I have to take pains to be balanced and spread the F*$% Yeah loving around among different comic book creators, or else this could easily turn into one big I Love Grant Morrison WankFest. With the possible exception of Frank "The Tank" Miller, nobody writes more glorious F*$% Yeah moments than Morrison. He's a hallucinogenically creative writer, he loves comics as much as you do, and he instinctively "gets" that superhero comics should be crazy and fun. Plus, he took the brown acid - you know what I mean? Dude is out there.
JLA #38, by Grant Morrison and artist Howard Porter, has one particularly cool moment in which Batman kicks all sorts of ass. As written by Morrison, Batman is an uber-competent, calculating ninja who always has one more trick up his proverbial sleeve.
In this scene, he goes head-to-head with Prometheus, a cybernetic villain, for the second time. Prometheus gets some good hits in, but this time Batman is ready for the bastard. You see, Batman got a hold of Prometheus' helmet during a previous battle and had a chance to study it and pick it apart. For round two, Batman is prepared:
Professor Stephen Hawking! Oh, snap! Batman takes that fool back to school!
Sorry about the big seam down the middle of the image but it was a two-page spread, calculated for maximum F*$% Yeah impact. It's followed by this exchange between The Huntress and Batman:
Huntress: "Did I see you cheating?"
Batman: "Winning. First time I ever hit a man with a motor neuron disease."
I'm not sure if he means a) I've never struck a man who has a dehabilitating motor neuron disease before, or b) I've never used a motor neuron disease as a weapon before. Either way, it works. Batman, you sneaky bastard! I would imagine that Professor Stephen Hawking himself would tip his hat to you for being so clever.
So there you have it: JLA #38, a true F*$% Yeah moment. I know Stephen Hawking and Celene Dion have both got my back on this one.
29 comments:
Morrison's JLA was full of F*@% Yeah! moments (in fact, some stories were a bunch of F*@% Yeah! moments strung together).
Since nobody asked, my favorite JLA F*@% Yeah! moment was from "Rock of Ages," when the Joker takes control of the Philosophers Stone, and starts to wreak havoc on the Earth. Everyone's panicking...
...until J'Onn says "Joker, STOP!" and turns him sane for, like, 30 seconds. Long enough to fix the world. Word.
Morrison JLA: Just Like Airwolf.
There are so many... but there are only two contenders for Best Morrison JLA F*@% Yeah! ever:
Green Arrow and the Atom vs. Darkseid.
Future Superman emerging from the sun with Kyle Raynor's ring in the 853rd century.
Read 'em and weep.
Ooh! The Executioner standing on the bridge to Hel, fighting off the hordes of damned warriors, so that Thor and the others can escape.
"He's in your head, you big ugly moron".
Oh that was a moment, I tell you.
Other suggestions:
Midnighter using the Carrier to destroy Genosha in issue 4.
Rorschach in prison:
'I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me'
Green Lantern(Kyle Rayner) holding down Solaris, the Tyrant Sun with the power ring.
You've resurrected my inner fanboy, Dave and I thank you for it!
That Midnighter scene is in queue - I love that scene! "I just wanted to have fun..."
I also like the midnighter's "I'm going to cripple you all" line from Stormwatch v2.
Another %*?! Yeah laden comic was The New Frontier. The scene where Wildcat comes back for the knockout and the jump in to the T-Rex mouth followed by "John Cloud was a loser" moments blow me away without fail. In fact all those issues have such a plethora of moments in them like the Martian Manhunter scene in the church with Batman. No one does @%?! Yeah like Batman.
Dang it, I was reading this, thinking it was about their 1st meeting where Batman lost. I haven't read further than the 1st four TPBs.
Some of my favorite F*$% Yeah moments are from the recent JLA Classified, particularly the flying saucer and the "there goes the dynasty" moments. By all means The New Frontier had its fair share of such moments.
I can dig it. But I must ask you: why Celine Dion?
Bill, the bit from Thor with Skurge holding the bridge was done early on in the Long Box, and while not originally one, I think has now been retconned into a F*@% Yeah! moment via Dave's Hypertime.
And I know Superman/Batman is universally reviled (and rightly so), but the bit in #12 in which Batman takes on Darkseid alone in order to buy time for Supes to find his cousin is great stuff, especially when Darkseid compliments him at the end: "Well played... Had the Kryptonian or the Amazon taken this gamble, they would have failed... They don't have your strength of will."
Batman vs Darkseid? F*@% Yeah!
http://www.mchawking.com/
F@#% moment:
avengers #260-something (1987?)where the masters of evil storm avengers mansion kicking any and all ass in their way and almost killing jarvis the butler. They run around unchallenged for three or four issues and are just about to waste someone else when (splash page!) Thor, captain american, and iron man bust onto the sign with thor yelling into 22 font "I SAY THEE NAY, VILLIAN!"
