Over on tumblr, franzferdinand2 asked:

Just wanted to say your crack earlier about people using racists on twitter as some kind of weird “I’m not racist” barometer really got me thinking. Journalism has managed to make gawking at obvious racism something to be consumed.

Franz is referring to stories like this, or this, or this, which I tweeted about a bit the other day. Today, I’m expanding on those tweets. I’ve got a lot of moving parts here, but bear with me. The tweets:

Imagine a world where we talk about the 1st Indian-American Miss America or young black actresses without farming hits off racist backlashes

— david brothers (@hermanos) September 16, 2013

I also get the feeling that "racists did a racist thing!" is another way people can say "Yo, I'm not racist! I don't even own a white hood!"

— david brothers (@hermanos) September 16, 2013

also if I can get really real: spotlighting someone only because racists hate them is privileging the position of the racist, not the person

— david brothers (@hermanos) September 16, 2013

Those stories actually really make me frustrated with the people who put them up and the people who share them. I think these types of stories are actually a kind of passive white supremacy. I call it passive because it’s not the result of a conscious choice to prop up white supremacy. It’s actually coming from what I think is a good place on the part of the website or anyone involved, a desire to spotlight someone overcoming not just personal adversity, but specifically racial adversity too. There’s an extra oomph in that story. It’s nice when people do things and racists can only sit there impotently.

Which I understand, and empathize with. But nine times out of ten, more column inches are devoted to how racists react to them, and then occasionally how they react to the racist, instead of their actual accomplishments. The accomplishments have always been considerable, whether she’s Nina Davuluri, the first Indian-American Miss America, Gabby Douglas doing super well in the Olympics, or Amandla Stenberg playing Rue in the Hunger Games.

Stenberg has the best first name ever, was the best part of Colombiana, and is a promising young actress. I don’t know anything about Miss America except that it’s weird we still do that kind of thing, but I assume they don’t just hand out that crown to anyone. You have to have some merit, and you have to have more merit than the next woman to go home with the crown. Sports stories are always interesting, and I bet the eventual ESPN 30 for 30 on Douglas in ten years is gonna be great.

All of these people have stories that are pretty interesting, and that’s without the outside input of people who quite literally would have never mattered in any even vaguely meaningful way to the people they are insulting. With that input, their story shifts from “really talented in their field” to “really talented in their field, also hated by racists.” Which is true, racists hate a lot of people, but a lot of things are true that aren’t regularly and consistently reinforced through the media.

These types of stories elevate the racist feedback above the only real issue at hand: some people did a cool thing and deserve press for it. They privilege the voice of the racist above the accomplishments of the actual person who is being attacked. Here’s a search on Jezebel for “Amandla Stenberg.” There are three posts about the racist tweets. There is one about her being cast in the role. There is nothing in-between. There is nothing of substance about this actress on that site, but there are three posts about racists reacting to her, her reaction to racists, and racists reacting to some other actor who dared be something other than white. They haven’t mentioned Nina Davuluri once without mentioning racism.

I most commonly see these stories with non-whites, and it’s usually a pretty even mix of men and women, maybe tilted a little toward women due to selection bias. The effect of tagging brown faces with hate narratives a dozen times a month all over the place online—and occasionally super often depending on what you choose to follow, in terms of blog subjects—causes a connection in your head with that negative stigma. It’s why when I say Somalia you think Black Hawk Down and starving children, the Middle East and constant warfare, China and disgusting smokestacks. It’s why black-on-black violence is a problem, a real tragedy, and white-on-white violence isn’t even a concept in your head.

We get a limited number of stories by and about non-whites, and women too, in comparison to white dudes. Think of how often those stories are about conflict or hate or death, the unbelievable burden of being brown. Think how many major movies starring black people are action vehicles and how many deal in black misery like it’s pornography. These stories are almost always othered—The Fast & The Furious being a notable, and rare, exception. It’s not about us over here. It’s about things that happen over there, to them, instead of here, to us, whether over there is Detroit or Beijing. The hate narrative becomes part of your definition of that group, and that affects how you treat people of that group.

So he’s articulate, she’s such a strong black lady. They’ve overcome so much adversity, like… racism! Which, again, positions them apart from you. You’re not racist, but you’re not them, either. People aren’t doing racist things to you. That happens to other people. Or maybe you’re a victim of racism, too, but what do you get out of seeing people say racist things?

No, these lists and posts are a chance for people who believe they aren’t racist to confirm their own internal assessment of themselves, and also how racism works. The story being “hated by racists” instead of “incredibly accomplished” gives people a chance to react against it. They share it with an affirmation that they, the sharer, are not anything like the racist. They scorn the racist. In fact, sharing this is yet more proof that they are not, in fact, racist, because racists should be scorned on sight. Which is cool, A+ for motivation but more or less a C- in execution in terms of being useful or helpful or anything but self-serving.

The racism this story depicts is binary. It’s on or off, is you is or is you ain’t this racist, and that encourages the idea that racism isn’t something you personally do or are. It’s something other people do. You don’t do that, right? So you aren’t racist!

But any colored folk can tell you that’s not how racism works. Everybody is a little racist. There are hundreds of learned reactions to different groups of people to unlearn, not to mention the areas of society where racist sentiment is implicit instead of explicit, like zoning laws or the prison industrial complex or the war on drugs. It’s in all of us. We’re gonna have to live with that racism until we fix it and our selves, and viewing racism as a binary personality choice doesn’t allow for that.

