The Star Rovers struck an early blow for alternative lifestyles in comics.

See how Karel cheerfully grasps both Rick and Homer’s asses? This self-described “glamor girl” is in charge. You can tell by the look on her face. That is the face of a woman in total control, who understands and recognizes her power, and likes that she does. Nothing, she thinks - nay, she knows - is finer than the ass-cheek of a starfaring man who knows his place. Firm yet fleshy, that’s the ticket.

See how Rick is confident in his obviously bisexual swagger. As he sashays through the stars, seeing everything sapient - and a few choice lifeforms that technically aren’t - as something to nail, he is nothing less than the galactic predecessor of The Todd. Except Rick gets much, much more ass than The Todd. But what do you expect? He’s a playboy and an athlete. He’s filled every orifice he’s found in every sector of the galaxy.

And Homer - well, Homer’s getting on in years, so he’s really just grateful for whatever tender moments he can get.

And if you think I’m going too far with this, I’d suggest you read Twilight, Howard Chaykin’s re-imagining of the classic DC space comics - because really, I’m fairly conservative by comparison.

LIKED

- Detective Comics featuring Batwoman was as good as everybody says it is, and frankly, given that it’s stupid boring sucky Batwoman, this is nothing short of a miracle even though Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams are the ones doing it. (Let me put it this way: regardless of how good a filmmaker Steven Spielberg might be, I would stll be skeptical if he said he was going to make a children’s adventure film about Benito Mussolini.) The Question backup feature is the first one of these backups that has really genuinely impressed. (The Blue Beetle one in Booster Gold was inconsequential fun and little more; the Renee story has meat to it.)

- The Philanthropist shouldn’t work - I mean, come on, the adventures of a billionaire? - but it does. A friend of mine called it “kind of like Iron Man without the armor,” and that’s pretty accurate. James Purefoy is really good in it, too, combining that Stark-like mix of insouciance, hedonism, stubbornness and genuine idealism to create a genuinely engaging lead character. Dunno if it can keep it up, but the pilot was a lot of fun.

DIDN’T LIKE

- Gotham City Sirens is crap. You know, for all the flak Marvel is (rightly) taking over their horribly sexist, amazingly tone-deaf comics like Marvel Divas and Models Inc., it’s worth remembering that DC is really only marginally better in this regard and is just as willing to shove out blatant T&A like this book, which is little more than an excuse to draw Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and Catwoman in a variety of anatomically impossible “sexy” poses. (Additional note: I am really, really sick of hack writers coming up with a stupid villain concept and then telling the reader “hey this guy is stupid” and having everybody in the book beat him with ease. Remember back in the day when Spider-Man would fight a new villain every issue? Sure, some of them were silly in retrospect, but the writers back then made sure Spidey took every one of them damn seriously. Actually, one of the good things about the new “He’s Single And A Loser So He’s Spider-Man Again Just Like When I Was Six!” run is that they treat their new villains, even the ridiculous ones, as genuine threats.)

- I probably should have known better than to go see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but what are you gonna do when your date says she wants to see big robots fighting one another? (Answer: you go see the movie. It is possible some of you might not have known this. This is a basic truth regardless of the gender of you or your date.) Anyway, yes, it is as shit-awful as you might think. Michael Bay still thinks the mere utterance of a profanity constitutes a punchline. Michael Bay still doesn’t know how to make a fight scene between giant robots - something which should practically direct itself - visually coherent or interesting. Michael Bay still doesn’t know how to set up plot elements effectively or indeed tell a story. And really, saying “still doesn’t” isn’t entirely accurate, because in the last five years Michael Bay has made at least one genuinely entertaining film (The Island, which didn’t do well because the public is essentially stupid), so we know that he has some understanding of story; it’s just that when he makes a Transformers movie, he knows he doesn’t have to bother being good because, as the opening weekend revenues demonstrate, people will eat that shit up regardless of how shit the shit is.

