverick, cousin to Bret and Bart and father of Ben, and starred in The Alaskans (the rumors were that he fell in love with his beautiful co-star). He could be a lot of things, but even Roger Moore couldn’t be everyone.

Roger Moore always seems cool and composed when not on camera. He was dapper and in fact took pride at developing his character’s wardrobe in The Persuaders! Gee, that was all so much fun – thanks for showing us how it was all done, Roger!

John Ostrander: Lost Vision

I don’t always get around to seeing movies that I want to see while they’re in the theaters. I prefer seeing movies first in the theater and preferably in IMAX. I love the big screen and I think that’s how they were meant to be seen. I don’t mind seeing it later on the small screen, especially if I still have the memory of seeing the large-scale version.

Sometimes, for one reason or another, I just don’t get around to getting to the movie theater in time to catch the feature. Logan was one of those films.

As you already probably know, Logan is the last film that Hugh Jackman will make playing Wolverine. It’s a part that made him a star and that he basically owns. This time it’s set in the not too distant future of 2029 and things have not gone well for the mutant population. (Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the film and want to, best stop reading now or you may learn more than you want to.) By inference, we learn that there are almost no mutants left and none have been born in the past 25 years. There was some kind of unspecified disaster around the school in Westchester NY several years back.

Logan is now keeping it on the down low near the Mexican border as a driver/bodyguard. He drinks a lot and he’s sick; his mutant healing factor is fading and the adamantium that laces his bones (and claws) is poisoning him. He’s also taking care of Professor X, Charles Xavier (played once again by Patrick Stewart, who has said this is also his last go-round with the X-Men), who is also ailing. The man with the most powerful brain in the world is losing control of it; every once in a while, he has seizures that wreak havoc on everyone near him.

Into Logan’s and Professor X’s life comes an 11-year-old girl named Laura who is a mutant, who may have been created in a lab where she was dubbed X-23. She also has retractable claws, rage issues, and a violent nature. Sound like anyone we know? She is Logan’s “daughter” in that his DNA was used to create her.

The movie is a road picture, one in which Logan, Laura, and Professor X are chased as they try to find their way to a possible haven. The film is very violent (having earned an R rating) and bleak. Very bleak.

Professor X founded the X-Men in the belief, the hope, that mutants and normal humans could find a way to live together. His frenemy, Magneto, didn’t think they could and his path was more violent. He saw humans and mutants as being at war.

Evidently, Magneto was right. That appears to be the premise of Logan – very few mutants are left and the ones that exist are being hunted. Xavier was wrong.

That’s also been the premise of more than a few X-Men comics that touch on the future. I don’t recall seeing one such future where Professor X’s vision came true. I will admit, I find that a bit depressing. It seems to me to undercut some of the basic premise of the X-Men – that there is hope that all these different types of people can live together. The X-Men have been stand-ins for so many different persecuted minorities. Xavier’s dream, his vision, has always held out hope to me that our differences can be overcome, however tough the battle.

That’s not what Logan seems to say.

I don’t know if I have the right to gripe. My career seems to be about anti-heroes and bleak characters and bad times; it’s how I make my living. I can certainly see the allure in taking that attitude in Logan; it feels closer to life as we see it these days. More and more so all the time. But maybe that’s why we need a little more hope.

This is not to say that Logan is a badly made film; far from it. It’s not simply violent; it’s intelligent and well written and has wonderful performances. In the blu-ray pack that I bought, I had a chance to experience it in black and white. They call it Logan Noir and it has the feel of noir films of old. I was very impressed.

I was also a little saddened. It’s hard to watch a dream die, especially one that was meant to give us hope. These days, I think we need all the hope we can get.

Marc Alan Fishman: To Every Season, Turn, Turn, Turn

As we wind things down on the current season of TV, I’m of two different minds on two shows I’d long held in similar regard. Agents of SHIELD (no, I don’t want to add all those extraneous periods. You know what I mean, right?) and The Flash. Both turned in seasons that were rife in comic references. AOS gave us Ghost Rider, LMDs, Madame Hydra, and a dash of the non-Marvel-sanctioned Matrix. The adventures of Team Flash gave us… Flashpoint. I am nothing if not full of opinions on both.

