Infinite Crisis - yeah, so what?

It's not that serious...trust me on this.


Am I the only person who's...unimpressed with Infinite Crisis?

Sure, I'm buying each issue just like most of you are, but it's primarily for collecting status. The artwork is great (A-game, dawg), but the storyline so far has been spotty. Let's comment on some of the major IC events (including the Countdown to Infinite Crisis events) one at a time.

*DISCLAIMER* If you haven't been keeping up with IC so far, then I'm sorr, but I'm finna spoil an awful lot of it for you.

1. Maxwell Lord kills the Blue Beetle. Not cool, Ahmad. Not cool. I actually liked Ted Kord! (well, not like that, but...you know). What I don't like is...well, I'll get to that later. Also, it's gonna give Booster Gold a "Fire" complex: he's going to spend the next several decades regularly moping about his lost buddy, and I'm not sure if that baggage is going to make him a better character.

2. A big ol' mess a' OMAC robots start downloading into peoples bodies and attempting to exterminate any and all superheroes who get in their way. Would be cool...that is, if the friggin' Wachowskis hadn't've thunk it up first. Just because WB owns both The Matrix AND DC Comics does not give them permission to allow in-house biting.




*Krreeekkk!*
"OUCH! CotDAMN, heffa! What kinda chiropractor is YOU 'posed to be?!"


3. Wonder Woman kills Maxwell Lord, and everyone (especially Superman and, of all people, Batman) start hatin'. Big. Effing. Deal. Wonder Woman is supposed to be an Amazon warrior. Warriors kill when the need arises. Why is everyone so shocked that WW killed a mofo who was trying to use Supes to kill the Pre-Time King? I especially don't understand where Batman comes off finger-pointing. I know he's still carrying the baggage of his parents' deaths, but that was different. This isn't about killing an innocent. It's about getting the job done. The way that Supes and Bats are handling this, and their condescending tone towards Diana (one person I don't think it wise ot talk down to) is quickly turning their scenes in IC into daytime soap-opera pastiches. Why don't they all just fuck an' make up, like the Days of Our Lives folk do?

(As an aside, if they really wanted to piss off Supes, Batsy, and *Gary Ownes announcer voice* THE WOOORLD AT LAAARGE, they shoulda had WW slice Lord up with the sword, instead of having her do the head twist thing. They way it's drawn, it looks like she's trying to get a kink outta his neck or summin').

4. The Villians all Unite into the Legion of Do-, er, The Society. The whole thing reads like a extra-length episode of Challenge of the Superfriends. Granted, it would be an above-average episode, but every time I read a Villians United issue or crossover, I just see Hanna-Barberaishness all over it.

5. Eclipso and Spectre go on a magic-destruction rampage. Okay, this was sorta cool (primarily because of the Shadowpact and the Detective Chimp--everyone loves a talking monkey), but it created so many plot holes. Spectre killed Shazam, right? So why does the Marvel Family still have power? Who's tossin' them lightning bolts? The main benefit (besides the talking monkey): a Black man is going to be the new Spectre! How cool is that?! *crickets*

6. There's an intergalactic war betwe--you know what? Let's just skip the whole Rann-Thangar War thing, because it was lame as hell. Or maybe I'm biased (I hate space epics).




Am I the only person who had An American Tail flashbacks while reading Power Girl's sides of the story?


7. Power Girl. Power Girl! Power Girl!! All boob jokes aside, Power Girl is probably the best thing DC and IC have going for them right now. They're using a lot of this story as a showcase for her and an opportunity to restore her original origins. And it's all coming off great. Everytime Power Girls stomps, lands, or whatevers into an IC crossover-related story, I'm never disappointed (get your minds out of the gutter, ASAP).

7. Earth-2 Superman, Earth-2 Lois, Superboy-Prime, and Alexander Luthor return from their nirvana. Ah, the meat of the story. Most of the situations and scenes involving these characters are great (especially Superboy-Prime -- nuttier than Jif, Skippy, and Peter Pan combined -- fighting a good chunk of the DCU heroes). But the whole "we saved the wrong Earth--this Earth is too dark, so let’s bring back the perfect Earth" thing is waaaaay too tongue-in-cheek and wink-wink-nudge-nudge for me. And I CAN'T be the only one who feels this way.