BATMAN: So I saw you fighting another giant robot on television. Luthor again?
SUPERMAN: No, this one wasn’t Luthor.
BATMAN: Are you sure?
SUPERMAN: Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be sure that it wasn’t Luthor?
BATMAN: You tend to believe the best of people too often. I want to be sure this wasn’t another case of “maybe he’s reformed this time.”
SUPERMAN: I’m telling you, it wasn’t Luthor. It was aliens.
BATMAN: Hn. Aliens.
SUPERMAN: What’s that supposed to mean?
BATMAN: Nothing. So what did the giant alien robot want?
SUPERMAN: No, the robot wasn’t itself an alien. It was built by aliens.
BATMAN: I understood that.
SUPERMAN: Oh.
BATMAN: The robot?
SUPERMAN: Oh. Enslave all humanity. You know.
BATMAN: Again? That’s the third one this year and it’s only May.
SUPERMAN: Actually, this one was kind of interesting. See, there used to be this intelligent alien race that lived on Earth before humans.
BATMAN: That we’ve never discovered any archelogical evidence of? Ever? Pull the other one, Clark.
SUPERMAN: No, really! They left.
BATMAN: They left.
SUPERMAN: Yes.
BATMAN: They left the most fertile planet in this entire quarter of the galaxy.
SUPERMAN: There was some virus or something and it was wiping them out.
BATMAN: They invented interstellar space travel and couldn’t figure out antibiotics or vaccination?
SUPERMAN: They didn’t invent faster-than-light space travel; they used hibernation ships.
BATMAN: Where did they go?
SUPERMAN: I’m not sure. They seem to have been lost.
BATMAN: Really.
SUPERMAN: It’s not entirely implausible, you know.
BATMAN: Hn.
SUPERMAN: I keep telling you, it wasn’t Luthor.
BATMAN: I’m sure. Continue.
SUPERMAN: Anyway, a few of them stayed behind and transferred their consciousnesses into the giant robot.
BATMAN: Does that mean when you destroyed the giant robot, you wiped out their race?
SUPERMAN: …well, there’s the ones in the hibernation ships.
BATMAN: That were lost.
SUPERMAN: …oh, crap.
BATMAN: (sighs) Look, they weren’t really alive anyway. They were computer copies of dead people.
SUPERMAN: Good point.
BATMAN: And it looked like that giant robot was giving you a hell of a fight.
SUPERMAN: It was. Battle lasers, nearly indestructible, that sort of thing. Hey, you know what was interesting?
BATMAN: No.
SUPERMAN: It would send out the alien spirits to possess people - wait. If the spirits were in the robot -
BATMAN: Probably advanced hypnosis of some kind. You didn’t kill anybody. It’s obvious.
SUPERMAN: Oh. Good. Anyway, whenever it sent out those “spirits” to possess people, it would get weaker. But when it recalled them, it got stronger.
BATMAN: That doesn’t make any sense.
SUPERMAN: Sure it does.
BATMAN: No, it doesn’t. If it was really recalling “spirits” back to its mainframe, it would be using up additional processing resources and therefore should have been getting weaker. Or at least slower.
SUPERMAN: But -
BATMAN: Come to think, freeing up processor space like it did by expelling “spirits” should have made it more efficient, but instead it got weaker. That confirms the hypnosis theory; it was running additional subroutines when it hypnotized people and “possessed” them.
SUPERMAN: Well -
BATMAN: So to sum up, you fought a giant battle robot that claimed to be made from an Earth-native intelligent race that conveniently managed to predate humanity and invent starship travel - but not moderately advanced medicine, despite their ability to supposedly digitally transfer souls into machinery - without leaving a single trace of their civilization behind for us to discover. Then it behaved in a manner contrary to all the laws of computing that we know, unless it’s completely consistent with those laws. And you barely managed to destroy it.
SUPERMAN: Well, that’s the thing, see.
BATMAN: …what?
SUPERMAN: I couldn’t quite destroy it by punching it or anything.
BATMAN: Why didn’t you just throw it into the sun?
SUPERMAN: …look, sometimes you forget these things in the heat of the moment.
BATMAN: So what did you do?
SUPERMAN: I pretended I was defeated and figured that if I left myself open for possession, they’d all try to possess me at once and bad things would happen.
BATMAN: You did what?
SUPERMAN: Well, it worked.
BATMAN: That’s the most idiotic thing I think you’ve ever done. Counting the whole glasses thing, which I still don’t believe works.
SUPERMAN: Well -
BATMAN: I’d tell you more at length how stupid it was, but it doesn’t matter since we know “they” weren’t trying to “possess” you.
SUPERMAN: Then what did the robot do?
BATMAN: My guess would be that it initiated a deep-core biological scan, transmitted the data, then self-destructed to disguise its true plan.
SUPERMAN: …
BATMAN: Yes.
SUPERMAN: Look, it’s still not necessarily Luthor…

(It’s still a really cool-looking battle robot, regardless of origin.)

(previously: one, two)

LIKED

- Bloody Confused! by Chuck Culpepper is a great little piece of sportswriting - a journey alongside Culpepper during his time in England as he lives there for a few years and, being a sports fan generally, settles in and picks a football team to cheer for (in his case, Portsmouth), and in the process discovers why he likes sports. It’s engaging and intelligent and is readable both for the fan (for whom it will illuminate many of the reasons non-soccer fans have trouble understanding or appreciating the game, and how to get past those issues), and the nonfan (for whom it will illuminate both the joy of being a fan generally and the joy of being a soccer fan particularly).

- Punisher #6 is actually the execution of a pretty good idea: namely, bringing back everybody Scourge ever killed from the dead, and siccing them on somebody. That it is the Hood siccing them on the Punisher just makes it even better, because the motivations all make sense (the Hood wants a no-cost plan to kill or at least inconvenience the Punisher, the villains want to not go back to being dead once the spell runs out, and the Punisher wants what he always wants). All this, plus the return of Death Adder (probably one of the coolest minor Marvel villains ever), and hopefully the promise of getting, however briefly, into the mind of Turner D. Century.

