Man, it’s been like three years since I last posted this, and the old image links are broken. However… here is the photoshop I’m still the most proud of.

DC Comics’ Wednesday Comics and David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp are the two big books of the past week. We sat down on Saturday to talk about the former, since I’m probably going to be writing about the latter. Here’s the breakdown of our 7th Fourcast!:

-The volume is a little low on this one, because I suck. Slight issue with our recording process, and one which I’d fixed halfway through the show. However, so that we don’t blow your brains out (we just want to blow your mind), I kept all the volume at the same level. So, crank it up to eight or put some earphones on!
-We waffle on which number we’re up to on the Fourcast!, finally deciding on seven.
–Other people are cheating.
-Our anthem is going to be 6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental until Four Minutes to Lockdown becomes free.
-We lay down our verdict on Wednesday Comics: It’s fun, regardless of whether it’s a gimmick or not.
-Why is that? Because Mark Chiarello is a genius, that’s why.
-Remember SOLO? That was Chiarello.
-Remember Batman Black & White? Chiarello, baby.
-We’ve got another You Made Me Read This!, this time featuring Superman: A Nation Divided, about Superman fighting for the Union in the Civil War.
-I thought I won because it was a war comic. Naw.
-Wouldn’t it be awesome if Superman fought for the South in an Elseworlds, though?
-We wrap it up with a few anecdotes about kids in comics. Do bad guys really have daughters while good guys have sons? Comics are messed up, man.

Next week! San Diego.

If you’re new to the Fourcast!, subscribe to the podcast-specific RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes. Our full-blown RSS, with space-age things like “text” and “images” is here. I hear that the kids like Facebook, too, so if you’re so inclined…

Batman doesn’t care about sex.

I mean, sure, he’ll have sex sometimes. He’s had a series of short-lived relationships, the most popular of which involve an easy escape hatch. Benefit of dating criminals, right? It’s pretty clear to me that he doesn’t care about sex. He’s got a mission, he’s been trained, and guess what! Sex is entirely beside the point. He’ll do it when he has to, but you won’t see Bruce at a bar talking to Bonita Applebum.

Parker is the star of more than a few of Richard Stark’s novels. He’s a no-nonsense thief and strong-arm, very expert in planning and even better at putting a stop to any funny business. If you cross Parker, he’ll lean you before you even get a chance to think about what you just did. He enjoy sex, but only at specific times. If he’s on the job, or planning a job, he’s got no drive at all. After, though, he can spend several days horizontal. His drive slowly fades away after that, until he’s practically a monk in the run-up to the next job.

Ogami Itto? Don’t even. I’m six volumes in, and I don’t think he’s had sex for pleasure once. He’s done it to save someone’s life, and to grease some wheels, but never because he chatted someone up. It’s entirely possible that he’s just respecting his dead wife’s memory, but it’s much more likely that it’s because he’s walking the path of the assassin and has no time for physical pleasure.

All three of these guys are focused, motivated, driven, and paragons of self control. They all approach sex on their own terms, blatantly ignore it when they feel like it, but are still considered virile. It’s definitely fair to say that they are all generally portrayed as Real Men, even across cultural barriers. Ogami is a hop from Parker, who is in turn a skip from Batman, who is himself a jump from Ogami. They have very similar characterizations, despite having some fairly irreconcilable differences between them. Ogami murders for a living, Parker isn’t opposed to slapping a woman around if it’ll help a heist, and Batman is a manchild who sates his desire for justice by beating up criminals.

Together, I think that these three say something pretty interesting about what it means to be a man. They all fit the basic stereotype of a Real Man. They’re physically attractive, be it in a pretty boy sort of way or a more rugged manner. They’re physically capable, able to demolish most men with a single move, be it a punch, gunshot, or swing of a sword. They’re intelligent enough to create complicated plans that always come off perfectly, human error aside. They’re witty enough to be able to think on their feet when a situation goes south and to come out on top. They aren’t afraid to use violence when the time comes, either. That sounds like a Real Man, doesn’t it?

The sex thing is what makes it interesting. Virility is tied up in violence and physical strength, and all three of these guys have it in spades. Ogami kills dudes by the baker’s dozen, Parker is a machine, and Batman is a highly trained non-lethal ninja. When they do have sex, it’s never shown as “making love.” It’s something fast, primal, rough, and vaguely taboo. There’s a thrill to it, particularly when it comes to Batman and Parker. Parker is only interested after he re-establishes his manhood by making a lot of money and breaking a few heads. Batman’s biggest flame is Catwoman, the object of many a late-night chase and cowled makeout session. To borrow a line, they keep the masks on because it’s better that way. Ogami himself only indulges, or lowers, himself in sex when it fits into his quest. The first time he has sex in volume 1, it’s to show exactly how little he cares for the samurai customs of the day. In fact, he proves his manhood by rejecting the traditional notion of it.

