STARMAN #44 DC Comics, 1998

I can’t decide whether to focus on the radness of James Robinson’s Starman series or the radness of the Phantom Lady in today’s post. Both are worthy of an entire post on their own, and I’d be doing a disservice to their radness by trying to discuss both Starman and Phantom Lady at the same time. So in an effort to have my proverbial cake and eat it, too, I will discuss Phantom Lady in prose and Starman in haiku.

Starman, so retro
Slacker with a cosmic rod
Family heirloom

This is one of the many issues where series writer James Robinson took a detour from the Starman meta-story and focused on a tangent in the Starman Miniverse. I admire Robinson’s confidence as a storyteller and his willingness to dabble in characters and stories that interested him, even when they didn’t feed into the narrative thrust of the series, like the annual “Talking With David” issues, wherein Jack (Starman) chats with his dead brother. After a while, I found diversions like these a little tiresome, but overall I give Robinson points doing his thing.

Robinson wrote it
He wrote Starman well and long
Long long time, sailor

In this particular issue, we hop in the Wayback Machine and visit Washington D.C. circa 1944, where the original Starman’s cousin The Phantom Lady is hot, and is hot on the tail of The Prairie Witch, a green-skinned criminal with a posse of masked thugs. The Phantom Lady stops the Witch’s first heist, but of course she gets away. The Phantom Lady tracks her quarry to Opal City, Starman’s turf, and eventually foils the Witch’s plans and beats the living bejeesus out of her. The end.

Sounds a little thin, storywise?

Well, yes, but Starman #44 is a contemporary take on a simple, formulaic Golden Age plot. The fun of the comic lies in Robinson’s urbane style and focus on character as well as Mike Mayhew’s solid pencils. I don’t usually mention inkers when I talk about comics, primarily because I am a philistine, but I must praise Wade Von Grawbadger’s elegant inks – they enhance Mayhew’s pencils and add a sense of lushness to the book.

Jack had a brother
David, who fought a bullet
But the bullet won

Here’s Phantom Lady (below) after mopping the floor with a bunch of thugs. The Prairie Witch has escaped, but not before calling P.L. a “tramp.” That’s mean.

Let me jump in here and say that The Phantom Lady has a seam that runs down the middle of her costume, okay? It’s not a camel toe – it’s a seam. In the forties they were not as conscious of camel toes as we are in the twenty-first century. It’s a seam, damn it. I just want to clear that up and pre-empt the inevitable discussion of the Phantom Camel Toe in the comments section.

The other Starman
Will Wheaton? No, Will Payton!
He blew up real good

Okay, having settled that, let’s talk about Phantom Lady, the prototype of modern Boob War heroines. Phantom Lady first appeared in Quality Comics fighting crime in a skimpy outfit that emphasized her, um, tits. I don’t mean to be crude, but Phantom Lady was all about the breasts, or “headlights” as they called them Back In The Day.

Phantom Lady gained a certain notoriety for incurring the wrath of Dr. Frederick Wertham in his witch-hunt against lascivious and exploitative comics. It was actually this Matt Baker cover that earned her so much attention:

Holy cats, if that’s not Boob War material, I don’t know what is.

At some point DC Comics bought the rights to the Quality Comics heroes like Phantom Lady, Blackhawk, Doll Man and incorporated them into The Freedom Fighters comic… until writer Geoff Johns had her killed in Infinite Crisis #1, which for some reason really bugged me. I mean, damn! They couldn’t have killed Doll Man?

What happened to Jack?
He quit the Society
And moved to limbo?

Back to Starman #44: The not-dead-yet Phantom Lady finally goes toe-to-toe with the Prairie Witch, who tries to escape on her broom, naturally.

Phantom Lady beats the crap out of The Prairie Witch and saves the day. Yay Phantom Lady!

At the end of the book we get a moody denouement as Starman Sr., who narrated the tale, wraps things up but dangles an enticing plot thread about a lover who wanted Phantom Lady dead.

A lover named Geoff Johns, maybe?

