Bullseye. I ranted about this on a podcast a while back but fuck it, he’s still here so let me say it again: I do not know when Bullseye became the new Joker and I don’t care, because Bullseye fucking sucks. Bullseye was always perfectly decent in times of yore, and it wasn’t because the writers were golden gods or because I was twelve1; it was because Bullseye was used properly. IE, he would show up, kill some people, get his ass kicked by Daredevil, and then not appear for a year or two. Bullseye, back then, was something you could look forward to. He didn’t get tossed into world-beating events because he wasn’t a world-beater. He was a guy who the Kingpin hired. That was his niche.

Nowadays? He has his own miniseries. He’s in Dark Avengers, and being one of the Dark Avengers means he’s in six other comic books every other month as well. (It’s not like he was underexposed previously, either.) And every time Bullseye shows up, writers have to dance around the fact that Bullseye is fundamentally kind of a joke. “He can turn anything into the deadliest thrown weapon on earth!” Hooray for him. Half the people in the Marvel Universe are fucking bulletproof and the other half can dodge anything he throws, which basically makes Bullseye really good at killing Karen Page and people with their back turned.

At least when the Joker was this overexposed, you could kind of justify it mentally with a “okay, maybe he doesn’t have powers, but his sheer craziness makes him so unpredictable he’ll survive anything!” (See: Salvation Run, wherein that plus the reliable fact of the Joker’s odd charisma makes him not being killed in the first five minutes plausible.) Plus, even when the Joker is totally outmatched, he’s at least usually pretty entertaining; great Joker writing may be few and far between these days but even mediocre writers can usually manage one or two decent gags and maybe a clever double entendre.

Bullseye is just a cunning thug. He’s not particularly special; he’s just your garden-variety psychopath with a bit of extra talent. There is no reason he should survive any of these superhero fights. And most of his gag lines are “HA! I shot you in the face!” or about on par with that level of ingenuity. Having him elevated to the level he’s at would be like Mr. Zsasz being a big-time deal over in the DCU. People would be all “…so he kills people with a knife. Why doesn’t someone just toss him in jail?” And the Zsasz fanboys would be all “SHUT UP YOU DON’T KNOW HIM LIKE WE DO.”

Tucker Stone recently said that Marvel writers these days were mostly more interested in writing espionage and crime stories than superhero fiction, and he’s right. Which explains a lot about this, really: in crime fiction, Bullseye fits in just fine. He’s the Wack Job, the third-tier mope who gets memorable scenes for being the crazy guy who will do anything. But even with all the trappings, superhero comics are still superhero comics, and Bullseye in anything outside of an issue of Daredevil (or very possibly Amazing Spider-Man) is just a waste of space.

1. Actually I didn’t read any of the classic Daredevil runs until my twenties. Does that still count? [↩]

There was a time when a kid could walk into pretty much any North American drugstore or supermarket and find themselves exposed to a wide range of Top 21 Lists. The reasons for the current absence of Lists (Top 21 or otherwise) in such outlets are far too complicated, to say nothing of depressing, to get into here. The end result is that, while today’s Top 21 Lists are better-crafted, well-thought out and detailed than ever before, the form itself is in decline, perceived as lacking relevance for all but the most diehard members of the so-called “T21L community.”

The advent of the internet has given many hope for a renewed public interest in Top 21 Lists, and indeed the web has been the source of some of the most exciting and innovative lists of the last few years. Such lists did not come into existence in a vacuum, though, and it’s important that we take a moment to give some consideration to the ever-evolving Top 21 Most Influential Top 21 List Writers. Some are old-school, some are the wave of the future, but all have added something vital to the art of the T21L and deserve recognition for their contributions to this once-much-beloved format. And so, without further ado, I present to you my picks for the Top 21 Most Influential T21L Writers, in ascending order of importance.

21. Vince Neilstein
Some in the Top 21 List writing community argue that anyone who could write something like Vince Neilstein’s “Top 21 Albums of 2008” should be disqualified from any List purporting to examine Top 21 List Writers, owing to the fact that he “posthumously added” an additional 2 entries at the suggestion of his readers. While I’m sure the desperate losers that comprise the bulk of the Top 23 Listmaking community would be only too willing to welcome Neilstein to their ranks, I and many others firmly believe that Top 21 List writing is going to be in serious trouble if it continues to be bound by the strict formalism T21L purists demand. Frankly, the insistence that Top 21 Lists should have exactly 21 entries, no more and no less, regardless of context is only going to further alienate a public that already harbours the mistaken belief that the T21L community is entirely composed of a bunch of obsessive losers with nothing better to do with our time than compose lists. It will also lose us writers like Neilstein, whose willingness to break the rules has earned him his “T21L Hunter S. Thompson” nickname.

20. Dan Tynan
Dan Tynan’s List of “The Top 21 Tech Screwups of 2006” arguably made him the breakout T21L talent of 2007, and for good reason. Entertaining, enlightening, and frightening at the same time, his body of work is a must-read for anyone with interested in either technology or Top 21 Lists.

19. Jack Humphrey
A bit of a one-hit wonder in when it comes to Top 21 Lists, I have to admit. But what a hit it was! I defy anyone to find another “Top 21 Best Article Directory” List that combines the elegant minimalism of the list’s 21 entries with the joyfully passive-aggressive introduction Mr. Humphrey penned to go along with it. The echoes of this groundbreaking Top 21 List are still being felt in the community today, months after its release.

18. David Schwartz
Admittedly, Schwartz didn’t exactly break new Top 21 List writing ground with his “21 Worst Cartoon Characters of All Time” List, but there’s something to be said for giving the people what they want–especially when the people are the natural audience for a list about cartoon characters. Schwartz’s list and others like it are nothing less than an alarm, a clarion call alerting fans of the form to the danger of letting Top 21 Lists stagnate into irrelevancy by not doing everything possible to cultivate new fans.

17. “Shira”
Some will almost certainly take issue with my inclusion of Shira, and not just because her best-known work in the field, “Top 21 reasons to be a belly dancer!!!” is co-written by “friends”. Rather, these naysayers will object to Shira’s tone, believing the person behind a tongue-in-cheek Top 21 List ought not to be included in any serious survey of T21L writers. To those people, I say that a writer’s work being of a humourous bent doesn’t prevent it from being influential. The #6 entry on her belly dancer list, “So friends will start buying you little camel statues” has undeniably had a wideranging impact on the Top 21 Lists that followed, for good or ill. Also, the addition of redundant exclamation marks in certain of her list titles displays an admirable enthusiasm behind their creation–and only the most rigidly unimaginative Top 21 List purist could find fault with that.

16. Mike Olbinski
For a shamefully long time, the world of Top 21 List writing reeked of frustration and testosterone, making it an unwelcoming environment for women and girls. It’s only thanks to Top 21 List writers like Olbinski (best known for his “Top 21 Less than manly movie moments” List) that we’ve started to see a new influx of female T21L fans. Perhaps someday there’ll even be enough of them to create a “Top 21 Female Fans of Top 21 Lists” List. If and when that happens, it’ll be thanks to the hard work of T21L writers like Mr. Olbinski.