8. Alexander Luthor was behind allll the craziness in the COuntdown to IC stories. Does it not surprise you that a Luthor, no matter what universe he's from, can't be capable of a LITTLE evil?

9. Oh look, Donna Troy's back. Yay. And Jason Todd. Huh? And...Holy Moley...KID ETERNITY?!

10. Almost forgot...I hate the new Blue Beetle. I hate his face. I hate the fact that he's like 12 or something. I also hate the fact that he looks like a woman in costume. You'd think ancient mystical powers would be a lot less gender-ambiguous when it comes to fashion design.

SO...as of right now, Infinite Crisis is rating as a great big heap of "whatever, man" to me. Granted, it's more accessible than the original Crisis on Infinite Earths (but of course, most 80's comics were on that uber-complex thing), but it's almost too transparently a marketing ploy to boost interest in DC Comics. Ah, well...I'm sure when I'm 50 I can net a cool couple of bucks for my IC-related stuffs. And that is the motivation that keeps me buying.

Except for that Rann-Thangar stuff. Screw that crap.

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Playboy Talks Comics

The new issue of Playboy covers comic books and their revolutionary impact on the world, so you can, you know, read it for the articles. (And let's face it, perverts. With their photoshoots being so altered away from reality with airbrush & photoshop, the articles are the best thing Playboy has going for it.) Luckily I saved you $7 and scanned the article.

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5

Now if you want the pages with that naked wrestler chick, you gotta go buy the mag.

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My Love for Psylocke

One of my initial fav comic book characters was Psylocke. Nowadays I might front like it was because she was the only popular Asian character in the Marvel Universe (Jubi-who?), but really, we all know it was because I was young and she was half naked.

Looking back at those days in X-Men history, near the end of Claremont's first reign when Jim Lee was putting his boot in the profession, up until around the time where Fabian Nicieza was Brian Michael Bendis-ing the house of Marvel (and with much more compression at that), it's easier to get a clear picture of what the fuck happened to Psylocke. It's one of those cases where, like with Phoenix or Superman, a character's defining traits are also what makes them eventually boring.

So what was Betsy Braddock all about? Due to all the changes in body, mutant powers, boyfriends, and heck, even personality, Betsy represented all things identity crisis. As phoenix bird is to constant resurrection, weird butterfly thingie is to constant transformation. And for any young asian kid who experienced any cultural identity angst whatsoever, Betsy's (literally) white-person-in-an-asian-body dilemma was the ultimate expression of Banana.

Whereas Jubliee was just full of self-hatred, Psylocke's situation was more nuanced and, given the right writer, could have led to some great characterization and soft-handed exploration of the western/eastern cultural divide. Unfortunately, most writers didn't know what to do with ol' Betsy, leading to some horrible character arcs and a bunch of boring ninja stories (and ninjas, in my book, are very hard to make boring. Good job, Nicieza.)



While Psylocke's sexuality is what made her interesting and memorable in the first place, it also allowed her to be easily dismissed as a masturbatory fantasy. It's a card that could have been played differently. As a stuffy British upperclass socialite/model, Betsy Braddock was all proper and boring. After walking through the Siege Perilous and emerging as a ninja-trained Japanese woman, Betsy's new skills and abilites brought with them a new appreciation for her body and what she could do with it. Claremont nailed this when he described Psylocke as an "action junkie", who preferred physical combat over using her telepathic powers even though it put her in danger.

So what happens when a stuffy Brit turns into a lithe bombshell newly in tune with her physicality? She lets loose. Unfortunately, for many of her less sophisticated writers, phsyical and sexual liberation meant turning Betsy into a one-dimensional slut. There were all the bathing suit scenes, the crotch-shot ninja kicks, etc. And then Betsy had her flirtation with Scott Summers and the character was forever marred.



For sure, there's a double standard going on in the industry with female characters being called whores and whatnot (and I do wince at having such slurs being launched with such ease at an asian female), but for all the times Logan tried to lay the adamantium bone on Scott's girl Jean Grey, he never once up and licked her face. That shit's freaky. More importantly, Logan's love for Jean had been written believeably and touchingly. Psylocke just got down like that for no reason, and from there, nobody knew what to do with her.