Waiting in the sky
Starman would like to meet us
But he’d blow our minds

GODZILLA COLOR SPECIAL Dark Horse Comics, 1992

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high tension wires down
Helpless people on a subway train
Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them
He picks up a bus and he throws it back down
As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town
Oh no, they say he’s got to go
Go go Godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes Tokyo

Go go Godzilla, yeah

- Blue Oyster Cult, “Godzilla”

I loves me the Godzilla.

I adore giant monsters of any kind, really, but there is an ineffable quality about Godzilla that makes him King of the The Monsters as well as King of Dave’s Heart.

My love for Godzilla extends from the films to the innumerable toys, from the Marvel Comics series to the Godzilla Saturday morning cartoon, the Godzilla Power Hour. Do you remember that? With Godzookie, the cute little mini-Godzilla? I loved that little guy!

Plus, the cartoon had the best theme song of like, any cartoon. If you haven’t heard it, imagine men singing this in deep voices, with the music swelling at the end, horns blaring:

Up from the depths

Thirty stories high

Breathing fire

His head in the sky

Godzilla!

Godzilla!

Godzilla!

And then, for a brief moment, the music softens and adopts almost a carnival quality and the men sing wistfully.

And Godzoookie...

Listen to the insanity HERE. (Thanks Kelvin.)

No! No, I know what you’re thinking - I’m not going to diss Godzookie! He may seem like a prefect and legitimate target for mockery, but not on this blog, baby. As far as I’m concerned, Godzookie is affiliated with Godzilla, and therefore has soaked up residual coolness from The King of The Monsters. Basically, anybody that rolls with Godzilla has to be cool, and therefore is off-limits. So take your Godzookie bashing and go elsewhere, you cynical hipsters!

Anyway, you can imagine my pleasure when in 1992 Dark Horse Comics released the Godzilla Color Special with 40 frickin’ pages of giant monster love courtesy of Art Adams and Randy Stradley.

I don’t believe I have extolled the virtues of Art Adams yet here a Dave’s Long Box, though I may be mistaken. I’m sure I could talk at length about Adam’s ultra-clean linework, his sure-handed composition, or his masterful inking, but I think the core of my argument can be distilled in one sentence: Art Adams’ kung fu is strong.

He’s one of those artists that I hold in such high regard that I would buy a book that he draws just because he’s drawing it. Seriously, I would buy The Golden Girls Spring Break Special if Art Adams was drawing it. An ongoing Teen Wolf comic? I’d buy it if Art Adams was drawing it. G. Gordon Liddy’s GlobalStrike – The Comic? Oh, hell yes – if Art Adams was drawing it.

So Godzilla + Art Adams? Where do I sign up?

-----

Godzilla is a monster who likes his work, and his job is to DESTROY!!!

-----

This is a pretty straight-forward Godzilla story. Japan’s elite Godzilla Response Team “G-Force” races ahead of the rampaging beast to warn the residents of an isolated island town that Trouble is on the way. The island is inhabited by Japanese luddites who live a feudal existence – sort of the Asian equivalent of the Amish – so they can’t just phone ahead.

While G-Force warns the villagers, Godzilla makes short work of an armada of battleships offshore in typical Godzilla fashion. Adams does a great job capturing the nihilistic bad-assitude that the best Godzilla films portray – Godzilla is a monster who likes his work, and his job is to DESTROY!!!

Here’s a good example: one of the brave villagers, Kogenta, appeals to the statue of the demon warrior Gekido-Jin, the island’s guardian, for help from Godzilla.

Godzilla steps on him.

And then Godzilla steps on him some more. Take a look.

That’s comedy.

Kogenta’s spirit manages to bring Gekido-Jin to life, and in short order Godzilla is slugging it out with a huge demon samurai dude for the fate of the island. I don’t think I’m ruining it for anybody when I tell you that Godzilla wins. Godzilla always wins

I wish I had the time and energy to scan every beautiful page of this comic, but instead let me implore you to seek out the Godzilla Color Special on your own and experience the best comic book rendition of Godzilla ever! You can practically smell the fanboy love on every page – this is a comic created by people who love Godzilla as much as you do.

Plus, they do a great job depicting Godzilla’s trademark scream/honk:

That is exactly how that noise should be spelled, and this is exactly how a Godzilla comic should go down.

