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The Situationist

Situationism in the Blogosphere – February ’08

Posted by The Situationist Staff on March 5, 2008

Josh Radovan & Digital Methods Initiative

Below, we’ve posted titles and a brief quotation from some of our favorite non-Situationist situationist blogging during February. (They are listed in alphabetical order by source.)

* * *

From Cognitive Daily: “The anatomy of an illusion — and what it tells us about the visual system”

“Take a look at this amazing illusion created by Arthur Shapiro (you’ll need the latest version of Flash Player to see it):

Vodpod videos no longer available. from posted with vodpod

You’re looking at two donut-shaped figures whose “holes” are gradually changing color from black to white and back again. It appears that the holes are changing in an opposite pattern — when one is light, the other is dark, and so on. But if you click to remove the surrounding donuts, you’ll see that the two holes are actually changing together.” Read more . . . .

From Deliberations: “Bringing Unconscious Bias Out Of The Dark

“. . . . When the groups deliberated about the summarized trial, the diverse groups performed far better. They raised and discussed more of the evidence they had seen. They mentioned more “missing” evidence, things they had not seen that they thought would have been helpful. And they were more willing to mention, and discuss, the possible role of racism in the case.” Read more . . . .

From Developing Intelligence: “From Mind to Hand: Hidden Knowledge Revealed and Enhanced By Gesture

“We often assume that true understanding is conveyed through spoken speech rather than gesture, but new research shows that “talking with your hands” can not only reveal different information than spoken language, it can be both more correct and yield better learning.” Read more . . . .

From Frontal Cortex: “Crowds and Psychology

“This prank reminds me of that Stanley Milgram experiment where people stopped on busy New York City sidewalks and looked up. When only one person was stopped, about 4 percent of pedestrians joined the man and looked at whatever he was looking at. But as Milgram increased the crowd size, more and more people stopped and stared. In other words, it was a positive feedback loop. A bigger crowd staring at the sky led to even bigger crowds. And everybody was looking at nothing. . . . Such is the power of ‘social validation’.”

Read more . . . .

From Experimental Philosophy: “The Pervasive Impact of Moral Judgment

“It is now widely agreed that people’s moral judgments can affect their intutions about whether or not a behavior was performed intentionally, but considerable disagreement remains about what exactly this effect might be telling us. Some researchers have suggested that the effect observed for intuitions about intentional action is pointing us toward some more general truth about the fundamental relationship between folk psychology and moral judgment, while others argue that the effect just happens to arise because of some quirky feature of the concept of intentional action in particular. In hopes of making progress on this question, Dean Pettit and I conducted a series of new studies.” Read more . . . .

From Mixing Memory: “God (and Gadgets) of the Lonely?

“The paper, by Epley et al., starts with the hypothesis that people may use religious thinking and other examples of perceived agency (e.g., in pets or gadgets) to reduce their feelings of loneliness. Epley et al. note that, for example, that people outside of committed relationships are more likely to have personal relationships with god, that “insecure and anxious attachments to others” are associated with stronger religious beliefs, and that the death of loved ones can increase the strength of religious beliefs. That religion serves a loneliness-reducing function seems a reasonable hypothesis, then. In their first study testing this hypothesis, Epley et al. gave participants descriptions of four “technological gadgets,” and then asked them to rate the gadgets on five anthropomorphic dimensions . . . and three non-anthropomorphic dimensions . . . . Then participants then completed a loneliness scale with questions like, “How often do you feel isolated from others?” . . . [T]hat’s what they found: the correlation between anthropomorphic ratings and loneliness was quite high (r = .53), while the correlation between loneliness and non-anthropomorphic ratings was non-significant (r = .25).” Read more . . . .

From Neuromarketing: “Our Prejudiced Brains

“Harvard researchers [including Situationist contributor Mahzarin Banaji] have found evidence that our brains react to people differently depending on our beliefs about them and whether we perceive that they are “like us.” While obvious external clues like race and sex can trigger the different reactions, even what we believe to be true can have that effect.” . . .”The researchers found that subjects reacted differently to profiles of individuals thought to be either fundamentalist Christians from the Midwest or liberal northeastern students depending on their own beliefs. In fact, the profiles were randomly assigned to photos culled from a dating service. The subjects themselves were surveyed and put in conservative and liberal categories.” Read more . . . .