That’s why people react so strongly to being called “racist” when they say something totally racist or suspect, or their work being called “racist,” or occasionally even just hearing the word “racist” in like a fifteen meter radius or something and their “I’m Not A Racist!” alarm goes off. They aren’t like those people, no, not at all. Their personal definition doesn’t allow for internalized racism. Which is adorable.

So, in that sense, these posts help prop up white supremacy. But there’s more.

This stuff trickles down, just like everything else has trickled down over the years. It’s how culture works. We tell ourselves stories so that we might combat the stories that are thrust upon us. People talk about sexy Asian girls, black dudes with big dicks, black chicks with big butts—those aren’t positive stereotypes. They’re stereotypes that reduce a people to objects of desire, and animalistic desire in the case of black people in particular. Black men having big dicks isn’t a compliment. It’s a sign that they were closer to animals than humans, filled with uncontrollable desire thanks to their firehose of a penis. (Consider the tenor of a lot interracial porn if you don’t believe me. That didn’t come out of nowhere. There’s a long history that you don’t even need a book to understand. Or read this, which looks like a great resource.)

So: “Black is beautiful” battles “black is disgusting.” “I am somebody” served to convince children that they were, in fact, somebody, when every little thing in their life told them different. Black men became kings and black women became queens because the narrative was that they were lower than trash. It’s counter-programming.

These posts are programming, too. When you consider that we get precious few stories about us in comparison to white men, the impact of every single story is elevated. If you most often see stories about young black girls reacting to racists, then you’re going to associate young black girls with the struggle. If you only ever hear about Iraq when it’s wartime, you’re going to associate Iraq with that. If the only story you hear about Islam is violent jihad, you’re going to feel a spike of fear when you see a woman in a veil in the TSA security line. It’s why I see a cop and think about what I’m doing that might get me shot, and a cop sees me and thinks about what I’m doing that’ll get me shot.

And that, at its heart, is what white supremacy does.

White supremacy is a self-sustaining enterprise, a system, but that doesn’t mean that everyone involved in that enterprise believes in white supremacy. When white is established as the default, then the default story is a white story. That positions all other stories as Other, Alternative, and you think of the people in those stories that way, too. White supremacy is nothing but “White first, y’all second” and it’s not as easy as just deciding you aren’t racist.

White supremacy infests everything. That’s why Obama is still our “first black president,” instead of the first word being wrong and the second word being meaningless. Black sits apart from white, for reasons both intentional (for a long time they couldn’t be president because all that cotton needed picking I guess, I’m fuzzy on the rationale) and completely incidental (no black person had a chance of getting elected because they didn’t have access to the same resources whites did).

Things go around online occasionally that make people go “This is what racism looks like.” Sometimes it’s a young black male being shot down by an old white man, sometimes it’s a burning cross. It’s true: those are often indicative of racism. But by that level of racism is seen as the only level of racism. “Hey, this dialogue you wrote–that’s kinda racially suspect, isn’t it?” isn’t a personal attack, but every time I say it, no matter how hard I try and soften the blow (and I spent years pulling punches and getting blown up at anyway), somebody gets mad because their personal definition doesn’t allow for any type of racism, even accidental or incidental or institutional.

Racism is intentional and unintentional, and that’s why looking at race like a binary proposition sets up ideas that end up hurting everybody in the end. You have to be willing to accept that a little of the poison is in you, too, if you want to understand why these ideas persist after all this time and in so many different areas of our life.

So yeah, I’m not a fan of those stories. I don’t like the way they distort the reality of life. It makes black life seem like a burden, instead of a life with ups and downs. It messes up the way we view other peoples, and that trickles down to how we interact with them on a personal and foreign policy level.

I want fewer stories about racists and more stories about the people the racists hate. But that won’t happen, because those posts do gangbusters in terms of hits. You get to point and set yourself apart from them, people get to be sure that they’re on the right side of history, and you get to show support for a brown face by attacking a white face.

But it’d be better if you just supported the brown face in the first place and thought harder about why you’re sharing what you’re sharing.

Read the commentary on this post to see how racism manifests itself in subtle ways, in the absence of malice, hoods, and dead bodies.

This is real life. This is how it works. Everything we take in has a point and an effect. Think twice. Dig past the surface-level and try to understand that if it’s bigger than whatever makes you feel good for not being them, whether they’re racists or colored folks who are the victim of racism. Try harder.

Howdy. I didn’t read too much this week (though I did pick up the Street Fighter Origins: Akuma comic, which was neat), but Matlock went the distance. Goddamn. He’s flanked by Gaijin Dan and Space Jawa. Normally, I’d follow up this update with This Year in Panels, but next week is closer to the actual ThWiP anniversary, so I’ll do it then.

Which is a reminder that if you want to contribute to the second attempt at This Character in Panels, you’re more than welcome. I’ll be doing that update on Friday the 27th.

Apologies for the low level of updates here. It’s been busy times for me. I’m working full hours at my job, I’m doing the Den of Geek thing and I have assignments to do for my sketch writing class. Once that last part is finished with, I’m sure I’ll be a bit more prolific here. In the meantime, I have two new Den of Geek articles up. One for the 10 Most Uplifting Moments in Professional Wrestling and another in the form of a guide to the current TMNT storyline City Fall.