Now if I can just get a Godzookie Color Special, I’ll die happy.

The Brave and the Bold #166 DC Comics, 1980

Man, I loved this comic book when I was a kid. Do you remember this issue? The one where Batman and Black Canary fight a 600-foot tall Penguin? Look, there he is on the cover, looming over Gotham with an umbrella the size of a Zeppelin. In order to defeat The Mega Penguin, Batman has to pilot the Bat Sentinel, a giant Shogun Warrior robot that Black Canary (who is a scientific genius) designed. During the huge brawl at the end of the book, the Canary slips into Mega Penguin’s oversized nose and plants a bomb in his frontal lobe, and –

Okay, I’m just fucking with you. There’s no Mega Penguin, no Bat Sentinel. But wouldn’t that be cool - a giant bat robot? DC Comics – give me money to write a Batman: Ultimate Robot Monster Killer comic!

In reality, The Brave and the Bold #166 is almost as cool as that, but for different reasons. Any young lad who has read this comic will undoubtedly remember this as the legendary issue where Black Canary gets tied up in her underwear. It is the climax of the story, and the thing that makes this particular issue stick in my mind.

Even if this comic didn’t have Black Canary in underwear, it would still be cool. The Brave and The Bold was a team-up book that was very similar to Marvel Two-In-One or Marvel Team-Up – the superhero star of the title would join forces with a different guest hero every issue. This issue is a “full-length novel” starring Batman and Black Canary and featuring the avian villainy of The Penguin, with a back-up story starring Nemesis, that uncanny master of disguise. I’m not sure, is this the first appearance of Nemesis? Again, too lazy to look it up.

The Penguin story, by writer Michael Fleischer and artists Dick Giordano and Terry Austin is a simple, somewhat formulaic tale of crime in the DC Universe with solid, classic Batman art. The “yellow utility belt era” of Batman will always be the definitive, classic take on Batman. He has that Jim Aparo/Marshall Rogers look to him that I like, with the black forehead and big stylin’ yellow belt with those strange pellets. That’s the Batman of my childhood, and therefore, the ultimate archetypal Batman for me.

The Penguin in this comic looks exactly like the Penguin should look. Plus, he’s mean. In this issue he breaks out of a prison in Gotham and goes after the four henchmen who testified against him in exchange for immunity. The ex-henchmen have relocated to Star City, Black Canary’s stomping grounds, where The Penguin quickly and brutally takes over a local gang:

Now that is how you recruit henchmen.

Batman trails The Penguin to Star City, where he teams up with Black Canary. Unlike the Goddamn Batman of today’s comics, Yellow Utility Belt Batman knew how to treat the ladies.

Check out Batman’s method:

Das smoove.

And see? It works! Black Canary is digging his action. Personally, it looks like he’s trying to hard to me. I think he’s coming across a little patronizing. But whatever, it’s obviously working for him, so who am I to judge.

There are several quality scenes where The Penguin takes his revenge on his betrayers by killing them in needlessly complicated but spectacular ways – all with a canary motif, because his betrayers “sang” to the cops. Somewhere along the way Black Canary gets captured and The Penguin tries to kill Batman using a Canary look-alike in a dark alley.

Fortunately, Batman spots the imposter before she can breath cyanide gas in his face. He’s no chump. Actually, in a lot of comics from this era Yellow Utility Belt Batman has progressive competence – his abilities and intelligence increase as the plot progresses, until at the end he’s finally smart/tough enough to defeat his foe.

Batman finally tracks down The Penguin and starts beating the hell out of everybody while he carries on an internal monologue that explains the plot:

I will resist any crude or obvious joke about Batman getting close enough to realize the fake Canary was a real blonde. I think I deserve points for my discretion.

All this leads us to the climax of the book: In order to clothe his Canary imposter, The Penguin had to borrow the real Black Canary’s costume – which means she gets tied up in lacy black underwear.

