Man or Mouse, None Escape Doom!

I had to do it.

Conventional methods have not allowed me to capture/kill the mouse that craps on our counter top every night, so I have enlisted the aid of Victor Von Doom. I pray the price of his aid is not too steep, but whatever the cost THIS MOUSE MUST DIE.

MARVEL ADVENTURES: THE AVENGERS #12 Marvel Comics, 2007

My oldest daughter loves this comic.

I have a million and six comics, and let me tell you, it's hard trying to find comics that I can read to her. She's four years old, for Chrissakes, I'm not going to read her Tarot or The Ultimates or even most Spider-Man comics.

"Well Ava, this bad man - he's called a sniper - shot Aunt May with a rifle - that's a gun with a long barrel - and now she's hurt so Spider-Man is upset and he wants to kill these guys here because he's so angry. Yes, I know. Spider-Man should use words when he's angry instead of hitting people." Yeah. I'm not going there.

99% of all super hero comics are off-limits to my daughter because I'd like her to think that there are better ways to solve her problems than by violence. It's sort of a shame because she really likes Spider-Man, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman - mostly because I describe them as "rescue heroes" who help people. I made her an unofficial comic book adaptation of the movie Superman Returns (left out the Kryptonite shiv part) which she really liked, but I've come to the conclusion that she's not ready for most comics.

Enter Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #12, by Jeff Parker and company. As part of the Marvel Adventures line, this comic is deliberately designed to be accessible to young readers, which means there are very few decapitations, old women getting shot, or bethonged asses.

Parker is the shit-hot writer responsible for the superb Agents of Atlas comic, and he's doing a great job with his Marvel Adventures books. Parker clearly gets the whole "comics oughta be fun" angle, and these books are fun, accessible, and... and... did I say fun yet? Well, they are.

In this issue, The Avengers (Cap, Hulk, Iron Man, Spidey, Storm, Wolverine, Giant Girl) have to deal with a rash of natural disasters on Earth caused by an approaching planetoid. It's not just any planetoid, it's Ego the Living Planet from the Fantastic Four! Yeah, the planet with the big face, that's the one.

Ego just noticed Earth from across the solar system and hey! Earth is pretty foxy! And she's not dancing with anyone! Ego sidles over to our planet and starts putting the moves on her/it.

"Hey, you dancin'?"

If Ego hangs around for much longer the natural disasters will kill loads of people, so The Avengers blast off in a custom Quinjet to deal with the problem. They need to make contact with the horny living planetoid and convince him to go hit on some unoccupied planet somewhere else. Not an easy task, since Ego is too vast to even notice the tiny little heroes. How are they going to communicate with it?

The answer, of course, is that The Avengers have to land on Ego and start tearing shit up in order to get its attention. Iron Man triggers some volcanoes, Storm uses her weather-control powers, and The Hulk... well, The Hulk just starts hitting stuff and giving Ego some straight talk.


"Earth just want to be friends!" Hulk yells.

Jeff Parker hits all the right notes with this comic. It's cute, it's self-aware in a metatextual way that will appeal to geeks, and it's funny as hell. Like a lot of well-done family entertainment, this comic has something for adults as well as kids, but it doesn't go overboard with pop-cultural references and sly asides (I'm looking at you, Shrek movies.)

Plus, Parker uses the Hulk as comic relief, which is never a bad idea. I'm a big fan of The Hulk, particularly when he's not taken too seriously. He's a big green caveman who smashes shit when he gets angry but likes puppies and stuff - what's not to like? In this comic, The Hulk is like a big destructive kid that The Avengers soothe by singing him songs and reading him stories. No, really. It's cute as hell. Plus, there's a little throw-away shot of The Hulk getting a rock dropped on his head that just cracks me up for some reason.

Between this issue and the comic where all The Avengers get MODOK'd, I think I have a new favorite Avengers title. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually digging Mighty Avengers right now, but I'm not going to read it to my daughter: "Well, this naked lady is really a robot who wants to kill everyone. No, Ava, I don't think she gets cold, she's an indestructible, murdering killing machine."

But this comic? I can read it to my kid, and for that I thank Jeff Parker. The only problem is, like The Hulk, my daughter wants me to read it over and over and over...

Happy Second Anniversary, Bully!

Happy (belated) 2nd Bloggiversary to Bully, the cute lil' stuffed bull who writes Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!, one of my favorite blogs ever. Go check it out.

What did I miss?

Since I was immersed in Hell Week at work, I missed out on all the fun stuff kids were talking about in the Great Comics Blogosphere.

Mainly it seems like a lot of people freaked out about the Mary Jane statue (I'm not calling it a frickin' comiquette - that's not even a word. I don't capitalize the word realtor, either.) and what it implies about gender politics in the comics world.

Here's what I learned: it's one thing to have a cheesecake statue, but you're playing with fire when you accesorize it in such a way that it makes the cheesecake statue seem subservient to Dudes. The other thing I learned: you can't dictate what people can and can't be offended by. Everybody gets to decide what their own personal Bullshit Threshold is, and they can bitch about it as much as they want.

