So I don’t want to spoil people – well, actually in this instance I really don’t give a fuck whether I spoil people or not, but you have to say “I don’t want to spoil people,” it’s a thing – but Cry for Justice is definitely a contender for worst comic of the decade only three months into it.1

For those of you who have not been reading Cry For Justice, here is a brief summary.

Green Lantern has a hissy fit about superheroes dying and being ineffective so he quits the Justice League to go form his own Justice League with hookers and blackjack. Green Arrow follows him because, well, that’s what Green Arrow does, or something. The Ray Palmer Atom tortures some guys because they know who killed some guy he knows and he’s gonna find the guy who killed the guy he knows. Congo Bill and Mikaal Tomas team up to find people they think murdered their loved ones (and Freedom Beast!) in a sequence of scenes that barely have anything to do with the majority of the comic and are, not surprisingly, the only even slightly entertaining parts of the whole comic. Green Lantern and Green Arrow beat up a bunch of badguys and then Atom joins them for some reason and then Captain Marvel and then Supergirl show up and they’re angry about… something. So they all have a big team-up. For justice. They capture Prometheus, but it turns out that it was really Clayface2 and Prometheus turned Clayface into a bomb to kill all the superheroes, except that he wasn’t expecting Captain Marvel to stop the bomb with magic sorta so everybody lives. Finally they all meet up at the JLA satellite where it turns out Captain Marvel was Prometheus all along and he beats up the Justice League and rips off Roy Harper’s arm, but then Donna Troy beats him up and they catch him. Prometheus is all “well I needed to get to the satellite all along to use it to teleport all of your cities to someplace you’d never find them moo hoo ha ha” and then it turns out whoops his devices don’t teleport anything, they just blow shit up kinda somehow, and he’s all “well, crap, they were supposed to teleport stuff, oh well,” and the superheroes can’t figure out how to deal with bombs, so thousands of people die, including Lian Harper, Roy’s daughter (who is five!) and Prometheus all the time is all “hey if you let me go I’ll give you the disarm codes and people will stop dying.” But basically most of issue seven is the superheroes trying to beat Prometheus and failing miserably and a shitload of innocent civilians die until a light goes on in Green Arrow’s head and he says “hey, crazy idea, how about we just let the villain go free so he stops killing people,” so they do and he does and then, in an epilogue, Green Arrow somehow tracks down Prometheus in Prometheus’ secret otherdimensional lair that nobody else knows about and murders him with an arrow to the forehead and says “justice.” THE END.

No, really.

I honestly have no idea how this comic got greenlit, let alone produced. It’s so bad on every possible level that it’s not even entertainingly bad. You just have to look at it and kind of stare. I mean, I know there are going to be some fanboys who are all “no I want gritty and realistic comics about people in tights who fight crime,” and sure, those have their place I guess, but seriously, this is a comic where they kill off a five-year-old girl for added drama. Who the fuck writes that comic? Who the fuck even thinks that comic is a good idea? How many people at DC must have gotten hit in the head with a sledgehammer to have them all think “gosh, this superhero comic isn’t exciting enough… let’s kill off the cute little girl!” Was it a really fucking big sledgehammer? Because I can literally not think of a single person on the entire planet, who, when asked to tell a story, goes to the “let’s kill a little girl” well. They avoid killing children in slasher movies because they think that it’s tasteless. That’s what Cry for Justice is: it’s the comic book for people who think that slasher flicks aren’t edgy enough.

But killing off Lian Harper (and this isn’t some fanboy vendetta from someone who’s designated Lian Harper as their favorite character or anything – I really don’t care about her specifically, it’s just that they’re killing off a five-year-old-girl in their story for cheap heat and what the fuck, DC, what the fucking fucking fuck) is just the worst sin of a comic book that is so filled with stupidity and hackery that it instills a sense of shock and awe. People thought Ultimatum was bad, and it was really bad, but this is actually kind of worse because Ultimatum was written by Jeph Loeb, who hasn’t written a good comic in forever. Cry for Justice is supposedly written by James Robinson. I say “supposedly” because I’ve heard more than once that a lot of this got, ahem, extensively rewritten by People Who Shall Remain Nameless, and that rather than James Robinson it should say “Alan Smithee” in the “written by” credit. But I don’t know for sure, and frankly Robinson has written so many bad or even terrible comics since his return to DC that he’s more or less exhausted the massive benefit of the doubt he’d earned after Starman and The Golden Age and his other DC work, which is really kind of impressive when you think about it.3 Besides, Ultimatum at least had a reason for existing: to remind people that the Ultimate Universe still existed. I’m not sure why this story exists.