Now this is the part of Sprockets where we show panels.

Action Comics #23.2
Greg Pak and Ken Lashley

Aquaman #23.1 (Gavin’s pick)
Geoff Johns, Tony Bedard and Claude St. Aubin

Aquaman #23.1 (Matlock’s pick)
Geoff Johns, Tony Bedard and Claude St. Aubin

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Recently, DC Comics’s problems have reached sitcom levels in terms of errors and misunderstanding. The most interesting of these recent incidents is easily the Batwoman situation. J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman had announced their leave of Batwoman at #26 due to the same 11th hour editorial changes that have annoyed countless other creators into skipping town on DC, but claimed the straw that broke the camel’s back was that they could allow Batwoman to get engaged to her girlfriend, but they couldn’t get married. That created a backlash at DC for what appeared to be an anti-gay marriage stance.

While it made for some good schadenfreude, it didn’t really seem to make sense. DC heavily hyped up Batwoman’s debut for being a crime-fighting lesbian. There’s supporting character in the pages of Vibe who’s both gay and married. Hell, Marvel and Archie Comics have both made a killing off doing a gay marriage issue. Then what’s the problem?

The truth, as it turns out, is much stranger. In a twist on the old line, “I’m not racist! I just hate everyone equally,” DC Comics appears to simply hate marriage, whether it be straight or gay.

At first it just seemed like a stealth coincidence. With the New 52 reboot, it made sense that Clark Kent would no longer be married to Lois Lane and that Barry Allen would no longer be married to Iris West. They’ve been given the chance to rebuild towards those stories and retell them with a modern touch. Meanwhile, Wally West is no longer married to Linda because he simply doesn’t exist. But there are other married couples in the New 52, right? Aquaman and Mera are together and Animal Man has two kids. No, DC can’t be against marriage to the point of scorched earth, right?

As it turns out, this is what Dan Didio had to say at Baltimore Comic-Con the other day. “Heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives. They are committed to being that person and committed to defending others at the sacrifice of their own personal interests. That’s very important and something we reinforced. People in the Bat family their personal lives basically suck. Dick Grayson, rest in peace – oops shouldn’t have said that – Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon and Kathy Kane. It’s wonderful that they try to establish personal lives, but it’s equally important that they set them aside. That is our mandate, that is our edict and that is our stand.”

Which is kind of a weird thing to say, since Tim Drake was able to make “having a family” work for fifteen years. Then they fixed that and made him just as insufferable as Batman around the time when even DC realized that Batman was too insufferable and needed to be fixed.

It also seems to ignore police officers and firemen and other real life heroes, but… yeah.

So DC is only against the Batman-related characters being married, right? Except word’s been going around that Aquaman and Mera aren’t officially married. Sure, she’s his “queen” and they live together, but Johns has made sure not to mention that they’re husband and wife. It’s said that this will be explained in a future issue.

Well, at least we have Animal Man and Ellen Baker, right? Except they’re in the middle of a messy separation based on the death of their son Cliff. This whole part becomes really suspect based on the background. Lemire’s Animal Man started off feeling like a strong successor to Grant Morrison’s defining run and even made direct references to it early on. The latter part of Morrison’s run had a point that killing loved ones and generally crapping on the heroes for the point of drama is kind of a stupid thing to do.

How strange that years later, Morrison and Animal Man would both play the “kill the hero’s son” card at the same time. You have to wonder, though. Animal Man plays up the idea that heroes shouldn’t be married because their family will pay for it (even though unbeknownst to the main cast, it’s not Buddy’s fault, but because of his daughter’s fate as champion of the Red. Long story) and it’s being pulled towards Buddy being on his own. You have to wonder how much of that decision is based on editorial interference.

The comparison to Marvel is obvious. After all, they made huge waves with their Spider-Man marriage controversy. The One More Day incident is something I still don’t agree with, but I understand. Here’s the thing, though. That’s just one character. Yes, there are plenty of marriages that don’t work in Marvel, but right now, there’s still such pairings as Reed Richards and Sue Storm, Black Bolt and Medusa, Northstar and Kyle and Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Hell, I’m pretty sure Absorbing Man and Titania are still together.

While the editorial fuckery is a major problem with DC, I think one of the other major problems is the company-wide edicts (such as my new favorite, “Batman never sits. EVER.”). Despite Marvel’s problems, they’re pretty good about giving you variety. For every gritty Avengers Arena there’s something fun like Superior Foes of Spider-Man. You have options.

DC isn’t giving much in terms of options these days and this Villains Month bullshit epitomizes it. Everything is dark and everyone is horribly dying. They had something going with Blue Beetle, but then they canceled it, brought it back and retold it as something needlessly darker and it got canceled twice as fast. They’re trying to push Harley Quinn as a madcap romp, yet they just released a comic of her murdering legions of innocent children for the hell of it. Because THAT’S somebody I want to cheer for and laugh with.

In the end, I think about a scene from 52. Tim Drake, trying to get over how insufferable DC made him, was training with some monks and one asked him a riddle. Something like, “A duck is sitting inside a glass bottle. How did it get there?” After thinking about it, Tim realized it was because the monk telling the riddle put it there. The duck was fictional, just like everyone in the DC universe. You know why marriages don’t work for superheroes, DC? Because YOU say they don’t. The actual creative team thought it was a good idea and could work, but what do they know?

They know to look for work elsewhere, I suppose.