Having said all that, Andrew over at Armagideontime brought something to my attention: the equally wacky gender politics of the Big Barda statue (pictured above) The 3rd greatest female ass-kicker* in the DC Universe* gets reduced to holding her husband Mr. Miracle's cloak? Nuh-uh! Notice I'm not bitching about her red bikini or the fact that she has no legs - I just don't think Barda should be holding Scott's cloak like a good wife. She should be holding a severed parademon head!

What else? AICN had a sneak look at John Rambo, the long awaited (by me) fourth Rambo film, which was promptly uploaded to YouTube. It starts off all solemn and shit, and then about halfway through somebody hits the big red ULTRAVIOLENCE button and things go crazy:

Several geek friends of mine were turned off by the level of violence in the preview, particularly the jeep driver who goes Death Star when Rambo shoots him at whisper-close range. I think the preview could have done with some tighter editing, more Rambo music, and a more explosive ending, but I'm perversely excited to see it. I'm waiting for somebody to re-mix that preview as a slasher film, though.

Is Dr. Strange gay? Photon Torpedoes and Neilalien weigh in on the "controversy" with a resounding "hell, no!" And they can prove it, too. OK, the Photon Torpedoes post is old, but it's still real to me, damn it! Anybody who has read the Dr. Strange graphic novel Shamballa, where he splits into duplicates of himself to have a mystical orgy, will agree: Dr. Strange likes the ladies. Just because he dresses like a Cimmerian pimp doesn't mean he's gay. I would add that of all the Marvel heroes, the well-travelled and philosophical Master of the Mystic Arts would have a philosophical attitude about human sexuality that transcends fickle societal norms, but clearly he digs chicks.

*I rank the greatest female ass-kickers in the DC Universe as follows: Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Big Barda, Black Canary, Huntress, Catwoman, etc. Supergirl is way at the bottom of the pack, sorry, because the current DCU version of the character sucks.

Hell Week

Why you no post, David Campbell?

I am going through Hell Week here at work and can barely spare time to go poo, let alone do any blogging. Soon this week will be nothing but a foggy nightmare, a bitter memory, but for now this is The Week They Asked Too Much of Me And Nearly Broke My Soul. I will be able to resume my normal blogging duties after this corporate hazing has ended. Thanks for your patience.

PREDATOR #2 Dark Horse Comics, 1989

"I'm meaner than a motheruckin' hyena chasin' antelope"

-Ice Cube "The Predator"

I enjoyed this 4-part series, Dark Horse Comics’ first foray into the world of licensed Predator comics. Sure, in the years since the Predator concept has sort of worn out its welcome – did anybody ask for books like Witchblade /Darkness /Alien /Predator and Predator vs Shaq? - but back in the Eighties, a Predator comic book was practically guaranteed fun.

Written by Mark Verheiden with burly art by Chris Warner, Predator was a comic book sequel to the 1987 Arnold Shwarzenegger film that actually beat the film sequel (Predator 2) to market.

Predator matches the macho swagger of the Arnold film and cranks up the tough one-liners and action all the way to the proverbial “11” on the dial. The movie had one Predator? This comic has mass Predators. The movie blew up a jungle? This one blows up city blocks. The movie had Arnold? Well, this comic has Arnold’s tougher bigger brother.

And he is totally not fucking around:

That guy is gonna kill him some Predators.

I won’t go into the details of the plot, but in this issue Arnold’s Big Brother goes down to the sweltering Central American jungle where Lil’ Bro fought the first Predator. For those communists who haven’t seen the film, a Predator is an intergalactic big game hunter who visits our planet and others in order to hunt dangerous game – us. The alien hunters only go after worthy prey like Arnold, Batman, and Shaquille O’Neal – if you’re a big wuss the Predators won’t even bother with you.

(An aside – in the Predator movies they make a big deal about how the aliens only visit during heat waves because they don’t enjoy being cold. Yet the film Aliens vs Predator takes place in the Arctic Circle and the Predators don’t get so much as a scarf to keep them warm. Whattup with that?)

Anyway, Arnold’s Big Brother is the world’s toughest cop and he’s come to sweltering Central America to kick some Predator ass. It took Arnold and company a whole movie to kill their Predator, but Arnold’s Big Brother kills his alien dead in like, three pages. What do they feed those Shaeffer boys anyway?

While Arnold’s Big Brother terminates his Predator relatively quickly, it’s not easy. He gets pummeled quite a bit early in the fight, but not badly enough that he can't spit one-liners from his bloodied lips:

Arnold's Big Brother does a little rope-a-dope move on his opponent, taking some brutal hits so he can get close enough to, yes, smash a salt container into the Predator's eye! Yowch!

Man, thank God he brought a salt shaker with him in the depths of the humid jungle! If he had been packing some cinnamon or paprika he would have been totally screwed.

Verheiden's script strikes the right balance between violent adolescent fantasy and... um... violent adolescent fantasy, and Chris Warner's art on this book is solid and his pages are well designed. Warner also drew a Terminator series for Dark Horse that was equally good, art-wise. He's one of those guys that draws everybody in the comic as hulking brutes, which works really well when your comic is populated by hulking brutes. I think his stuff is keen.

Dark Horse's Predator comic - four issues of macho action that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's worth checking out, if only to compare it to the flood of lesser-quality licensed books that followed in its wake.