From Neuromarketing: “Florida Researchers Probe Emotions and Ads

“Researchers at the University of Florida have published the results of their first advertising study using fMRI, a project intended to try to relate brain scan data to specific emotions being experienced by the subjects while viewing ads. Jon Morris, a professor of advertising and communications at Florida, was critical of past fMRI studies, noting, “There was no real key happiness center, no key sad center, no key love center. What you got was brain activity, in general.” The Florida study was intended to narrow the focus of relating emotions to brain scans by giving the subjects a novel way to let researchers know what they were feeling.” Read more . . . .

From OrgTheory: “the mystery of conservative free academia solved: it’s self selection

“There’s a Chronicle of Higher Ed article on researchers who are figuring out why there are so few conservatives in academia. According to Matthew Woessner and April Kelley-Woessner, who teach at Penn State, the issue is simply self selection. Analyzing survey data from college students (public data and their own research), they’ve found that conservative students are less likely to do the things that help you get into grad school (like actively seeking out professors outside of class) and they have a stronger preference for starting a family early. They also found that conservative students are less likely to be interested in the sorts of topics that lead to the PhD degree.” Read more . . . .

From Overcoming Bias: “Moral Wiggle Room

“A new lab experiment confirms results reported a year ago: people prefer to not know how their actions effect others, when such knowledge would induce them to sacrifice to benefit others. ” Read more . . . .

From PsyBlog: “Conviction: 50% of Mistaken Eyewitnesses Certain After Positive Feedback

The results showed that simply congratulating participants on choosing the right suspect had a huge effect on their reports when compared to those told nothing and those told they were wrong. Those given positive feedback were suddenly much more sure they were right, thought the identification was easier, had a better view, thought their judgement was more trustworthy and would be more willing to testify. . . . The surprising thing about this experiment is what a massive effect a simple statement had on such a wide variety of factors. Giving positive (although incorrect) feedback to participants catapulted their confidence in their identifications much higher than they would have been otherwise. Read more . . . .

From PsyBlog: “7 Sins of Memory: Complete Guide

Psychologists have found that right from the moment an event occurs, is laid down in memory (or not), to the moment we try to retrieve it (or can’t), our minds are fallible. Harvard psychologist Professor Daniel L. Schacter has classified memory’s slips, ambiguities and downright lies into the ‘seven sins of memory’: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias and persistence (Schacter, 1999). But despite these ‘sins’, we still get by. Memory is what makes us who we are. Practically it enables us to function in everyday life. Without it we would be lost, like those with severe amnesia who can’t remember who they are or achieve even the simplest of tasks. So how can memory’s fallibility be reconciled with its abilities? This series of posts explores these sins and in turn uncovers some bizarre stories as well as shedding light on everyday occurrences. The surprise is that many sins of memory have a redeeming feature; sometimes the very sin itself is the flipside of one of memory’s saintly qualities, one we couldn’t do without.Read more . . . .

From We’re Only Human: “Got An Original Idea? Not Likely.

“. . . . .whether you favor droopy sweaters or Manolo Blahnik shoes, very few people are original thinkers when it comes to what they wear. There are a few true innovators, of course, but unless you spin and dye the fabric and design your own wardrobe, you are cribbing from someone else’s mind. And what’s true of sweaters is also true of less trivial ideas, which move through the ether in unpredictable ways. If you think you coined a clever phrase or “discovered” a new talent, you almost certainly did not.” . . . “That’s because we don’t really operate as free agents in the world. We are all entangled in complex patterns of collective behavior, many spontaneously organized and most entirely outside our understanding or awareness. Psychologists are very interested in these circles of ideas, how they grow and how people navigate them. Is there an ideal social arrangement for creating and sharing ideas, for mixing innovation and imitation? Are there perils in “borrowing” from others’ minds, or in being too much of a rogue explorer.” Read more . . . .

From We’re Only Human: “Hmmm, very interesting . . .”

“. . . . Scientists have shown surprisingly little interest in interest, given its obvious and fundamental connection to learning and education. That’s starting to change. In the past few years a handful of psychologists have started exploring interest in the laboratory, and they are starting to piece together a theory about this curious emotion.” Read more . . . .

* * *

For previous installments of “Situationism on the Blogosphere,” click on the “Blogroll” category in the right margin.

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The Situationist

Richard Hackman at Harvard Law School

Posted by The Situationist Staff on March 6, 2011

Tomorrow, the HLS Student Association for Law and Mind Sciences (SALMS) is hosting a talk, “What Makes for a Great Team?,” by Harvard University professor Richard Hackman in Austin East, from 12:00 – 1:00.