I’ve never run a 5k before, but I’m going to do one in about two weeks for the sake of Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer, who are sponsoring a 5k walk/run to combat cervical cancer in African women. Here’s the details:

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancer causes of death for women in Africa, even though it is the most preventable! Worldwide, over 500,000 women are diagnosed, and more than 280,000 women die of cervical cancer, every year. Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer (PINCC) creates sustainable programs that prevent cervical cancer by educating women, training medical personnel, and equipping facilities in developing countries, utilizing proven, low cost, accessible technology methods.

Each walker or runner has a goal, sort of an optional minimum buy-in. If you don’t make it, that’s fine and you can still run, but if you do make it, or exceed, then you’re helping out a little more. The goal for runners is $250, and I hit that over the weekend, but surpassing the goal is great, too. The more money we raise, the more resources PINCC earns, and the closer we get to meeting the $25000 goal for the entire 5k. Competitors have raised around $9000 so far, so we’re a little under halfway there.

So, if you have the money and inclination, I’d appreciate it very much if you’d pledge for my run. I don’t have anything to offer you in exchange, though if you have ideas let me know, but the donations are tax deductible. I’d like to blow past the goal, personally; double or even triple it, but whatever we do is whatever we do, and every bit helps.

The run is on 9/21. You can check the site out and pledge on my page here. Thanks for whatever you can do.

Welcome back for another week of showcasing what we’ve read through single panels. I’m helped out by Matlock, Gaijin Dan and Space Jawa. Matlock went the distance, as he appears to want to read all of the Villains Month crap from DC. Better him than me. The one omission is Green Lantern as the entire issue is splash pages and that’s against the rules for ThWiP. Still, nice art.

I have a new article up at Den of Geek US. 10 Awesome Scenes from Bad Movies. Go give that motherfucker a read! I have a couple more articles slated to be posted there over the next week, including a really fun wrestling-based one.

Meanwhile at the Hall of Panels…

Action Comics #23.1 (Gavin’s pick)
Michael Alan Nelson and Mike Hawthorne

Action Comics #23.1 (Matlock’s pick)
Michael Alan Nelson and Mike Hawthorne

All New X-Men #16 (Matlock’s pick)
Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen

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This is the first stage of Killer Is Dead, the new game directed by Hideyuki Shin, art direction by Takashi Kasahara, music direction by Akira Yamaoka, with story and executive production by Suda51. It’s called “Episode 1: The Man who Chose the Moon.” The video is about five minutes long.

I made a joke with a friend the other day about how if someone tried to create a Dogme 95-style movement for video games, their list of rules would essentially describe Suda51 games. Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, Killer Is Dead, all of these are basically the same game, gameplay-wise. One button to hit, one button to guard crush or secondary attack, another button to dodge/counter, and an optional jump button. Vaguely or explicitly annoying minigames. Gameplay that’s just good enough to be rewarding to a certain type of person, but not good enough to be A-list. I think of Suda51 as a dude who is really interested in making sure that the children of today still get to play Dreamcast games, and I appreciate that. All of his games are a solid B, maybe B+, but in terms of being interesting, in terms of being art, in terms of being experiences, Suda51’s games are A+ across the board. Shadows of the Damned and Black Knight Sword break the gameplay pattern, the latter being a throwback to a different genre than the other games and the former being more of a shooter than action/adventure game, but they’re both similarly obtuse and difficult, in terms of skill or patience.

“The Man who Chose the Moon” was my real introduction to Killer Is Dead. I watched a debut trailer, I think in Japanese, but I avoided any info on the game up until the day it came out and I decided to buy it. “The Man who Chose the Moon” is part-tutorial, part-cinema, and the blending of the two is what made it such a lightning strike for me. The only thing you do is walk forward, watch a cinema, and then press a button.

But what got me, what made me realize I was going to see the game through instead of getting bored as quickly as I usually do these days, was the moment you had to press and hold R1. Mondo Zappa, the main character, raises his sword, the screen changes, a voice says “Killer is dead,” and then you’re told to release R1, at which point the sword comes down and Tokio’s head comes off.

There was something about that moment, about a quicktime event being used in this fashion, as opposed to the normally annoying way they’re deployed now. (Do this on short notice, or repeat this section forever!) It felt cinematic and interesting in a way most QTEs don’t. It feels stylish. It blends story and gameplay into one thing, putting you directly into Mondo Zappa’s shoes.

Style is substance. I tend to think of substance as deep gameplay or a rewarding story, something along those lines. Something that takes time to digest, the concrete and quantifiable aspects of video game production. The Last of Us, for example, excelled at substance, even in the multiplayer. I like substance because it feels like I’m getting my money’s worth. Games are expensive, and if I’m dropping sixty on a disc or download, I need to be wowed. The most direct method is substance, but style’s just as good.

Style is harder to quantify. It’s not just visual style, or audio direction, or gameplay. It’s Mondo Zappa murdering people to finance sexual encounters, a grown man having a catchphrase, gameplay that continues to refine a blueprint established forever ago. Style is the aggregate of everything.

Killer Is Dead has style in spades, and the substance derives from that.

Further Reading:
I like this look at Killer Is Dead through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s pleasure principle and death drive concepts. It’s deeper than I went, but having played through the game a couple of times, it feels right.