Here are just a few things that annoy me about this comic.

– Mikaal and Congo Bill set out to kill the people who murdered their loved ones, but when they find them (Penny Dreadful and Arak from Helix? Really, James Robinson?), Mikaal suddenly decides that he doesn’t want to kill anybody and then convinces Bill of that in less than a third of a page. This is moronic.

– Prometheus doesn’t seem to know who the Shade is or have any plan for fighting the Shade, but the bomb he built for Opal City is specifically designed to stop the Shade’s powers from fucking with it. This is moronic.

– The Justice League mostly gets beaten up by Prometheus because they decide to fight him in classic “forty ninjas versus one samurai” style, each taking him on one at a time. This is moronic.

– Prometheus, after having a super-awesome-bullet that can incapacitate Plastic Man and another that can wound Supergirl and another that can take out Red Tornado and blah blah blahdy blah makes this stupid speech about how Hawkman is “unpredictable” when Hawkman goes into a crazy battle rage, like somehow “unpredictable” can beat shooting bullets at a guy who doesn’t wear body armor or anything. Hey, Prometheus, here’s an idea for you you might want to program into your hyper-battle-computer: they’re called regular fucking bullets. This is moronic.4

– Prometheus, who is armed with super-awesome-guns and has absolutely no reason to not kill superheroes – whom he hates, remember – does not kill superheroes when he is shooting them with special bullets that can, presumably, kill them. Why does he not do this? Because if he kills them, then there’s no issue seven! This is moronic.

– The Atom tortures people repeatedly over the course of this series. When Green Arrow objects, the Atom basically says “WELL WE AREN’T FRIENDS ANY MORE.” This is moronic.

– Green Arrow murders Prometheus after spending the entire series saying stuff about how heroes should be heroic and not, you know, torture and kill people. Presumably this is meant to be ironic, and stuff, but clearly somebody had to get revenge for the dead five year old girl and it’s not like she was related to a professional assassin or anything OH WAIT. This is moronic.

– And of course there’s those bombs of his, the teleporting bombs which turn out to not teleport anything but instead just make, I dunno, little temporary black holes or something. See, the heroes can’t do anything about these bombs, because they’re immune to Freddy Freeman’s magic Shazam powers, and they’re immune to Hawkman’s mace (no, really, he says that), and they’re immune to the Shade’s shadow-powers, and when the Flashes try to create a waterspout in the river between Keystone City and Central City so they can get a better look at the bomb that Prometheus put in the river, that makes the bomb… go faster, or something like that. To repeat: Prometheus is such a good planner that he planned for super-speedsters moving away water from a bomb in a river with their super-speed. Nowhere in the comic does anybody suggest “hey, we’ve got a bunch of guys with super-strength, what happens if we just throw the bombs into outer space” but presumably Prometheus planned for that with, I don’t know, an anti-throwing-into-space-device. I mean, if he came up with a device for making water that super-speedsters are pulling away from his bomb into something that makes the bomb go faster, he totally has to have an anti-throwing-into-space-device, right? This is moronic.

I’m just pulling out a few of the high points here, because everything about this comic is so fucking stupid it makes my teeth hurt. The art is bad (the last issue has three separate artists, at least one of whom is below fanart-quality), the dialogue is frequently atrocious on a Manos The Hands of Fate level, and the plot doesn’t just fail to make sense but in fact is actively antithetical to the concept of superhero comics generally considering that this is basically a comic where the superheroes spend seven issues steadily losing, and the big triumphant finish is Green Arrow murdering a guy. And remember, this was supposed to be a Big Event Comic. DC promoted the fuckballs out of this comic. A lot of people thought this comic, which is so stupid that it could have been written by Brick Tamland from Anchorman and made more sense, was something worth publishing.