Bring salt.

SUPERMAN #8 DC Comics, 1987

WARNING: This post has an average of 1 terrible joke for every 75 words. I have marked the terrible jokes in red for easy identification.

There was a time during the glorious mid-Eighties when writer/artist John Byrne was both writing and artisting Superman and Action Comics (featuring Superman) every month. And brother, that is a shitload of artisting.

Byrne had help with master inkers like Karl Kesel and Dick Giordano, but it's pretty impressive. Byrne did 22 issues of Superman and 16 issues of Action Comics at the same time for like, two years, whilst living in seclusion in a vast private suite atop the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. He lived off room service and Latino hookers and would randomly fire his shotgun into the air off his balcony and scream profanity through a megaphone at pedestrians walking on The Strip far below. Byrne was muy loco, but his famous Vegas Exile period is legendary for the gonzo quality he brought to Superman comics.

What the hell am I going on about? John Byrne is going to sue my ass now.

Let's talk about the comic itself and how great it is. This is the eighth issue of Byrne's relaunched Superman book, which was made possible by Byrne's successful re-booting of the Superman universe with his Man o' Steel mini-series. Oh, sorry - Man of Steel is the correct title. Man o' Steel is that comic about the Irish steelworker. This book was written and pencilled by Byrne, with finished inks by Karl Kesel, who rules. Kesel and Terry Austin may be my favorite Byrne inkers. As I type that I realize how geeky it is to have a favorite John Byrne inker.

This comic starts right off with a beefy shirtless Clark Kent ripping a tree from the Earth in order to make a post fence for his old high school crush Lana Lang (who recently married a guy named Phil Addingdong; her married name is Lana Lang-Addingdong.) We get a full-page shot of beefcake Clark Kent. BEEFCAKE!

She is so staring at his ass.

And could Superman be more arrogant? "I know, Lana! Sometimes I trip on how awesome I am, too." Talk about a God complex.

The kick-ass thing about this panel is - and we'll zoom in here - Clark Kent's monogram belt buckle. That is fucking awesome - putting your initials on your belt buckle. Do people do that? Is that like a thing that I'm not aware of? Do people in rural Kansas rock the monogram buckles? Or maybe Clark Kent is just a big Calvin Klein fan.

You know, as I was zooming in on Superman's crotch in Photoshop I noticed what I thought was a coloring mistake at first. See that whitish piece of earth or rubble near Clark's bathing suit area? Looks like somebody spaced out and didn't color that particular spot, right? Or is it??? Look closer, doesn't that sort of look like a tiny head? A tiny Metamorpho head maybe??? Tell me I'm wrong!

The only explanation I can come up with is that Metamorpho is hiding in Clark's pants, possibly as methane gas. For what reason? Ask John Byrne. Yes, ask John Byrne why Metamorpho is floating around Superman's groinal area!

Anyway, this comic really concerns Superman's encounter with four color blind heroes from the 30th Century, members of the Legion of Super Heroes. I say color blind because holy cats, have you seen their outfits? Somebody needs to do an extreme makeover on those kids ASAP. Are they from the future or Planet Hideous?

The Legionaires mistake Superman for Superboy, who used to be a member of their group back when their comic was called Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes. You see, for some reason Superboy has gone bad and has turned against his comrades. Sure, Superboy was bad in the Inifinte Crisis mini-series, but even back in 1987 Superboy was a little bastard. At least in these comics he doesn't punch anyone's heads off. (And I say that like it's a bad thing.)

Since this is a comic book, Superman and the Legionaires (Braniac, Blokk, Sun Boy, and Skunklad) fight for a few pages before they realize it was all a big mix-up. Being generous of spirit, Superman doesn't mock the ugly ass outfits the teen heroes from the future are wearing, and they get around to telling Superman the reason why they're here: Bad Superboy. Superman is all "WTF?" because he was never called Superboy; he began his super career as an adult and what kind of drugs are you damn kids on in the 30th Century anyway?

And here's where John Byrne launches into a several issue explanation of how Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes fits into regular DC Universe continuity in light of the fact that in this re-booted Superman timeline he was never the Boy of Steel at all. He wasn't even the Tween of Steel. Byrne retells the Silver Age story where Superboy joins the Legion and almost manages to make it not seem incredibly corny, and then neatly summarizes the whole concept of Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes, including a fantastic panel of the whole goddamn team.

That is one small planet they're running on. That was my favorite era of the Legion. As much as I make fun of their outfits, I have to admit that is what the Legion should look like - a big Seventies disco future fashion show.

I'm not going to bother explaining how Byrne untangles the Legion history and fits it into the new Superman continuity - that's what Wikipedia and the fine folks at Legion Abstract are for. There was a point where I kind of gave up trying to follow the convolutions of Legion history, with all the Time Trapper and Zero Hour craziness. The Legion is simultaneously blessed and cursed with a rich, complex mythos and a huge cast. It can be rewarding for long time fans and comic history geeks, but I think the various Legion series have been largely impenetrable and forbidding to new readers. I call this devotion to the future history of the DC Universe Legionaire's Disease*, and I think it's why so many Legion series get cancelled.