Believe me when I tell you that Young Dave studied this panel intently:

Batman finally gets his hands on The Penguin and beats him up. See, Goddamn Batman hasn’t totally cornered the market on brutality, it’s just that Yellow Utility Belt Batman is more of a bully than a psychopath. I mean look down below, he smacks the shit out of The Penguin, who isn’t even fighting back. And he calls him “pudgy.” And he backhands him, the ultimate act of contemptuous assault.

In the end, the big aggressive alpha male wins the girl, and the nerd is defeated. Just like in high school. The Black Canary makes a big deal about being a “liberated” woman, but she ends up giving her alpha male protector a little sugar in the end anyway.

I’m not sure about the sexual politics in The Brave and the Bold #166, but I love it anyway. Perhaps this comic is in a small part to blame for some of Young Dave’s misunderstandings about women, for some of the failed relationships and squandered opportunities of my adolescent years.

You know – I think I may have something here – I should sue DC Comics for that time Kristin Carlisle broke up with me in 1986! If The Brave and the Bold #166 hadn’t modeled unhealthy gender roles and female objectification for me early in life, I might have had a chance with her! A chance at happiness! I will sue them –

-- unless they let me write Batman: Ultimate Robot Monster Killer, of course.

Cover story: Jerome K Moore

I don’t remember what blog I was looking at the other day, but I came across a comment from CBR’s Augie De Blieck, one of Dave’s Top Five Favorite Republicans.* Augie mentioned artist Jerome K Moore and how he doesn’t seem to get a lot of work in comics these days despite his awesomeness and how that’s a damn shame.

I agree.

After some admittedly half-ass Googling, I found that Moore did some inking work in various titles, and recently did a JSA trade paperback cover, but other than that, not a lot. I’m hoping/guessing that Moore is alive and well and is working in fields other than comics. Some times we geeks forget that it is possible and indeed desirable for comic artists to work in other industries. Let’s face it, unless you’re one of the big dogs, you’re never going to get filthy rich drawing comics. The pay is better in the Real World.

So I’m hoping that Jerome K Moore is alive and well and pulling in a fat paycheck doing concept art or advertisements or something like that, because the guy is a frickin’ ninja!

I’m basing my opinion solely on the run of remarkable covers that he did on DC’s Star Trek comics during the nineties. Holy shit, those covers rule. Take a look at the cover for Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #2. Moore manages to make Riker look more like a stud and less like Wolfman Jack, something that could never be accomplished onscreen.

The great B-movie producer Roger Corman said that one of the most important elements of his direct-to-video films was the DVD and VHS covers. Once you get somebody to pick up, say The Arena based on the cover, it’s almost incidental as to whether they actually like the film. You got their money; mission accomplished.

The same goes with comics, really. I’m sure that there are many who would disagree (because they’re stupid), but covers help sell comics. Jerome K Moore’s excellent cover art enticed me into buying more than a few Star Trek comics despite my better judgment, and more often than not, the interior contents did not live up to the promise of those wonderful covers.

Check out this cover from Star Trek #26. It’s what we would call an “iconic” cover nowadays because it really doesn’t illustrate or even hint at the actual story inside, but rather it is representative of the series as a whole.

One could criticize Moore’s covers for being overly photo-referenced, but I would argue that in this unique case, when you’re trying to capture the look of the Star Trek actors, a little photo-reference isn’t a bad thing. I think the tight line work, the composition, and the clever design of these covers speak for themselves. If only more artists put as much energy into the design of their covers as Jerome K Moore does, the world would be a happier place.

Thus ends my song of praise for Jerome K Moore, one of the more under-appreciated artists working in comics. I raise my proverbial glass of scotch to Moore, and hope that he’s raking in the cash working in fields where his true awesomeness is appreciated.

Again, Jerome K Moore is a frickin’ ninja.

* My other four Favorite Republicans: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ben Stein, and Chris Arndt - although Chris may be a Libertarian, I can't tell. If he is, I'll replace him with, I don't know, Sen. John McCain.

Lame-ass villain #11 - The Slug

I've learned that it is not cool to make fun of heavyset people. I mean, I'm going bald for Chrissakes, who am I to cast stones at somebody for their physical appearance? Plus, big people can sit on you. Or eat you. (You see how easily I cave when an obvious joke presents itself? Pathetic.)