The whole horribly executed idea of Scott/Betsy/Jean's love triangle was quickly written away (Jean confronts Betsy, who stabs Jean with her psychic blade, thus explaining herself to Jean but not to the reader), and we were pushed right into the equally horrible Revanche/Kwannon story where we find out Betsy's old white body was out galavanting this whole time with a Japanese chick inside of it. The X books were always One Life to Live-ish, but the return of British Betsy, with its unbearably literal interpretation of Psylocke's duality, goes down as one of the worst X-Stories ever in my book.

By this point, both her sexuality and identity crises had gotten so bloated that Marvel had to tame her down. She was paired up with Angel (damn these rich white guys, stealing our women who have their women inside of their bodies!) - two characters who had become boring and stale and were thus left to grow irrelevant with each other. If the X-Men were Friends, Betsy and Warren were Monica and Chandler: together because nobody else wanted to deal with them. Her "action junkie" angle was reduced to lame danger room sessions where Betsy trained alone with monkish dedication. Yawn.

Over the years she underwent more transformations, developing the new (lame) power of travelling through shadows and a Harry Potter-ish lightning bolt on her face to go along with it, sacrificing her telepathy, gaining new telekinetic powers, getting gutted by Sabretooth, etc. There was more identity angst to come, Warren at one point exclaiming "you're not the same person I fell in love with!" She got dumped by Warren after taking up with Thunderbird III, again a relationship with little real emotional weight to it, thus leaving her open to more accusations of sluttish behaviour, and then was eventually killed off.


Cleavage. Even when comatose.

Recently, Claremont resurrected her and has been taking a stab at redefining the character. Her telekinetic powers are stronger than ever, which leaves her pounding away at things instead of using the surgical precision that telekinetics are usually portrayed as having. And more importantly, with Alan Davis in tow, Claremont has been portraying Betsy as more British than ever. She drops English phrases here and there and has a much sharper tongue than before - ah those Brits and their British wit. These could all be promising developments, but I'd much rather see them written by Joss Whedon than by Claremont. Who wouldn't love to see Joss's Emma Frost pitted againt the new Betsy Braddock? Just imagine the one liners about her history with Scott.

For now though, my once favourite character will continue to languish in never-was, coulda-woulda-ville. As Brubaker takes over Uncanny, Claremont takes Psylocke with him to Exiles or New Excalibur or whatever it's called - both Claremont and Betsy effectively being removed from 616 continuity. I still got love for Psylocke, but in retrospect, I can't help but wonder. While Warren anguishes over whether she's the same woman he fell in love with, looking back, I'm wondering not only why I still love her character, but also why I ever did in the first place.

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Everything You Know is Wrong Pt. 2 - Death & Comics

Ah, Death in Comics. That perennial hot button issue sure to whip any red-blooded fanboy in a frenzy. Talking about Death in Comics is about as dangerous as yelling "Naked Jessica Alba Photos" in a crowded Comic Convention, so I'm going to proceed with caution here and urge you to do the same. My platform is simply this:

Death in Comics is fine and dandy. It's you who's fucked up. I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I think when it comes to these kind of debates, the best thing to do is take a step back from the realm of comics and have a look at storytelling in general. We comic readers tend to suffer from a bit of the tunnel vision from time to time. A little perspective is probably in order.

But first, a story:



Meet Isis and Osiris. A couple of well-meaning Gods who wanted nothing more than to rule their ancient land in peace. Things are going pretty well, too, until Osiris gets murked by Set (his own brother, no less). Set not only kills Osiris, but then cuts him up into little tiny pieces and scatters them throughout the world.

The End.







I'm just kidding, of course. The story continues. But imagine if it hadn't? What a shitty story, am I right?

What actually happens is, Isis then travels the world collecting her lover's pieces (talk about your ride or die chick) and with a little help from her friends, brings Osiris back to life. They currently live in Palm Springs with their three beautiful tabbies and occasionally hear from their son Horus, the Sun God.

Now, wasn't that better? I think so.

My point is this: Death and resurrection have long been cornerstones of myth. From Osiris to Persephone, Elijah to Lazarus, Jesus to Superman, and so on and so forth, this theme of rebirth just seems to pop up all over the place. It's a story that's been told for centuries, and continues to be told today. In comic books, in temples, and even in nature. Every year Winter comes along at the same exact time, and every year Spring is sure to follow.