This is a colossal embarrassment on every level. It’s one of the worst comic miniseries I’ve ever read. Everybody who has their name attached to this should be ashamed for producing such horrendous crap.

1. Pedants about dates: shut up. Nobody likes you. [↩]
2. I guess we should be thankful that it wasn’t Everyman again. [↩]
3. Actually, maybe the Jeph Loeb comparison is more apt than I originally thought. [↩]
4. Also, Hawkman fucking sucks. Fuck Hawkman. Fuck him in his winged ass. [↩]

Your guest judge tonight is Mary Murphy. Yes, that Mary Murphy. Uh huh.

Grace and Nick: hip-hop. Oh lord, they’re bringing in Mary Murphy for the rehearsal vignettes too? How did anybody start thinking Mary Murphy was this popular with fans? Anyway, the choreo by Tiana Canterbury was excellent, but Grace didn’t look that comfortable doing it – which is not to say that she didn’t hit her moves, but I particularly thought she underplayed any portion of the routine where she was supposed to be grinding her hips, and during the “jump-rope” segment she didn’t really look like she was jumping rope. Nick was very strong, which I expected. Mary Murphy screams about the hot tamale train because that is her gimmick.

Carly and Kieran: Viennese waltz. After an interesting sequence during the rehearsal vignette where Carly was expressing her worry about dancing properly to 3/4 time (a sentence I don’t think I will ever come close to writing in describing any other version of this show), Mary Murphy shows up and does she have any advice about this, her specialty? No. *sigh* Kieran’s carriage in this was absolutely perfect. Carly stumbled a bit a third of the way through with her heel catching in her dress. Mary as a judge this time around makes some good points – specifically that Carly’s lines were mediocre, which they were, but also commiserating on the caught heel in the dress, which was nice of her – and at this point, I’m pretty convinced that Kieran is the power player in this couple.

Jess S. Hip-Hop and Doug: jazz. Instead of Mary during the vignette, it’s Bonnie, who says things that aren’t cheap gag lines. (Thank you, Bonnie.) And after two weeks of Doug and Jess being thoroughly underwhelming and clunky and just blah, they finally delivered with a performance that was lively and felt up to the standards of the show. Adam Williams’ mummy-themed choreo was clever and they did it justice, and Jess in particular finally felt like she wants to be here. This was really great fun.

Renee and Phillipe: contemporary. Not much to say about this routine, because it was just so good. Phillipe’s performance in this was arguably one of the best contemporary routines I’ve ever seen a hip-hop dancer perform: strong and confident and the unison was dead-on. Renee was as brilliant as you would expect. Just gorgeous work all around.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: tango. You know, I only just realized that Heath is a dead ringer for a young Patrick Swayze this week? Anyway, Mary didn’t like the routine because she felt Heath wasn’t strong enough, and I can see the argument for Heath not being as good as Jessica obviously but as novices performing tangoes on SYTYCD go, I thought this was definitely in the top third or so: his intensity of character was very good and although there were a few points where he was obviously too tentative in his movement, it was only inconsistency rather than outright failure.

Jessie H. Contemporary and Matt: hip-hop. Travers Ross choreographs very lyrical-ish hip-hop – that lyrical hip-hop he did for Lamb and Timomatic last season remains a favorite, but the downside is stuff like choreographing hip-hop to “Mr. Jones” like he did last season as well, which was a fucking disaster. In short, Travers Ross routines are generally either home runs or major strikeouts. This was one of the latter; the choreo was blocky and rough and impenetrable and I am full-on with Jason in disliking it.

Issi and Don: contemporary. Don had great performance quality and partnered Issi exquisitely, but I agree with Matt that his flaws were distracting – it wasn’t so much the feet for me as it was, of all things, his groundwork. (Mostly because I don’t get distracted by unpointed feet as Matt does.) Issi was actually watchable for the first time thus far this week, so all things considered I’m willing to give this a thumbs up despite the choreo being kind of confusing.

Ivy and Robbie: jazz. And apparently the question of how Robbie would lift Ivy has been answered by mostly having Ivy lift Robbie instead. That having been said, even with Robbie’s obvious issues with being a tiny human being, he’s still better with Ivy than Mikhaela. The choreo wasn’t especially difficult outside of a couple of major tricks (mostly on Robbie), but it was clever and the costuming was inspired, and visually it was extremely entertaining. So I’m saying it was good.