Let’s start with the good, shall we? For the first time in the history of the show, Agents of Shield dug its heels in deep with reverence to the pulpy source material. Because of this, the normally cinema-by-way-of-a-limited-budget show felt larger than ever. With pronounced arcs carrying through a disjointed season, we finally got a TV show with the pacing and payoff akin, truly, to actual printed comics. We had a genuine drive from the beginning to end – allowing the final beats of the season to encompass literally everything that came before it. The means justified the ends, and by the time the stinger for the 2018 season drops, we’re exhausted in the best way.

Beyond the prowess of the prose, where AOS shined brightest came collectively in character development. Over the course of this season, nearly each member of the team was given an arc to follow. And while perennial favorite Phil Coulson was left with the least to improve upon, even he was given a few badass moments to chew the scenery on. With Phil mostly on the dramatic sidelines this time around, the MVP of the season falls solely on Iain De Caestecker’s Leo Fitz.

Where he and co-science-bro (by-way-of-Sam-and-Diane) Jemma Simmons were once the bright-eyed innocents of the team, Fitz was saddled with the most growing up to do over the lengthy season. Shouldering the moral arguments of science-over-dogma, followed by a What If conceit Stan Lee himself would have been proud to take credit for, left our Scotsman bereft of any remaining innocence by season’s end. That the writers of AOS make the gravitas of Fitz’s arc feel deserved stands out as the season highlight for me.

You’ll note we’re three paragraphs in, and I’ve not had a single good thing to say about The Flash. Sadly, much like my thoughts around the literary basis of the arc, Flashpoint does for the TV show the same as it did for the comic and animated feature: drag the whole series down into the muck and mire that plagues DC all too often these days.

Simply put, The Flash’s best moments all contained themselves in the singular episode that largely snuck away from the timeline-altering plot that drove the entirety of the season. The Supergirl crossover episode that showcased Grant Gustin’s singing chops, Duet, stood alone as the single point of light in a dreary season.

As with the source material, The Flash saw Barry Allen time-travel to the past to save his mother from her timely demise. By doing so, we entered an Elseworld tale that spins out like so many would-be DCU alternate timelines. Things are darker, grittier, sadder, and devoid of the humor and spritely spirit that has long been the calling card for the show’s continued success. And by doing so, and pitting Barry Allen against yet another Speed-Based-Villain for the series… we are treated to yet-another-plot wherein Barry must. Run. Faster. Except this time, he merely gets by with a little help from his friends.

Speaking of… Not to continuously drop elbows on a dead Beta Rey Bill here (sorry, I know I’m crossing the streams, but I don’t know any more famous comic book horsies), but Team Flash is as much to blame over the dead-in-the-water season as any linger ties to Flashpoint itself. Whereas AOS took time to build, and rebuild their continuously expanding team – taking time to really allow the audience to get into the heads of Mack, Yo-Yo, and even The Patriot – The Flash seemed content to heap team member after team member into Star Labs without ever expanding each character beyond one or two notes they began with. Be it Wally West, that one scientist who HR Wells loved, or Malfoy CSI (I think his name is Julian, but he’s not worth the Googling), basically every Flash-bro walked into Star Labs, delivered or received a litany of pep-talks about their value to the team, and then sat back to let Barry run and mope. By the season’s end, I felt a connection to every Agent of Shield. I left The Flash wishing I had any feelings whatsoever.

At the end of the day, we know both shows will return for another season. My hope is that Barry and his team will return to the real roots of the character – the fun, and hope – and largely forget as much of the Savitar saga as metahumanly possible. As for Agents… Heh. Well, let’s just say Coulson did his job; I can’t wait to see where they go from here.

LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain Provides Summer Fun

BURBANK, CA (June 1, 2017) – Missing memories provide an intriguing mystery for everyone’s favorite young female protagonists in the all-new animated film, LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment and The LEGO® Group, the film – the first LEGO® entry in the worldwide DC Super Hero Girls franchise phenomenon – will be distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) July 25, 2017 on Digital HD ($19.99 SRP) and August 8 on DVD (SRP $19.98).

When Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Bumblebee and Katana suddenly realize they cannot remember a single moment from their Monday at Super Hero High, the young DC Super Heroes spring into sleuthing action! Suspecting foul-play, they band together to retrace their steps and uncover the mystery of who exactly stole their memories – and what nefarious plan might be afoot?

LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain voice cast returns its core cast in Grey Griffin (Wonder Woman), Tara Strong (Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy), Anais Fairweather (Supergirl), Teala Dunn (Bumblebee) and Stephanie Sheh (Katana), with Ashlyn Selich joining the group (as Batgirl). The cast also includes Yvette Nicole Brown (Amanda Waller), Greg Cipes (Beast Boy), Romi Dames (Lena Luthor), John DiMaggio (Gorilla Grodd, Wildcat), Jennifer Hale (Mad Harriet), Josh Keaton (Flash), Tom Kenny (Gordon), Rachael MacFarlane (Artemiz), Mona Marshall (Eclipso), Khary Payton (Cyborg) and Meredith Salenger (Lashina).

Todd Grimes (Back at the Barnyard, Star Wars: Detours) directs LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls: Brain Drain from a script by Jeremy Adams (Justice League Action, LEGO® Scooby-Doo) . Rick Morales (LEGO® Scooby-Doo! Haunted Hollywood) serves as producer, with Sam Register (Teen Titans Go!), Jill Wilfert (The LEGO® Movie, The LEGO® Batman Movie) and Robert Fewkes (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) as executive producers.

Following the success of two home entertainment releases for the DC Super Hero Girls franchise – DC Super Hero Girls: Super Hero High and DC Super Hero Girls: Intergalactic Games, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has brought together two of the world’s most recognizable brands in DC and LEGO for their first combined DC Super Hero Girls franchise production. The DC Super Hero Girls franchise aims to empower and connect with young girls through the brand’s vast digital content networks across LEGO.com, DCSuperHeroGirls.com, YouTube and social media.

“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is excited to unite two extremely popular brands – LEGO® and DC Entertainment – to present the first ever LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls film,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation Marketing. “Animated feature-length movies featuring DC Super Hero Girls and LEGO are extremely popular amongst our fans, so we look forward to bringing this first collaboration to life.”

BASICS
Street Date: August 8, 2017
Run Time: 72 minutes
DVD Price: $19.98 SRP
DVD Audio – English
HD EST Price: $19.99 SRP
SD EST Price: $14.99 SRP

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #411

JEFF SPENCER GIFTS US WITH THIS GEM

This week I have something old. Next time I’ll have something new. I’m aged enough that I might be living on borrowed time. But I’m not blue. Because I’m not writing about that which shall remain nameless but which rhymes with drivel bore pooh.

I was watching an old episode of 77 Sunset Strip– there’s no other kind – called “Mr. Goldilocks.” It was a typical episode; private eye’s on a case that he manages to solve in 60 minutes – of 40, if you zap through the commercials on your DVR. This week PI Jeff Spencer was trying to recover some jewels which had been stolen while they were being transported from a Palm Springs show back to Los Angeles. Spencer tracked the thief, Abern Wills, into the desert and got shot in the arm for his troubles. Which was just the beginning of his troubles.

The wounded Jeff stumbled through the desert until he chanced upon the cabin of Luther and Willie Lee Hanks, a grizzled father and dim-witted son who were looking for a lost gold mine and were just a burro shy of hitting the prospector cliché trifecta. Luther’s daughter, Polly, used a first aid kit to treat Jeff’s wound. Then she promised that when she got home, she’d call Jeff’s partners at 77 Sunset Strip to come and get him, because, unlike the cabin, her house had a phone.

Yes, I said “her house.” See, Polly didn’t live with her father. She was married and lived with her husband; you guessed it Abern Wills. She had no intention of calling Jeff’s partners there on the Sunset Strip. Instead, she and Abern planned on going to the Hanks’ cabin the next day, after the Hanks resumed their search for the lost mine, and kill Jeff, so they could enjoy the proceeds of Abern’s jewel theft.

What they didn’t reckon on was that Luther, like most proud papas, had a picture of Polly’s wedding in his cabin; a picture Jeff saw. Jeff recognized Polly’s husband as the jewel thief and realized he had been set up. So, when Polly and Abern returned, Jeff was hiding under the cabin. Polly stayed at the cabin, while Abern walked into the desert to look for Jeff.