However, heavyset comic book characters? It's open season, baby.

Witness the latest in the cavalcade of Lame-ass villains: Ulysses X Lugman, the Floridian crime lord known as The Slug.

Get it? His name is Ulysses X Lugman. Lugman? Slug? In the Marvel Universe, your birth name often determines your destiny. Poor Mr. Lugman's fate was predetermined at birth - there was no way he was going to become a male speed skater with a name like that, it's just not possible. If I was born in the Marvel Universe, my name would have been Hugh G. Rection, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Moving on: The Slug is Captain America villain, a less-fit iteration of The Kingpin, who is heavy but ambulatory. The Slug just sort of sits there and rules his criminal empire from a couch, fanning himself.

You would think that a villain of The Slug's girth and mass would pose little physical threat to anyone unless you were a frog or Gilbert Grape, but you'd be wrong. According to The Slug's entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update, "The Slug possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age and tremendous size who engages in no regular exercise." Fair enough, that makes sense. But The Slug has a trump card: "The Slug is so obese that he can asphyxiate a person in the folds of his flesh."

That's gross. It also seems a little unlikely. How does he get his victims into position, if he can't really move, and he has stubby little arms? Does he have his henchman push people into his rolls of fat? Does he like, lift up one huge breast flap, have a thug insert the victim's head, and then lowers the breast flap, smothering the poor bastard with a big fleshy pillow of breast? I don't know, that's a stretch, even for the Marvel Universe. I think a more likely scenario is:

"The Slug is so obese that he can asphyxiate a ham sandwich in the folds of his flesh."

The Slug, ladies and gentlemen. So. Lame.

SCURVY DOGS #1 AiT/PlanetLar 2003

I picked up a few copies of Scurvy Dogs at the Ait/PlanetLar booth at this year's San Diego convention to see what the big deal was and to answer the question for myself: Are pirates the new monkeys?

After careful consideration I've determined that Portuguese lepers are actually the new monkeys.

Scurvy Dogs is a black and white comic from the fevered minds and pens of two lads named Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount, published under the aegis of AiT's Larry Young, Master of The High Concept. If simply drawn, hilarious, violent tales of pirate hijinks aren't "high concept" then brother, I don't know what is.

I guess I could try to analyze the subtext behind Scurvy Dogs, or recap the stories in this particular issue, or even explain why I think this shit is so funny. But really, you're one of the 39% of people on Earth* that think pirates are inherently funny, or you're not.

Here's a little sample:

The pirates board a ship full of Portuguese lepers, who claim that they have no treasure.

The pirates rightly conclude that the Portuguese lepers are holding out on them. They slice open one Portugese leper, and some shillings spill out of the poor guy's guts and on to the deck.

Naturally, this triggers an orgy of killing as the pirates set upon the Portuguese lepers, looking for any further loot that may be stashed in their rotting innards.

Graphic violence/comedy ensues. I can see how this would not be funny if a) you're a communist, b) you're a Portuguese leper, or c) you have ever been boarded and hacked to death by pirates. For everybody else, this should be frickin' hilarious.

After all the Portuguese leper blood has been spilled and their dismembered bodies are heaped upon the quarterdeck, the pirates survey their haul:

That's comedy.

I understand that not everyone may see eye-to-eye with me on What Is Funny, and certainly not everyone agrees that pirates are the new monkeys, so I've made a handy reference that should help you accurately determine the current, ever transient state of funny.

WHAT IS FUNNY, circa November 2005

SUDANESE MILITIA = not funny

PIRATES = funny

CLOWNS = not funny

BURNING CLOWNS = funny

LEPERS = not funny

PORTUGUESE LEPERS = funny

TALKING MONKEYS = not funny

MONKEYS WEARING VEST AND/OR A FEZ = funny

DIARRHEA (self) = not funny

DIARRHEA (others) = funny

PRESIDENT WARREN HARDING = not funny

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN = funny

WOLVERINE = not funny

CABLE = funny

MIMES = not funny

SWEARING MIMES = funny

TEST PILOTS = not funny

CAVEMEN = funny

COMEDIAN GALLAGHER = not funny

COMEDIAN CARROT TOP = not funny

TOXIC WASTE = not funny
TOXIC POO = funny

OTHER PEOPLE'S TODDLERS SAYING CUTE THINGS = not funny

MY DAUGHTER AVA SAYING CUTE THINGS = funny

JIMMY BUFFET FANS = not funny

NEIL DIAMOND FANS = funny

GRANT MORRISON FANS = not funny

JOHN BYRNE FANS = funny

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS = not funny

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY MONKEYS = funny

OTHER LAME COMICS = not funny

SCURVY DOGS = funny

There. I hope that helps.