- Caught up (finally) on the back end of Friday Night Lights‘ third season, and oh man does this show ever get bad? Other than last season’s “Tyra and Landry kill a guy” plot (which was dealt with in a mature enough fashion that its sensationalism was forgiveable), this show just doesn’t make missteps, not ever. Plus this is the first season where they’ve actually had enough stability to set up the fourth season, with a brilliant hook (forcing Coach to take over the just-reopened decrepit poor high school’s football team and letting the uber-successful Dillon Panthers now be the nemesis rather than the scrappy underdog). With the show’s cast set to change drastically next season (only Matt and Julie of the kids set to stick around, and one hopes that Matt Saracen will finally for once in his damn life catch a fucking break and pull a Smash by the fourth episode or something) the show needed exactly this sort of tactic to remain the powerhouse that it is.

DIDN’T LIKE

- Dance of the Dead turns out to be a real disappointment, a movie that can’t decide if it’s a zombie comedy movie or a zombie parody movie and by extension mostly fails at both. It’s not funny. It’s not clever. It’s not even internally consistent. (This is a movie that seemingly can’t decide between “slow zombies” and “fast zombies,” instead going with the truly retarded decision of “both.”) Large chunks of it are really stupid. Large chunks of it are really predictable. Practically none of it is entertaining. And the obvious societal commentary that could be done with zombies plus prom is almost completely ignored. I know this was a low-budget movie, but you don’t need a high budget to make a good zombie movie - that’s one of the plusses of the genre, for crissake.

- You know, I’ve often said that Padma Lakshmi, the host of Top Chef, is a wooden self-important she-jackal. And this is true. But Kelly Choi, host of Top Chef Masters, makes Padma Lakshmi look like Julia fucking Child.

- Maksim instead of Kupono? Really, Nigel? (And you know this comes down to Nigel.) Are you trying to utterly invalidate the entire concept of dancing for your life? Because when Kupono A) dances like shit in his competitive dance and then B) pulls out a crappy, distracted solo, while Max A) dances well in his competitive dance and then B) nails his solo, your preferences become obvious. Yes, Max looks like a Russian mobster, but that’s not his fault. He is Russian, after all. (And now, lay odds on the new Kupono/Kayla pairing to get a contemporary routine next week so Kayla, obviously one of Nigel’s favorites, can make top ten.) Also, Ashley danced better than Kaitlyn did and similarly should not have gone, but they were both chaff anyway so it’s more forgivable.

Simpler times.

The Monster Society of Evil was a society - of evil! - dedicated to one thing, and one thing only. Killing Captain Marvel. Because they hates them some Captain Marvel. The original Monster Society was probably, by our standards, the most mainstream and serious. Formed by Mr. Mind - and you know Mr. Mind already, I would guess, but if not, he’s an evil little worm who wants to conquer the universe - and featuring Oom (the big gray guy who beat the crap out of his enemies), Nyola (a demonic sorceress), the Dummy (a psychotic little bastard who later was adapted to become the first Vigilante’s archnemesis), Ramulus (a sort of plant-human hybrid wizard) and Mister Who, possessed of one of the worst supervillain names of all time. Seriously, when Roy Thomas brought back the Monster Society in All-Star Squadron, he basically had Dr. Fate and Hourman do an Abbott-and-Costello riff on Mr. Who’s name.¹

Then things… changed. Mr. Mind’s first Monster Society didn’t quite work out, so he started recruiting more guys. The evil Goat-Men! The evil (and unimaginatively named) Evil Eye! The evil Crocodile Men! Well, actually only two of them. Herkimer and Sylvester. But they sure hated Captain Marvel! They hated him so much.

When attacking Captain Marvel with the furry brigade resulted more or less in what you would expect (hint: abject defeat), Mr. Mind went out and got more guys, fetching Dr. Sivana and Ibac and Captain Nazi, all definite challenges for the Big Red Cheese. Also, he got Mr. Banjo. Mr. Banjo is a spy who played the banjo, and by this fact quite probably had a worse supervillain name than Mr. Who. Seriously, “Mr. Banjo?” One kind of has to wonder at Mr. Mind’s overall strategy. “All right, I’ve got a demonically-powered strongman, a massively superpowered Nazi, the evilest mad scientist on the planet… hey, this guy plays the banjo! Let’s bring him in!”

Of course, Mr. Banjo was better than Nippo from Nagasaki. No. Seriously. That is what they called him. Nippo from Nagasaki. You have to love that DC Comics didn’t bother trying to hide this in the pages of Who’s Who, regardless of how racist and tasteless it was. Their sole concession was suggesting that possibly “Nippo from Nagasaki” was not his real name, but instead a codename given to him by his self-hating Japanese masters. Still, regardless of his bosses’ need for serious therapy regarding their self-esteem issues, Nippo was in the Monster Society! Because he hated Captain Marvel.

Also, there was Jeepers, the intelligent rat-man. The less said about him, the better.

Of course, these guys got their asses handed to them too, because surprisingly Captain Marvel had no weaknesses involving banjos or racism. Decades later (thanks to DC wanting to explain why there were no Captain Marvel comics between the 1940s and 1970s, they handwaved up a suspended-animation sort of solution), Mr. Mind would again bring about the return of the Monster Society of Evil, this time with serious heavyweights: Sivana again, of course, and Ibac, but also King Kull, who was sort of a superpowered Neanderthal, and Black Adam (who wasn’t yet as badass as he eventually became), and Mr. Atom the atomic, vaguely dildo-shaped robot - and Oggar, who was essentially one of the Wizard Shazam’s former bosses who got laid off and was still bitter about it.