After Abern left, Jeff tried to get to Polly’s car to escape, but she shot at Jeff and he stopped. Then Polly held Jeff at gunpoint. She intended to keep Jeff prisoner until Abern returned and killed him, but she only kept him until he escaped and really did flee into the desert. Abern went after him.

Jeff wandered around the desert; well not for forty days and forty nights. Not even for forty minutes, even if you didn’t speed through the commercials on your DVR. But he did wander around long enough to start talking to himself. Then start talking to the vultures, because, if he was talking to them and not himself, he wasn’t crazy; which is kind of a self-defeating distinction. He also wandered around long enough for one night to pass and for Polly to bring Abern a dinner of cold chicken and some more water.

The next day, Abern caught up with Jeff. They fought. Due to his weakened state, Jeff lost. Then, as Abern was talking toward Jeff to kill him, Abern troped and fell down the shaft of the lost gold mine to his death. (And who didn’t see that coming. This episode had more Chekhov’s guns than that Star Trek episode where Kirk, Chekov, and crew relived the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.)

Jeff went back to Luther’s cabin and told the prospectors he had to take Polly in for attempted murder, but not where the lost mine was. (Seems a trite and true dust storm blew up, disorienting Jeff and preventing him from marking where the mine was.) Luther wanted to help his daughter so he gave Polly a gun and had her shoot the arms off a cactus to prove she was a crack shot. If she had wanted to kill Jeff, she would have. She was shooting to scare not to kill, so it wasn’t attempted murder. Jeff promised he would mention this to the judge, which, Jeff being an honorable 50s private investigator hero, I’m sure he did. After which, the judge…

…sentenced Polly to several years in prison for attempted murder. Not to mention conspiracy to commit murder and kidnap. See, it doesn’t matter that Polly might not have been trying to kill Jeff when she shot at him, she was still guilty of attempted murder.

What Polly intended doesn’t matter, because what Abern intended was more than enough to convict her. Abern followed Jeff into the desert and shot at him a few times – and Abern was shooting to kill, he was just a member of that hoary villain cliché, the gang who couldn’t shoot straight. Then Abern was about to beat Jeff to death but forgot to mind his step then mined his step. So Abern did commit the crime of attempted murder.

Polly helped him do this by, if nothing else, bringing him that cold chicken dinner and extra water so he could keep looking for Jeff to kill him. Which means Polly was an aider and abettor to Abern’s attempted murder. She was just as guilty of the attempted murder as Abern was.

It didn’t even matter that Abern wasn’t convicted of attempted murder; what with him being dead and all, that would have been overkill. Under the aider and abettor law, an accomplice can be convicted of aiding and abetting the principal offender’s crime, even if the principal offender is never convicted. You might say Polly’s conviction and sentence was a fate accomplice.

At the story’s end, Luther and Willie Lee went back to looking for the lost gold mine. Jeff went back to his offices at 77 Sunset Strip and his next adventure. And Polly went to prison. Where, I understand, she asked that her cellmate be a woman who became a prostitute to raise money to buy drugs. Because – and all together now – Polly wants a crack whore.

Martha Thomases: Shooting at the Comic-Con?

This past week saw an uncomfortable convergence of political issues and Geek Culture. A man tried to enter the Phoenix Comic-Con in order to shoot someone, using cosplay as a disguise. Instead of artfully crafted fake weapons, this man had real weapons that would have caused real injury to real people.

The man appeared to be insane. He thought he was The Punisher and it was his mission to kill the Green Power Ranger.

In response, the convention banned prop weapons http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/phoenix-comicon-2017-props-ban-weapons-what-you-can-bring-convention-center-9363701, at least for the duration of this show.

Needless to say, this completely wrecked the plans of any cosplayers whose outfits included prop weapons. A lot of them were disappointed that they couldn’t share the fruits of their hard work and financial investment with their friends.

I don’t think any of the cosplayers would say that their costumes were more important than the lives and safety of the other convention attendees. Still, I imagine they were disappointed at best, and perhaps felt it was unfair that they were under suspicion just because a crazy person represented himself as one of them.