*I have no idea why I put a footnote asterisk there. Pretend this is a witty little footnote that expands/enhances on the comedy fun of the post.

A message from Crazy Jim

My word, Crazy Jim is rude, isn't he?

The S.H.I.E.L.D. Career Power Seminar

It's lonely being a geek sometimes.

This Halloween I dressed up as Col. Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. I wore my costume to work and went trick-or-treating with my little girl, who earlier in the day had been traumatized by one of those life-size singing skeleton robots. If in a few years I have to put my daughter through therapy because of a skeleton in a bow-tie singing "Rollin' On A River," so help me, I'm going to sue somebody.

Anyway, I looked pretty good in my Nick Fury costume, despite the fact that everybody thought I was dressed up as Snake Plissken. That wouldn't have been so bad, except more than one person said, "Are you the dude from Escape From L.A.?" First of all, no. I'm Nick Fury, bitches. Second, if I was Snake Plissken, I would be from Escape From New York, not that other movie that I pretend doesn't exist. I mean, really. It's insulting.

------

"I'm Nick Fury, bitches."

------

Being the geek that I am, I decided that I would turn my costume into a multi-media extravaganza. I printed out "Don't Yield, Back S.H.I.E.L.D." stickers and invited everyone in my department to a S.H.I.E.L.D. Career Power Seminar, hosted by Nick Fury. I reserved a training room and some audio-video equipment and for about an hour and a half I gave a series of five-minute presentations. People trickled in and out on their lunch breaks and listened to Col. Fury explain why they should join his super-spy organization. It was generally well-received; people laughed in all the right places.

So here, then, are the PowerPoint slides from my S.H.I.E.L.D. Career Power Seminar. Imagine I'm up at the front of the room dressed as Nick Fury, cigar clenched in mouth, delivering my dialogue in a clipped tough guy from New York voice. I know - pretty geeky, huh? I was a theater major, what can I say?

Fury: "Alright, you screwheads, listen up. I'm Colonel Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and I'm here to tell you all why you might want to join my secret superspy organization - if you can cut the mustard. So eyes front and lips zipped."

"What is S.H.I.E.L.D.? We're America's top superspy organization, keeping our country safe 24/7 from all manner of freaks, subversives, and supervillains. We were also featured in a made-for-TV movie starring David Hasselhoff of Baywatch and Baywatch Nights fame."

"Be part of a winning team with S.H.I.E.L.D.. You'll take pride in knowing that you're keeping the American dream safe. The opportunities for personal growth are endless, what with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s training programs and all. And there are always new challenges ahead, whether it's a rampaging Dreadnought robot or a gamma bomb ticking under Philly. Variety is the spice of life here at S.H.I.E.L.D.."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. offers generous benefits for all full-time agents. You can enjoy our sports programs, like wrasslin', or put your runts in our state of the art day care centers. We've got a great medical plan, including vision. Have fun at a S.H.I.E.L.D. mixer. Nobody knows how to pound booze like S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, let me tell ya. We work hard, we play hard."

"Be a part of something special with S.H.I.E.L.D.. Travel to exotic locations. Liaise with the military and State Department. Or just skulk around in the shadows with your cigar, looking like a bad-ass. At the end of the day you'll have a sense of pride."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. agents get all the cool swag. Whether it's the latest nightvision optics, a fancy ray gun, a jetpack, or our new TWIKI model field-support droid - S.H.I.E.L.D. plays with the best toys."