Infinity #2 came out yesterday and proceeds to be one of the very few big comic events that I’ve been able to enjoy. So far, at least. What was curious was the Black Bolt subplot, which is used as the issue’s cliffhanger. Thanos has shown to be incredibly interested in something Black Bolt has to offer and it isn’t the Infinity Gems, since they’re all out of the Illuminati’s hands. Thanos has been sending his galactic flunkies to different worlds with the demand for a tribute. They must give Thanos the heads of all of their subjects who are between the ages of 16 and 22.

This coincides with the recent Thanos Rising miniseries, where it’s established that Thanos became the Screaming Jay Hawkins of the universe by having bastard children all over the cosmos. Not a single one of them takes after Thanos, even in appearance, and he’s become interested in wiping them all out. Obviously, that tribute would catch the needles in the planetary haystacks.

In the end of the issue, Black Bolt holds a meeting with the Illuminati in a realm where Bolt is able to speak freely without risk of kickass explosions. He hands Richards some kind of trinket and we have this exchange:

Black Bolt: And as I will be delivering my response to his request in person… I brought you here to give you this.

Reed Richards: What is it?

Black Bolt: Records. The hidden archives of Inhuman kings and queens. In there you will find what Thanos is looking for.

Black Panther: But what you said about the tribute—

Black Bolt: The tribute is a lie. A convenient one that Thanos is telling to cover up the truth… He doesn’t desire the death of every child of a certain age. He wants to ensure the death of a very specific person.

Black Panther: Who?

Black Bolt: The one Thanos has come to Earth to kill… His son.

Right there we know that Thanos has a child on Earth and that child is an Inhuman. Again, it’s an offspring that won’t resemble him, meaning you’re not going to see a purple dude with a craggy chin and a mullet. It’s strongly possible that this will be a new character. After all, this is an event story and it can’t be an event story without introducing a new superhero who will barely, if ever, be touched by any other writer afterwards. They can’t all be Blue Beetle and Layla Miller.

But what if it’s someone established? Someone that we, the readers, would know? I’m not the most well-versed in Inhuman history, but I’ve seen those who are scratch their heads at who it could be. Then a theory popped up in my head.

Let’s let Charles Xavier from New Avengers: The Illuminati #3 explain it.

Illuminati #3 is a very strange issue in retrospect, whether you loved it or hated it. People have differing opinions on Brian Michael Bendis’ writing, but one thing everyone seems to agree with is that his writing really fell to pieces towards the end of his Avengers/New Avengers run. After Siege happened, Bendis started running out of stuff to write stories about and flailed about as he stuck around well past the expiration date.

Yet he never did follow-up on Illuminati #3.

For those who haven’t read it or need a refresher, Illuminati #3 is an issue where Bendis decided to retcon the hell out of the Beyonder. Instead of being this omnipotent cosmic force, Bendis labeled him as a man with a mutant gene who was exposed to the terrigen mists and became a super-powerful mutant-Inhuman. Black Bolt claimed he had no memory of him as being his subject and after crossing paths with him in space, the Illuminati shamed the Beyonder into seemingly leaving the universe. The last page was ambiguous as Beyonder walked the streets of Manhattan. Was he using reality as a sandbox again or was he in the actual New York City? We never found out.

So what if it’s the Beyonder that Thanos is out to kill? It’s a longshot, but it’s food for thought.

The stories Hickman are telling through Avengers, New Avengers and Infinity are massively dire in terms of our heroes’ chances of victory. The Infinity Gauntlet has been deemed ineffective. A space armada featuring two Superman stand-ins and Thor is sent on the run. It isn’t out of the question that someone on the Beyonder’s level would be needed to turn the tide in some way. That, and it would give closure to that Illuminati story.

Then again, I also predicted Magog was Booster Gold’s father once upon a time and that was totally wrong, so what do I know?

Edit: I’ve also seen some speculation that Thanos’ son is the new Nova, who is both hiding a secret of some kind (according to Phoenix-Cyclops in AvX) and is one of the characters to appear on the cover of Infinity #6. Interesting.

Greetings. Pretty big week, very Avengers-centric. Well, except for Avengers Arena because we all have some standards. By “we” I mean myself, Matlock, Gaijin Dan, Space Jawa and Dickeye.

Dickeye’s choice for Thor: God of Thunder reminds me that at the end of the month, I’m bringing back another round of This Character in Panels. If you missed out last time, send me a line!

All-Star Western #23 (Gavin’s pick)
Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Moritat

All-Star Western #23 (Matlock’s pick)
Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Moritat

Aquaman #23
Geoff Johns and Paul Pelletier

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I like Lana Del Rey in part because there’s something about her lyrics and performance that makes me want to ask questions. Fabolous and blur are pretty self-evident to me. I don’t listen to “No Distance Left to Run” or The Soul Tape II and have to untangle what they’re talking about. I still have to untangle how they’re saying it, yeah, but the subject matter I get pretty much instantly. But something about Del Rey makes me listen real closely to her music. I’m sharp enough to know there’s something there, but not sharp enough to catch it.

“Off to the Races” is one of those songs that made me sit up and take notice. The song blends Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita with a bit of Bonnie & Clyde. But there’s a performative aspect to it, something in her voice and delivery that makes it feel like a role or pose, one that goes beyond the implied roles in every other song. She’s portraying something or someone, building a world and telling a story, that I want to know more about. There’s a performance there.