15. “Wes”
A master of the “Ways to Annoy _____” Top 21 List subcategory, Wes’ “Top 21 Ways to Annoy a McDonalds Cashier” is widely regarded as the standard by which all other annoyance-themed Top 21 Lists are judged.

14. Dr. Kushnood H.
Though he was far from the first to combine words and pictures in Top 21 List form, Dr. H. is truly a pioneer when it comes to Top 21 List photo placement. His landmark T21L post “Top 21 Travel Tips and Pictures” broke with longstanding tradition, ultimately birthing what T21L fans came to refer to as the New Density movement. Eschewing the conventional wisdom associated with Top 21 List photos, “Travel Tips and Pictures” featured fewer than 21 pictures that were not interspersed throughout the list text to illustrate Dr. H.’s points. Instead, he boldly shoved all the images together before the body of the list. This maneuver sent shockwaves through listmaking communities of all kinds, from 2 to 200, and changed the way we look at pictures and lists forever.

13. Lorna Shanks
12. Pat Shanks
The Shanks are truly one of the Top 21 List community’s best-known power couples. Their “Top 21 Uses of Spectacular Presentations” is rightly considered the pinnacle of the “top 21 reasons you should hire us list” form. Few, if any, have matched the Shankses when it comes to self-promotion, but they’re a model for anyone in the T21L community who wants to give it a try.

11. Jennifer M. Ryan, M.Ed.
It’s generally accepted that, by and large (or XXX-Large, as the case may be), Top 21 List fans tend to be a solitary bunch, and the majority of major works in the form are understandably targeted at the pathetically lonely person demographic. Ms. Ryan’s stroke genius was in creating a list designed specifically for couples, rather than individuals. At the time, it was a breath of fresh air, one that many T21L writers have tried to reproduce since, with varying degrees of success.

10. “Loverock”
Loverock’s classic T21L, “The Top 21 Things Not To Say When Pulled Over” combines crude drawing with crude humour to create a Top 21 List that unleashed a flood of crudely drawn, humourous Top 21 Lists. While some would prefer to ignore his T21L contributions, those contributions cannot be denied by any serious Top 21 List scholar.

9. Scott Colby
It’s an unfortunate, and unfortunately all too accurate, stereotype that the vast majority of Top 21 List writers are overweight, socially awkward losers living in their mothers’ basements, obsessively ranking every aspect of what for lack of a better word we’ll call their lives. Colby’s list of his Top 21 Workout Songs, appearing on The Abs Expert Blog, is an important contribution to the field, demonstrating that, while it’s true many T21L writers are not particularly health-conscious of individuals, the activity holds wide appeal in many different, less indolent, demographics.

8. “Mike”
Arguably the first post-modern Top 21 List writer, Mike’s Top 21 “Best Ping Sites for Your Blog” post is a playfully deconstructs the motives of the typical T21L writer, taking a jab at the rampant egotism displayed by many of the form’s best-known names. Reinforcing Mike’s point is his use of an incomplete, possibly even false name, implying that he (if he is a he), unlike many Top 21 List writers, is engaging in T21Ls for love of the form, rather than any desire for recognition or praise. Nevertheless, praise is what “Mike’s” earned, whoever he is.

7. Christopher Bird
Barely a day old at the time of this list’s writing, Christopher Bird’s “Far Superior and In No Way Derivative Top 21 Most Influential Comics Writers” list has already inspired at least one T21L. It could be argued that Bird’s list was itself a direct response to another list of the top 21 most influential comics writers, and therefore shouldn’t receive the credit for influencing the creation of the T21L you’re currently reading. This is a valid argument, but this is also posted on Bird’s website, so he gets the nod. Sorry, Justin.

6. Amy Marathe
Marathe’s Top 21 Lists may not be suitable for readers of all ages, but a little sex appeal goes a long way, especially with people who might not normally be inclined to seek out T21Ls. Characterized by a playfully coquettish quality, Marathe’s work has broken barriers between Top 21 List fans and the reading public. That, along with her seminal “Top 21 Sexiest Beaches” List (which garnered Marathe substantial recognition in the community and eventually ended up in the “Top 21 Top 21 Lists That Inspired Others to Create Their Own Top 21 Lists” list.) A more deserving candidate for the #6 slot on this list I cannot conceive.

5. “Goose”
While the Top 21 List phenomenon is largely a North American occurrence, that hasn’t stopped many young Top 21 List writers from attempting to bring a more international flavour to this most enjoyable of pastimes. While Goose’s top “21 US Celebrities in Japanese Commercials” is not the first such T21L, its use of multimedia put it head and shoulders above similar lists in taking full advantage of the technology currently available to those who post lists on the web under aliases like “Goose.”

4. David Lake
3. Sarah Haas
I would hope the reasons for including the creators of “The List of the Top 21 Mustaches on Television” in this list are self-evident.

2. John Shelton Ivany
The godfather of the modern T21L movement and possibly the most prolific Top 21 List writer working today, Ivany’s work ethic alone earns him his high ranking on this list. In fact, in my opinion, he’s really the only legitimate challenger to our next entry’s title as the Number One Most Influential Top 21 List Writer, losing that spot only because of his his frequently lax attitude towards the format that made him famous. While I’m all for a T21L writer occasionally adjusting and even adding to a Top 21 List (see #21 on this list), one must ask at what point one stops being a Top 21 List writer and becomes just another writer of lists with no numerical consistency.

1. John of Patmos AKA “The Revelator”
While fans of Top 21 Lists will doubtless debate some of the other entries on this list of the Top 21 Most Influential Top 21 List Writers, I sincerely doubt anyone will be able to fault me for placing The Revelator in the top slot. Widely believed to be the original Top 21 List writer, almost 2000 years ago John of Patmos was an archetypal T21L writer: he was deluded, didn’t do a lot of socializing, and spent a lot of time writing lists in a dark, enclosed space. While many of his Top 21 Lists have been lost to the ravages of time, two are preserved in the chapter of the holy bible he wrote while in prison.

The first act of Revelation features the Top 21 Things John Saw One Night After Eating Some Bad Prawns. This list is composed of three sublists: the seven oracles, the seven seals and the seven trumpets. This alone would have earned him a place in the pantheon of T21L writers, but he proceeded to top it in Act Two of Revelation, which contains the spellbinding “Top 21 Things Jesus Told Me Are Totally Going To Happen Someday”, which, in typical John of Patmos style he broke down into three subcategory lists, those being the seven signs, seven visions, and seven prophecies.

With these two superb Top 21 Lists, John vaulted from the ranks of demented religious fanatics to take his much-deserved place at the top of the Top 21 Most Influential Top 21 List Writers List.