Professor Hackman has studied the secrets of effective teams ranging from airplane cockpit crews to musical ensembles. His talk on Monday will identify conditions that increase the likelihood of creating teamwork “magic.” As always, there will be burritos.

For a brief introduction to Professor Hackman’s recent research on teamwork, check out this Harvard Business Review article on “sand dune teams.”

For more information, go to the SALMS website, here.

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Marcia Smith, Friday, 11-21-14 November 22, 2014

Posted by The Space Show in Uncategorized.
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Marcia Smith, Friday, 11-21-14

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Guest:  Marcia Smith.  Topics:  U.S. space policy, budgets, Congress. Civics 101, SLS, Falcon Heavy, policy makers.  Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, https://thespaceshow.wordpress.com.  Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See http://www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm.  For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience.

We welcomed back Marcia Smith back to the show for a preview of the upcoming 114th Congress & space issues with a focus on budget issues & just how congress works with NASA & space policy.  During our 97 minute discussion, we started out with a short Civics 101 lesson on how Congress works, NASA funding, & Congressional oversight of NASA.  For those of you not that familiar with how the U.S. Congress works and funds space programs with NASA, you will find this short discussion most helpful.  Marcia explained both Senate and House roles and their appropriations and authorization committees.  As you will hear, Congress controls NASA spending and there is very little discretionary spending available to the NASA Administrator.  As for the new Congress that will be taking office in early January, the big focus will be on budget issues because by law, the sequestration returns for Fiscal Year 16.  If Congress keeps the sequestration in place, while hurtful to many government agencies and programs, it is damaging to NASA.  We also talked about a possible renewed interest in the Europa Mission as Texas Representative John Culberson will chair the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science. His Houston district is close to JSC & he’s very enthusiastic about NASA and a Europa mission.  Marcia mentioned the NASA SOFIA program as an example of Congress wanting the program despite it being eliminated in the budget proposal so it added it back in to the NASA budget.  Listeners asked about long term projects being funded for longer than a year.  Marcia addressed this issue though there is no good answer because Congress has oversight & they can change or modify positions from year to year.  Our guest was asked about Congressional policy impact on the private & entrepreneurial space industry.  Unless a public/private partnership exists or the government is a major customer of the private company, congressional policy does not overlap into the private sector.  It is also important to distinguish between regulatory and budget issues as we are talking budget issues in this program.  Several listeners wanted to know if the media and the public could impact Congress & space policy makers.  Another set of listener & Space Show comments over recent weeks addressed the 2016 presidential election, wanting to know if history bears out a change in president equaling a big change in space policy.  Don’t miss this discussion.  Later, Ralph in Phoenix wanted to know if the Falcon Heavy was very successful, would such a success impact congress & policy makers to move away from the SLS program as unnecessary.  Doug called in to clarify Ralph’s question for a more precise response from our guest.  It was clear that Doug and many other listeners believe that a FH success should and would impact SLS policy, perhaps demonstrating that SLS was not needed in light of a successful Falcon Heavy.  However, Marcia questioned that outcome. Don’t miss this important discussion.  BJohn in Sweden wanted to know if SLS, when operational, would create more space opportunities for congress to consider.  Kelly got the last email question in asking about the Space Act Agreement vs. the FAR (cost plus contracting).  He wanted to know if the changes in congress might result in more big space projects using a Space Act Agreement over the FAR.  Marcia did not think so given the FAR offers congress more oversight.  As the show was ending, I asked Marcia what we should look for as hints about space policy in the new congress.  Our guest pointed to the budget and what happens with the FY 2016 sequestration already on the books.

Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog above.  You can reach Marcia Smith through me or her website, http://www.spacepolicyonline.com.

1. DDAY - November 28, 2014

Marcia was asked about the “Falcon Heavy beats SLS” argument and her puzzlement was quite appropriate. The people who make this argument usually also argue that the only reason that SLS is being developed is because of pork barrel politics. But if pork barrel politics is the raison d’etre for SLS, then why would a cheaper rocket change anything at all? Obviously the cost of the rocket is–by their own argument–irrelevant. The only way it makes a difference is if Falcon Heavy gets supported because of pork.