And then Captain Marvel beat them all up again. Because that is what Captain Marvel does.

Okay, so the Monster Society are goofy. But you have to admire their inclusivity. If you hate Captain Marvel, you’re a member! And that’s why there are so many of them.

1. This was when Dr. Fate had the half-helmet, which allowed him to magically possess a sense of humour, but also made him much, much less cool as a result. [↩]

Stupid humans! Can’t speak dog! Can’t even understand dog!

Luckily, it turns out that “descending to lesser beings’ level” is a specialty of Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog.

2012: Marvel Studios, in partnership with Lionsgate, makes Punisher War Journal, starring Adam Baldwin as the Punisher, Hector Elizondo as the evil Mexican drug lord Cervantes, and Molly Parker as the whore who falls in love with Frank Castle. Joe Quesada explains in interviews that the previous Punisher movies “weren’t violent enough” to capture “the true Punisher spirit.” Over the course of the movie, the Punisher bludgeons to death seventeen men, explodes eighty-one more, shoots one hundred ninety-six, garrotes three, sics a rabid tiger on two, and stabs one guy in the nutsack repeatedly. The movie makes about $10 million at the box office.

2015: Marvel Studios, in partnership with MGM, makes Punisher: Long Cold Dark, which bears absolutely no resemblance to the Garth Ennis comic story of the same name. It stars Dane Cook as the Punisher, Seth McFarlane as the evil Irish drug kingpin Lonegan, and Julia Stiles as the whore who falls in love with Frank Castle. “This time,” promises Joe Quesada, “we will really get to the heart of the Punisher.” Over the course of the movie, the Punisher shoots one thousand six hundred and twenty-two people, an average of 17.4 people killed for every minute of the movie’s 93-minute running time. Critics are appalled by the movie’s seven-minute long sequence where the Punisher skullfucks Julia Stiles with the barrel of an Uzi when he discovers she has been working for the drug lord. The movie makes about $14 million at the box office.

2018: Marvel Studios, in partnership with Universal, makes Punisher 3D, starring Joe Jonas as the Punisher, Mike Myers as the evil Scottish drug kingpin Macdougall, and Abigail Breslin as teenaged prostitute Angie, who turns out to be the Punisher’s long-lost baby sister. Joe Quesada enthuses, “this is how the Punisher was always meant to be seen.” Many movie audiences report mass vomiting as they are forced to watch uncannily realistic blood squirts combined with Mike Myers’ comedy Scottish accent. The movie makes about $6 million at the box office.

2020: Marvel-Fuji releases Lady Punisher, starring Megan Fox as the Lady Punisher, Tracy Morgan as the evil Jamaican drug lord Baquon, and Macaulay Culkin as Stevie, the doomed hyper-meth addict. Joe Cyrus-Quesada explains that “it was time for us to really take the Punisher in a new direction, and you can’t get more new than making the Punisher a hot chick.” Critics uniformly question director Sofia Coppola’s decision to have Fox deliver all her lines in a “pirate accent” and pretend to have a peg-leg. The movie makes about $13 million at the box office.

2024: Fuji-Marvelsoft releases Punish-R, a computer-animated movie about a cute little robot in the far future who decides to kill all malfunctioning robots. “We’re taking the Punisher concept and expanding the franchise,” says Joe Quesada Jr. (no relation to the original Joe Quesada, who disappeared in 2021). Critics wonder at the presence of six musical numbers written and conducted by Fred Durst. The movie makes about $9 million at the box office.

2032: Fumarvo releases The Punisher, a back-to-basics movie about Frank Castle (played by Colin Hanks) and his war on crime. The movie is set in the early 90s; Castle is an aging Vietnam vet. “This is what the Punisher is,” says Joe Quesada (having reappeared in 2029). “No tricks, no gimmicks; just straight-up action and drama, very dark. This is what the Punisher should always have been.” Critics applaud the tense action, the performances, and the skillful direction of Michael Bay Jr. and his robot dog/cinematographer Floppy-12. The movie makes about $6 million at the box office.

LIKED

- The Hangover justifies the hype; it is bust-a-gut funny and often, for a comedy where a guy humps a tiger, wickedly smart. If you had told me a couple of years ago that Bradley Cooper would finally make the jump to true stardom in a comedy where the funniest bits all go to Zach Galifianakis, I would probably have looked at you funny and said “how does that go again?” But it’s true, because Cooper is obviously the leading man in this movie and Galifianakis and Ed Helms are his support.

- President’s Choice makes passionfruit (and diet passionfruit) pop now? I sometimes think there is a little room at President’s Choice headquarters where there’s this one guy whose sole job is coming up with new flavors of pop. (I mean, it would explain the lychee soda they introduced last year.) But the passionfruit is easily their best entry since blackcurrant a couple of years ago (and why did they discontinue blackcurrant)?

