Things I Think About #23

I was reading an issue of Wizard, and they were talking with someone from DC about all the lead-ins to Infinite Crisis. Included in this was the fact that the Legion of Superheroes reboot was the result of Superboy-Prime punching the walls of reali. . . I can't even finish that sentence. That has to be the dumbest explanation for anything I've ever read in comic books. Still, it raised this question:

How long has Alex Luthor been manipulating Hal Jordan?

We know that the Red-Headed Step-Luthor used Psycho-Pirate to trick Jean Loring into being Ecpliso's host, so Eclipso could convince the Spectre to destroy all "ordered" magic. Good Lord that's convoluted, and I'm still not sure I buy the Spectre as a big ol' horndog. But how long has Alex been at this?

Did he have something to do with Hal and the Spectre parting ways? Was he the one who directed the Sun-Eater to Earth's sun, forcing Hal to sacrifice his life to reignite it? Did he somehow engineer the destruction of Coast City, which left Hal in a more vulnerable position for Parallax (I never did understand why Superman-Cyborg decided to destroy Coast City instead of Metropolis, Gotham, New York, Central or Keystone City, Washington D.C.)? Was Alex in secret communications with the Big Yellow Locust of Fear, while it was still trapped in the Central Power Battery? And could a being that's been around for billions of years be fooled by Luthor? I suppose so, since he is evidently the most clever and powerful being in existence. Still, where does the meddling end?!

To all this, I can only conclude by saying, "Ugh". And Field Botany is going to kick my ass for the next eight weeks. Ugh squared.

Declaration of Bias?

When I was planning out Saturday's post, it occured to me I had a double standard. I completely accept that Ryoko was under someone else's influenece, and as such, I don't consider her responsible for those actions. But when Geoff Johns tried something similar with Hal Jordan, I screamed "Bullshit!" 'till everyone at the store looked at me like I was about to kill them. Why was that, I wondered? Here were my initial guesses:

1. Ryoko is a woman, Hal's a man. I'm guilty of a bias that says females are weaker, and thus it's more acceptable for them to be controlled. Except, I completely accepted it when it turned out Logan killed a Senator while under Weapon X influence in a Wolverine storyline about five years back.

2. Ok, well, it's because you like Ryoko, whereas you regard Hal Jordan as mostly preventing Kyle Rayner from taking the center stage he deserves. Except, I don't like Superman either. In fact, I think the DC Universe would be much more interesting without him (call it the "Kenshin/Goku Syndrome"). Yet, when they tell us he was being controlled by Max Lord, I say "Sure, I'll buy that".

Finally, I decided it's a matter of timing. With Ryoko, she appears in the first episode on the Tenchi OVA, Kagato shows up by about episode 5, and immediately takes control of her. That suggests it was planned that way all along, at least to me. From the moment Wolverine was accused of killing the Senator, he was plauged by doubts, because he had flashes of things, but couldn't recall all of it. All of which seems suspicious, and raised doubts as to why Logan would do it, if he did. And almost as soon as Superman had finished kicking Batman around, we find out he's under Lord's control.

With Hal, it's been years since he went 'round the bend and eventually tried to remake the universe. It was an established, if not beloved, part of the history of DC. But Johns comes along and decides his hero, Hal Jordan, can't go out like that. Oh no, Johns has to change it so that it wasn't Hal's fault. Maybe it's an arbitrary standard, but it seems like there is a difference between a creator making a character do horrible things with the idea the character is being controlled by an outside force right from the start, and one person deciding this character did these horrible things of their own accord, and THEN a decade later another writer comes along and changes it. Now if Johns could show me proof this was Ron Marz' plan all along? Well, I guess I would have to accept that.

I don't know, it's irrelevant I suppose. Hal's back, he's been absolved, he's not likely to die anytime soon, just have to deal with it.

Things I Think About #13 . . Romance edition

Two ideas. Read on at your own peril.