OK, let's wrap this up. Superman #8 had great art, beefcake Clark Kent and his belt buckle, a hidden Metamorpho, hideous costumes, pages of continuity wonkery, Bad Superboy, and a nice big shot of the Disco Legion. Man, John Byrne was on fire during the Vegas Exile period!

*Actually, I don't. I just needed to fit a terrible joke in there.

"Darf? I have a triple tall nonfat latte for Darf."

Here's a few panels from the original Marvel adaptation of Star Wars that I stole from the Artist Formerly Known As Harvey Jerkwater. Darth Vader levitates himself a nonfat latte before he uses his force powers on a mouthy Imperial flag officer.

Because Darth Vader will choke an admiral.

UNCANNY X-MEN #202 Marvel Comics, 1986

One thing they kept in mind during the Golden Eighties was that every issue of a comic book was somebody’s first issue. This maxim has helped craft some of the classic conventions associated with American superhero comics, such as thought balloons, clunky expository dialogue, soliloquies, etc. Few people in my mind have reached the level of mastery at creating accessible pop fiction by using those conventions like Chris Claremont has.

Claremont is associated with The Uncanny X-Men, a book that he wrote for seventy-five years straight. Many of the themes and characters and plotlines we associate with the X-Men burst like Athena from Claremont’s head. He is Mr. X-Men (which sort of sounds like a Mexican wrestler.)

Back in the mid-Eighties, before the franchise’s inexorable slide into suckiness, Chris Claremont and artist John Romita Jr were cranking out some excellent X-Men books. This is one of my favorite Uncanny X-Men periods, the Good Magneto Era, which is characterized by Romita’s well-structured art, a hideous skunk haircut for Rogue and a Mohawk for Storm, and a reformed Magneto who is honor-bound to embrace Xavier’s methods and join his old adversaries the X-Men. This period seemed to strike the perfect balance between emo melodrama, sprawling high adventure, and yes, lesbianism. Because yay lesbians! I heart Storm and Kitty!!!

One thing Claremont was really good at was creating big superhero fight scenes. He used every tool and convention of the medium to create big battles that the casual reader could follow, because between the expository dialogue, thought balloons, and narrative captions, the only way you couldn’t tell what was going on was if you couldn’t read.

Or see.

With the current focus on Mametian dialogue and adopting cinematic values on to comic books , and the disdain many modern readers hold for thought balloons, I’m afraid comics like Uncanny X-Men #202 might seem quaint or old-fashioned. And in a sense, they are. When you throw Claremont’s distinctive writing tics into the mix, books like these seem as unnatural and stylized as Kabuki theater. Therein lays the drawback and the beauty of books like this, where naturalism takes a backseat to the true goal of the book: tell an involving story that anybody can pick up and understand.

Personally, I love these old Claremont books because c’mon, it’s the frickin’ X-Men, not Glengarry Glen Ross. How realistic do you want them to be? One of the fun things about old school spandex punch/kick comics is how unique they are as a storytelling medium. Thought balloons and overly explanatory dialogue are both a necessity and a part of their charm.

Today – and I’m generalizing like a mofo here – comics are so self-conscious and embarrassed by their heritage that most refuse to use the full spectrum of tools available to creators. I’m just guessing, but de-compressed wide-screen continuity porn holds little allure to the new reader – and industry-wide sales seem to back me up on that.

Anyway, the comic. This is a crossover issue that ties into the Secret Wars II mini-series, during which an all powerful David Hasselhoff looking bastard with a white track suit and a mullet comes to Earth to bug the shit out of mankind. His name was The Beyonder, a cosmic being more annoying than Mr. Mxyzptlyk and The Impossible Man and Q combined. Seriously, there’s something about The Beyonder that just takes me there, you know? Makes me violent.

In Uncanny X-Men #202, young X-Man Rachel Summers (aka Phoenix 2.0) confronts The Beyonder in San Francisco with her own nigh-omnipotent powers. Rachel is from a dystopian future where she served as a “hound,” using her telepathic powers to track down mutants for the giant purple Sentinel robots to destroy. The Beyonder can sense that Rachel has some issues about her involvement with giant purple robots, so he presents her with a scenario where she can ease her guilt. Said scenario involves siccing a bunch of Sentinels from the future on her X-Men buddies and encouraging Rachel to save them, of course.

I loves me the Sentinels. They are giant purple robots from the future who explain everything they're doing in really loud voices. How can you not get behind Sentinels?

I’ve always admired the way Claremont arranged his fight scenes. The guy was a pro. They weren’t just panel after panel of guys slugging each other and GUHHH!! sound effects – Claremont packed his battles with dramatic tension, narrow escapes, reversals of fortune, last-minute rescues, cheesy one-liners, clever applications of super-powers, and lots and lots of talking.

Here Good Magneto layeth the smacketh down on an Omega-series, using his magnetic powers to funnel the extreme cold of outer space (don’t ask), freezing the robot. In a panel or two Rogue will blast through the brittle Sentinel at full-speed, shattering his purple ass. F*&% Yeah! That's good stuff.

Magneto turns the City by the Bay into a big snow globe, and the fight continues elsewhere. Colossus is about to get smooshed by a big bell-bottomed boot when he's bailed out by his former girlfriend, Kitty Pryde, who can phase through solid matter. How do you know she can phase through solid matter? She tells you - FIVE TIMES!