Holy shit, the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance Canada is one of the best audition episodes I’ve ever seen.

Melanie, that eighteen-year-old “first-time auditioner” dancing like a female version of Brandon? Only two “funny” bad auditions in two hours, and both over with relatively quickly? More sick auditions in one episode than I think I’ve ever seen? Leah Miller successfully being funny on purpose? Emmanuel Sandhu actually not sucking at all?

Also, we have something in the water here that makes Mary Murphy scream, like, 95 percent less and actually act like the capable, rational and intelligent judge that she was in the first two seasons. AND NO, AMERICA, YOU MAY NOT HAVE IT.

If you have ever thought “The one thing that would improve Montreal is more people in Starfleet uniforms,” you would have been mightily pleased by this year’s Worldcon. Possibly the funniest thing about the con was that it was held in a really staid part of town, at a convention centre that normally hosts business and professional conferences; I think I must have had a sign on my back that said “Normal-looking guy,” because I can’t count how many locals stopped me to ask just what the heck was going on.

Now, my experience with cons is limited, but I can tell you this: compared to the big comic conventions, Worldcon is very low-key. There’s certainly no Hollywood presence, no movie premieres of sneak previews, nobody who’s famous outside the field and no booth babes (there was a woman dressed up as Psylocke at one booth, but since I later saw her still in costume in the subway I’m pretty sure she was there of her own volition.) In fact, costumes on the whole were fairly scarce, and most of them turned out to belong to people who were participants in the Masquerade (though many of those wore their costumes for the rest of the con as well.) The Masquerade was interesting because almost all of the costumes were drawn from comics, TV, video games and anime, none of which had any presence at the con at all — the focus was almost entirely on written SF, which made the Klingon guys seem a little out of place.

Costumes aside, there are a number of identifiable con “looks”:

Dressed for comfort: shorts, T-shirts and either sneakers or sandals were definitely the most common look. “Dress like you’re at home” was this crowd’s motto (or in a few cases, “Dress like you’re at the beach”) and in a few cases people seemed to actively reject the idea that other people will see what you wear. To be fair, it’s a long con — four days if you go to the whole thing — and the temperature at the convention centre never dropped much below “uncomfortably warm.”

Dressed up: a fair number of the attendees, mostly ambitious semi-pros like me, were treating the con as a business opportunity and dressed accordingly. Of course given the overall level of formality, “dressing up” meant pretty much what “business casual” would anywhere else — a buttoned shirt, chinos and shoes, the first two preferably recently ironed. This had the drawback of being extremely hot at times but had the advantage of letting you feel superior to people around you.

Hawaiian shirt: if there is a single definitive Worldcon uniform, it is the Hawaiian shirt. This was most common among pros who had nothing to prove, and its advantages are obvious: you can wear something comfortable and colourful without looking shleppy. It beats dressing up as a way of getting into the fan aesthetic (a good Hawaiian shirt is halfway to a costume) but allows you to get away with wearing sandals if you absolutely have to.

In terms of content, Worldcon is about equal parts programming and parties. The programming, while often interesting, suffers a bit from the unusually high number of pros and semi-pros relative to pure fans, so during panels the aspiring writers get annoyed at the amount of time that’s spent fielding fan questions and the fans get annoyed at the time spent on writing questions. There’s entertainment programming as well, but aside from the Masquerade it’s pretty much roll-your-own stuff: small screenings of movies, staged readings of plays and radio dramas as well as filking, which sounds like a disgusting sexual perversion but in fact is.

From my perspective as a Worldcon newbie, the most surprising thing was definitely the degree to which people are there to party. It’s sort of like an SF fan’s dream of high school: parties every night where everybody wants to talk about science fiction. (You certainly get the sense that there are some people for whom conventions are their main arena for socializing.) I can’t deny the appeal of that: for two nights and three days, this nerd was at home.

I CAN MAKE LISTS TOO YOU KNOW

1.) Jerry Siegel. For superheroes in general, but also the idea of superhero “families,” lifespan histories (remember: he invented Superboy as well, not to mention tons of the Superman mythos) and the idea if not the rigorous application of continuity, which has extended beyond superheroes to all aspects of comics, for better or worse. Mort Weisinger gets a lot of credit (sometimes I think too much) for things Siegel initiated.

2.) Stan Lee. There was a ferocious debate in Justin’s post about how much credit Stan deserves versus Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby, but The Man worked with both of them plus Bill Everett so he certainly isn’t chicken feed. Like it or lump it, the melodramatic dialogue style that more or less dominated comics for thirty plus years is down to Stan Lee; more importantly, so is the notion of “lasting change” in an ongoing comics narrative. (This is the “it wasn’t Jack Kirby who killed off Gwen Stacy” argument.)

3.) Osamu Tezuka. It blew my fucking mind that Tezuka didn’t merit so much as a single mention even in comments on Andrew’s post. What are you all thinking? The guy was the father of modern manga! Astro Boy, Adolf, Black Jack and Buddha should earn anybody a slot on this list as it is, but one as enormously important and influential as Tezuka could be on it for a hundred more reasons besides.

4.) Chester Gould. Dick Tracy introduced true hard-boiled crime and noir pacing to the comics world, where it has made itself a comfortable niche ever since; Gould’s dedication to details of law enforcement marked the genre’s love of verite that has marked it from the beginning; when you thrill to the details in an Ed Brubaker crime comic, it’s because of Gould. Furthermore, his penchant for colorful and even freakish villains was one that superhero comics of the time soon copied; Batman’s rogue’s gallery in particular owes a debt to Gould.

5.) Bob Kanigher. You want war comics? Bob Kanigher gave you war comics. Just about every long-lasting war comic of the 20th century has Kanigher’s stamp on it, everything from standbys like Sgt. Rock and The Unknown Soldier to the freakish outliers like The Haunted Tank and the Creature Commandos. He wasn’t the only one, to be sure, but he wrote war comics for so long that anybody during the time or since imitates or is influenced by his style. And of course, he was also responsible for creating the Metal Men. And Black Canary. And Poison Ivy. And…

6.) Carl Barks. Barks isn’t just responsible for creating great work, but for the idea that funny animals and light, cartoony stories could nonetheless have serious dramatic heft. Herge, Goscinny and Uderzo, and most of the major European comics community will all tell you that Carl Barks was the fucking man and that they slavishly worship him. And this is obvious; they do.

7.) Bill Gaines. Justin pegged both Gaines’ birthing of the incredibly important horror genre and his cultivation of early fandom, but let’s not forget the third important reason to put Bill Gaines on this list, and I’d argue the biggest: motherfucking Mad Magazine, am I right? Damn straight I’m right; Mad’s cynicism and satirical outlook is so pervasive you might almost forget you see it everywhere you look.

8.) Charles Schulz. Because duh.