None of this would matter if she didn’t sound good, obviously. Liz Barker at Strawberry Fields Whatever described her style as being “sexy music that feels like being asleep,” and I like that. The music feels very relaxed, something to sit around with friends and vibe to, but the tension comes from how the play against the music, like a smiling face saying “I’m going to kill you.” The juxtaposition clicks.

A lot of the songs on Born To Die feel like they’re about relationships, rather than love. There’s not a lot that feels like the usual I Love Him, He Loves Me, or He Did Me Wrong. It’s more about the structures we build and the ways power works in male/female relationships, who has control and when or how. In “Off to the Races,” Del Rey sings about a lover who spends a decent amount of the song watching her, whether she’s swimming or getting dressed, as opposed to doing things or being loving. There’s a voyeuristic aspect that feels significant. “National Anthem,” on the other hand, sounds like obsession to me.

The video for “National Anthem,” like a lot of Del Rey’s work and videos, feels like coded language. It features Del Rey as Jackie Kennedy and A$AP Rocky as John F Kennedy. It’s a simple thing and they don’t do much that’s transgressive or surprising with the idea, but that makes it even more interesting to me. It’s pretty much just a 1:1 swap, with allowances made for our idea of fun—Rocky playing dice, Del Rey dropping low, that kind of thing.

But by and large, the video portrays the First Family having fun and living life before Rocky gets shot. It’s touching and loving. There’s a weird tension here, too. The idea of a black husband and white wife, their cute children, their friends, their parties, all of these things are normal to me. But push it back to the ’60s, and slip it into the fantasy of Camelot, and it makes me feel uneasy. It feels a little unreal, a little like a dream where you know things are about to go hideously wrong, but still compelling.

I’m really interested in Del Rey and Rocky’s hands in this video, how he touches Del Rey and how she touches him back. His hand on her thigh before dying, their closeness on the beach, the butt grab when they’re dancing, her playing with his braids… “sexy music that feels like being asleep.”

I like Lana Del Rey because she makes me want to have conversations about her music. There is something there that I want to know.

I hated on A$AP Rocky for a long time because he tended to rap like the dudes who influenced him and that bothered me. But at the same time, I’d praise his features, like somehow all of the features I liked were exceptions to the rule that Rocky sucked. But I was wrong, obviously, because that’s silly. “I don’t like dude, except for all these songs where I like dude, but really, son is wack.”

The first feature where I sat up like “Wow, this guy is getting it in” was probably Rocky’s turn on Schoolboy Q’s “Hands on the Wheel,” from Habits & Contradictions. The song has a great sample. The woman singing “hands on the wheel” on the chorus is an artist named Lissie. She covered Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness”, a song I like quite a bit. I like the different feeling songs have when women sing songs originally sung by men or vice versa. Otis Redding’s “Respect” is a different animal than Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” both for the mechanical differences between the songs and the way both singers apply their own style to that blueprint.

It’s not the same situation, but you should probably listen to Notorious BIG’s reference track for “Queen Bitch” and then Lil Kim’s version, too. Just having a different voice in there changes the game.

Q rides the beat real well in this song, as usual, but Rocky kinda outshines him. His flow is super swaggery, with colorful punchlines and a killer interpolation of the chorus. It’s not particularly deep or technically proficient in the spherical lyrical miracle sense, but it’s good. It’s rapping. Saying something mundane in a tight way is equal to saying something tight to me, and Rocky does it real well.

I especially like his feature on A$AP Ferg’s “Shabba.” The song is raunchy, but supremely catchy thanks to a great gimmick. The music video, though…

I like this new trend of rap videos being conceived as weird, stressed-out, feverish nightmares, and this is definitely a solid example. It’s just off, from the Shabba Ranks impersonator to the cameos to the last supper scene to the 4th wall suddenly shattering about three minutes in…and that’s all before Shabba Ranks himself shows up. This song is real hype, but the video is just uncomfortable enough to be super tight. It’s a party video, no different than “I Get Around,” but slanted.

Rocky’s on the remix to A$AP Ferg’s “Work,” along with Trinidad Jame$, Schoolboy Q, and French Montana. Rocky comes correct, Trinidad Jame$ too, but man. French Montana? Dude is wack, but “When they mask up, comin’ for your ice/When they barefaced, they comin for your life” is pretty tight. But even then, he can’t compete with Schoolboy Q’s “Yeah, put in work, spray his ass in front the church/ Deacon said I did my shit, the pastor said, ‘That nigga turnt!'” It puts me in mind of Ghostface’s “Wu Banga 101,” where he kicked a whole verse about a crooked church.

Euge Ahn, alias Adam Warrock, put me onto A$AP Ferg. I had basically written off the whole A$AP Mob as weed carriers, but Euge’s enthusiasm for Ferg’s Trap Lord record got me to buy it sight unseen… and it was worth it. With the exception of a sex skit, the whole album pretty much goes. Euge said it was something like gangster music made by a space alien, and that’s pretty close to how I feel. There’s a lot of singing, some patois, and a lot of swag rap. There’s a lot of posturing for the sake of other men in there, too, which leads to some truly absurd scenarios, but sure. I listen to rap, I can deal.

It’s tight, though. Ferg knows how to utilize a feature, too. Bone Thugs is on “Lord,” and Krayzie Bone blacks all the way out when he steps up to bat. Ferg brings out B-Real and Onyx on “Fuck Out My Face,” which gives Sticky a chance to say “I’m a CBGB… crazy bald-head grimy bastard!” and make my year.