Colossus counter attacks by swatting the Sentinel with a light post. The Sentinel practically laughs at Colossus, until the lamp post lodges in his torso. Kitty Pryde has made Colossus and the big pole immaterial, but when he lets go, the pole solidifies inside the robot. Psych your mind, robot!

Phoenix flies up and channels 100 giga-shitloads of energy into the lamp post, frying the Sentinel. Game over. Then she goes and gives The Beyonder the Mark V Open Hand Strike. Dick.

Is this comic perfect? No. Is it more than a little overwrought and verbose? Oh yes. But this was comics before the Age of Irony, the Age of Decompression – when Claremont was king and the target audience was actually below 18. Fans love to bitch about Chris Claremont and how his best work is long behind him, but I’m not so sure. I think Claremont is writing the same kind of books today as he was back in The Day, but the audience has aged and industry standards have changed.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my post-modern meta-textual self-referential cinematic comics as much as the next guy, but every now and then I pine for the days of crappy color separation and thought balloons and the smell of newsprint.

Because I’m old.

Fun Google searches

I get a lot of traffic from Google, everybody does.

My neat-o Site Meter allows me to see what Google searches have landed people here at Dave's Long Box. Here then, in a feature ripped off from Dr. Scott of Polite Dissent and many other bloggers, are the highlights of the Google searches that have brought people to my humble blog within the past 24 hours alone.

Gasp at the depravity of Teh Intrnt:

• Hulk Hogan quotes - No, seriously. What are you going to do when the 24-inch pythons and the Hulkamania comes for you?


• Boobs definition - I am not the right person to be providing you with this information, young man.
  
• Power Girl nude (#1) - Awesome! As of April 25th, 2007 I am the #1 search result for Power Girl nude. I can die in peace now.
  
• Why Gambit sucks - This is a question that has furrowed the brow of many a great thinker since 1990. I have The Answer, my young padwan apprentice.


• Gambit sucks - It's a popular topic.


• gambit totally sucks - This person really just wants his belief system validated, and I was happy to help provide that reassurance.


• Gambit sucks ass (#1) - There you go: April 25th, 2007! I, David Campbell, had a blog that was the #1 search result for the words Gambit and sucks and ass. King of the Internet! Right here! Woo!
  
• Gambit blows - Okay, that may be true but come on, this is a family blog. Let's keep it clean.
• Gambit uncool - You said it, bub!
  
• Batman segway (#1) - Again, #1.
  
• Monkey style kung fu (#1) - I am ON FIRE. This is like a dream.
  
• JIHAD TRANSFORMERS - That would be terrifying.
  
• Hillbilly Fight (#1) - No, wait. Now I can die in peace. #1 for Hillbilly Fight! Yee-haw!
  
• boob smashed against fence - Aaand now we're kind of creeping me out.
  
• VOMIT SLAVE 2 - I didn't know this was out on DVD yet! I loved the original Vomit Slave. I'm ordering that from Amazon pronto!


• moby dick wrong whale to fuck with - Truer words were never spoken.
  
• how to make a lightsaber bong - I do not know but if you ever find out, email me bro.


• modam (#1) - Yesss! I'm currently #1 for MODAM, the hideous female counterpart to MODOK.


• SHAKIRA,S LAST COLOR HAIR - I don't like it when Shakira's hair is super-curly, but I love that sexy free-flowing layered look she has. It's like a sassy cinammon sunset! Go Shakira!
  
• sexy grandma - Thankfully, I'm on the 5th page for this particular search. I don't think I could live with myself if I was the #1 search result.
  
• hypnotic boobs - Aren't they all?


• colon snake - My prison nickname.

By request: The Bat-Segway

Dave's Long Box reader Philip requested a picture of the Bat-Segway, so here it is. Never let it be said that I don't listen to feedback.

(I jacked the original image from Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin. Thanks Mike.)

The Batmobile: What a Pain in the Ass

What an utter pain in the ass it must be for Batman to get around.

He has two primary modes of transportation: swinging from gothic clock towers on his Batline, and cruising around Gotham in the Batmobile. Sure, he’s got a Batwing and a Batjet and a Batcopter and even a Bat-Segway, but mostly Batman relies on his ride to get from point A to point B.

Now, the Batmobile is a seriously tricked-out car, and you can’t blame the guy for wanting to drive it, but it must be a serious pain in the ass dealing with the Batmobile every night.

As anyone who lives in or near a big North American city knows, urban driving can be a maddening experience. Heavy traffic, one-way streets, swerving buses, crazy-ass taxi drivers, potholes, inadequate signage, kamikaze bike messengers, oblivious pedestrians – don’t even get me going about parking. The shit is hard enough to deal with in a normal city in a normal car. Now just imagine trying to navigate Gotham City’s rat nest of streets and alleys in an extra-wide custom hot rod with a wonky torque converter and limited visibility.

------

"If Batman wants to change lanes, you will let him into your lane."

------

Okay, the actual driving itself would probably not be an issue, as Batman probably has advanced defensive driving skills and an intimate knowledge of the street layout of Gotham. Plus, people would get the hell out of the Batmobile’s way. If Batman wants to change lanes, you will let him into your lane.