9.) Will Eisner. Eisner’s influence is hard to track mostly because a lot of it comes out of his intersection with his work as an artist; the extent to which his two disciplines overlapped and fed upon one another is one that I think hasn’t been seen since. I’d argue that Eisner’s premiere influence as a writer was his vast bag of narrative and visual tricks into which every good comics writer dips on occasion.

10.) Robert Crumb. Some might argue that Crumb is more influential as a publisher of underground and alt-comix than as a writer, but I disagree: Crumb’s oft-abrasive, up-front style (but one from which he could shift effortlessly when he felt the need) has been almost copied to death.

11.) Alan Moore. Blah blah Watchmen reinventing superheroes with modern-day story requirements blah blah constantly imitated blee blee blah you know this shit already.

12.) Chris Claremont. Soap-opera plotting married to comical books? It was a revelation back in the day and one that has since been done again and again and again until you just wish they’d all give up and go write slashfic instead sometimes.

13.) Harvey Pekar. Justin said it best: Pekar might not have invented biographical comics (the alt-comix movement was already cranking them out before Pekar ever picked up a pen), but his popularization of the form led to its explosion in the independent comics movement. No Pekar means, I think, no Alison Bechdel, no Marjane Satrapi, no Joe Matt, no Guy DeLisle – or at least, not as we’ve seen them work. And that would suck.

14.) Rumiko Takahashi. Imagine if J.K. Rowling had written and drawn Harry Potter as a comic and achieved the same level of success. Now imagine if she had done it four separate times. That’s what Rumiko Takahashi did with Lum, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha. Tezuka might be the godfather of manga, but it was Takahashi started the true and lasting popularization of manga outside of Japan with her lengthy romantic comedy-fantasy adventures (a formula since imitated by constant mangaka).

15.) Roy Thomas. Other comics writers might be continuity creators or continuity fiends, but Thomas was the first to treat continuity as a purpose in and of itself: stories generating stories with a sort of terrifying rock-rolls-downhill momentum. Nobody has quite approached it the same way since, and it isn’t for lack of trying.

16.) John Byrne. Dislike Byrne all you like (and you have good reason to do so), but he’s dramatically impacted just about every major comics franchise there is and usually in ways that remain memorable and lasting. She-Hulk as a fourth-wall breaker, Doom as noble despot, his powerful reinterpretation of Krypton – the lasting popularity of all of these (even in an era where desperate reattachment to “original concepts” are growing more and more fevered) and more are proof that Byrne, in his glory days, was almost unstoppable.

17.) Dave Sim. Re-envisioned comics storytelling as a marathon rather than a set of sprints. Comics like Y The Last Man or The Invisibles or even The Punisher being obviously intended as one long story arc, told in smaller chunks? That’s on Sim.

18.) Howard Chaykin. Chaykin’s dark, nihilistic work is the spiritual brother of Alan Moore’s at times, but where Moore ultimately still has faith in his protagonists for the most part, Chaykin absolutely doesn’t. Chaykin brought realistic sex and violence into ostensibly superheroic works and changed things.

19.) Frank Miller. Specifically popularized noir as a specific superhero subgenre and one that’s remained popular ever since.

20.) Neil Gaiman. I have Gaiman this low because he’s inspirational rather than influential; nobody really apes his storytelling style or “does it like in Sandman.” That having been said, he popularized the idea of a multiple-protagonist long-form comics story and the use of unconventional points of view. And that’s not nothing.

21.) Grant Morrison. Morrison is in the same boat as Gaiman: more inspirational than influential. What’s more, a lot of reaction to Morrison’s work has been to sharply reverse it rather than revere it (see: New X-Men). On the other hand, it seems like it’s been more than fifteen years since anybody wrote Batman as anything other than Grant Morrison’s version of Batman most of the time (for good or ill), and his vision of Superman seems to similarly be taking hold. Some people can make things stick.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Personally, I have only shallow thoughts on the American health care debate. Any attempt on my part to articulate a response to the notion that Paris Hilton could possibly deserve better health care than a factory farm-raised chicken, never mind an actual human being, immediately devolves into a scream of impotent fury. So here’s what some other people are saying about the current situation:

“When I was a kid growing up, we never talked about health care. Why did America become obsessed with health care the past twenty years or so? And you know what else we didn’t talk about when I was a kid? Black people. Good times, good times…” – Peggy Noonan

“OK, they’re distracted, quick, give me my bonus.” – Anonymous Goldman-Sachs executive

“My husband Ted and I are diabetic, unemployed, and have no health insurance, and we don’t want the government forcing us to get health care, no way. Just the other day I was saying to Ted, I said, ‘You know what we’ve got too many of? Feet.’” – Gun and fried Mars bar enthusiast Luanne Woodard

“So who do I have to free to get some media coverage around here?” – Kim Jong-il

“Hey, who’s the bartender and who’s the white house Chief of Staff here? That’s right, so do your goddamn job and give me another shot, liquorchimp! …So like I was saying, we’re totally gonna kill all the old people. I mean, it’s not like they’re our base, so fuck ‘em. This is off the record, right?” – Rahm “Spaceknight” Emmanuel

“Let me get this straight: they show up at public events, try to derail real discussion of the issues by being loud, belligerent assholes, and get on the news? Unbelievable. They stole my bit.” – Westboro Baptist Church minister and flamboyant gay activist Fred Phelps

“Jesus Christ, Mom. I’m like a year old and have downs syndrome and even I know that’s bullshit.” – Trig Palin

“Iz in ur Oh-Arr, yoothanizin ur gramma.” – Universal Health Kitteh

“They’re actually having a debate about this? What the fuck is wrong with them?“ – Pretty much every non-US citizen in the entire world

Howdy, MGKommunity. The following is a revised version of a post that first appeared on my blog. Thanks for having me.

The Onion AV Club recently compiled a list called Reinventing the pencil: 21 artists who changed mainstream comics (for better or worse). The purpose of any such list in a magazine or website, whether it’s “100 Greatest ’80s Dance Hits” or “Top 10 Worst-Dressed French Revolutionaries”, isn’t to generate some sort of set-in-stone canon, but rather to invite spirited yet respectful debate and discussion among its readers. (Also: a paycheck for the writer.)

Of course, the result is also a lot of HOW COULD YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ________ YOU IDIOT THIS IS A LIST OF LIES, but what can you do?

In the same spirit, lucky people that you are, I’ve come up with a list for comics writers in the same spirit as the Onion piece with some things to keep in mind:

1.) These are not ranked in any order, although the top four are set apart as being, I think, harder to argue.
2.) These are going to be superhero-heavy because the original article says “mainstream,” and I tried to keep to that.
3.) This is a “for better or for worse” situation. There’s writers on here I don’t care for and writers I do, writers whose work I like but who’ve influenced a lot of lesser writers, and so on.
4.) There’s going to be editorializing, but it ultimately it’s a non-academic list made by one human guy who has not read every comic book ever. There would be editorializing whether I meant for it or not.

Let’s begin.