Probable bottom three: Matt and Jessie, Jessica and Heath, Issi and Don.
Should go home: Issi and Don.
Will go home: Issi and Matt.

Rande asked:

Are you seriously not going to comment on Paul Levitz returning to Legion? I have no concept of whether this is good news or bad news and need you to tell me what to think (I actually no very little about the Legion at all aside from that period of time I was a Chris Sprouse fan and your own interesting storylines).

And then Lister Sage followed that up with

I would like to know what you thought of the Mark Waid Strange mini that just finished this week.

I mostly avoid talking about the current status quo on these titles – for reasons that I think should be obvious – but since people asked, fair is fair I guess.

On Legion, I am guardedly optimistic but only to a certain extent. The reason to be somewhat optimistic is that Levitz did, after all, write one of the best runs of any superhero comic ever when he was writing Legion – all this time later, it’s still remarkably bold and mature in its outlook, which is a combination that doesn’t happen often. If Levitz can write half as well as he did, it should be a great comic.

If he can write half as well as he did. Noteworthy creators returning to write comics after a lengthy break have a track record that is, shall we say, not good.

If editorial control on the title manages to not be hamhanded, and regardless of the power shakeup at DC I’m not very confident about that, especially with the way the Legion is seemingly being shoved firmly back into the “supporting characters in the Superman mythos” camp.

If he can make this ersatz fanboy’s wish version of the Legion compelling.

I mean, if anybody can do all those ifs, it’s Levitz. But that’s why I’m only guardedly optimistic.

As for Strange, I thought Waid captured the voice and character of Strange reasonably well and up until the final issue it felt like I’d like to see a Dr. Strange series go, more or less. (Ignoring the whole Dr. Voodoo thing, the less said about which, frankly the better.) However, that final issue – eeeeuuuurgh. Giving Casey a Morton’s fork dilemma and then having her actually take a fork rather than solve her way out of it (which is what superheroes are traditionally supposed to do, after all) was irritating, but more irritating than that was writing three issues of “Dr. Strange can barely do magic any more” and then having him heal the fabric of the universe with fucking magic in the fourth issue. I think Doc as “magical sensei who relies on students to do magical heavy lifting” is as good an engine as Doc being the Sorcerer Supreme or equivalently powerful, but you can’t actually do both at the same time, you know?

On the bright side, Waid didn’t actually kill off Casey, but instead consigned her to a distant dimension of some sort, so at least she’s not a girl-in-refrigerator. And other than that fourth issue, the series genuinely was pretty decent. Why do we need Brother Doctor Voodoo again, exactly?

Anyhow. Thok also wanted to know what I thought about Legion of Three Worlds (for which I will delay until I write something about Blackest Night next month) and Stig asked:

Batman is soon to be shunted through time by Grant Morrison in a miniseries where he dons several variant Bat-lawmaker costumes. Given that Batman is a big, popular character who is often in the spotlight, and given that you have shown a healthy interest in forgotten-and-yet awesome classic DC characters…which one would you have take Batman’s place in the trek across the ages?

That story doesn’t work with anybody other than Batman, frankly. Superman doesn’t era-analogize as well as Batman does for a horde of reasons (many of which involve power level) and nobody else in DC’s stable really merits the “myriad multiple versions of self across time and space” storyline because they’re not important enough to merit the treatment. If you did this with, say, Green Arrow it would just come across as wanking. It doesn’t with Batman. Is this fair to lesser-known characters? No, but then again they’re lesser-known for a reason.

I would love to see a variant on the “Why I should write …” series. Specifically, “Why I shouldn’t write …” and give us your worst idea, with the aid of Photoshop, on various comic properties.

It’s not funny or anything, but: the X-Men. The Avengers. The Fantastic Four. Most of Marvel’s major properties interest me not at all in a writerly sense, and I think that’s the only disqualifier for “should I write this.” If you’re not interested in writing the book you’re not going to write it well. This doesn’t mean that being interested in a property is enough to make you write it well (god knows that’s not the case) but it’s the first requirement and I don’t satisfy it for any of those books. (On the DC side? Justice League: barely. Teen Titans: not at all.)