But what about parking? Can that thing even fit into a standard parking spot? Have you ever tried to parallel park a car that has huge scalloped bat wings on the back while wearing a rubber cowl that prevents you from moving your neck more than five degrees in any direction? I want to see a director’s cut of Tim Burton’s Batman where Michael Keaton tries to slide that beast into a parking spot without scraping the curb or bumping into another car. Now that would be some amazing shit.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the Batmobile has a self-parking system like the Lexus LS460 and Batman doesn’t need to sweat the details. But where do you park something like that?

How do you keep a low profile when you’re driving the most conspicuously bad-ass car on the planet? I mean, Batman wants to keep a low profile, right? There'd always be some asshole at a red light who wants to race:

The second you park that thing you would have tourists and drunks and passerby swarming you and snapping pictures on their cell phones. The Batmobile would be a major draw – YouTube in the DC Universe would be choked with videos of the Batmobile driving by or parking or waiting at a stop light.

Say you’re a frat boy out for a Friday night of drinking in Gotham Square. You get a text message from your buddy that says he just spotted the Batmobile headed south on Grand Avenue. You quickly down a final shot of Jaegermeister with your buddies Chet and Steven, throw the waitress a $20 (stiffing her on the tip) and haul ass two blocks west to Grand Avenue. Chet stops to puke. Fuck him, he can catch up.

A news helicopter is thrumming overhead – you must be close. You hear it before you see it – a deep rattling in your chest. Then, for a brief second it flashes past on Grand. Camera flashbulbs go off and people cheer. Out of breath, you make it to Grand just in time to see the big bat winged rear end of the Batmobile swing around a corner, followed by an SUV of screaming girls and a couple of paparazzi on scooters.

Steven wants to stop for another drink, but you keep jogging in the wake of the Batmobile. You can still smell the high-octane exhaust.

Your buddy texts you again – the Batmobile is parked in an alley between Grand and 14th. That’s like two blocks from here. Come on Steven, you pussy, keep up!

Then you do something that you’re never supposed to do in Gotham – you take a short cut through an alley. Steven doesn’t want to follow you, but you insult his manhood with colorful drunken slurs and he reluctantly gives chase.

Holy shit, dude! There it is, parked under a fire escape in the alley. Twenty feet of black muscle car with obsidian tinted windows and a matte finish. The engine is still hot. Fucking unbelievable! You make some guy take a picture of you and Steven with the Batmobile in the background.

This is so totally going on your MySpace page. WOOO!!! FUCK YEAH!!!

(BTW: You find out later that Chet was stabbed in the kidney by a psychopathic drifter who stole his shoes. That's Gotham for ya, LOL!)

So Batman parks his ride in as inconspicuous a spot as possible and takes to the rooftops to fight crime. Does he worry about people fucking with his car? I suppose he’s learned his lesson ever since that punk Jason Todd tried to jack his tires in Batman #408 and has implemented some security procedures. He’d have a number of redundant anti-tampering features built into the Batmobile, like the “armadillo armor” from the first Batman movie (minus the hubcap bomb – FYI Tim Burton, Batman doesn’t blow people up), an electro-shock feature like Bond’s BMW in Tomorrow Never Dies, an off-the-shelf car alarm from Car Toys, and maybe The Club for his steering wheel. I imagine the Batmobile would be coated in a graffiti-proof finish as well – you’d be surprised how many times Batman comes back from a night of crime fighting to find “PENDEJO*” painted on the side of his car. Punks.

Here’s what I don’t get: how the hell does Batman keep the location of the Batcave secret, considering that he drives the most conspicuous car in the world? We’ve already established that he’s likely hounded by photographers and news crews and drunk frat boys – how exactly does he slip out of town unnoticed in his Giant Rocket Car?

Every night he’d be on the way home to Wayne Manor and there’d be a news chopper flying overhead and a car or two full of idiots with the same idea. “Let’s follow Batman and see where he goes!”

So he gets outside of town and heads up into the hills, then promptly disappears into the side of a cliff. Sure, you’ve got a hologram covering your garage door up, but what if the guys in the news helicopter see you disappear into a hillside right next to Wayne Manor? You’re busted, Batman.

For argument’s sake, let’s say the Batmobile has a Romulan cloaking device and a sound-deadening “whisper mode” like in Blue Thunder. Big deal, the Batmobile still disappears on one of six roads every night. You could narrow it down. All it takes is an enterprising photographer with a sleeping bag and some time on his hands hiding in the right bush on the side of the road when the Batmobile rumbles by and vanishes into solid rock. I'm telling ya, Batman doesn't need to worry about The Penguin or Two-Face blowing his cover, he needs to worry about some scuzzy shutterbug who makes a living selling candid shots of heroes to tabloids.

Another hassle would be cops. Batman has an on-again, off-again relationship with the GCPD. Sometimes he can do no wrong, other times he's hunted by corrupt or overzealous police. Sure, he's pals with Commissioner Gordon, but there would always be some rookie cop fresh out of the Academy looking to make a name for himself by pulling over Batman.