Also, I was at SpaceX in October and asked one of the engineers about cross-feed and was specifically told that they were not pursuing it. My suspicion is that it is not the baseline FH design and is only something that they will develop only if they determine that it is required. If you think about it, that makes sense, because if their goal is to reuse the first stages they don’t want to have to develop different first states with and without cross-feed. There are a number of things that SpaceX talks about (like reusable Dragon capsules) that they advertise, but do not actually develop or market. It’s a custom capability that only exists if somebody pays extra for it to be developed.

jimjxr - November 28, 2014

Cross feed doesn’t make a big difference (45mt vs 53mt to LEO), even without cross feed FH would still be the most powerful launcher in service, quite an achievement considering it didn’t cost taxpayer any money.

2. jimjxr - November 22, 2014

There’s no way congress would cancel SLS for FH, I doubt they even know what FH is. And I don’t think SpaceX wants to pitch FH against SLS anyway, they’re still heavily dependent on NASA funding for new development. As long as nobody touches their commercial cargo and crew funding, I don’t think they will rock the boat just yet.

I think we need to be more patient, by 2017/2018 things may be radically different. Reusability would be proven out both technically and economically, Dragon V2 would be flying astronauts, and SpaceX would be testing the Raptor engine that can rival the F1’s, together with a new president the chance of ending SLS would be much higher.

3. Michael J. Listner - November 22, 2014

Regrettably, I was unable to tune into this show live. Looking forward to listening to the podcast as Marcia is one of a the most reputable people in the space policy field that I’ve had the pleasure to meet in person.

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Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Australia Day: Vegan Mango Lamingtons

There are some people that would say that it would be sacrilege to do anything other than chocolate. But those people can bugger off, cos I'm doing it my way. Lamingtons are an Australian invention from around 1901. There are many versions of how it was invented, but in any case, it was named after Lord Lamington, who was a governor of Queensland. Traditionally, it was a way to use up plain sponge cake. Cut into squares, and dipped in chocolate icing, it is then rolled in coconut and left to set. Sometimes it is sandwiched with jam, or jam and cream. There have been some modern twists that seem to be quite popular, including strawberry ones in pink icing, and lemon ones in yellow icing. But mine is going to be mango! I did forget I only had shredded, not desiccated coconut, so they are a bit rougher than traditional lamingtons, but they still look so pretty!

I made a plain vanilla cake in a loaf tin (you can use the cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World). I let it cool, then cut off the crusts and cut into slices for easy rectangles.

To make the icing dip, I melted equal amounts of  melted cacao butter with pure icing sugar, and added a few drops of food colouring. I dipped the squares in, then dipped in shredded coconut (I should have used desiccated). I left it to set on a plate in the fridge - and here's a tip, do it on greaseproof paper so it's easy to peel off.

I mashed some mango, and dolloped it onto one lamington slice, and sandwiched it with another. You could also add some whipped coconut cream, or whipped tofutti with the mango before you sandwich.

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The Friday Poem: ‘Welcome to your new sky’ by Kate Camp

New verse by Wellington writer Kate Camp.

Welcome to your new sky

It is impossible to build
an unhackable computer.

That’s why the US Navy
is equipping its ships with sextants

and teaching their crews
to navigate by the stars.

You can’t hack the stars.

All in all though and on balance
I am in favour of the world today.

Welcome to your new Sky
my appliances say

and they tell me I am running low
on memory.

Nothing could be further from the truth!
I am a billionaire of memory

I am the one

But I appreciate their concern.
When I buy a new watch strap

the woman says
let me see the model

ah yes,
it’s a small Irony.

And she applies it to my wrist
like a bandage.

The Spinoff Longform Fund is dedicated to facilitating investigative journalism. Our focus is on supporting in-depth reporting on important New Zealand stories. Your donation will help us sustain this most resource-intensive form of journalism, ensuring that the most complex and important stories still get told.

The Spinoff is made possible by the generous support of the following organisations.
Please help us by supporting them.


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Derek Lam Online Sample Sale @ Gilt

14 June 2017

WHAT: Derek Lam Online Sample Sale @ Gilt

WHY: Derek Lam Clothing up to 60% off!

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Shop Top Designer Brands at up to 60% off retail on

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All posts by Michelle Laurey

What If You’re an Introvert Dating Another Introvert?

When you go searching for dating advice online, you'll probably notice that the majority of the resources are geared toward introvert/extrovert relationships. Yes, I know that opposites attract, been there, done that. But when I was in a relationship with...

/ April 18, 2017


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“….and I said to Hymie. Hymie my friend, it’ll never make money. Oi vay!”

Embattled Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been attempting to allay fears that his party is riddled with anti-Semitism by actively seeking a member of Whitechapel’s Jewish community to look after the petty cash box in the canteen at Labour Party headquarters.