But you mean to tell me that the minute Hawkeye catches a bad one that suddenly enough is enough? Come on now. Let's get serious.


Okay, maybe I'm being too broad. No one is saying that death is a bad storytelling device, right? It's just that death has gotten out of hand in comic books. Fair enough. Let's shift the focus back to comics, so I can tell you why you're still wrong.

More and more, I find that fans are clamoring for a stringent "Dead Means Dead" policy. I can understand why. It's very direct sounding and it rolls off the tongue nicely. It's the sort of thing that looks good on a T-Shirt. Something we can all get behind. Well, I can't. Not entirely, anyway.

Consider this: If dead always meant dead, then who would we be left with today? I contend that most of your favorite superheroes would have been long gone before you were ever even born.


Sorry, kids! That's it! The End! No more Superman stories! Dead means dead, after all! Hope you held on to those back-issues!

Now see, that's no fun, is it?

Is this truly what you wish upon future generations of comic book readers? A world with no Professor X? With no Green Goblin? With no Superman? Kind of selfish, don't you think?

You know who I blame? The comic book guys.


Moi?

Yeah, you.

The long-term comic reader.

Those cynical bastards who have been reading Spider-Man since Amazing Fantasy #15, and cry bloody murder anytime they come across a plot thread that vaguely resembles one from 1974. They've been there and they've done that. (Ironically, most of them have never been anywhere near there and they have most certainly never done that.) They're bitter and they're jaded, and have been in the game for far too long to recall a time when a costume change or a return from the grave was cool as hell.

Superhero comics are, for the most part, like an amusement park ride. Thrilling little jaunts that exhilarate our inner child and ultimately end up right back where they started. Sure, there are plenty of twists and turns here and there, but the course is pretty much set and nothing ever really changes. And on some base level, we all know this to be true. Much in the same way we know that Charlie Brown will never kick that goddamn football, and the Coyote will never catch that goddamn Roadrunner. He'll just fall off that cliff and keep coming back. The only thing that allows these rides to continue to captivate us is our willingness to allow them to do so.




If you're tired of the ride, maybe it's time to stop blaming the ride.

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Why Bring Back The Dead?

I hate when Marvel and DC bring back characters from the dead. I always have. The only character that gets a pass in this department is Phoenix/Jean Grey, because the Phoenix is supposed to come back time and time again. But no other character deserves a second chance if they had been killed previously. Don't you like how DC has that Lazarus Pit to explain how people come back in their universe? It's a lame attempt at bringing the characters back.

In recent times who has come back to life? Psylocke in Uncanny for no apparent reason. Colossus in Astonishing. While that was a cool surprise, I will have to say that I was dissapointed to see him return. It ruined his legacy, and made the issue he died become useless in the broad scheme of things. And what about Bucky? Wasn't he supposed to be one of the characters that Marvel would never bring back? Lame, lame shit. Don't even get me started on Hawkeye. DC is not without their mistakes in this department. Case in point: Jason Todd. This dude was a Robin who had his ass beat to death by Batman's greatest villain, and they decide to bring him back in this increasingly lame IC (that said, I like the mini, but each issue is getting worse and convaluted). And these are just the tip of the iceberg. And these are just recent characters that have come back from the dead.

Superman, Green Arrow, Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Iron Man, Multiple Man, Apocalypse and countless others have all fell into this category. I have a feeling that DC is on the verge of bringing back Barry Allen Flash, who remains the best and one of the only deaths that has remained without the possibility of a return. Batman missed the boat because Bane only broke his back. Spider-Man has just had his ass kicked to the point of death by Morlun. Nightcrawler and Kitty almost died during the Mutant Massacre, but were only severely injured. The point I am trying to make is that the comic book would be a much more serious form of literature if the stories were kept the same when they were written. Think about how different the universes at DC and Marvel would be if the previously mentioned characters stayed dead. It would have been forced to be different, and I don't know about you, but I think that would be pretty sweet. Sure we wouldn't like it at first, but damn I think the stories would be pretty damn interesting.

Next time you decide to kill someone, either do it for good, or just don't kill someone you like enough to bring them back eventually because it ruins the legacy that they were built on.

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