It was unfair.

Cosplayers were not the only ones to suffer over the weekend. Dealers who sell to cosplayers lost money, not only because they couldn’t sell at the show, but could not quickly arrange to sell at another show. To their credit, the Phoenix Comic-Con seems to have tried to make things right, as best they could.

Unfortunately, this is the best we can hope for in our current political climate. As long as we refuse to invest the time and money on treating mental illness, we will continue to live with the untreated mentally ill. And as long as we refuse to implement even the slightest limits on access to firearms, the mentally ill will be able to buy all the guns (and bullets, and knives and swords) as they might wish to own. Or use.

But we won’t pass any laws that limit guns to people who can pass simple competency tests, much as we limit cars to people who can drive. We won’t say that, maybe, someone who thinks he has a relationship with the Green Power Ranger shouldn’t walk around armed in public, especially after he makes threats against police officers, too. As a country, we have decided that we’re more comfortable telling women what to do with their bodies than we are with protecting those same bodies from random bullets.

The cosplay community is not going to be able to solve this problem. I’m willing to bet the solution is beyond the greater geek community. People who want to dress up like their favorite fantasy characters, whether they be Ghostbusters or Jon Snow or Lobo are going to have to find ways to do so that don’t look realistic enough to be perceived as threats.

There might be a possible solution, and it might offer an opportunity for profit that is attractive enough for it to happen. If Nerf could up their game enough so that their toys look realistic, but can still be easily squished, they might be able to pass inspection. At least, as long as no 11-year old black kids in Cleveland don’t play with them.

Dennis O’Neil: Alfred Bester’s Squinkas

Read any good squinkas lately?

If you’re a comic book editor, you’d better hope you have, though, if you did, you probably called them, these squinkas, something else. Scripts, maybe.

I was introduced to the word, squinka, by a gentleman who certainly was an editor, one of the two or three best I ever worked for in a career of something like 50 years (which just goes to show you what can be achieved if you manage to breathe regularly and often. Ooops! I just let it slip – the secret of success in the writing dodge. If the writer refuses to breathe, the rest of it is irrelevant.)

Before beginning his long and illustrious stint behind a desk at DC Comics, young Mr. Schwartz was a literary agent whose specialty was peddling science fiction stories to the pulps – fiction magazines that were garish and cheap and widely available. Even after Mr. Schwartz migrated to DC, he maintained an interest in science fiction, which was occasionally manifest in the kind of comics he produced, the kinds of stories he liked to tell, and the questions he asked, often about the folk he knew from his agenting days, when imaginative tales were tainted with disreputability. They were, you know, trash.

That calumny didn’t seem to bother SF partisans much. Writers continued writing, editors continued editing, artists continued picture-making and gradually, the taint faded and then, somehow, the aficianados began to number in the millions and the production costs of the film versions of this trash climbed into the eight-figure neighborhood.

Rewind back to comics’ youth, when the medium was week-by-week and month-by-month inventing itself and creators might not have their tool kits in order. To be specific: they might not have had industry-wide formats or even names for everything they produced.

Motion pictures had been telling stories for some 35 years and had developed a vocabulary – necessary to facilitate communication, if for no other reason. But these here funny books? They were the new kids on the block. Their ancestors were arguably the aforementioned movies, newspaper comic strips and those naughty pulps, all of which shared certain similarities with the comic books. But they weren’t the same, not by a stretch.

So, I’m guessing, somebody saw a hole and decided to fill it. Neologisms anyone?

But the new word wasn’t very healthy. It didn’t last long. I never heard anyone, in or out of comics, use it. By the time Roy Thomas brought me into the comics herd, it had come and gone. I wouldn’t know that “squinka” had ever existed if I hadn’t stumbled across it in a collection of stories, articles and essays by Alfred Bester titled redemolished. Bester was, among other things, the recipient of the first Hugo, an award given to the creator of outstanding works of sf and, believe it or not, one of Mr. Schwartz’s clients. And a comic book writer; Green Lantern comes to mind.

I don’t know if Mr. Bester ever said “squinka” in his dealings with comics editors. Now days, nodding to his television colleagues, he might just say “script” and run for the subway.

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