We spoke to Corbyn yesterday afternoon in Whitechapel Road where he had been approaching orthodox jews in the street and visiting a number of small tailor’s shops down some of the side roads.

Appearing relaxed and cheerful he told us: “Since all this unfortunate business with Ken Livingstone calling Hitler a zionist, the party’s been under the cosh a bit from the press boys. I’ve therefore decided to prove that anti-Semitism within The Labour Party is a myth by hiring a Jew to handle the canteen petty cash box at party HQ. After all, when it comes to money, you can always rely on the Jews to have their heads screwed on can’t you? I might even let his wife work in the kitchen if she fancies it. I’m sure the lads won’t mind tucking into a few bagels or salt beef sandwiches from time to time.

When we spoke to a few Jewish people in a local eaterie, there was a mixed reaction. One elderly man told us: “Well, at least he’s making an effort I suppose. I still think Red Ken’s a wrong un mind you”

However, a young woman with a child said: “Work for that miserable old sod? You must be joking. Have you seen the state of his clothes? And as for that dodgy beard…he looks like he could do with a bloody good wash if you ask me”

This latest move by The Labour Party is reminiscent of the occasion in 1968 when Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, moved to dispel rumours that he was a racist by taking his wife and kids to see The Black and White Minstrel Show at the Victoria Palace Theatre followed by a trip to a Caribbean restaurant for curry goat with rice and peas.


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Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne has no time for talk of karma when it comes to assessing Paul Pogba's Manchester derby absence.
5 Dec 2017 - 5:01 PM  UPDATED 5 Dec 2017 - 5:01 PM

United's influential France international was sent off during last weekend's undulating 3-1 win at Arsenal and his manager Jose Mourinho confirmed there would be no appeal against his three-match ban for treading on Hector Bellerin.

It means the mouthwatering prospect of a midfield showdown between Pogba and De Bruyne, arguably the form player in the Premier League this season, will not come to pass when Pep Guardiola's leaders travel to Old Trafford on Sunday.

Pogba clumsily suggested during an interview with BBC Football Focus earlier last weekend that he hoped key City players would suffer injuries, in order to help United claw back the eight-point deficit they are currently nursing in second place.

I want Pogba to play in Manchester derby, says Guardiola
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola would like Paul Pogba to play in next week's Manchester derby at Old Trafford and does not believe the influential United midfielder wants City stars to be struck down by injury.

A number of City fans labelled Pogba subsequently sidelining himself as a karmic occurrence but De Bruyne is keen to keep things simple in the heat of a title battle.

"I don't believe in that s***," he told reporters. "I'm a very straight forward guy.

"If someone believes it is karma then okay. Everyone has their right to their opinion.

"I don't want anyone to get injured. You want to play against the best teams and the best players.

"He can say whatever he wants. I don't care. We just have to be focused on whatever we’re doing."


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I was planning

November 11, 2008

on writing a review tonight, but ended up playing around with Wordle instead.

A couple months ago, Scott Westerfeld wordle-d the bands and singers he listens to.

I thought, “Ooh, that looks like fun,” so I did it too.* Here’s what I’ve got on my computer:

I have to say, though, this is not really representative of what I’m *listening* to these days. Unless the Pumpkins pop up on Party Shuffle or a playlist, I haven’t listened to them in years.

Although I am listening to Ryan Adams right now. (As in, as I write this.) Even though I swore last year that I wouldn’t buy any more of his albums because I was so pissed off by what he did to “Hey There Mrs. Lovely” on Easy Tiger, I ended up buying Cardinology anyway. Which, so far, I’m not liking anywhere near as much as Cold Roses. So once again, I am going to swear that I won’t buy any more of his albums. This was the last one. REALLY! (And watch me buy the next one whenever it comes out. Oy.)

* If you want to do it, here are my instructions, adapted from Scott Westerfeld’s:

  1. In iTunes, select all tracks and copy (from your music only playlist, if you’ve got a lot of audiobooks, podcasts, etc. saved)
  2. Paste to a spreadsheet
  3. Adjust artist(s) names, if necessary (in my case, getting rid of or replacing all the “Various Artists” from compilations downloaded from eMusic, since when I did it without this step, the words Various and Artists were just as big as Smashing and Pumpkins)
  4. Highlight appropriate cells and copy
  5. Paste into Wordle, hit the “Go” button, and voila!
6 Comments leave one →
  1. November 11, 2008 7:56 am

    Too cool!