1. Stan Lee
’Nuff said? Again, these aren’t really ranked, but I don’t really think there’s a bigger game-changer than Lee. His once-wild innovations and experiments have become the very basic building blocks of mainstream superhero comics. He’s the Beatles of comics writers; you’re influenced by him even if you do not intend to be.

2. Alan Moore
Introducing new levels of literary sophistication to mainstream comics, Moore’s almost inarguably number two behind Lee, though I think (and Moore seems to agree in interviews) that his influence has been mostly destructive. To me, Watchmen demands that you either reject superhero comics for their disconnect from real life and their inability to tackle morally complex situations, or you accept the trade-off of simplicity for symbolism and power. The third option, of course, has been the most prevalent, and that is to simply graft “mature” themes onto “immature” superhero comics and hope that the resultant birth favors the mature side. It usually does not.

3. Chris Claremont
Things Claremont pioneered – or at least popularized – with X-Men: 1.) “Voice” in comics, no matter how hideously purple some of his prose and dialogue can seem today. 2.) Plugging his own interests (Japan, etc.) into the work, often veering into self-indulgence. 3.) Moral ambiguity, resulting in villains who are sympathetic (Magneto) and heroes who cross lines traditional superheroes after the ’40s never would (Wolverine, Gambit). 4.) Probably most importantly, true soap-opera-style plotting over a long run of comics, with complicated character arcs taking years to pay off.

4. Neil Gaiman
On this list for some of the same reasons as Alan Moore but with some distinct differences. For one, Gaiman wore the literary business on his sleeve a bit more, to the point of threatening to become overly showy. For another, Watchmen, for all its achievements, is still a superhero story (or at least a story about superheroes), while Sandman is a fantasy comic. His mature-readers work showed that comics could, after decades of absolute dominance by superheroes, reach a different audience (including that elusive, nigh-mythical female reader).

Those are some of the more obvious ones. Here’s some that I’d think could invite a little more debate.

5. Jerry Siegel
For inventing, along with Joe Shuster, the most basic building blocks of the superhero myth – the costume, the secret identity, the powers, the very name “Superman,” which gave us the word “superhero.”

6. Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson
Because everything that we associate with Batman comes pretty much from them (and I’d say it’s probably the most powerful mythos in all of comics), and for the advent of the superhero with his motivation in tragedy.

7. Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein
For essentially inventing the horror comic with EC’s New Trend, creating a craze that really only lasted a couple years but is still immensely influential. For being one of the reasons why there was a Comics Code. For the “We’re all pals here” approach they took to fan interaction, which would pave the way for Stan Lee’s jocular narration and editorial style.

8. Harvey Pekar
If American Splendor wasn’t the first autobiographical comic, it’s the first one anybody seems to remember. Stretching the definition of “mainstream”? Perhaps, but given the sheer abundance of autobio comics (especially webcomics, which may or may not be the new mainstream), I’d hate to leave him off just so Mark Millar or somebody could get on here.

9. Warren Ellis
I don’t think Ellis gets enough credit for being influential. When superhero comics seemed mostly to be trying to do some sort of Silver Age revival in the late ’90s, Ellis gave the middle finger to nostalgia and invented “widescreen comics” with The Authority. Ellis’ Authority begat Mark Millar’s Authority, which begat Millar’s Ultimates, which begat Millar’s Civil War, which begat the return of the massive crossover. So about half of the most awful stuff Marvel and DC are doing these days is traceable back to Ellis. Not that he’d care, I suppose.

10. Gardner Fox
Stan Lee created the first comics “universe,” but might Fox’s Earth-1/Earth-2 stuff have been the first comics cosmology? For good or ill, the idea of complex continuity you can actually catalogue stems from him.

11. Mort Weisinger
Not technically a writer, but all that wacky ’50s stuff we associate with Superman reportedly came from him (and, if rumors are to be believed, as some sort of odd therapy), and ’50s Superman is arguably the most infamous of all Supermen. Writers keep trying to shy away from the Fortress of Solitude and Super Pets and multicolored Kryptonite, but Weisinger’s mythology inevitably creeps back in.

12. Len Wein
Perhaps less for his work itself and more for what it led to. He created, after all, Wolverine, the X-Men, Swamp Thing and others, and as an editor helped bring Watchmen into being. Grant Morrison credits him as a big influence, and hey, speaking of him…

13. Grant Morrison
Superhero comics’ foremost re-imaginer freshens up stagnant properties by reintegrating elements that might have been dismissed as outdated seamlessly into a modern aesthetic, while at the same time taking the franchise in uncharted directions. His ultracompetent Batman is still the standard characterization for Bruce Wayne, and he made people believe that you could do an A-list Justice League roster again. Even on books like New X-Men where his work is largely undone after he leaves, the abrupt break from years of wheel-spinning gave creators a new starting point, if only to reject everything Morrison’s done.

14. Brian Michael Bendis
Probably the biggest writer shaping Marvel today. His superhero work seems to de-emphasize plot; villains and fights are really only MacGuffins to facilitate characterization and interaction, and shuffling around the status quo. However you feel about this approach, and the rise of “showrunners” at Marvel and DC, it’s here to stay for a while longer, at least. Bendis works long-term on a scale even Claremont never dared.

15. J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen
People still use “Bwa-ha-ha” to describe superhero comics like their Justice League that lampoon conceits of the genre while still playing by their rules. At best, DeMatteis and Giffen let the air out of the tires and keep us from taking our beloved superhero narratives too deadly seriously. At worst, it makes us complacent, believing that laughing at the occasional goofy third-string character is all it takes to make a comic book “mature.”

16. Roy Thomas
Roy the Boy set a precedent for how a writer follows up on the Stan Lee stories that make up the foundation of the Marvel Universe (and thus defined how DC writers would eventually make use of their own continuity).

17. Steve Gerber
For bringing personal politics and satire into it, and showing that superhero comics could be a vessel to explore greater themes (while still being good superhero comics in their own right).

18. Denny O’Neil
O’Neil introduced “relevance” to superheroes (by which we usually mean “superheroes dealing with real-world issues”) to modern comics with Green Lantern/Green Arrow, however hamfisted. Also, I suppose, for his ’70s refocusing of Batman as a grimmer sort of chap.

19. Frank Miller
His development of the “grim ‘n’ gritty” approach alone would make him on the list, as would Dark Knight Returns, but both of them together?

20. Carl Barks
He’s on the Onion’s list for the art, but he wrote all those stories, too! Aside from his contributions to Disney’s catalogue of trademarks, he showed that sheer quality could rise a comic creator from anonymity … that the people working on the comic were just as important, if not moreso, than the characters themselves.

21. Geoff Johns
I’m not totally confident on this one; at times he seems so backward-looking that it can be difficult to say what new he really brings to the table, but it’s hard to argue his approach is becoming influential. Time will tell, but I think Johns will be remembered as important … for better or for worse.

So … who did I leave off, and why am I an idiot for having done so? (Edit: Also, who would you take out of my 21 to add your pick?)