"Maybe you're an egghead or a computer jock. No problem, we've got a place for you here at S.H.I.E.L.D.. We're currently looking for polygraph experts to sniff out double-agents, forensic scientists like this dame here, and High Altitude Low Opening parachuters. It's not all fisticuffs and death rays here at S.H.I.E.L.D.."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is based out of the helicarrier, a massive flying aircraft carrier held aloft by huge turbines. It floats 10,000 feet above Bethesda, Maryland, hidden from public view by a smoke screen - looks just like a cloud. You can join our Aqua Strike Force and tool around in a high speed assault catamaran, or travel in style in a flying car like yours truly. Nobody knows how to pimp your ride like S.H.I.E.L.D., baby."

"Get a cut of the pie. Once you reach director level you get your own comic book, and if you play your cards right you can get a line of toys, hats, leather jackets - you name it. Try finding a better deal at any other government agency - you won't find it, pal. S.H.I.E.L.D. knows how to take care of their own."

"Plus, you get the satisfaction of crushing the forces of evil and keeping America safe for apple pie and grandma. Like these bums: HYDRA. Not to be confused with Cobra, the G.I. Joe bad guys. Hydra are a pack of freedom-hating creeps bent on destroying our way of life, and we're here to put our collective foot up their butts. Those Hydra sonsabitches really get under my skin. But don't worry: the current Hydra Alert Level is yellow, so you can go out trick-or-treating or drinking or whatever tonight knowing that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the case."

"So now you've heard what S.H.I.E.L.D. has to offer and you want to know what it takes to join. Well, you gotta be a U.S. citizen in top shape, you gotta be 21 of course, and pass our violating background investigation, which includes a telepathic probe. Oh, and you gotta be willing to lose vision in one of your eyes."

"OK, I've said what I gotta say. The rest is up to you. Do you have what it takes to join S.H.I.E.L.D.? Thanks for listening, and don't forget to pick up a sticker on your way out. Now amscray."

So there you go. It went over pretty well, I think. I mean, come on, wouldn't you be psyched if your boss or co-worker did something like that at work? Most importantly, after my presentation nobody referred to me as "that guy from Escape From L.A.."

Mission accomplished.

UPDATED! Here's an OK picture of me as Nick Fury, with ubiquitous cigar. It's sort of a poor man's David Hasselhoff look, really. And although you can't tell, take my word for it that I have grey temples and a Howling Commandos unit badge on one arm. That's geek authenticity, baby.

Happy Halloween from all the staff here at Dave's Long Box

No big post today; I'm too frickin' busy looking like a total frickin' bad ass in my frickin' Nick Fury costume! I'll have pictures and a full report tomorrow for those who care, because my Nick Fury costume is more than a simple costume - it's a frickin' all-day multi-media extravaganza!

For now, just know that S.H.I.E.L.D. is watching over you and ensuring that everyone has a safe and Hydra-free Halloween.

Yep, nobody at work is going to have the slightest idea who I am. Sometimes it's lonely being a geek...

Thank you Space Ghost!

Yesterday on my lunch break I was driving along Alkai Beach here in sunny Seattle and I saw this guy rollerblading along the waterfront in a Space Ghost costume.

Chuffed, I honked my horn and pointed at him and gave him a thumbs-up and yelled "Space Ghost! Space Ghost!" The guy returned my thumbs-up and then kept on rollerblading into the hearts of children everywhere. It made me happy.

So wherever you are Space-Ghost-Rollerblading-Guy, I salute you!

THE F*@% YEAH FILES #7: Avengers visit Ultron without an appointment

If I had access to a Wayback Machine and could travel through time, there are a number of things I would do:

1) I would make sure that Kevin Maguire did all the artwork for the Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty mini-series, instead of just the first three issues.
2) I would steal and burn Young Dave’s piano key scarf so that he could never ever wear it again.
3) I would stop Terri Garr from acting again after Tootsie.
4) I would prevent Young Dave from actually standing in line to see Independence Day.
5) I would provide the Spartans at Thermopylae with repeating carbines and grenades, just for fun.
6) And I would make sure that George Perez drew tighter pencils in The Avengers #22.