Picture this, if you will. Benjamin Grimm, the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing, and Peter Rasputin, Colossus. A tough on the outside, kind on the inside guy made out of rock, and a sweet, Russian with the ability to turn his entire body into organic steel.

Oh yeah, and Peter is an artist. So now picture them reenacting that scene from "Titanic". You'll have to picture it, I'm stuck on that spoof that Family Guy did of it. Maybe that's as far as my brain will let me go. That's probably a smart move by my brain.

As for the other, does anyone here think that Kyle Rayner and Karen Starr (Power Girl) would work as a couple (hypothetically)? It seems like Kyle appreciates strong (independent? pushy?) women, or at least winds up with them. I don't know anything about any previous relationships she's had, but I figure Karen could do worse than a guy who seems sweet, kinda goofy, as well as someone you could talk to about your problems, having experienced so many of his own. Maybe I'm misreading them both completely.

Of course, it's also contingent on Kyle still having a face after that Rann-Thangar Special. What's the deal with the stars?

Character Archetypes #1: Peter Parker

If you're like me, there are probably certain types of characters you gravitate towards. For whatever reason, their stories interest you, moreso than other characters'. I thought I'd do a few posts about the different types that appeal to me. In this case, I'm probably going to be combining American comics with anime/manga, as I've seen some carryover.

So it only seemed natural to start with my favorite character of all: Spider-Man. What you see here is the cover to the first Spider-Man book I ever read. I'll be honest, my original reason for liking Spider-Man was twofold. One, like Scipio alluded to in his post on Sunday, Spider-Man has an incredible variety of powers. He's not the fastest, strongest, smartest, but the combination of all his powers and skills means he has a chance against just about anybody. Second, that black costume just looked so damn cool. I thought it would be totally awesome, to be hiding in the shadows, up on the ceiling, then just drop down, scare somebody. Plus, Spidey was a bit of a smart aleck, which I readily identify with, being one myself.

This was actually a really good place to jump on because the next part of the story, the Beyonder pretty much lays it all out for you with regards to Peter Parker, the person. He worries, he ties himself up in knots over stuff that wasn't his fault, things he couldn't control, but at the end of the day, he thinks things are going to be alright, and if he can, he's going to help make things that way. That just seemed very unusual to me, as the only comics I'd read before that were my dad's Supermans and Batmans from the '60s. And I had never seen those people struggle with money, or have to repaint their home because some punks burned it up. And they almost never seemed to doubt themselves. On the rare occasions they did, it was something an enemy was doing to them, and it was over by the end of the issue, when they defeated the villain. So Peter, who often had real-life problems, seemed that much more approachable to a five-year old.

Yeah, he stopped the Beyonder from destroying everything, or the Puma from killing an innocent person, but he didn't get any pictures, which means his rent will be late, which means he's in trouble. Since then, I always seem to gravitate towards characters with those sorts of problems (it helps if they look cool or have cool powers).

Speedball was a goofy kid, one with seemingly academic talent, but no real desire to use it. Stuck in the middle of a couple of parents who seemed to constantly fight. Kyle Rayner was just a guy that got handed this awesome weapon, and was told to help save the universe. Plus the whole thing with his love life (well-documented elsewhere). Hey no pressure. Darkhawk (who looked Very cool) was stuck in a single parent household, with a father who had vanished under odd circumstances. Like Peter, he was trying to help the family, unlike Peter, he had the additional strain of younger siblings to watch out for. Tim Drake, who wasn't wearing the shorts, who had a cool staff, was dating, was trying to keep an eye on an injured father, and at the time his ongoing started, was working with an armored up lunatic that called himself Batman (I think it's kind of funny that Batman seems to have moved a lot closer to what Jean Paul was doing, which was part of why Bruce took the title back). The Ray (who looked VERY damn cool), who had been trapped inside his whole life, then finds out he has powers, then his dad pops up as a 'ghost', and tells him he has to be a hero. And now Ray has to adjust to trying to have a real life outdoors, with jobs and bills, and the fact he hasn't ever really known anything about his life.