From the Tuesday, August 11, 2009 edition of The Hollywood Reporter:

Universal Studios has ticket to ride on “My Little Pony”
“GI Joe” director Sommers to direct 2011 tentpole based on childhood toy with no noticeable storyline
by Andrew Foley

“2011 is going to be a great year for fans of gritty, action-packed films based on childrens toys from the ‘90s!” So declared Universal Pictures representative Myron Dickens this morning at the news conference to announce his studio’s acquisition of Hasbro’s “My Little Pony”.

Said Dickens, “Any toy property people have fond memories, hell, any memories of at all, they’re like gold-wrapped cocaine right now, everyone wants some. Toss in a few explosions, a little grit and you could do a 50 mill opening weekend with a ‘Slinky’.” He continued, “Hey, who owns the rights to Slinky…?”

Though Universal, Paramount, and Sony bid approximately the same amount for “My Little Pony”, only Universal was willing to commit to a three-picture deal with “Pony” licenseholder Hasbro Toys. “My Little Pony: Dark Horse Rising” is tentatively scheduled for release in July 2011.

While Hasbro-based films have been on a hot streak recently with the success of the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, “My Little Pony”, a girls toy with no obvious narrative hook, may seem an unlikely prospect to receive tentpole movie treatment. And, admitted Dickens, that was exactly how Hollywood saw the property last Wednesday. But the success of “Joe” this weekend changed things, setting off a heated bidding war for what many see as the absolute last available ‘90s toy property with any exploitable name recognition.

The critically reviled “Rise of Cobra” grossed more than $55m in North America, and more than $40m internationally in its debut weekend, so Universal’s announcement that “Joe” helmer Stephen Sommers was on-board for a “noirish, Dark Knight-esque take” on “My Little Pony” might also be considered a coup by anyone who hasn’t actually seen “GI Joe” or “Van Helsing”.

Also present at this morning’s press conference was Sommers’ agent, Len Devlin. Devlin said he’d personally delivered word of both “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra”’s success and the “Pony” job to the director, currently at a private health facility recuperating from an accidental overdose of approximately 200 pills from 17 different prescriptions consumed Thursday night. Cautiously optimistic about his future in the film industry for the first time since “Joe” was screen-tested, Devlin quoted Sommers as saying, “ Seriously, Len, you better not be joking. If I find out Ashton Kutcher’s got anything to do with this, I swear I will kill your family in front of you with my bare hands.” Asked how Sommers could sign on to a film without being aware of it, Devlin explained that his client was technically dead for seven minutes when he first arrived at the emergency room Thursday, during which time he had power of attorney for his client.

36-year old virgin men and six year old girls alike will be chomping at the bit to see “My Little Pony: Dark Horse Rising” for a while yet. But plenty of other plotless, toy-inspired SFXtravaganzas should keep them entertained in the coming months. In addition to the early 2010 releases of Universal’s own “Stretch Armstrong” feature and “Rom: Spaceknight” at Sony, Disney has reportedly fast-tracked the Jim Henson Studios-developed “Cabbage Patch Kids”, aiming for a late 2010 release date. And visionary “Watchmen” director Zak Snyder is rumoured to be close to reaching an agreement with Dreamworks to tackle yet another beloved toy franchise, according to Dreamworks co-founder Steven Spielberg, who went on to say, “Visual effects technology has reached the point where we believe we can finally do the Care Bears justice.”

***

About the author: In addition to a sporadically updated blog with a readership well into the mid-teens, Andrew Foley wrote the comic books Parting Ways, Done to Death, and The Holiday Men. He also has a co-writing credit on the Cowboys & Aliens comic, but we don’t talk about that. He’ll be posting on Mightygodking.com until either he or Christopher Bird realize they’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake.

LIKED

– Ghost Rider: Heaven’s Fire seems a bit gratuitous in some ways (was there a reason this couldn’t just be in the regular Ghost Rider comic instead of pumping the price to four bucks because you included a measly 70s reprint in the back, Marvel?), but who cares if it’s a bit of a money grab because at least it’s a justified one: Jason Aaron is really pumping this comic full of pure nitrous and putting pedal to the metal in the best possible way. He just keeps upping the ante more and more with every issue of Ghost Rider and it never disappoints.

– Everybody else has already given Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of the first Parker novel, The Hunter, big ups so I might as well jump on board: holy shit what a great read this is.

– Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the second Call of Juarez game, and aside from the boring gunfighter duel mechanic, this is a goddamned great first-person shooter game just like the first one was. Maybe I could have stood to see more types of gun or more instances where Thomas’ ability to use an Indian bow would have been important, but even with those issues it’s still a fine game where you shoot many bad people with bullets, and there is never anything wrong with that.

DIDN’T LIKE

– Face The Ace is as bad as you think it is: take all the excitement of watching regular TV poker (hint: there wasn’t that much to begin with) and knock it down a few notches by having one person in the match be a giddy housewife or clueless frat boy type who barely knows how to play the game. And the host – one of the second-tier guys from The Sopranos who now has no career – is ridiculously annoying. Just a dreadful show.

So I went to see G.I. Joe and don’t belive the critics because this movie is fantastic. Unless the critics said it was good. Then you can believe them. Those critics! Never know what they’re going to be critical about!

Anyway I know a lot of you are skeptical so sit back. I am going to tell you ALLLLLL about the movie.

So the movie starts out in medieval France and am I thinking “wait, did Stephen Sommers decide to tie in Van Helsing to the G.I. Joe mythos?” and then I spend a few seconds thinking about what would happen if Snake-Eyes fought Dracula (answer: he would chop off Dracula’s head three times before it hit the ground), but really this is just a flashback to how one of Destro’s ancestors got caught by the French in olden times and they put a mask on him. Then, Destro’s ancestor became King of France when musketeers rescued him! No, that didn’t happen either.

Anyway, in modern times, Destro – who isn’t Destro yet, he’s just some Scotsman – has invented nanites that eat things! But then you have a safety command to disable the nanites and make them stop eating things. So MacDestro has basically invented a Grey Goo Gun, which I think they stole from a Paranoia expansion. Anyway, NATO is totally happy that they have paid for this weapon that could destroy the entire world if anything went wrong and they send Duke and Ripcord along with a bunch of GIs to transport it safely out of MacDestro’s weapons factory in Krygystan.

This is when Cobra (who aren’t actually Cobra yet either because this movie is called “The Rise of Cobra” and if they were already Cobra how would they rise?) show up. They kill all the heroic soldiers because they have a super-plane that can maneuver like, well, a super-plane, and their super-plane has this sort of kinetic ray gun which blasts people with force-blasts which, and this may be a side-effect of the kinetic stuff, right before they hit something force the target to go into slow-motion. And all the Cobra soldiers have handheld versions of the kinetic ray gun! Duke and Ripcord barely survive, and then the Baroness jumps out of the super-plane and grabs the briefcase of nano-death-warheads, and it turns out Duke and the Baroness know each other!

