Gavok note: I’ve been rather busy the last week and I have my Orlando report that nobody cares about nearly done, but in the meantime I thought I would break through the lack of articles with another old Pop Culture Shock thing I wrote. I guess I was inspired by hermanos posting that link the other day to the Thunderbolt profile.

Before I had really read all that much with Luke Cage and Iron Fist, I was always in love with the concept. You had these two very different characters based on the movie fads of the 70’s (blaxploitation and martial arts) and gave them solo series destined to fail because, well, fads die out. So to cut their losses, they just put the two guys together into a makeshift team that worked like no other and lasted for eight years as a series. You couldn’t do that with just any two ailing comics. You can’t just release something like Atom and Infinity Inc. and think it’ll last past issue 6. The ingredients with Luke and Danny are perfect. These days the characters are stronger individuals for it, but are quick at teaming up without a single fuss.

You can’t forget their beginnings, though. Before the days of Iron Fist taking a break from beating up ninjas because he just saw Cage kick an alien shape-shifter in the lady business, the two were loners trying to rise up the Marvel ranks. Iron Fist’s series, a spin-off of his debut storyline from Marvel Premiere, lasted a paltry fifteen issues. It was cancelled so abruptly that Claremont had to get an Iron Fist/Spider-Man storyline made for Marvel Team-Up just to tie up the loose ends. That said, Iron Fist was a really solid series and adds a little punch to the details of the modern series.

What it didn’t have was a good rogues gallery. Yes, Iron Fist was the first guy to be shown fighting Sabretooth, but other than that, his enemies were really generic and forgettable. Power Man didn’t have to worry about that.

Luke’s comic didn’t have as much of an involved storyline as Danny’s did, but there’s a reason his comic lasted nearly 50 issues. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire was a fun comic. Insanely fun. The guy’s average day involved hanging out with his janitor sidekick, walking down the street in his gaudy outfit, punching a random thug, getting shot at, making sure to note that bullets don’t work on him, fighting a ridiculous villain, then going back home.

And what a bunch of villains he had. You always knew you could read the next issue because whoever Cage was going to fight next was definitely going to make things worth it. Even his villains borrowed from others were pretty entertaining, like Dr. Doom and Zzzax.

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Yes, hair color.

Is it me or is comics over-loaded with redheads, blonds, and . . . there’s no noun for black-haired people?

The detective on Batgirl, Nick Gage (or as I christened him Hunter B.B.Q. Picklejaropener), has black hair and the standard superhero body (tall, football-player shoulders, large muscles, and a jaw so square that you could pack a dozen of them evenly in a cardboard box).

He also has black hair, in a town that, now that Tim Drake has grown out of his skinny-kid phase, is overloaded with square-jawed, muscled, tall, broad-shouldered, black -haired men. 

Of course you could argue that any one of those characteristics is overdone in comics.  But I have to wonder about the hair.  It’s a pretty common hair color.  Why do comics artists almost never make characters brunettes?

Before I open this comic and spoil it for anyone reading this review, let me begin with the prayer of the comics fan:

Oh Lord, who doth give a shit about comics,

Probably more so than most people realize,

Yeah, I’m looking at you, Schumacher,

But as I was saying,

Oh Master of Divine Sequential Art,

Give us this day a non-sucky comic,

And forgive me my continuity cherry-picking,

As I have forgiven – never mind that part.

Lead my very favorite character in the DCU not into comics ignominy,

But deliver her from cancellation.

And seriously, if she could have fun, kick some ass, and be a character I can sympathize with?

I would appreciate it for ever and ever.

Amen.

All right.  Let’s do this thing.

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There is a theory that female characters aren’t as popular as male characters in comics (and almost every other medium) because while women identify with a male heroic protagonist, men don’t identify with female heroes.

Woah there, don’t tense up just yet.

No one is in control of who they do or do not see as role models.  No one has an obligation to enjoy or identify with one character or another.  On top of that, often there are traits that almost all female characters are created with that can bar men (and women) from identifying with them, looking up to them, or otherwise thinking they’re awesome.

I would like to know:  Have you ever intensely identified with or hero-worshiped someone of the opposite gender in comics.  If so, who and why?  If not, why do you think that is?

Finally, do you find that race, sexuality, age, or some other characteristic commonly pruned out by marketing people affects your ability to connect with a character?

So, back from Orlando. I’ll write up the trip report on that in the next day or so.

As I returned to the land of Jersey, I was introduced to this cover image for Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live #3.

Yes. Many times, yes.

Comic books have been very, very good to me.

Solicit for the November issue of Titans under the cut:

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Fine, I know, spelling fail, too.  Still.

In comics there are a lot of situations in which characters of wildly different sizes fight.  Lilliputian characters will go up against regular-sized people, or normal people will fight fee-fie-foe-fum-style giants.  Sometimes, not always, but sometimes these fights will contain knock-out punches delivered by the smaller character.

Imagine a fist smashing into your face, hard enough to knock you out.

Now imagine a something the size of a pen cap smash into your face at the same speed as a punch.  Now imagine a pen-tip.  A needle tip.

Yes, it would depend on the thickness of the relative giant’s skin, and the amount of momentum behind the punch.  But if you see Wonder Woman punch Giganta, Giganta shouldn’t fall down, she should be stabbed through the cheek.

I would think this would appeal to some of the gore-loving creators.  Think of a super-speed-powered character punching a giant foe again and again, ripping holes into the skin, the hero’s arms dripping with capillary fragments and subcutaneous fat, until the giant character was just one walking blood-fountain.  Very Ennis, no?  Or do I mean Ellis?

Well, I imagine they’d both like it.

The DCU blog released a preview of Batgirl #1.  Don’t bother checking.  They don’t say who she is.