Finally, Thok also asked

I’d like to see MGK’s take on “Why I should write Hitman Jr.”

As someone else once noticed, I had a distinct idea as to what happened to Maggie Lorenzo’s kid.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

It’s worth noting that Lois Lane has a singular distinction among comics characters, being the only non-super (or, at least, non-protagonistic) character to appear in Who’s Who.1 No other non-super characters make the cut: not Ma and Pa Kent, not Perry White, not Commissioner Gordon, not Amanda Waller.2

There’s a reason why Lois makes the cut and why none of them do: it’s because, even nearly fifteen years before she and Clark finally got married, she was established as Superman’s equal. Not just his “girlfriend” – at the time Who’s Who was published, the end of the Bronze Era, Lois and Superman/Clark were actually taking a break, because the Bronze Age Superman comics had made it pretty clear that Lois already had a pretty good idea that Superman was actually Clark and she wasn’t happy about him bullshitting for all those years (not that this made her stop loving him, of course, but it was definitely a bump in the road). Hell, fans had actually been clamoring for the two to get married for some time – not just the pre-internet equivalent of ‘shippers, but longtime Superman fans.

This is why: the only natural course of action for Lois and Clark is to get married.

It’s really not like any other relationship in comics. For example, as much as I disagree with the idea that Peter and Mary Jane shouldn’t be married (and consider it exhibit A that proven comic writers like Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek and many others can still be completely and utterly wrong about characters they’ve written god knows how many times in certain respects), there’s an argument that can at least be made for them splitting up or never getting married, because Spider-Man at his essence is about the virtue of fortitude.3 Fortitude is about picking yourself up and doing good even when life kicks you in the balls, and divorce – or pathetic magic wish fiat – is a kick in the balls. On the other hand, Batman and Catwoman (or Silver St. Cloud, or Vicki Vale, or Wonder Woman, or… well, pick one) can never get together because Batman, at his essence, is about the necessity of sacrifice. Batman not only doesn’t not need a happy ending, he actively opposes one.

Superman isn’t about any of that. Superman is about truth and justice and doing the right thing; he’s a purer story than any of his contemporaries, both at once simpler and infinitely more complex. That’s why he deserves a love interest who’s just as good and as tough (and understatedly complex) as he is; it’s why Lois Lane gradually evolved from being a comedic annoyance to becoming a tough, smart reporter.4 Eventually, because this is comics and that means a little hyperbole is a given, she became the best reporter. Which is fine, because as others have written before: Superman needs a super woman.

And this is the kicker: Lois Lane can’t really be a match for Superman if she doesn’t eventually figure out the whole secret identity thing. This is because there’s a dozen perfectly good reasons why Superman’s secret identity should work, and the comics have used them all: because most people just assume he’s Superman all the time, because it’s not that hard for someone who’s practiced to act like two different people and convincingly, because most people really just don’t look, because Superman super-vibrates when he’s on duty ever-so-slightly to blur pictures of him, whatever. They all work fine, which is why jokes about “it’s only a pair of glasses” ring hollow and feel petty.

But they don’t work if you’re supposed to be an ace reporter who by virtue of being not just good at your job but the best (and Lois is the best) means you’re supposed to recognize things as being a bit off when they’re off, even if it takes you a while because nobody else would notice it. If Lois is Superman’s equal – and of course she is – she has to realize those things happening. That’s why just about every satisfactory rendition of the secret ID reveal to Lois has Lois trumping it by figuring it out on her own.5 And once she knows, there’s no reason not to get married; that’s the only bar. She’s not going to accept “it’s too dangerous” (and Superman couldn’t stay away if he tried).

And really, what’s the appeal of a status quo where Lois isn’t aware of the truth? Superman angsting about how Lois doesn’t know? Lois scheming to prove that Superman has a secret identity? Boring recycled hjinks and Superman robots and Batman pretending to be Superman and other penny-ante misogyny? That shit was stale in the Silver Age – it’s why the Bronze Age happened, for Christ’s sake – and there’s just nothing left in it. Flashback stories are fine; let them be flashbacks. The complexity of a regular relationship suits Clark and Lois to the ground. They have the same problems every other couple does, just in a slightly different way involving evil scientists and tyrant aliens and the occasional giant killer robot. But they have them nonetheless. There’s more juice in that than a thousand “oh, how will I get away from Lois this time?” sequences.