I’ll skip ahead a bit and explain this right now: see, before The War (in East Africa, I guess), Duke and the Baroness (who used to be a blonde!) were going to get married, but Duke shipped out just after proposing, with Ripcord (I guess that “Ripcord” is, like, his birthname or something, because everybody calls him that always – maybe he is Ripcord P. Sykes, or similar) and Anna’s brother Max (or possibly Rex, I forget), but Maxorrex got blown up in The War so Anna was distraught and Duke felt guilty and they split up. (There are a lot of flashbacks in this movie.)

Anyway. THAT is when G.I. Joe shows up with THEIR super-plane and they kill lots of Cobras. Snake-Eyes stabs a bunch of them and Mr. Eko (who is British!) shoots a lot of them and Scarlett has trouble killing one lousy Cobra because she’s a girl, see. (In fairness, we are told that Scarlett graduated college when she was twelve, which explains all of the brilliant strategies she comes up with in the movie, like… uh… I’m sure there was one.)

Duke and Ripcord get taken back to The Pit, which is in Egypt for some reason, and they learn about the top-secret existence of G.I. Joe, which is a massive support organization apparently dedicated to mostly just sending out one team of about six people over and over again. General Hawk (which is not his real name but everybody calls him that for some reason) explains how at first it was just the United States doing the joeing, but then a bunch of other countries signed on and now everybody sends their best military operatives to G.I. Joe. (General Hawk’s butler is the best soldier the Maldives have to offer! The quartermaster is the pride of Togo! The janitors are trained Maori warriors!) MacDestro appears in a hologram (there are a lot of people appearing in holograms in this movie, it is great because it’s like a phone that you don’t have to crosscut to use) and tricks the Joes into revealing the location of the Pit, because nobody knows that MacDestro is evil yet.

Then General Hawk says that he invited Duke to join G.I. Joe a few years ago in Thailand, and Duke says he doesn’t remember, and Hawk says he totally did. They did not flashback at this point, but what I bet happened is that Duke and Hawk were at the same Thai stripper orgy and totally partying down and sometime in the middle Hawk, totally wasted, turns to Duke and says “man you should totally join G.I. Joe, it would be a blast” but Duke thought it was a sort of sex act thing, like the mile high club, and did some freaky-ass shit with his strippers, and Hawk was all “….dude.”

Anyway, Duke and Ripcord demand to be let in G.I. Joe because they want REVENGE, and Hawk says no, but then Duke says “aha I know who the Baroness is” and Hawk is convinced by his deliberate withholding of vital strategic information that this guy needs to be on the most important soldier team ever. Also, Ripcord thinks Scarlett is hot but she is all “science says that love makes no sense so I am a robot beep beep boop.”

Duke and Ripcord start training, and all of a sudden Brendan Fraser shows up and says things like “he wants to try again?” and “They’re Joes, man.” And then he disappears, not to be seen again for the rest of the movie. I am not sure why Brendan Fraser shows up, but I have two theories.

1.) Brendan Fraser is wearing a little beret. Therefore, he is Flint.

2.) Brendan Fraser is actually Brendan Fraser and in the G.I. Joe universe Brendan Fraser is a member of G.I. Joe, much in the same way that Sgt. Slaughter was. Like, G.I. Joe was sitting around one week and somebody popped in a copy of The Mummy and they were all watching it and somebody said, “hey, we need this guy. What if we have to fight a mummy?” And then somebody else was like “And what if one of us was actually raised in a bombshelter until the age of thirty and suffers from severe culture shock? He could help with that too!” So they invited Brendan Fraser to join G.I. Joe, and he spends most of his time hanging around the Joe compound saying things like “They’re Joes, man,” and hoping he never actually gets sent into combat because he would die.

Duke aces all his tests. Ripcord does okay. So they say “Duke, you’re the best candidate we’ve ever had. Ripcord… you’re okay, and normally we would flunk you for not meeting our super-high standards, but you DO know how to unjam the pinball machine in the lounge, so you can stay too.”

Meanwhile, Not-Cobra prepares their attack. Cobra Commander (who is not called that yet because they aren’t actually Cobra yet) shows MacDestro how he can use nanites to turn people into totally loyal super-soldiers with no fear who are immune to snake bites (because if there’s one thing you want to be prepared for, it’s the enemy throwing snakes at you). And they are going to attack!

In The Pit, The Un-Cobra attacks with big drilly things and kills this one Dutch soldier girl who got a line previously. Storm Shadow cuts up General Hawk with his swords and looks disapproving when Zartan kills the Dutch soldier girl, because slaughtering millions with a nanite bomb is one thing, but come on, if you’re gonna stab somebody, have some standards. There is a whole lot of fighting and blowing shit up and Cobra escapes with the nanites and G.I. Joe looks stupid. Scarlett is all MAD because she couldn’t use her university degrees to beat up the Baroness, but Ripcord is there for her emotionally and she smiles so now you know they’re IN LOVE.

Meanwhile, the President is concerned! And for some reason, British. INTERNATIONAL HEROES! Meanwhile, Not Yet Cobra Commander implants Zartan (this is the first point we learn he is in fact Zartan, although given his fetish for putting on dead people’s clothes you probably could have guessed) with nanites so he can have shapechange powers like in the cartoon. Nanites! Is there anything they can’t do?

MacDestro still hates the French for what they did to Van Helsing hundreds of years ago, and he needs to use the Baroness’ Baron husband, who runs a particle accelerator, to make the inactive nanite warheads into active super-nanite death bombs. MacDestro sends Baroness and Storm Shadow and some Diet Cobra troopers to Paris (where the particle accelerator is – Paris has lots of them!) but SUPER COINCIDENCE this is exactly when G.I. Joe’s crack intel division figure out that the Baroness is married to the Baron (it only took them a few weeks!) so they send the usual bunch of guys to Paris too. Baroness and Storm Shadow get the nanite bombs made up and kill some people and head to their truck, but Breaker (who is that French Arab-lookin guy who is in that movie, you know the one) sees them and the Joes give chase!

Duke and Ripcord have these super-accelerator suits which let them do all sorts of amazing things like dodge rockets and jump through trains and cause incredible amounts of unneccessary harm to helpless bystanders, but even with the super-accelerator suits they never so much as get close to the Diet Cobra SUV of Doom which has rockets and a snowplow and armor and shit like that. Snake-Eyes, meanwhile, gets on top of the SUV without trying hard and effortlessly dodges when the bad guys throw cars at him, because Duke and Ripcord are bitches and Snake-Eyes is king shit.

Anyway all you really need to know is that the SortaCobras manage to blow up the Eiffel Tower with nanites and Duke gets taken prisoner by the ChupaCobras but they don’t kill him because they have evil plans for him. Meanwhile the French are really really really upset and want the Joes decommissioned and also they kick the Joes out of France FOREVER. Breaker is particularly distraught about this, possibly because he doesn’t realize that he can get all the trashy Euro-tail he wants in Amsterdam. Mr. Eko (who is British!) is impassive. Ripcord just wants to go save Duke. And fuck Scarlett.