  2. lindsey from eva perry permalink
    November 11, 2008 6:12 pm

    Oooh, I just learned about Wordle this weekend at the YA Lit Symposium. I think this would be cool for people to do with favorite books and then make silkscreen or iron ons for t-shirts.

  3. November 11, 2008 7:02 pm

    Isn’t it?

    I’ve been trying to think of ways I could use this in a teen program, but considering how slow our internet connection is in the library, I’m thinking a display would work best. For example, post a Wordle I’ve made, maybe even this one, and leave instructions teens can take. If they have internet at home, they can do it and bring in a printout of their Wordle, and we can do a Wordle display of favorite authors or favorite music or favorite whatever.

  4. November 13, 2008 11:15 am

    Cool! Great idea for displays/programming too. Will rip you off, k?

  5. November 14, 2008 2:26 pm

    As long as I don’t get in trouble for doing this instead of reading or reviewing a Cybils book. 🙂

  1. Cybele Wordle « Bookworm 4 Life

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text:
Nine Afterlife Scenarios

Is there life after death? Considering how one has to actually die to find out… we, the living, can only conjecture. As for my own theories? There are at least nine different forms of living on… in varying degrees… some of them earthbound… others otherworldly… some are somewhat short-lived… others could endure through eternity. The specifics…

Heaven Awaits Scenario ~ When the physical body expires, everything that ever made us uniquely different from everybody else… all of our memories, hopes and dreams endure. Everyone who has preceded us in death and has ever meant something special to us is present to welcome and usher us into everlasting life.

On one hand, Near Death Experience survivors corroborate. On the other hand, the skeptics contradict… claim these episodes are merely due to an end of life brain chemistry… one which causes the mind, normally accustomed to keeping us alive, to freak out when it cannot do so. Little doubt, oxygen starved brain cells and, perhaps, even some physician-administered pharmaceuticals are all in play. Factor in a lifetime’s worth of spiritual indoctrination and you’ve got the perfect recipe for hallelujah inspiring hallucinations.

My Own Experience… in an Actual Death Experience, my mother’s spoken with awe in her eyes, last words were, “They all came!” Since just prior to that we’d been engaged in a totally lucid conversation… since we were the only ones present in her nursing home room at the time… who, pray tell, were “They”?

Double Helix Scenario ~ Folks who are “fruitful and multiply” preserve their DNA… their human traits remain within the gene pool for generations to come. As for anyone who has opted out of parenthood, we’re now talking about pruned and felled family trees… bloodlines banished to oblivion.

Of course, procreation does have its limitations… can only immortalize 23 of each person’s 46 chromosomes per conception. Genetic duplicates having never been Ma Nature’s game plan, there’s virtually zero chance that anyone would ever wind up totally replicating themselves… right down to the freckles and fingerprints. Furthermore, even if such an identical copy were to exist, that person would not grow up with the same life experiences.

Send In the Clones Scenario ~ While the technology to create genetic duplicates exists, human cloning is still considered a huge no-no by principled politicians (if there are any such animals), bioethicists and theologians.

If this ‘tude were to change, someday, clones would only be physically identical since, as I’ve already mentioned above, they’d not share the unique life experiences of the original being.

Donor Gametes Scenario ~ A man and woman can procreate without having actually met… in fact… neither of them even need be alive. Harvested female and male germ cells, once thawed out from the cryogenic deepfreeze, combine in the in vitro fertilization petri dish and the surrogate mother does the rest.

Donor Organs Scenario ~ Harvested human hearts and the other major bodily organs can prolong recipients’ lives for decades. In a sense, donors can live on for many decades, maybe even longer when recipients utilize their new lease on life to become new parents. IF both parents and offspring then go onward to make something of their lives… oh… say… contribute something of great value to society… THEN (albeit indirectly) so would the organ donors.

In a horror film sense, people with “yuge” ego problems (think Donald Trump here) could, someday, even resort to some ghastly surgery… could “donate” their own heads… have them bolted onto new, recipient bodies. Fortunately… so far… and to the best of my knowledge… there are no real life equivalents of fictitious Dr. Frankenstein’s monster out there… way, Way, WAY out there.

Surviving Elements Scenario ~ The basic chemicals, which make up our bodies will eventually get recycled, at first, here on Earth (e.g. during cremation) and, eventually, back into the vast, inky dark, cold cosmos… the very place from where humanity had originally borrowed these elements.

