Answers, Part I

Well, turnout for the whole ask me a question thing has been higher than anticipated, so I’m gonna start answering questions now. They’ll all get answered eventually, I promise. Feel free to keep asking in the original post if you missed it, or similar.

CandidGamera asked:

Vic Sage?

I’m sorry, but your question does not match current DC continuity. For future purposes, please use ‘Renee Montoya.’ Thank you.

Bret asked:

Earth-4 Vic Sage?

Rorshach.

Darthjesus:

Are you jealous of my ability, as a US citizen, to vote in the American presidential elections?

Are you disgusted by the fact that I have no intention of voting this year and I am not even registered to vote?

No and yes, respectively. I don’t care about people getting to vote in other countries, not even America, because I get to vote in mine and it is horribly satisfying to make my ticky mark on the ballot (Canada: “we vote old-school”), but I do not care very much at all for people ignoring their responsibility to vote, and that applies to the forty percent of eligible Canadians who always have something better to do. I am all for the adoption of the Australian system, wherein failure to vote is a misdemeanour, not least because most people, when forced to vote, decide to at least marginally educate themselves on the issues.

(Yes, I understand the whole “freedom to not vote” argument and am unsympathetic. If you want to accurately display your apathy or disgust with the system in toto, spoil your ballot like a grownup.)

Andrew:

With all of the big events showing characters such as Iron Man and Wonder Woman in perhaps an unflattering light, comic readers are crying out loudly that everyone in comics are jerks and douchebags. These fans assert comics are no longer fun, and that no one’s a hero anymore. However, between superdickery.com, blogs like the ISB and Dave’s Long Box shining light on just how douchey characters were Back In The Day, and Alex Ross’s anything being derided as Superfriends fanfiction, were comics ever as fun and the characters ever as heroic as the comic readers claim? Or do these fun comics and heroic characters exist only in a make believe past that exists only in the minds of hyper-nostalgic readers who have fallen into Jay Sherman syndrome?

It’s worth noting that Superdickery and the like are applying modern-day mores to comics that are usually more than fifty years old, with all of the different social mores that apply therein. Superman being gratuitously sexist in 1954 when it was understood that wimmins was inferior beings is quite a different kettle of fish than Superman being gratuitously sexist in 2008. It’s not quite apples and oranges, but it’s at least apples and, say, apple cobbler with ice cream.

And Alex Ross gets derided because he has an unthinking hardon for the Way Things Were When He Was A Kid, not because the things in question were bad.

karellan:

Which is better: Old American Gladiators or New American Gladiators?

Too early to call, although the lack of Dick Butkus definitely hurts the new.

James:

Marvel approaches you to write your own 7 Soldiers style event/character revamps. What 7 characters do you choose? Bonus points for why each character/revamp details/high concepts etc.

U.S. 1: The all-American trucker who navigates the weird back roads of Earth 616. He’s been to outer space, he’s fought blimp Nazis, nothing fazes him. “Aw, dammit, not chupacabras again! Git me my shotgun, we’re having us some chupacabra chili tonight!” Deliverance, but with monsters instead of hillbillies and a truck instead of rafts.

Jocasta: A robot who, instead of seeking to become human (one of the oldest tropes in comics and well abandoned), seeks to define humanity through research. This involves fighting bad guys, of course. (You have to preserve the sanctity of your research subjects.)

Taskmaster: The ultimate bon vivant. When you do any new activity perfectly the first time, you have to constantly seek out new and more dangerous exploits just to keep from becoming bored to death; whether it’s scamming S.H.I.E.L.D. or robbing Dr. Doom, he’ll do it just so he has something to fill his Tuesday. (Also, bring back that awesome new costume he got in the early 2000’s.)

Porcupine: The antisocial (but moral) daughter of a deceased supervillain finds his old super-suit. Can she work with her local registration office in a productive and helpful manner? (Answer: probably not.)

Sleepwalker: Rick Sheridan is in a coma, perhaps for the rest of his life, and the dream entity known as Sleepwalker has to navigate the Waking World in ways he never anticipated. The stranger in a strange world scenario played to the nines, with a touch of nostalgic surrealism on the protagonist’s part. Little Nemo meets Stan and Jack.

Shamrock: Molly Fitzgerald is retired. She’s happy. She’s a hairdresser with a young daughter that’s the centre of her life, and the three lotteries she’s won means she never has to do anything she doesn’t want to do. But sometimes life just won’t let you stay retired, and when the Irish government makes it clear that her supernatural good luck is required for the good of the world, she’s pressed back into service - whether she likes it or not.

Gargoyle: Isaac Christians sold his soul for his superpowers, and for what? Now he’s stuck in an Initiative office in Helena. The ranchers think he’s another big city boy, the Hollywood liberals trying to “escape it all” keep inviting him over for coffee, and the survivalists keep asking him to give lectures on the end of the world. What a pain in the ass.