- Holy shit, The Brothers Bloom is staggeringly good. Clever, funny, charming (even if I didn’t already have a massive crush on Rachel Weisz I would have one now), and it has plot twists that you genuinely sometimes do not see coming, which is all too rare in modern moviegoing these days. Terrific performances, dialogue, visual conception, everything. It is hard to explain how amazingly good this movie is.

- Okay, I’ll admit it: Wipeout is a guilty pleasure. The jokes have gotten better since last year (not much better, but still), and the obstacles have gotten more clever. It’s still television gone stupid, but it’s good for a laugh.

DID NOT LIKE

- Flash: Rebirth reads like Geoff Johns trying out his greatest hits album on repeat. “Hey, Green Lantern Flash is back from the dead but there’s a problem and also Sinestro Professor Zoom is not, in fact, dead but actually behind a lot of the new problems that Hal Barry face, plus everybody else who was ever a Green Lantern Flash gets to look vaguely incompetent as well.” Beyond a nice, brief interaction with Superman, this is almost more offensive than Ultimatum due to sheer badness.

BEEP
You have forty-seven new messages.
BEEP
“Lucy? It’s Bertram. I know I’ve been kind of busy lately, and I know you were all on me to get a job, so I’ve been thinking - maybe I should become a professional criminal? I mean, I’m already an entomologist. That’s kind of like being a professional criminal, because I study cockroaches. Get back to me. I want your opinion on this.”
BEEP
“Lucy, Bertram again. Now, I know I could go about this the honest way and work at your father’s car wash for fifteen years to build up the money to build my robotic insect prototypes, but I want you to know that I’m thinking about us when I say I can’t do that. I mean, come on, Lucy. Our kids are going to need a real role model in their life, and you can’t do that working at the freaking car wash, you know? I - call me back, passing under a bridge…”
BEEP
“Yeah, it’s Bert. Look, robotic pest control will eliminate pesticides as an industry. They’re green! And think of the security applications. The patents are all mine. I mean, they’re all ours. We just need to seed it a bit. You see where I’m going with this, right?”
BEEP
“Lucy, does purple go with acid green? The tailor is saying they go together, but I think he just wants to offload extra fabric he doesn’t want. Get back to me ASAP on this one.”
BEEP
“I did the math and it’ll only take six, uh, you know, “jobs.” Tops. The first two build the robots for the last four, and if half of those robots survive we have enough prototypes for corporate demonstration purposes. The rest of the seed money goes toward buying a house in Denver and maybe a trip to Tahiti. Just you and me. How’s that sound?”
BEEP
“Got your note. “Bug-Eyed Bandit” doesn’t really sing to me as a name. Where’s all your stuff?”
BEEP
“Okay, now I get that the note was actually an insult. Look, just call me back, okay? We really need to talk. I don’t like “Bug-Eyed Bandit,” but if you need me to use it, I can be flexible.”
BEEP
“Dammit, Lucy, this is just classless. Your friends won’t tell me where you are, you don’t return my calls… all I want is to talk. Also, I want my universal remote back. You know the buttons on the TV don’t work properly and I haven’t seen Letterman all week because the channel is stuck on ABC. Why would you even take the remote, anyway?”

In relation to Betty Cooper’s obvious insanity, I give you this, brought to my attention by Jaime Weinman:

This would be Betty, trying to murder Archie, because Archie had the temerity to blow off a date with her.

What’s worse is that Archie clearly has no idea about how crazy Betty is, and Jughead clearly sees it. Poor Jughead must spend half his time trying to warn Archie and the other half worried for his life. He sips his malteds down at the Chok’Lit Shoppe, eyes darting about, staying alert for the crazy blonde bitch who’s determined to fuck and ritually slaughter his buddy (and possibly not in that order). Does she know he knows? Is she, even now, planning his death? ¹

Imagine the conversations we never see.

ARCHIE: So that Mr. Weatherbee, huh? What a crazy old guy.
JUGHEAD: Yeah, Archie, that’s great. Say, how about Betty?
ARCHIE: Right! I totally asked her out Friday night like you said I should.
JUGHEAD: I said you should go talk to the police about Betty. How did you get from that to “ask her out?”
ARCHIE: Man. I don’t know. Why should I talk to the police about ol’ Betty?
(JUGHEAD rubs his face exhaustedly.)
JUGHEAD: She painted a mural of you, naked, on the side of the school, with the words “Worship Him” underneath.
ARCHIE: Now come on, Jug ol’ pal. There was that fig leaf.
JUGHEAD: Arch, you’re not getting it. Betty is -
(Enter BETTY.)
JUGHEAD: - here! Betty! Hello! How ya doin’?
BETTY: (ignoring him) Archie, I just wanted you to know that Friday night, I’m going to do something very special for you.
ARCHIE: That’s great, Betts! Your cookies are always fantastic! But be sure to bring enough for everybody?
BETTY: …for everybody?
ARCHIE: Yeah, for the beach party? The one we’re going to? Ronnie and Moose and Reggie and everybody will be there.
BETTY: Ronnie will be there.
ARCHIE: Yeah, Jug and I were talking and -
JUGHEAD: And Archie, Archie all by himself, thought maybe the whole gang should meet up Friday. And then he went out and invited everybody without even consulting with me! Or I would have said, “Arch, maybe you should just take Betty.”
(BETTY stares at JUGHEAD, long and emotionlessly.)
BETTY: I see.
JUGHEAD: Good. That’s good.
BETTY: Well, I’ll be sure to bring plenty of… cookies Friday night. Hey, do you know what Ronnie will be wearing?
ARCHIE: She said something about a skimpy bikini.
BETTY: I bet she did.
JUGHEAD: Whoa, look at the time! We’ll be late for class!
BETTY: We can’t let that happen, can we? Bye, guys!
(BETTY exits.)
ARCHIE: Man, I can’t wait! Seeing my two best girls in skimpy bikinis!
JUGHEAD: Christ, you’re an idiot.