I think it comes down to control. Men are supposed to be in control of themselves, their emotions, and the situation at all times. What better way to show this control than to refuse sex, one of the most primal needs of human beings? Ogami treats most women he encounters, and definitely the prostitutes, with something approaching contempt. They, like anyone else, are beneath his notice. It seems like every Parker novel has him refusing the advances of an appropriately attractive and willing woman until he decides he wants to bother with her. Batman’s celibacy is practically a superpower, considering that a couple of his villains are outright seductresses and the rest are openly sexy/sexual.

This occurred to me after finishing one of Stark’s Parker novels, one in which Stark has Parker question his sexual habits. It got me thinking, and I soon realized that Ogami Itto was similar in execution, if not in tone. It all really clicked into place once Batman came into the picture, and I realized that it was more of a trend than I’d expected.

I’ve written before about how, when following a character, you generally have to throw out the continuity you don’t like and read the continuity you do.

What I’ve noticed, though, is this trend tends to cultivate pockets of people who see very different characters.  This depends on a lot of things.  One is when you got to know the character.  People who are used to the warm and cuddly Batman of the 70s, do not like the colder Batman of today.  People, on the other hand, whose first impression of Bats was The Dark Knight Returns, wonder at how cuddly he’s gotten in the past year.

There are also different incarnations of each character.  Catman started out as arguably one of the more noble Secret Six characters.  But in Legends of the Dark Knight he was introduced as a psychotic murderer who slashed up women.

But things get a bit contentious when people drop or keep continuity based on how much they like a character.  We are all inclined to give more credit to those we like, in fiction and in life, and serial fiction gives us a convenient excuse for bad behavior.  I’ve gotten into arguments in which I can write off a character’s fall from the path of righteousness with an airy, “Oh, that wasn’t X-character, that was Y-writer.  You can’t trust Y’s writing.”  If I don’t like the character, however, Y-writer’s character choices seem perfectly trustworthy, and fair game to use in an argument.  Ah, the capriciousness of the reader.

Between Batman & Robin and Batman, I realize that while I do enjoy Dick Grayson as the newly-christened Dark Knight, what really seals the deal for me is his relationship with Damian Wayne. The big selling point is that now the roles of Batman and Robin are reversed. Batman is now the light-hearted one mentoring the brooding, moody badass. Without even mentioning him, Damian is the best use of Jason Todd since his resurrection, as Dick is trying to make sure that, against all odds, Damian doesn’t end up either corrupt and crazy (like Jason) or dead (also like Jason). I feel that the Dick/Damian dynamic is what’s going to define this episode of Bat-history and may ultimately make it one of the more interesting duo dynamics in comics, alongside Cage/Iron Fist, Booster/Beetle and Wolverine/Cyclops.

Then I remembered something. This isn’t the first time the two of them have crossed paths in comics. In fact, they helped lead to one of the few bright points of the Kingdom Come sequel Kingdom. More specifically, Kingdom: Nightstar, written by Mark Waid and drawn by Matt Haley ten years ago. Following up on the plot thread shown only in background shots from Kingdom Come, Nightstar — the daughter of Dick Grayson and Starfire — has a romantic relationship going with Ibn Al Xu’ffasch — son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al’Ghul. Bruce, being a delightful asshole in this continuity, decides to let Dick know.

There you have it. The next time Robin gets all indignant at Batman, imagine that inside he’s thinking, “I’m so going to nail your daughter in an alternate timeline for this, Grayson…”

Lately DC has been adding an eight-page back-up story featuring a new character to existing comic books.

The Question has been appearing as a back-up to Detective Comics, and the Blue Beetle has been added to Booster Gold.  I love the double feature, both because it gives me a chance to get to know new characters and because it allows ongoing stories of characters who, for reasons that pass understanding, don’t sell well enough on their own.

And now that I’ve pushed some minor characters, let’s get back to the five-hundred pound gorilla; Batman.  This is a guy who’s passed around to any title that needs a boost, from The Outsiders to the Blue Beetle.  (Tough beat on that last one, Battsy.  We all felt it.)

But what would be a different way to present Batman, considering he’s already in at least five books at a time?  I don’t know.  But I know what I want, and that is a return of the Batman: Black and White series.

Batman: Black and White, pitched by Mark Chiarello, was a series of 8-page Batman stories written and drawn by different artists.  The stories ran singly at the end of the newly-created Batman: Gotham Knights, and as 4-story collections.  The art and the writing are superb, the stories wildly disparate, running the gamut from gothic horror, to poetic meditation, to cutsy bat-with-a-baby stories.  There is a story in which Batman frees a genetically-engineered mermaid.  There is one in which Batman threatens someone’s life for killing his son’s cat.  There is one in which Batman is futuristic freedom fighter, and one in which he and an early Catwoman/Batgirl mash-up fight nazis, and one where he bleeds in an alley.