Ultimately, I guess the common denominator is they're all close to my age (or closer than the Tony Starks and Bruce Waynes), and they all had problems that I could easily envision both interfering with attempts to be a hero, and that wouldn't be easily resolved because of the superhero aspect.

I don't suppose that's anything all that surprising or unique, seeing as that was the whole idea that Kirby, Lee, Ditko, etc., were going for with Spider-Man, make him accessible to young readers, but I did want to start with an easy one.

Giving the Gift of Life. . . Stuff I think About #3

Quick note, this is probably my last post until Monday, so you'll just have to go without over the weekend. But, I'll be using that time to go through my comics, doing some research for future posts, so take heart. On to the business at hand.

This post stemmed from a conversation I had with myself, over a discussion that broke out in the comments of a thread at Comics Should Be Good. I'll probably post the main part next week, but this was an odd little interlude my brain took, and I thought I'd share.

See, I was thinking about the death of Ben Parker, Peter's uncle. There's been a lot of inconsistency surrounding the circumstances, besides the obvious that he was shot by a burglar. But the way I had it figured, he was in bed and heard a noise. He goes downstairs to investigate and finds the Burglar.

I figure he tries to talk to the guy, explain that he's making a mistake, but that there's no reason to hurt anyone, he can take what he wants and just leave (I think this was how he acted in Ultimate Spider-Man, matter of fact). He's very calm, displaying no fear. This freaks the Burglar out, he shoots Ben, Ben dies, and Peter is on the road to years of guilt.

But this is the weird part. In my head I hear "Ben Parker can overcome great fear", so to better utilize this ability, I'm bringing him back to life. . . in a new universe! Who says only the costumes get a second chance?

So Ben Parker, say hello to the next step in your life. . . as the newest member of the Green Lantern Corps!



















Hal, you shouldn't have! Give it up for Ben Parker, people! Have a nice weekend!

Green is to Yellow as . . . Stuff I think About #2

No, it's not SAT prep. And it's not Conan O'Brien's SAT Analogies. It's more weird crap that ran through my head. OK, so according to Geoff Johns, green and yellow, representing will and fear, respectively, are rivals. It seems a little odd, since willpower is not the opposite of fear, so it doesn't necessarily stand to reason that they would be in opposition. But then I start thinking about colors.

See, part of green is yellow, right? And part of willpower is overcoming fear. Like overcoming a fear of heights so you can clean out the inside of a 20 foot tall boiler. But fear isn't the only thing willpower can overcome. Will can overcome anger, or the desire to laugh at something you think is funny when it would be inappropriate, or just the desire to eat those last few chocolate fudge Pop-Tarts. So gooey . . . focus! And when you look at green it's made up of more than just yellow. Blue is involved in the process, so maybe that's anger. I'm not sure what color would be the "wanting to eat Pop-Tarts", but I'm sure somewhere in the DC Universe a person can get a ring that harnesses that part of the "emotional electromagnetic spectrum" or whatever Johns was calling it. Probably Vril Dox has one, or one of the Brainiacs. The real problem here is that green isn't a complicated enough color. They needed something different, that combines multiple colors . . . like brown! The Brown Lantern! Hmm, maybe not.

Or maybe they'd just be better off assigning those emotions to something outside of visible light. So "Pop-Tart eating" is gamma radiation. My God, that means the Hulk would just be really hungry! The Army just needed to feed him, instead of trying to blow him up. Hey it's less disturbing than the solution for Ultimate Hulk.

Thanks to the Shrew Review for pointing out that fear and willpower aren't really opposites, which is what lead me down this strange, awful path. And no thanks to Charter, which has denied me - and the rest of Missouri, Illinois, and parts of Arkansas and Minnesota - internet access all day.