I like to think that the veteran cops would just look the other way when the Batmobile rolls by, but there’s always that one cop with the stick up his ass. Technically, the Batmobile is not street legal. No license plates, no vehicle tabs, unsanctioned rocket afterburners, no proof of insurance, high-performance fuel... the list goes on. I can’t see Batman waiting in line to get an emissions test for his car or even getting a driver’s license. The guy breaks the law every time he slips behind the steering wheel.

So what's the solution? Ditch the Batmobile, man.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but for a while there didn't Batman have a private underground rapid transit system that his hunchback mechanic Harold set up for him? He could be downtown in 5 minutes on his Batsubway and wouldn't have to worry about parking, gawkers, or ozone emissions. That seems like a good choice if you're heading out for a night on the town.

Another option would be to just have an anonymous black town car or a van with tinted windows. You could soup it up with all your Bat shit, but it would be a much lower profile ride. Matt Wagner had the right idea in his excellent Batman and the Monster Men series. Here Jim Gordon and a detective discuss Batman's impounded pre-Batmobile car:

Now that makes sense. If you're a creature of the night, would you drive around in a really distinctive car with loud pipes or would you keep it on the down-low? You're supposed to be a Living Shadow, dude. You are the night, etc.

I hate to say this, but what would make the most sense for Batman is to have a series of black Ford mini-vans stashed in monthly parking lots all around Gotham. He could change in the back or stitch up his wounds without drawing any attention to himself. Most of the time he could just take his private subway into town, but if he needed a ride, he'd have a van parked within blocks.

There: problem solved, Batman. Swallow your pride and park the Batmobile and get yourself a fleet of mini-vans. It might not be as glamorous as driving around in a black penis surrogate of an auto, but it would certainly be much less of a pain in the ass.

*I had to re-spell the Spanish word pendejo three times. I am so ashamed of my monolingualism.

Awesome! Another lame photo post!

Today's theme is "Thumbs Up and Awesomeness!"

I know, I promised some actual comics-related content, but I lie frequently and am not to be trusted.

Officer Buck Savage gives you a hearty thumbs up, Seventies Cop style.

Mickey Mouse: stoked.

Astronauts are always good for a thumbs up. Astronauts rule.

scha·den·freu·de [shahd-n-froi-duh] satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

[Origin: 1890–95; <>Schaden harm + Freude joy]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Seriously, Jean Claude VanDamme is the shit.

Okay, thanks for your patience.

What is Luigi reading?

Here's my contribution to a meme started by crazy-ass Mark Hale over at ChaosMonkey's Abysmal Pit. What is Luigi reading? OMG, IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!

Chintoo Candy presents the Baddest Mother$%#*@% in Bollywood

Sorry, we're going to stray off-topic for a minute. I was up late last night hunting for a W2 form and I'm too beat to talk about comics, so look! Another cheap-o link post.

I know exactly nothing about the film this video comes from. Clearly it's a Bollywood blockbuster powered by the high-voltage charisma and awesomeness of its star, Lucky Ali. Clearly the film is populated by Lucky Ali and by people who are in total awe of Lucky Ali. Clearly the video is brought to us by Chintoo candy. Beyond that I know nothing.

Take a look at the video:



Lucky Ali must have Starfox-like pheremone powers or he's Count Dracula in disguise or something, because he has got these people in his sway big time. Everyone in the room is totally on his dick, as they say. They just stare spellbound like Richard Dreyfuss at the end of Close Encounters at the unearthly awesomeness that is Lucky Ali. Even Michael Medved cannot resist his mojo. The guys in the booth are so rapturous I'm surprised they can even hear the music.

The Violin Girl is driven to trembling tears just from standing so close to The Lucky Ali Effect. You gotta know it's probably not safe to stand that close to somebody bringing Teh Sexy like that, you can get Awesomeness Poisoning unless you work up an immunity. Sure enough, it's too much for her and she starts to lose her shit. She can't play the violin, she can't sing - she just stands there quivering and slowly losing control of her bladder. Sure enough, she bails and runs for the bathroom, crying.

Such is the power of The Lucky Ali Effect.

The other things I find charming about this video are the scrolling adverts and the crude pan & scan effect. The camera swerves and tracks frantically to keep the actors from this widescreen film in the center of the frame. It's fun and adds a weird topsy-turvy quality to the video, like they shot it on a rocking ship.

Back to comics next time, I swear.

Best cover EVER: Thor Corps #4

This is the best comic book cover ever.

Why?

• The cover features all four members of The Thor Corps, (l to r) Beta Ray Bill, Thor, Thunderstrike, and Siegfried (sorry, Roy isn't a member of the Thor Corps, he's leader of the Roy Patrol)
• High-fivin' with enchanted hammers? That's awesome.
• The Thors are in competition shape, all bulging and vascular and super-ripped and glisteny. It's like the cover of MuscleMag.
• They have all shaved their arm pits. Which, come on, is really weird. Viking heroes who shave their armpit hair? (hello Google users!) Nuh uh.
• Don't the Thors look like they're having a good time? They look like they all could either be yelling "For ASGARD!!!" or "GO RED SOX!!! FUCK YEAH!! NUMBER ONE!!!" Especially Siegfried over there on the right, he is just stoked to be there. I guess it would be pretty fun to summon lightning and shit with your hammer.
• They've all got big knee-pad boots, one of the must-have superhero accessories in the Nineties. All the cool Asgardians wore them.