There are a significant number of comics writers who think that Wonder Woman is Superman’s perfect match, mostly because they’ve read “Men of Steel, Women of Kleenex” too many times and think that the most important aspect of Superman’s perfect mate is whether or not he can fuck her according to the rules they’ve made up in their head. However, Wonder Woman is a boring cipher. Lois isn’t: she’s her own woman, and we’re well past the point where a Lois Lane ongoing should be back on the stands. (And not Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane either. She can stand on her own two feet, thank you very much.)

She really is the best female character in superhero comics.

1. Okay: Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang and Alfred all make appearances, but rather than as themselves, they’re listed under Elastic Lad, Insect Queen and the Outsider, respectively. If you don’t know how Alfred transformed into the Outsider, let’s just say “Silver Age Batman comics” and leave it at that. You’re better off not knowing. [↩]
2. Eventually in one of the supplements they published an issue that was mostly JUST non-super characters. Terry Long shows up. He is gross. [↩]
3. Much like Charlie Brown. The comparison has been made before, I’m sure. [↩]
4. And because girls started reading Superman comics and complained that she was being written as a dimwit, of course. [↩]
5. Exception: the actual one that happened in the post-Crisis pre-Death-of-Superman comics. Incidentally, if DC is going to retcon everything else to suit their whims, why don’t they retcon that? [↩]

Your guest judge is Jason Gilkison, who is of course just as good as the other three.

Ivy and Gaz: hip-hop. A Superman-themed hip-hop routine? It is like they choreographed this just for me! And Gaz is, it turns out, a dead fucking ringer for Clark Kent, and Ivy’s reasonable as Lois. This was really great up until just after the lift, and then they kind of lost a bit of pace (I agree with Matt that they slipped ahead of the beat), but on the whole I’m going to give it a thumbs up because it genuinely was a cute routine, and because it had Superman flava, and the performance quality that Gaz kind of lacked last week was here in full force.

Issi and Don: foxtrot. Issi’s hurting ribs were pretty evident in some of the moves (that arabesque on the bench, for example) and Matt’s right in that Don’s tendency to rush through his moves is starting to become more evident, but he was still much better than Issi – she just felt clunky in a lot of places for me and this is the second week where I just wasn’t feeling any connection to her character at all. She’s not as bad as, say, Mollee was by any stretch, but she’s got a lot of the same flaws writ small, and I think her fear over the injury isn’t doing her any favours.

Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: contemporary. Pretty standard “love falls apart” storyline here, but damn, what dancing. Heath is genuinely excellent at partnering, which I simply didn’t expect out of him at all; I don’t notice the lack of pointing in his feet at all but then again I don’t really look for that sort of thing. Jessica was very, very good. I want to see these two work outside of technical-training dance now to see what happens; I am optimistic.

Jessie H. Contemporary and Matt: jazz. Project Moda are one of my favorite things about the Australian show because nobody else choreographing for any show anywhere is as consistently hilarious as they are, and because unlike a lot of jazz choreographers they stick to what jazz dance should be, which is “mix of absolutely everything” rather than “ballet with a beat.” This is the second week Jessie and Matt have absolutely nailed their choreo, at least in my eyes; maybe a few points where the unison movement was a hair off, but only a few and only by a hair, and the ridiculous stunts Matt assisted Jessie into were just stunning – that backward somersault lift near the end was fucking insane.

Mikhaela and Robbie: boogaloo. Boogaloo! Haven’t seen that since season one. And… yeah, there’s a reason, because it’s not that audience-friendly: it lacks big moves and it’s hard to do. (Compare to house, prevalent on the Canadian show, which is hard to do but has plenty of big moves.) Robbie looked terrified through the entire thing and frankly didn’t dance this well; his pops were better than Mikhaela’s were but on the other hand Mikhaela at least looked comfortable doing the moves, even if her pops were mediocre. Jason Gilkison blames their problems on lack of chemistry, which seems like it is not necessarily the entire problem but definitely contributing.