The late astrophysicist, astronomer, philosopher, educator, author and TV host, Carl Sagan, the master of simplifying complex science, once wrote…

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

Naturally, disembodied elements, (even if human brains were their original source), will not possess any intelligence… will never really be us. While it’s a virtual certainty that we’ll “survive” in this sense… we’ll never know it.

Intellectual Property Scenario ~ We live on in the memories of others. To remain a household name throughout perpetuity, one would need to be some sort of superstar scientist, physician, psychiatrist, philosopher, theologian, educator, engineer, architect, inventor, sculptor, painter, lithographer, publisher, poet, playwright, author, actor, entertainer, comedian, singer, musician or world leader (or some combination of the above). Even people who history would judge to be our worst-nightmares-come-true can be remembered… as examples of who NOT to emulate.

For the vast majority of us… who don’t make the history books… who would not even be an obscure footnote in such a publication… we’ll be forgotten as soon as all who ever knew us are dead. Even if our pictures were to appear in some handed down from generation to generation photo album, would an ancestor, three generations down the road, truly know us beyond the lifeless, two dimensional depiction? Once there’s no one to give a damn anymore, family photos will eventually wind up getting trashed. Only if today’s landfills were to become tomorrow’s archaeological dig sites would anyone ever try to remember us.

Good Mentor Scenario ~ Throughout our lifetimes, we’ve all been teachers (no formal classroom required). This face-to-face intergenerational imparting of everyday knowledge and skills is how we leave our small mark on the world. It even counts, e.g., when we demonstrate the fine art of tying shoelaces to a youngster. While this mundane stuff easily goes towards the betterment of our society, to be remembered, by name, for making such contributions is highly unlikely.

Internet Scenario ~ This involves anyone who, anywhere and at anytime, ever did anything great or small on the WWW.

Over the course of the past decade, I’ve made my own presence known here in cyberspace… at MySpace, Xanga, Blogger and WordPress. I’ve got to believe that some of what I’ve said made some small difference in the life of someone… somewhere… sometime. Maybe that person shared my thoughts with someone else… and that person did the same… and so on… and so on… and so on…

True, I’ve blogged many a time and netted not more than one “like star” click… but does that mean all is lost? Carl Sagan didn’t think so. To quote him once more, he observed…

“Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.”

I suspect if the good Doctor S. were alive today, he’d have no problem making the words, “books” and “blogs”, interchangeable.

Beyond that, it has oft been said that once posted, nothing ever really dies on the Internet, and so, if that, indeed, is really true… well… I know that, someday, as I’m taking my last gasp of oxygen, I shall live on…

Hmmm… to leave my mark upon the world via the World Wide Web? Not bad. To maybe even witness this actually occurring, while my loved ones and I reside in our Heavenly Home throughout eternity?

Yeah… for me… that’ll do…


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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Annihilator #3 (Legendary)

writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Frazer Irving
via Previews World
Obviously I'm a big fan of Grant Morrison, and I've already talked glowingly of this project from previous issues, but this might be the one that unlocks the whole thing.

Ray Spass, the dying screenwriter who has just met the lead character from his latest script, has been thrust into the story of his life.  Max Nomax is a lunatic creation who claims he's real and that his story was downloaded into Ray's brain.  Except now Ray explains how he came up with Max in the first place, inspired by a series of previous efforts on a character who's become copyright-free.

And now the movie Annihilator could very well become is beginning to emerge.  Here are a bunch of quotes from the issue that could easily comprise the dialogue in the trailer:

"This man's creativity demands a ferocious, unpredictable expression."
"It's the story of a rebel artist wrongfully imprisoned in a haunted lunatic asylum.  In space.  What the hell does it look like?"
"You're a fallen specimen, Ray, weak and self-indulgent.  This so-called screenplay of yours is the work of a contemptuous, self-loathing creator."
"I'm dying -- I just woke up thinking it was all a dream and then I remembered -- I'm actually dying."
"I pitched them the whole idea in space.  'The Shining meets Alien.'"
"This world.  This mortal sewer."
"Send me to the abyss.  I'll show you the source of all art."
Cast Brad Pitt as Ray Spass, have Terry Gilliam direct, the long-awaited reunion after Twelve Monkeys.