1. The pins on Jughead’s hat have their tips dipped in various antidotes. Jughead knows that Betty has studied extensively on rare and exotic poisons. Should one of his burgers come with a “special surprise,” he’ll be ready to jab himself and live. [↩]

LIKED

- Batman and Robin #1 I liked for two reasons. Firstly I liked it because it was a fantastic, fun comic and return to form for “good” Grant Morrison (as opposed to the “eh” Grant Morrison of Final Crisis). But more importantly, I liked it because now I can start a pool wherein whoever is closest to figuring out how late each of the first twelve issues is wins the pot. (I am guessing #1-3 on time, #4 a week late, #5 three weeks late, #6 five weeks late, #7-8 two months late, #9 two months two weeks late, #10-11 six weeks late, #12 one month late.)

- For Dead Set, the British miniseries about zombies attacking the set of Big Brother, I will make an exception to my “zombies are the new tired old meme” belief, because at least this is zombies with a clever twist, and so long as I don’t just get handed another frigging zombie story (which most zombie stories, let us be honest, are), I am fine with it. Come on, you have to love any series that turns Davina McCall into a zombie and does it straight up.

- Also an exception to my general zombie disinterest: Pontypool, the zombies-as-memetic-disease horror film from Bruce McDonald. Given that Bruce McDonald (Dance Me Outside, Highway 67, and so forth) is generally a pretty awesome filmmaker, I went into this with high expectations. I was not disappointed; he’s still got that same clever sense of timing that always makes his films so surprising when you don’t expect it.

DIDN’T LIKE

- I got to see Land of the Lost for free and that is about what it was worth. Why doesn’t Will Ferrell do more movies like Stranger Than Fiction? I mean, it was a critical success, did okay at the box office (not that Ferrell needs it, he’s got to be richer than Midas by this point), and Ferrell said he enjoyed making it, so why aren’t there a few more good quirky dramedies being offered to him? It would be nice to see Ferrell play something other than Loud Shouty Asshole (But Not Really An Asshole) Guy again and again.

- Got about twenty minutes into Sex Drive, which I watched because multiple people told me it was a cut above the usual dumb sex comedy, and then gave up because it is decidely not a cut above the usual dumb sex comedy. In fact it is rather below a cut. Can something be below the cut? This was below the cut.

(Hello to all of John Rogers’ close personal friends and relations. My, but there are quite a lot of you.)

People nowadays look back at Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld and can’t help but wonder what people were thinking. Nowadays the concept of an ongoing fantasy comics series targeting young girls seems like the sort of thing that makes DC editorial go “hsssst!” and then cower in the darkness. “Catering to different demographicsss.. it burns us, precious, it burrrrrns.”

But here’s the rub: Amethyst was actually pretty goddamned good for what it was, namely an all-ages fantasy epic. It had perfectly acceptable writing and gorgeous art by Ernie Colon, and a fully realized world that was imaginative and unlike “our” world to an extent that made it fresh and exciting. Twelve houses based on birthstones? A world where everybody uses magic and where the laws of physics don’t necessarily apply? It was pretty wicked awesome, doing a lot of what the Harry Potter books did, and long before J.K. Rowling was telling people about how she came up with Harry Potter when she was broke in a cafe somewhere.

It begs the question why there hasn’t been a relaunch or reboot. Can you imagine Neil Gaiman getting his hands on this? Admittedly, Amethyst showed up briefly in Infinite Crisis - but that, much like just about everything to do with Infinite Crisis, was something of a bad idea. (Actually pretty much everything to do with DC trying to integrate Gemworld into the DC Universe proper was kind of a bad idea. Turning Gemworld into Zerox, the Sorcerer’s Planet? Bad idea. Making Amethyst a Lord of Order? Bad idea. It’s your classic case of square peg into dork-shaped hole.)

Of course, to have a great fantasy epic you need a great villain, and Amethyst had one - Dark Opal, one of the truly great fantasy comics badasses of all time. (You know he’s evil because he put “Dark” in front of his name. That’s just classy. He advertises his evilness. Dr. Doom would approve.) And… just look at him, will you? That is fucking awesome visual design right there. That is a villain who will fuck your shit up. It is obvious just from that artwork that Dark Opal is not only a magician but knows how to cut you to pieces with a sword (which he does). Plus he has crazy tattoos and blue skin and an amulet that mirrors his facial expressions. That is some awesomely fucked up shit right there.