The stories are collected into three volumes, all of which are well-worth getting.  They are a must-have to any fan, partly because of the talent involved, but mainly because they add up to more than the sum of their parts.  The many takes on Batman, his motivations and his effects, his different eras and his absurdities, end up building something far more epic and sweeping than any planned Batman story I’ve ever read.  If I wanted to argue that superhero comics can be moving and artistic, these are the books I would present as evidence.

And if something like that were to come back, I would clamor for people to read it, no matter what book it was stuck to.

I’m not a fan of the later Bourne movies.  I think they skimp on the clever details of spy stuff and instead just show Bourne magically appearing places without explaining how he managed to be there.  I think the plots are shaky.  (Well, they were shaky to begin with.  He breaks into the ultra-top-secret headquarters in Paris, grabs all the guns and . . . gives them a good talking-to?  And that solves the problem?  Really?)  I think the camera is even shakier.  Shaky to the point where I couldn’t tell whether the struggles were between highly trained assassins or old ladies in a slap fight.

I have a friend who really likes the later movies, though.  And says so.  Usually to bait me into responding.  Which I do.  Vehemently.

During one argument, when I was getting particularly overheated about the idea that they were going to yet another Bourne movie, presumably called The Bourne Epilepsy, when he said, “You know, you don’t have to see it.”

And I realized that no, no I don’t.  I don’t particularly care about Jason Bourne or the movies in the first place.  Why was I even madly talking about how crappy the later movies were?

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There’s really something to be said for educational comics.

Not genuinely educational ones (perish the thought), but ones that guide the inexperienced reader through the labyrinth of nuttiness that was the golden and silver ages of DC comics. 

Batman: The Brave and the Bold, is a comic aimed at kids, just like many comics were during the forties through the seventies.  This makes it a particularly good place to unearth all of those silly, funny, and imaginative characters that populated the comics world back when the medium was light-hearted, episodic, and frankly ridiculous.

The series also serves as a guide for those of us who are new to comics, and looking for something other than wikipedia to introduce us to older characters.  Each team-up is a fun, fast way to learn about some ancient character from a source that doesn’t expect any knowledge of the reader.  So you get an explanation of each character’s backstory, motivation, and abilities.

It’s a fun way to catch up on tone and continuity of long-lost characters, and I recommend it to anyone who isn’t willing to page through forty years worth of comics to find out what they might have missed in the old days.

When you ask a certain type of person what kind of comics they like; well, first they’ll correct you.  They will say ‘graphic novels.’  And then they will tell you that they don’t have one specific interest, they just like high-quality graphic novels.

While I can admire a search for the best quality products of a medium that you like, I’ve always felt a certain contemptuous pity for those people.  Really?  Just ‘high-quality’?  Just ‘good’?  Just ‘insightful’?  These people are either liars, or are the stunted, gnarled, embittered kind of jerks who will tell you that they only listen to classical music and NPR.  Sure, their taste is unquestionable and their likes and dislikes as pure as the driven snow, but – really?  They have no guilty pleasures?  No specific areas of interest?  No morbid curiosity?  No nostalgic favorites or fannish loves or goofy objects of affection?  It just seems so flavorless and bland.

And I can say this because I without a doubt know that those people, when I tell them I like the Batsquad and the Arrows and have an irrational prejudice against Marvel, pity me just as much.

As well they might.  I’m a character-based-fan.  That?  Is like attending a Rolling Stones concert, making it backstage, and spending the whole time talking about your favorite member of the Monkees.

There are many humiliations to being a character-based-fan.  Start out with the fact that, prestige-wise, you are the lowest rung of the ladder (and considering you’re already into comics, that’s a really low ladder to begin with).  Add to that that artist-based-fans can flit to one book or another, ignoring all plot and dialogue and rhapsodizing about a page layout, and writer-based-fans can camp out for a story-arc or two before moving on.  A character-based fan is pretty much stuck in a book forever.  We’re like those frogs who get put in cold water, and then don’t jump out when it’s heated up, boiling ourselves to death.  But at least the frogs go quietly.  Character-based-fans are the ones at Cons, arguing with a panel of uncomfortable comics-professionals about how our character would never do that, while the audience hisses at us.

We’re the idiots who get into ‘who would win in a fight’ arguments and talk about the logistics of what Batman can carry around in his utility belt, and complain about how terrible a comic is while they’re buying it.

Still better than yakking about the artistic merits of Lost Girls, though.

Since we get right into spoilers for Batman and Robin #1 and for Secret Six #10, I’ll put the cut up front.

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