Ferg’s not really saying anything new, lyrical content-wise, but again, he’s saying it in a dope way, so who cares, really? He reminds me a lot of Young Dro, who I like a lot. They just do what they do and do it well. Reliable dudes who go in on occasion.

The highlight of the album for me is “Murda Something” with Waka Flocka Flame. I know Waka is on record as not wanting to be seen as a lyrical dude for whatever dumb reason, but this type of song is exactly why I like him. It’s fast, almost to the point that he can’t keep up with his own raps, and A$AP Ferg chanting “ain’t afraid to murda something” before he comes in with a verse that’s half the speed of Waka’s is too dope. It’s music to throw bows to, run miles to, lift weights to. It’s motivation music. Black superhero music.

Also Ferg drops this during that song:

Y’all quick for the tweeting, y’all quick to be tumbling
How about a Vine? Two clips to your spine
And Instagram pics of me dumping

First rapper to beef with tumblr? Might be.

I keep talking about Schoolboy Q on this, but he’s been on my mind. He’s got a new album dropping this year, #oxymoron, and he’s been on a tear all year with hot songs and hotter features. This is “Collard Greens,” with Kendrick Lamar:

This is what I like. The beat’s remarkable, Schoolboy Q’s flow is… I called it a eurostep flow on Twitter the other day, because it takes a step in one direction before jetting down another. It’s jerky, but jerky in a way that feels natural, or normal. It’s not like “Dang, son’s way off-beat.” He’s hitting different marks and changing direction, is all.

I like the video, for the most part. It turns out adding a kaleidoscope effect to your average video featuring parties, half-naked girls grinding on dudes, and Macklemore turns something average into something that’s a little interesting. The inset transparent rapping faces aren’t special, neither are the colorful visual effects, but for some reason, that kaleidoscope effect feels perfectly paced for the song. This is another nightmare video, too, and Q kinda dances like Grover at a few different points, thanks to the jittery cut frames.

Kendrick’s got verse two, and he blacks out, as usual. I like the whole TDE crew, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Rock. It’s dope they have such a range of personas and characters, from Soul’s stoned conspiracy theorist to Q’s groovy gangster. I have half a hunch—I haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet but it feels right—that if Kendrick is the GZA of the group, the most technically proficient and deep, for whatever value of deep you prefer, that makes Q the Method Man. Remember when Meth was the charming one in the Wu-Tang, the fashionable player? That, and their shared smiley face/dark subject styles, makes me think that’s a fair comparison, even if it isn’t 1:1.

Here’s E-40, Danny Brown, and Schoolboy Q, “All My Niggas”:

40 is one of those dudes like Bun B or Scarface who go extra hard when they’re featured on someone else’s song or have hype guest features. 40 can phone in verses better than a lot of dudes, but Danny Brown and Q simultaneously keep up and pay homage to the legend.

I like this old video for “There He Go”:

“Got my daughter swaggin’ like her motherfuckin’ daddy, though!”

Let’s go out on the first A$AP Rocky song I heard and a video I’ve grown to like a lot, “Purple Swag”:

This song has grown on me over the past couple years, and the sample from the Akira soundtrack is hot.

A year ago around this time, I was talking up how I had stopped watching WWE and started finding TNA to be pretty fucking good. It was shocking, but just as shocking is how a year has passed and my feelings couldn’t be more opposite. As it is right now, WWE is probably at its most solid since 2001 while TNA has gotten so laughably bad that I really wouldn’t mind too much if it died.

Hey, it’s not like most of the guys are getting paid well anyway.

So what happened?

With the WWE side, it appears to be two major things. First off, Triple H has been taking over more behind the scenes and while he failed pretty badly in bringing in Sin Cara, he’s smarter than Vince in a lot of storytelling aspects and is finally able to get his vision off the ground. One of his big problems has been how he makes for a terrible face character and puts himself over way too obnoxiously (having a semi-retired guy as one of the top faces does nothing for anyone other than short-lived ratings peaks), but now that he’s a heel, it works.

The other big change came from something that’s been hurting the company for years and that’s the Who Moved My Cheese? factor. For way too long, WWE’s been in need of an era shift. They’ve been stuck in the Cena/Batista/Orton era for so long while being too afraid to move forward. Batista quit a few years ago and Orton’s been deemed too much of a risk to be top face, so they’ve been stuck making Cena super important while doing a bad job of building up anyone to be on his level.

CM Punk came really close, but they chose to instead turn him heel and ruin that momentum. Sheamus has come close, but just hasn’t been able to come off as more than Player 2 Cena. Then there’s Ryback, who got pushed to the moon, only for the bookers to realize that he’s nowhere near ready to be champion, leading to him losing a bunch of matches, turning heel and falling down from the grace of the main event.

At this point, they’ve reached the point where they have to move on or simply flail around like they have for the past few years. While they’d love to ride out Cena forever, he’s finally reached the point of having to take a vacation to recover from injuries. They’ve handled this the best way possible by pushing Punk and Bryan as top faces while NOT having them succeed at the bat, while at the same time having Bryan get the first 100% clean win on Cena in forever. Meanwhile, Orton’s turned heel, which is the best place for him.

It’s weird to look back at three of the biggest things to piss me off with WWE in the past three years.

1) That time Christian won the World Heavyweight Championship and they immediately jobbed him out to Orton.