Dark Opal is like an evil version of Valda. (Who not coincidentally was also drawn by Ernie Colon. Man, Ernie Colon was so great.) Sometimes you just see a character and you know: this guy is just waiting to be wicked cool once again.

(No, I’m not going to write “30 Reasons Why I Should Write Gemworld.”)

Recently, the news that Archie will propose to Veronica has been sweeping the nation. Much like how Captain America died or Batman died. Now it is Archie Comics’ turn to temporarily revive the fortunes of a flagging intellectual property through a shamless stunt.

Of course, this particular move, like so many others, has been met with criticism. Mostly because Archie is marrying Veronica. Most comics fans don’t like Veronica, believing her to be a stuck-up mean bitch. And this is true. Veronica is a stuck-up mean bitch. But here are some truths about Veronica most people don’t want to realize:

1.) She is rich. This counts for a lot.
2.) She is unpredictable and fun.
3.) She doesn’t care much what other people think of her.
4.) She is rich, yo.
5.) Most importantly, she is not Betty Cooper.

Some people do not realize that this last is a major plus. Betty, after all, is the “nice” one. She makes Archie cookies and helps him with his homework and does charity-type things and doesn’t gripe about being kind of poor. Plus, let’s face it: she’s smoking hot. Why wouldn’t Archie want to marry Betty?

The answer is simple.

Betty Cooper is motherfucking psycho bugfuck crazy.

Look at this shit. Understand that Archie is a popular kid, sure, but he is not exactly the star of his school. (That’s Reggie. Just because Reggie is an asshole doesn’t mean he’s not super-popular at Riverdale.) Archie is the decent guy everybody likes, who gets okay-to-good grades, plays on a couple of sports teams in a non-star fashion, and dogs lots of chicks. He is pretty fucking unremarkable as teenagers go, and were it not for his line of comics he would be the most boring human on the planet.

Betty Cooper is psycho for Archie Andrews, who tops out at “the most averagest person around.” She has giant blow-up pictures of him. That you know she took herself, with her stalker camera. Look at some of those photos, how awkwardly cropped they are. That’s because they are photos of Archie not knowing he is being photographed.

You know goddamn well the only reason she has pictures of Archie in the shower is jilling-off fodder. That’s not sexy. That’s fucking disturbing. Porn is great. Porn you make yourself - not in the “videotaping yourself doin it” sense but the “take time to produce life-size beat-off photos” sense - is creepy.

She kept an audiotape of him speaking! What. The. Fuck.

You just know that she looped it and edited it so she could have imaginary conversations with Archie. “Archie, do you think I am the prettiest girl at school?” “Heck… yes… Betty. I would… LIKETO… take… YOU… out for… a soda?” In Bettyworld, she is the rich one, and Archie is secretly a prince from the kingdom of Mevonia, come to take her away on his unicorn steed to a idyllic life of sybaritic pleasure.

She is so crazy that when she thinks Archie is near, her sleeves disappear as her psionic powers spontaneously manifest themselves! (Okay, that’s a bit of a dig on the art, but come on, Dan DeCarlo made so few mistakes that when you find a biggie like this one you have to comment. Archie artists today couldn’t hold DeCarlo’s jock if they had a crane.)

Note also how her father holds her back. It is much akin to how one holds a Rottweiler back before you let it rush into a dogfighting ring. “Savage him, Betty! Savage him and leave him bleeding and praying for death!” He knows what happens if you let Betty loose without tranquilizing her first. There was that time in Ohio. That’s why he’s Mr. Cooper now, instead of Mr. Lifschitz, and why Betty is no longer Brenda.

“Imagine if she told him he loved her.” If he did, that would be when she would go get her rifle, climb the clocktower, and start shooting at Lodge Mansion’s windows. “HE LOVES ME!” *BLAM* “HE LOVES ME!” *BLAM* “TAKE THAT, SMITHERS! I CAN KILL BECAUSE ARCHIE LOVES ME AND ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE UNIVERSE!” *BLAM* “ARCHIE WANTS YOU TO BLEED, MR. LODGE!” *BLAM* “ARCHIE’S LOVE MAKES ME IMMORTAL! I AM A GODDESS OF EVERLASTING PEACE AND LOVE!” *BLAM*

Flash Comics #1 was an auspicious comic. Of course, it was the very first appearance of Jay Garrick as the Flash, but it was also the first appearance of Hawkman. That’s a heckuva comic right there: the Flash and Hawkman, both appearing for the first time. But wait! On top of that, it was also the first appearance of Johnny Thunder! That’s two major players and a classic second banana, all in one comic!

And then there’s the Whip.

The Whip is a working-class hero. No powers for this guy! Just his facility with a whip. Rodrigo “Rodney” Gaynor (no, really!) was a descendant of the very first Whip, a Mexican superhero of the 19th century who fought for right and protected the poor. Kind of like Zorro! But with a whip instead of a sword. Well, actually Zorro used a whip too sometimes. So basically think Zorro, but no sword.¹

Anyway, Rodney used his, I dunno, one-sixteenth Mexican-ness (”just enough beaneater to use their traditional ethnic weapons, but not so much that you can’t take him home to Mother, girls!”) to master the whip and call himself The Whip, as his ancestor did before him. At some point you would think that he would come up with a better name, but no such luck. In a stunning development, he mostly fought… evil Mexicans. The symbolism of a white guy fighting Mexicans was apparently glossed over at the time.