F%$@ yeah....
Grant Morrison's writing even makes Howard Porter's blocky, inconsistent figure work airwolf.
P.S. I sent my brother a link to your blog. He thanked me by sending me a DVD of Airwolf: Season One for my birthday.
You know, there could be a week of BATMAN PWNS J00 that just features Morrison's take on the cahracter.
Yet another reason for me to get the scanner.
Other wicked awesome JLA moments:
"I know that smell. It's... gasoline!"
"Ready when you are."
The boxing glove arrow.
Oh, right, and Aquaman vs. Power Ring from Earth-2...
And I always liked Midnighter's "I am the Midnighter. Put the child down." spiel.
Oh, hey, I made you all a present!
You sir are drunk with the power of Illustrator.
That good but not Airwolf good. It had less builid up than than the others.
The Velvet Marauder vs. the Storm Riders, in the Boardroom, with the croissant. BOOYAH
One of my favorites is from JLA Rock of Ages, where Batman is revealed in the future as "Desaad".
"Eight years.. four of them in Desaads psychofuge, experiencing all the physical and emotional pain of his victims.. it ended two months ago. Battle of wits.
I won."
Totally Airwolf.
Thor taking on Sergei from Busiek's Avengers run! Love to see Thor get some "are you retarded? I'm goddamn Thor!" time...
Last one in Avengers like that was in Englehart's run, where Thor flattens Big Fish Man. Sweet!
Doctor Doom blowing up a mountain while he's still on it just to kill the guy who took over Latveria while he was away.
Later in the series he takes out a warehouse full of SHIELD agents armed only with a shotgun.
Both from the year 2099, comicdom's most underrated dystopian future.
Anonymous:
Thor taking on Sergei from Busiek's Avengers run! Love to see Thor get some "are you retarded? I'm goddamn Thor!" time...
Oh yeah...
It's a little bit gay, what with Thor going apeshit specifically because Captain America got killed (he got better), but yeah.
"Do thy worst, villain. Thou has used thy power badly. Thou shalt use it no more."
F*@% Yeah!
Oh yeah, and last week's Klarion #4 is full of top-notch Morrison F*@% Yeah! Airwolfosity.
"No. Nine to ring our dead back from the fields... As is our custom."
Cue army of Solomon Grundies!
F*@% Yeah!
I second the Morrison JLA CLASSIFIED arc. Some of the most fun DC action I'd read in years.
-Guerrilla Grodd
Since all the good Midnighter moments are taken (excepting his first appearance: "Your life as a bipedal vertebrate is over" is one of those lines you can only say if an angry British man held aloft by Red Bull, a stick and a copious amount of spite is writing you), I hereby nominate Jack Hawksmoor blowing up Big Blue Alien Regis after the latter wipes the floor with the hilariously outmatched Midnighter.
Also, the Shade kicking the crap out of the Infernal Mr Pip when Jack Knight's Cosmic Rod and Alan Scott's Starheart stop working thanks to a stupid, stupid company-wide event is incredible.
I second the ones that Bill Reed said. When Bats figures out they're Martians kicks ass. And I loved the expression Connor had when he had to resort to his father's trick arrows to defend the Watchtower.
F*@% Yeah!
I love how Morrison would have the JLA do these really epic things in such a nonchalant manner, as though it were commonplace. Like in the Zauriel arc, when Superman just sort of, oh, I dunno...STOPPED THE MOON FROM CRASHING INTO THE EARTH! Then, because he had nothing better to do I guess, he WRESTLED AN EVIL ANGEL OF HEAVEN! So while the JLA is going "Hmm...looks like we have to become dreams to defeat an invading army of intergalactic-conquering starfish. We'll be back in an hour," I'm thinking "F@*% Yeah!" every other page.
What was it Superman said in the Star Conqueror arc? "I have no powers, the aliens are coming, and the world is going to hell. Let's get to work." Right there, man. That's not Airwolf, it's Cosmosdingo.
I really wish someone would use more of Morrison's ideas in the DCU. All that awesome stuff he thought up in JLA just waiting for anyone to run with, yet he seems to be the only one doing anything with it. The Justice Legion A? Solaris? Wonderworld? Somebody use that stuff! And pleaseohpleaseohplease give us (or just me, at least) the further adventures of Goraiko, Warmaker One, 4-D, Pulse 8, Glob, Jack O'Lantern, Knight, and Squire in the Infant Universe of Qwewq. That'd be a F@*% Yeah moment right there.
Apparently Morrison is taking a major role in restructuring the DCU post-Crisis, which should, at least, prove interesting.
I did set out never intending to write superhero comics, but there are a few stories that are inspired, indirectly by Morrison's purity and energy and that makes them fun to write
I 'd like to second Grodd's recommendation and thus third mine.
I rock!
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