2) Daniel Bryan losing his title in mere seconds on a huge PPV stage.

3) CM Punk beating Cena at Summerslam, only to have a Clique member attack him and the Money in the Bank holder to come out and pick the bones.

The crazy thing is, all of these basically happened at the end of Summerslam! Daniel Bryan won his big title match, Triple H laid him out and he lost the belt in mere seconds to Orton. And it worked!

WWE’s really been on a roll lately, firing on all cylinders. Watching three hours of Raw used to be a chore, but now it flies by because nearly every segment is a good time. It’s been a long, long time since they’ve had that kind of quality.

Not only that, but there’s some great talent coming down the pipeline. Sami Zayn (El Generico), Adrian Neville (Pac), Kassius Ohno (Chris Hero), Solomon Crowe (Sami Callihan) and many others are on the NXT roster, waiting to be called up. The reason they aren’t being called up? Because Triple H wants to make sure that they have actual plans for any new member of the roster. This is a smart thing.

As for TNA? A year ago, they were really damn good. Even their cheeseball Claire Lynch storyline, which had some of the worst acting we’ll ever see, was entertaining as hell. The matches were great for the most part and the Bound for Glory Series round robin tournament was super interesting to watch. After losing wrestling’s cancer Vince Russo, the writing took a huge upswing.

So what happened? The main thing that killed their momentum was their desperation to hold onto Jeff Hardy. His contract was coming up, so in order to entice Hardy into staying, they pushed him to the top. The final four in the Bound for Glory tournament were Hardy, James Storm, Samoa Joe and Bully Ray. Storm, Joe and Ray all had their build-up reasons as to why they could or should win the tournament and move on to challenge Austin Aries at the Bound for Glory PPV. Instead, Hardy won with no build. It really ruined everything. Aries had to turn heel despite his run as a mega-face being short-lived and they had to put the “Bully Ray is behind Aces & 8s” reveal on hold.

That was the worst. Aces & 8s went on FOREVER. What made it really bad was that for the first few months, they didn’t even give anyone in the gang identities. They all wore masks, so they had no personalities and no reason for us to care. They were just a bunch of generic bikers. There was nobody it could be to make it worthwhile and much of the revealed roster proved it (ie. Bischoff’s son and Mike Knox). At least when they finally showed Bully Ray was behind it, the explanations made sense. It’s just that it wasn’t very exciting while it happened.

But therein lies one of the other major problems with TNA. See, Vince Russo’s main problem was that he could come up with a good beginning to an angle, but would then just swerve it into oblivion or forget about it. Post-Russo TNA would come up with a good beginning and maybe a good middle… but then they’d stay there. For instance, last year they introduced Abyss’ “brother” Joseph Park, who went from searching for his missing brother to becoming a wrestler to having episodes where being cut open would cause him to black out and become like Abyss for a minute. The first instance of him having one of those episodes was a year ago and only now are they giving it any attention! It’s not even follow-up! They’re simply calling it out as something that happens and are letting it ride.

The company’s also been falling apart outside of the ring. They’ve been in a perpetual storm of bad publicity where they’ve treated their talent like shit and have had problems even paying them on time. One of their wrestlers Jesse Sorensen got a major neck injury and they tried to give him an office job, only to fire him from that. Not for doing a bad job, but because they needed to save the money. Meanwhile, wrestler Zema Ion contracted some kind of stomach cancer and put up a failed Kickstarter to pay for the surgery. Surgery that TNA wouldn’t foot the bill for. Vince McMahon’s no saint, but he’s smart enough to know that you take care of this kind of thing for the sake of publicity.

Now you might figure that between the fucking over of the ailed roster and the firing of many others, it would be because the company is simply in dire straits and can’t afford it. Well, maybe that’s true, but it’s also so they can afford to bring in Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz and put them on the roster. I can’t imagine how much Ortiz cost them, but considering his debut was met with complete and utter silence and confusion from the crowd, I figure they paid him too much.

And what about the Bound for Glory Series? They’re doing it for the third time this year and it worked out so well last time. Up until they panicked and made Hardy win, it was strongly booked. At the very least it should have given them focus, right? Not so much. As of right now, the tournament needs to wrap up in about two weeks and they haven’t even done HALF of the matches they need to do! Yeah, check out that time mismanagement. They most certainly had the chance to get it right, but now they don’t have enough TV and house shows to fulfill the concept and will likely have to sweep it under the rug.

Amazing.

Also funny is how TNA lets their wrestlers compete at indy shows and one indy show in particular recently featured much of the Aces & 8s roster. They all jobbed.

As it is right now, TNA appears to be beyond saving and watching them cut corners makes it look like they’re in their death throes like WCW was in their final few months. The thing is, I’m not as down on it like I was when WCW went under. Other than the showcase of some strong – if meandering – talent, it’s lost its purpose. They’ll never be good enough to make WWE sweat even a bead and will be lucky if they can ever make it a good show in general. It’s run by incompetent and rather callous people. There’s a lot of good talent in there, but it’s not like these guys are getting the most out of it. Hell, some of the younger guys like Magnus could probably find a place in WWE.

WWE is the Gallant to TNA’s Goofus. I look forward to every WWE show now to witness this new era shift that was ultimately set in motion by CM Punk’s “pipe bomb” promo, all while the most entertainment I’m getting out of TNA is watching them gasp for air. Just like WCW in 2000.