Grace and Nick: contemporary. And right off the bat it’s a Very Special Routine about a couple that loses their baby Inspired By Real People and the dancers say things like “we have to do this routine justice,” which always irks me. But on the merits of the routine itself I don’t really have any complaints; it was danced very strongly and the choreo, while not especially original, was completely serviceable. I thought both Grace and Nick were miles ahead of where they were last week. This was very good, and both are frankly better off without the partners they lost last week.

Carly and Kieran: Broadway. I’m at a loss to find enough ways to compliment- this: just a great goddamn routine, clever choreo and danced just about perfectly. Kieran’s ability to bring out his character – last week it could possibly be described as heavy-handed, but then it was a heavy routine. This was light and, yes, “frothy,” and he was understated without being boring. Carly was very strong as well. Easily the surprises of the competition so far.

Renee and Phillipe: paso doble. Terrible music. I mean, the idea of a paso to “Bohemian Rhapsody” isn’t a bad one, but because of all the really blatant music edits and skips I just kept having these “wait, they skipped a line” moments which distracted me and pulled me out of the dance. Jason Coleman summed up my feelings on the routine itself by saying that the intensity needed for a paso was present for the first third of it, missing for the second and then showed up again for the last third. Not nearly so good as last week for these two.

Jess S. Hip-Hop and Doug: contemporary. I had the over/under on “Fireflies” by Owl City getting used in a routine at week two, because if there’s a song that screams out “YOU CAN USE ME FOR ANY FORM OF DANCE” it’s that one, and here we are. This, unfortunately, did not justify using it; it was choreo that managed to be both complex and trite all at once, with so many lifts that the dancing itself was more or less missing. I thought Doug did better on the lifts than Jason Coleman gave him credit for doing, but not so well that I was especially impressed. Jess was only okay.

Probable bottom three: Mikhaela and Robbie, Jess S. and Doug, Jessie H. and Matt.
Should go home: Jess S. and Robbie.
Will go home: Jess S. and Robbie.

Okay, so let’s say I told you that in 1964, a comic book character was so out of control that the doctor prescribed tranquilizers. Let’s also say that this character started taking the tranquilizers and immediately became prone to narcolepsy. And let’s throw in the fact that even in a state of drug-induced narcolepsy, this person couldn’t stop stalking two other characters and making their lives miserable. Which character do you think I’m talking about?

I’ll give you three gu… aw, hell, you’ve guessed it already, haven’t you (click on thumbnails to read the pages).

The story more or less speaks for itself. Well, the ending might need a bit of explanation. Suffice it to say that tranquilizers, sedatives and other knock-out pills were at the height of popularity in the early ’60s. So a comic book about two teenagers choosing to take someone else’s clearly dangerous prescription drugs? Not a problem. I mean, it’s not like they’re drinking beer or something.

And a question for experts on Betty Cooper’s mental state: do you think her doctor prescribed this incredibly strong medication because he was trying to take her out of commission, or is this just the dosage she prefers?

Finally, those who like spotting hidden messages in old comics might note the names and initials on the bench:

“Dan” and “Josie” are Dan DeCarlo and his wife (yes, that’s where he got the name) while “Rudy” and “Mary” are DeCarlo’s inker Rudy Lapick and his wife. “Harry” is probably Harry Lucey. And LBJ might or might not be a politician of some kind. That one’s for comics historians to decide.

Like I do here for example.

Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, Mr. Thinks He’s The Leading Man. “Ancestor.” Instead of the truth right before your eyes, which is that ancient Egyptians somehow came to worship Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