Presumably at some point Rodney joined the All-Star Squadron, as did just about every other vigilante who ever existed. And that is more or less all there is to be said for the Whip. (Except that his granddaughter also became the Whip briefly before dying as one of the Seven Soldiers of Victory.) But that’s okay. Rodney is one of the rank and file. A spear-carrier. A red-shirt. He is there to fill in crowd scenes and show up as a fourth-tier guest star when another superhero visits 1940s Mexico, and that’s all we can expect of him, and that is fine. Not everybody has to be a Flash or a Hawkman.

The Whip did not ask for much from comics, and he mostly got it. And things could be worse. The fifth star of Flash Comics #1 was a guy named Cliff Cornwall. Who the fuck is Cliff Cornwall? Because I sure as hell don’t know.

Although it’s kind of a shame that there are numerous superheroes within the DCU that are more prominent and known for the expertise with the whip (Catwoman and Mr. America, to name two). I mean, he’s called the Whip. You’d think he would be like the Green Arrow of whips, or something.

1. Sidenote: does anybody remember a TV movie or something similar where Zorro was in jail or wounded or something, and his cousin took over, but his cousin was crap with a sword but great with a whip so he only used a whip, and called himself “the Red Zorro”? Did I just hallucinate that? [↩]

Top comment: Elfen Inferno, Princess of Incineration, locked in combat with her archnemesis, Esophagus Violator. His dyed eyebrows are the source of his unholy power. –KDBryan

Also: I was going to go with Reverse Gravit-hair-a and her husband, Sir No Longer Appearing in this Comic. – Zifnab

1.) My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

2.) My article this week for The Court is about R. v. Middleton, a sentencing case. Be forewarned the topic matter is so dry I nearly fell asleep twice while writing it.

3.) Finally, I made a rare PODCASTING APPEARANCE on Hour 42 yesterday, wherein I articulated poorly about the potential of Gooch the Dark Wonder Dog, among other things.

LIKED

- The “sneak preview” of Glee. Although I think airing the premiere episode of a series Fox doesn’t plan to air for another three months is, how shall I say this, idiotic and a programming strategy that only Fox could come up with, this was one of the best pilots I’ve seen in a while; funny and clever, with great musical numbers, and it built to a ringing, enthusiastic finale that nonetheless obviously showed room for development and growth. All the better for it being unique among the current crop of television shows.

- Tower of Greed. Simple in execution yet incredibly addictive. The first Flash game I’ve played in a while that felt really fresh, despite the “keep going up or you die” concept being far from original; ToG’s system of giving you occasional options to opt out to finalize your score really puts a stamp on the style that’s a good gameplay twist, and the 80s-ish pixel graphics are exactly what I like to see in a platformer like this one.

- Marcos Martin’s “Saga of Captain America” backup feature in Captain America #50. Hey, what if all those Marvel Saga-type summaries Marvel is putting in their books these days to justify the extra dollar in price were actually something you wanted to see because they had gorgeous new art with a strong sense of design? Wouldn’t that be cool? Well, that’s what they did here. Marcos Martin has permission to draw anything he wants to for ever.

- Gaby Rojas’ audition on the first episode of So You Think You Can Dance. One of the rare times when Nigel’s praise was not in fact even a bit hyperbolic. Absolutely astounding, and one of the best solos on this program ever, be they auditions or competition or whatever. (Other solos that were excellent: Peter Sabasino the tapper, Kayla Rodomski who made her grandpa cry when she got through, and of course Natalie Reid and Brandon Bryant, who both would have made top 20 last year if it weren’t for the producers trying to spread out talent and also give a street dancer the best chance of winning.)

DIDN’T LIKE

- Terminator: Salvation. Loud and stupid and disappointing in all the wrong ways. A couple of really great action sequences, sure, but then again Star Wars: The Phantom Menace had a couple of really great action sequences and nobody says that was good (and the acting and dialogue in Terminator is as near-witless as the acting and dialogue in Menace). With the exception of Star Trek, the summer movie season this year is just floundering in terms of quality.

- Nigel Lythgoe’s burst of homophobia when presented with a same-sex ballroom couple (who were actually quite good technically despite a screwup). Nigel, your jokes weren’t funny (much like, you know, all your jokes ever), but worse you went from unfunny to outright offensive this time. Save the moralizing for… well, never.

Some have suggested that this dog is a real-life approximation of Rex the Wonder Dog.

However, even if we ignore the fact that this is clearly a training scenario and not an actual hostile takedown (not that this dog knew that, of course), you will note that the crucial difference is that Rex the Wonder Dog would have caught the bullets in his mouth and spat them back at either his attacker or possibly a secondary evildoer.

Top comment: And Rex would’ve gone THROUGH the car window. – Chenry