Although there are strong hints, and as far as I can tell no comics company has ever played the game slyly enough to counteract people’s expectations with misplaced hints, the identity of the new Batgirl has not been announced.

Back at Wonder-Con I was bubbling with anticipation.  Now I’m just so tired.  Just.  So.  Tired.  I know that anything to do with comics means a long waiting period, but at some point the question is drawn out long after the answer becomes a source of irritation instead of curiosity.

I know all comics readers, all media consumers in general, have had experiences where the storyline, the movie, the build-up, the series, the idea, or the wait is drawn out so long that the pay-off no longer seems worth it no matter what it is.

So spill, oh faithful gripers.  At least it will take my mind off of things.

In the end, Garth Ennis’s Punisher was about both the best and the worst of humanity. The worst, in that he represents just how thoroughly a human being can be broken by the unthinking and inhuman actions of others. The best, in that he looks at the terrible things that the best of us tolerate and says, “No more.”

Ennis’s Punisher isn’t a hero. He may do heroic things, and he may save lives, but he’s no hero. He is, at best, a murderer whose goals happen to coincide with those of many members of society. Punisher MAX really works for two reasons. Ennis treats the series as a war comic, making sure to show the effects of the violence on society and the characters. He writes Frank Castle not as the Punisher, a costumed mental case with a mad-on for criminals, but as a soldier using the things he learned in Vietnam to put the screws to the people he hates.

Frank Castle is no one to look up to, but he exists as the ultimate “If I could…” character. A social worker partway through the series, in the phenomenal The Slavers arc, gives Castle information on his targets, against her better judgment, because she wanted them to pay for what they’d done. She knew the law would never be able to touch them and that they would skate through life, and she hated them for it. They were trash, less than human, and the only person who could do what needed to be done was a man wiling to be inhuman to them right back.

And he does so, if not admirably, then with a certain amount of skill. He makes a child of a hard man with ease, before he finds the woman who helped mastermind the entire scheme. When she begs for her life, explaining that they just wanted to be in America and do business, he coldly tells her, “All that counts is you can’t stop me. I’m stronger than you, so I can do anything I want.” There’s a beat, as time passes and the panel switches, and he asks her, “Isn’t that the way it works?”

And it’s wrong, he’s beating this woman to death, and it’s terrible… but she’s the one who came up with the “rape them to break them” plan. She was willing to use other people as cattle to make sure that she lived a life of luxury. You’re appalled, and it’s ugly, but deep down, you understand that she’s getting exactly what she deserves. Getting to be a monster with no repercussions is unthinkable. It makes for some uneasy feelings. So, you don’t cheer, exactly, but there’s a quiet understanding, the feeling you get when you squash a bug that might have, or did, sting you. It is ugly, but it needed to be done. It is not a good thing that it was done, exactly, but it was necessary.

Frank Castle is a monster, but he’s also a representative of our gut instinct when confronted with some fresh horror. He does what a lot of wish we could, or, failing that, wish would happen, but make no mistake: he is only better than those he kills by comparison. He is a monster, and when confronted with this fact, he agrees. He cannot bring anyone into his life, because at some point, no matter how happy his life is, he is going to turn on the news and see someone that must be punished. He’s damned, he knows it, and he accepts that it is what it is.

The thing about Frank Castle, the thing that keeps him from becoming a generic and bloodthirsty action hero, is that he takes no joy in what he does. One-liners are rare, and stand out when they do occur. It is clear to both the reader and to Frank Castle himself that he takes no pleasure in what he does. The closest he comes is satisfaction, and even that is a vague inference. He does it because it must be done, and he does it because no one else will.

When confronted with the death of a broken and sad woman, all he thinks is, “If I could, I’d kill every single one of them. I’d wipe them out. And you’d never have had to exist at all.” It isn’t an honorable sentiment, but it is a sad one. Whenever Frank Castle meets a normal person, someone not in his line of work, he’s met with shock, scorn, and horror. They understand his appeal, and a couple characters even take him up on it, but his way is not the way life should go. There is no honor, no glory in being Frank Castle.

Garth Ennis took a derivative character, a Dirty Harry for superheroes, a character used to reiterate the ridiculous idea that heroes should never kill, and used him as a mirror for us. Our fears and our insecurities were put on display and put down over the course of the past five years.

Frank Castle didn’t die at the end of Ennis’s run on the Punisher, but I’ve read all the Punisher stories I need. I can’t read the one that fights supervillains, gets up by superheroes because he’s a loose cannon, and never seems to accomplish anything. I can’t take him seriously. It’s like going from photorealism back to stick figures, from the modern age back to the Silver Age, or aging backwards. I’ve read a Frank Castle that brought feelings and thoughts that I’d left unexamined right to the forefront of my mind. I watched him murder people, people who absolutely deserved it, and felt that that was the only way their story could have, and should have, ended. I’ve had to examine my reactions to his actions, and figure out what that means about me as a human being. And, honestly, I’m better for it.

After The Slavers, Punisher vs Kingpin is hollow. I’ve seen real villains in these pages, and that comic book nonsense is just that. The Punisher shouldn’t be a character that makes you pump your fist and go “YEAH!” At this point, that’s a take on the character I want nothing to do with. It’s boring and retrograde.

Those five hardcovers on my shelf, though? Those are five of the finest, and most thoughtful, books Marvel ever put out. It’s a poorer comics world without them. All five volumes are on Amazon. Five, Four, Three, Two, One. The hardcovers collect two stories a piece, and are by far the best way to read the series. These are comics to get angry to and comics to care about. These are comics to think about.

A friend of mine, who used to enjoy the Batman: The Animated Series back when it aired, recently told me that her regard for Batman was finally snuffed out.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a lead into griping about how Batman is being portrayed these days.  I’ve done that enough. Read the rest of this entry �