“Good morning, sir. I have prepared a breakfast of scrambled egg, kippers and bacon, as per your request.”
“Fantastic, Jeeves! I tell you truly, I’ve worked up a massive appetite and that’s no mistake.”
“Am I to assume that tonight’s excursion went well, sir?”
“Well, it started off a bit sticky. My cape got all tangled when I went to punch this one hooligan in the face.”
“Ah, yes. The cape.”
“Jeeves, we’ve had this discussion twice now. The cape is part of the ensemble.”
“We have had this discussion twice, sir, because your cape has gotten tangled up in your legs twice.”
“Ah ha, Jeeves. I didn’t say it got tangled in my legs this time, merely that it had gotten tangled.”
“In what did it get tangled?”
“Well, around my right arm.”
“Is that not your good arm for fisticuffs, sir?”
“Don’t be coy. You know it is. And the cape stays.”
“I confess, I fail to understand the appeal of the cape.”
“It’s dramatic, Jeeves. Like a bat’s wings. Criminals fear it, I reckon.”
“Do criminals fear gentlemen in opera cloaks?”
“Ah, but this is cut differently from an opera cloak. It rupples.”
“Rupples, sir?”
“Yes. It ruffles and it ripples. Therefore, it rupples.”
“This ruppling of which you speak seems to have a great deal in common with tangling.”
“Enough talk about that, Jeeves. I think I’ve made it quite clear that the cape represents my bat-wings, for I am a child of the night, and so forth.”
“Could not some other form of abstraction suffice, sir?”
“Well, without the wings, I’m hardly a bat, am I? I’m sort of a black badger.”
“I understand badgers can be quite nasty in a pinch.”
“Yes, but it’s not like a great roaring badger came smashing through my window at Brinkley, is it? It was a bat. That’s an omen, Jeeves. Can’t mess about with omens, that’s bad luck.”
“Sir, a bat did not crash through your window either. You dreamt it.”
“Dream omens are still omens.”
“I concede the point.”
“Thank you, Jeeves. By the way, this is really cracking nosh.”
“I do my best, sir. So what happened after your encounter with the criminal class?”
“Oh, that wasn’t the only one.”
“Indeed?”
“You see, after I dropped off those thugs at the local constabulary -”
“Speaking of which, sir, that Detective Gordon fellow has been around again, asking after you. I do believe he suspects.”
“Drat. Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, sir.”
“I wonder how he caught on. I’ve been doing the growly voice, you know. Doesn’t sound a thing like me at all.”
“Yes, sir, but you also did the growly voice when you did your impersonation of a bear for the Policemen’s Charitable Association last month.”
“Do you think that tipped anybody off, then?”
“I would consider it possible.”
“Oh, by the way, Jeeves, while we’re on the topic, did you pick up lozenges for me?”
“Yes, sir. Blackcurrant, as you requested.”
“Brilliant. Where was I?”
“You had just dropped off some criminals with the police.”
“Exactly. I had some time left in the night, you see, so I wandered down to the dockyards, hoping to catch some criminals doing criminalish things.”
“And did you, sir?”
“Did I ever! This was the astounding thing, Jeeves – there was this band of bravos robbing a freighter!”
“Is that really so surprising, sir? Freighters are frequently the target of the unlawful.”
“I wouldn’t call this normal.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t I mention the fellow in the makeup?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, there was one.”
“What sort of makeup, sir? Was he dressed for a pantomime?”
“Not quite so much that, Jeeves, as he was garbed like a clown.”
“What sort of clown, sir? Traditional whiteface, auguste, or are we speaking more of the comedia dell’arte variety of Italian clown?”
“…which one is the one that wears purple pants?”
“That would most likely be auguste.”
“Anyway. This clown was in charge of the other criminals.”
“That seems most improper. An auguste clown is known for being subservient to the whiteface. It appears, sir, that your adversary has no formal training in clowning.”
“I suspected as much when he started hitting me on the head with his brolly.”
“Did you apprehend him in the end?”
“No, no, that’s the rub. I got his underlings, you can bet on that, but the big cheese, as they say, ran away with the milk and the spoon.”
“So he escaped.”
“Shame, too. I suspect this clown will make up a good deal more work for me. Oh, did you catch that? “Make up.” Totally by accident.”
“Your wit remains sharp, sir.”
“Thanks, Jeeves. Anyway, it’s been a long night, so it’s to bed for Bertie, I think. Wake me up around two, would you?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Oh, and did you ask about -”
“Yes, I did inquire with the owner of the building as you requested. It seems that he is not keen on the idea of tenants putting in major construction projects in his apartments.”
“So that means no secret passage to the cellar, then?”
“Sadly not.”
“Drat. A secret base in the cellar would have been extremely thematic.”
“Bats do not often dwell in cellars, I believe.”
“It was a metaphor, Jeeves. A bat must have his cave, you know.”
“Or a badger his hole?”
“Do stop going on about badgers, Jeeves.”
“Certainly, sir.”