MANTRA VOL 2 #6 Malibu Comics, 1996

I don’t even know where to begin.

This comic is so bad, so wrong, that it’s almost physically painful. If you’re unlucky enough to come across Mantra vol 2 #6 in a quarter bin or at a garage sale, PUT IT DOWN. You may experience numbness in your extremities, dizziness, and an uncomfortable burning itch in your groin. Wait a second, the burning itch in the groin is a separate problem that I need to deal with and isn’t a result of this terrible comic.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about Mantra vol 2. and why it sucks so bad.

Long story short: Mantra was a comic in Malibu Comics’ Ultraverse superhero line about a tough warrior dude trapped in a beautiful woman’s body and all the crazy mixed-up adventures s/he got in. For more information, I previously discussed my guarded affection for Mantra here and gave a sort of overview of Malibu Comics here.

Malibu Comics and all of their characters were purchased by Marvel in the mid-Nineties. Rumor has it the company was acquired because they had a bitchin’ in-house coloring department using there newfangled contraptions called computers. Shortly after the takeover, Malibu made some changes to their core titles like Mantra.

The original premise of the series was defenestrated and Mantra was re-launched with a new main character, a teenage girl who had the look and personality of a blow-up sex doll. The new Mantra series, which seemed to target a demographic of perverted old men and peeping toms, lasted only seven issues before grinding to a merciful halt. Sometimes the Comic Gods are wise and just.

And just looking at Mantra #6, you can see why the series was cancelled. This book is fucked-up on so many levels.

Allow me to engage in cheap simile to describe this comic. The plot is thinner than the Olsen twins, the teenage dialogue is more out-of-touch than Hall & Oates, and the art is as awkward as a first date.

The story by Tom Mason concerns a) Valley Girl Lauren trying to adjust to her new Mantra powers while wearing as little clothing as possible, b) the arrival of a horny new super hero, Impulse – err, I mean Rush, and c) a spooky tattoo that transforms a jock into a demon whose diet consists exclusively of buxom women. The gender politics of the comic land somewhere between Porky’s and Friday the 13th.

Here is Scott showing off his awesome new demon tat to his awe-struck classmates:

The art by Dave Roberts is heavy on the cheesecake and light on the backgrounds - really light on the backgrounds. The cover is a good example of the level of detail that went into each panel of the comic. Roberts must have been working under a wicked deadline or something, because the book is full of tons of art shortcuts and cheats.

And the clothes. Oh Christ, the clothes. Maybe the book is a period piece set in Rock n’ Roll High School circa 1982, because all the kids in this book look like they stepped out of a Winger video. I mean seriously – striped leg-warmers?

Don't these girls have parents? Who let them out of the house dressed like that? Maybe those girls are going to a Ho Economics class or something! (Thank you very much, you guys have been great, I'll be here all week, try the buffet.)

There is something profoundly icky about this comic and its hyper-sexualized teenage characters. The book feels like it was created by and for dirty old men as a sort of weird adolescent fantasy – a 40-year old’s dream of a music video high school complete with young girls who dress like tramps, peeping toms, and the requisite hot school nurse. They just needed to throw in a panel of an 80’s heavy metal guitarist jamming in the school hallway to complete the effect.

The character Rush seems to serve no plot purpose, but he’s the new kid at school with the “nice butt.” Half the comic is devoted to this creepy little bastard, including a three-page sequence played for laughs where he spies on Mantra while she’s toweling off.

Rumor has it the creative team inserted this scene under protest at the direction of the editor, who wanted more under-age flesh in the book, apparently. I can’t confirm this, but the scene serves no purpose and in no way advances the plot.

Ostensibly the story concerns the school stud’s haunted tattoo, which turns him into a green mohawked demon whenever he’s around women of a certain cup-size. The demon attacks a scantily clad woman in an alley, then kills and mutilates the hot school nurse (in a “funny” scene the principal covers up the gruesome murder because the school board is visiting) and then moves on to lover’s lane and the gripping climax of this tale.

The demon’s dialogue is creepily sexualized – when he’s attacking or killing women he says stuff like, “I like girls who play hard to get” or…

Of course, Mantra happens to be parked in a car nearby at lover’s lane making out with what appears to be a stuttering middle-aged man.

No, seriously, look:

Mantra hears the unfortunate girl’s screams and suits up for action. “That’s no scream of pleasure!” she says. No shit?

We end with a cliffhanger of sorts as Mantra confronts the demon while Rush suddenly appears in the background. “Man, this town rocks!” Rush says, “I love it!” Because mutilated chicks = teh awesome.

This comic would make a college Women’s Studies course explode with rage. Granted, the 500 people who purchased this were probably all males over 30, but I shudder to think of what a budding young adolescent would make of this comic. Not to get all P.C. on your ass, but Mantra #6 is insultingly retrograde in its depiction of teenage girls as sex toys - objects to be fondled, ogled, and eaten.

Ick. Ick. Ick.

This comic truly deserves the Dave’s Long Box “The Pain” Award. The bright side is that Mantra vol 2 was cancelled the very next issue (about six issues late).