At the North Pole where the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Cobra base is, Duke manages to send a signal to G.I. Joe. General Hawk is all “well, they said you had to be decommissioned once you GOT BACK TO BASE and I said I WOULD SEND YOU BACK TO THE BASE but I didn’t say I would do it immediately or ever!” And then he sends the guys who had incredibly maneuverable man-tanks and still failed to stop a couple of terrorists from blowing up the Eiffel Tower as his advance strike team, because he believes in them.

Meanwhile, under the sea in the North Pole is the C0br4 base and Duke is going to get the full-on nanite-zombie-slave treatment. MacDestro gloats that Duke doesn’t even understand that destroying cities with the warheads isn’t the point and neither is putting MacDestro in charge. MacDestro has an EVEN SECRETER plan! And then he gloats that now he has the Baroness! But Baroness is conflicted!

Privately, Not Quite Cobra Commander gloats as well, and reveals to Duke that he is actually Maxorrex! Which is not surprising really because you know Joseph Gordon Levitt when you see him, even if you missed the five thousand articles that mention that he was playing Cobra Commander. But Channing Tatum really brings it in this scene because he is all “NOOOO MAX(orrex) YOU BASTARD.” Maxorrex explains that when Duke thought he died, what actually happened is that he met Dr. Mindbender and instantly realized that science is awesome when you kill people with it.

But then Baroness interrupts the evil nanite-slaving because she still loves Duke deep down! And then it turns out that ALL ALONG Baroness was in fact a nanite zombie slave the whole time! This is awesome because instead of having Baroness be an independent woman who has chosen a malicious path, this confirms that secretly all along she wanted to be a good upstanding wife and have babies and salute the flag and be blonde.

Anyway Maxorrex threatens his OWN SISTER (eeeeevil) and then McDestro launches the nanite missiles. Luckily the Joes (all five of them) have shown up at the top of the undersea ice base, and they see the rockets taking off! They’re too late! But wait, as it turns out MacDestro built the only fighter plane in the whole world that can catch the missiles AND he left it right in the ice cave at the entrance to the base where anybody could take it! Which was pretty sloppy of MacDestro, I tell you what. Anyhow this is awesome because now Ripcord gets to fly the plane because all movie he has been saying “I love planes” and “planes are great” and “I wish I was a plane” and “planey planey plane plane.” But not before he makes out with Scarlett! HOW YOU LIKE THAT SCIENCE NOW?

Snake-Eyes, Scarlett and Breaker descend into the Cobra: Year One undersea base while Mr. Eko (who is British!) goes off to find the other three billion Joes who are advancing on the ice base in war submarines and fight a lot of people and kill a lot of people. Meanwhile, Duke and Baroness fight a lot of people and kill a lot of people. Then Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes have a ninja fight which is even better than the ninja fights they had when they were kids! (You get to see a lot of the latter in this movie, because who doesn’t like to see nine-year-olds in bloody mortal combat, am I right?) And MacDestro gets horribly mutilated by burning!

Meanwhile, Mr. Eko (who is British!) and the G.I. Joe Anonymous Assault Squad get in a massive sub fight with the Almost Cobra Troopers and it is the best thing ever. One guy yells “I’m hit!” and then his sub explodes! Other guys’ subs explode too but they don’t get any dialogue. Way to go, Anonymous Joe #461!

Ripcord catches up to the missiles in his plane and can’t figure out how to shoot them, and this is when Scarlett gets her moment, showing that graduating university when she was twelve totally paid off because she guesses that the firing control is voice-activated AND that it’s in Celtic, which she happens to know! Scarlett is all “and they told me my linguistics major could never save the world, well HA ON THEM.” Ripcord blows up the first of the two missiles, but one is still headed for Washington!

The President hustles into a bunker… but it’s a bunker built by MacDestro! OOOooooOOOOoooooOOOOO!

Snake-Eyes kills Storm Shadow, or more accurately “stabs him and then Storm Shadow falls through to the icy waters below.” But there’s no way a ninja could survive THAT. Meanwhile, Maxorrex and MacDestro escape to their escape submarine to escape. Maxorrex uses nanites to give MacDestro a metal face like in the cartoons! (Nanites can do anything!) Then he puts on a helmet that, I have to admit, looks kinda like a penis, and more or less says he is Cobra Commander and he is in charge now.

Ripcord misses the second missile and it’s oh so close to destroying Washington, so he chases it down the Potomac River and then blows it up and catches all the nanites with his plane and flies them up into the upper atmosphere where they, I dunno, freeze or something. Meanwhile, one of the Secret Service agents guarding the President in the bunker is actually a nanite slave and he kills all the other agents and the President is scared (and British) and then a secret door in the bunker opens and Zartan says hello! Boy, Zartan sure is lucky that Ripcord barely managed to destroy that nanite missile.

The base starts blowing up and Mr. Eko (who is British!) warns all the Joes to get away because the ice above is going to crack and fall down into the ocean, which I thought was odd because ice, as I understand it, traditionally floats on top of water, but maybe it is special ice Cobra made with nanites. Anyway the Joes all pull away from the base and the Joes still in the base escape the base in their submarines and Duke and Baroness chase after Cobra Commander and MacDestro and finally Cobra Commander is all “my submarine is bigger than yours is” and Duke is all “well look at this army I have with me.” OH SNAP!

So Cobra Commander and MacDestro get tossed in jail. Baroness is in jail too but it’s only until they can get rid of all the nanites in her that made her evil and capable of killing thousands of people. Duke and Ripcord are now full-time Joes, period. Breaker is still not happy that he can never go to France. And Zartan is now the President of the United States! That’s an awesome setup for G.I. Joe: The Revenge Of The Rise of Cobra!

How Cry For Justice #2 is possibly the most emblematic comic book of this age:

1.) The narrative presents to the reader two fights.

2.) Of these two fights, the reader enters the first (a traditional hero v. hero misunderstanding fight between Mikaal Tomas and Congorilla) at about the 95 percent finished mark, after the two have been fighting for a while. Two pages after the reader enters upon the action, they stop fighting and decide to team up. You miss out on most of the actual superhero fight.

3.) The second is Green Arrow and Green Lantern versus a whole bunch of second-rate superbaddies. Sounds like a fun fight, right? Which is apparently why, rather than show us the fight, James Robinson cuts away as Hal and Ollie leap into the fray to spend a bunch of pages of Ray Palmer whining to Jay Garrick. Immediately after Ray Palmer is done whining, Robinson cuts back to the Hal/Ollie fight, which is now completely over with all the villains unconscious.

If there was ever a comic that seemed to utterly embody the idea that superheroes being super is boring compared to them whining, Cry For Justice is it.