I don’t know what it is about this issue, but it lacks the clean, tight artwork that I’m accustomed to from George Perez. The art looks rushed and scratchy. Perez is credited with “breakdowns” for this issue and Al Vey is credited with “finished art,” so that might be the problem. Vey inked over Perez’s pencils for most of the Busiek/Perez era, and I always thought the stuff looked great, but perhaps in the crush of looming deadlines Perez only had time for looser pencils. The rendering and composition looks great, but there’s a rough quality to the work that throws me off.

Why would I care? Because The Avengers #22 has like, one of the most kick-ass scenes of any Avengers comic ever! I just think it deserves the full-on Perez magic, that’s all.

The Avengers #22 is the big climax to the Ultron storyline, in which a team of Avengers fights to save their comrades from the clutches of the monstrous robot. In previous issues The Avengers have had to invade the nation of Slorenia (which Ultron has pretty much destroyed), repel a horde of undead cyborgs, slay a giant Ultron robot, and then fight pretty much every model and variant of Ultron that has ever existed. After all that, the battle-weary Avengers bust through a wall and face The Big Boss:

That's a good line, but then Thor can make anything sound cool. "Verily, good man, fill the God of Thunder's tank with five dollars worth of precious petrol from pump number five!"

You know, that’s the thing about Dramatic Entrances – you have to earn them. I remember reading some X-Men comics long ago – I think it was the Xtinction Agenda or something, the one when they were all trapped in Genosha – and there was like, a dramatic entrance or rescue every other page. It was the superheroic equivalent of a horror movie where somebody gets killed every 45 seconds. I ask you, would that be a scary movie? No. No, it would not.

I think there’s a lot to be said for the old-fashioned storytelling values of pacing, varying the tone, building up to a climax, and making the reader invest emotionally in your story. This Avengers storyline accomplishes that – when the rescue team of Avengers finally busts in on Ultron, damn it, you are PSYCHED! Psyched, damn it!

That’s why this scene gets a special kid-friendly magical happy F*$% YeaH!

THE F*@% YEAH FILES #6: "You're the one who tried to shoot the cat."

Sleep.

Sleep beckons to me like a lover, inviting me into her bed to um, sleep with her. Sleep is a beautiful woman that I cannot touch. Sleep is Rogue and Dave is Gambit, but without the annoying cajun patois.

Anyway, I'm sleepy and lazy so I'll make this quick.

This post is about the big F*$% Yeah moment in Batman: Year One Part 3, brought to us by the Team Supreme of Frank "The Tank" Miller and David "I can draw kick ass flashlights without resorting to stupid lens flare effects like all you young punks" Mazzuchelli.

If you haven't read and enjoyed Year One, you hate freedom and are possibly a terrorist. I'm not going to bother with recapping the entire plot for all the freedom-loving folks out there; I'll just set up the scene:

The cops want Batman dead. They corner him in an abandoned building and drop a bomb on it. A SWAT team from the thoroughly corrupt Gotham City Police searches through the ruins for their wounded quarry. Things don't look good for our hero:

He takes a bullet for a cat! That's almost a F*$% Yeah moment right there.

We have a cat named Po. I tell people she's named after either the Teletubbie or the Italian river - it depends who I'm talking to. She walks on me when I'm sleeping and will suddenly, inexplicably go insane and attack my hand when I'm petting her. Despite her weirdness, I love that cat --

-- and there is no way in hell I would take a bullet for her.

That, my friends, is heroism: getting shot while saving a cat that you don't even know.

And believe me, Batman is plenty pissed about it.

Here's a tip: do not shoot cats in front of Batman. He will punch you through a fucking brick wall.

Oh, F*$% YEAH! That's so awesome that even the people in the comic cheer. Then, a poisonous fluttering of wings, and a mother cries: "Here comes the KING BATS!"

"...and the screaming starts again."

After punching that would-be-cat-killer through a brick wall, Batman makes his escape from the cops under a cloud of flapping, fluttering bats. It was such a good scene that David Goyer cribbed it for Batman Begins. I can't really blame him.

Batman vs. cat hater. Winner: Batman.

Hey, white world-music guy! How about a F*$% Yeah?

Sleep.