What's more, especially with those first three quotes, I can't help but begin to view Annihilator as Morrison grappling with his creative legacy.  His admirers think Morrison is a genius and he remains one of the most respected creators in comic books, but he's never attained the same wider respect as Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, as if his entire life's work has already been refuted.  Time and again I've attempted to do my part in explaining just what he's done, but I can imagine that it must be frustrating to think all his efforts have been in vain, all the praise he's received being, in the end, hollow.  For so long, Morrison has dedicated himself to the vital expression of superheroes, and yet this has proved impossible to distinguish or contend with what Moore achieved with Watchmen, a work that transcended the form because of its ironic detachment.  Morrison believes in big ideas and has consistently chased after them in his work, but he's long sought an anchor that makes his ambition accessible to wide audiences, not just visible but vital

After the release of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, I think something like Annihilator might have room to exist in greater context.  Nolan's career has had the benefit of wide appreciation following his superhero work with the Dark Knight trilogy (somewhat ironic, there), and to some (such as myself) his latest film is a clear culmination of his prior films.  Annihilator is very much like that for Grant Morrison.  Yet it's being released by a relatively anonymous publisher, which may make it all the more important that it receive the treatment Morrison may have intended for it, adaptation into a major motion picture, something Moore and Gaiman have received on numerous occasions but which has still eluded him.  I'm becoming more and more convinced that Annihilator is exactly the project he's been waiting to deliver for the honor.  At first I wondered if it could stand out or even sound plausible as a blockbuster.  The longer the story continues, the more I'm convinced.  He knows exactly what he's doing.

We'll see.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Quarter Bin #61 "Binge-worthy VI: Martian Manhunter and other curiosities"

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #1 (DC)
From 1992.
via Comic Book Resources
I've long been interested in having a look at this one.  I'm a huge fan of Martian Manhunter, one of the most perfect comic book creations ever and yet strangely one of the least-utilized DC icons, usually depicted as a stalwart member of the Justice League.  The launch of Grant Morrison's JLA put an extreme spotlight on all of the characters he chose to include, which led to the only, to date, Martian Manhunter ongoing series, which lasted for three years, at the turn of the millennium.  As indicated in his first appearance, previously featured in the "Binge-worthy" series here, the erstwhile John Jones was likely intended to be more of a detective than the green-skinned superhero he otherwise was.  With so many parallels to Superman and even the X-Men, Manhunter has always been a true outsider capable of providing a unique perspective on humanity.  American Secrets was an effort to do exactly that from a Cold War perspective, circa his earliest print history, the way some people still associate Wonder Woman with WWII even though she's been contemporized since her debut, unlike Captain America.  This is a noir story that doesn't even feature the green skin, much less cape (this is an alien who looks alien but is also a shape-shifter, so he can manipulate his appearance any number of ways, including a rough approximation of human, which is how he's usually depicted, and then an accurate version, which is how J'onn J'onzz becomes John Jones, the ultimate assimilated immigrant) until late in the first issue from the old "prestige format" (basically serialized graphic novel).  Maybe this particular line of dialogue, from our detective, sums up the project:
"...But not an evidence trail.  A trail of references, and hunches.  Game-shows, lizard-headed devils.  Comic books..."
I'd love for something like this to be reprinted, and for Martian Manhunter himself, for all intents and purposes, to be rediscovered.  If Ed Brubaker ever came back to DC, this is exactly the character he should write.  The same goes for Jason Aaron.  Heck, bring them both back and we can have a whole Martian Manhunter renaissance...

Martian Manhunter Special (DC)
From 1996.
via DC Wikia
This was a one-shot released just prior to the Morrison reboot, replete with pin-ups featuring the characters who were Leaguers at the time and about to be become irrelevant.  My two favorites are the Marc Campos Captain Atom (the artist was familiar with the character from the "Judgment Day" crossover and the early issues of Extreme Justice)
via Tumblr
and my boy Bloodwynd
via Tumblr
who funny enough was at one point mistaken to be a version of Martian Manhunter thanks to some hilarious confusion.  Why am I talking about the pin-ups rather than the comic itself?  Because the story is pretty generic superhero sci-fi.  The cover, meanwhile, is more art I'd rather talk about, featuring work from Howard Porter, who helped Morrison launch JLA, and so probably represents the chronological launch of the relaunch, moreso than the one-shot itself.

Martian Manhunter #1,000,000 (DC)
From 1998.
via DC Wikia
Speaking of Morrison's JLA, the event that spun out of it (the '90s were a decade that spun events out of series or creative teams DC wanted to spotlight; as such Dan Jurgens with Zero Hour in the wake of "Doomsday;" Mark Waid with Underworld Unleashed in the wake of his early Flash success; Karl Kesel and Stuart Immonen with The Final Night in the wake their Adventures of Superman; John Byrne with Genesis in conjunction with his Jack Kirby's Fourth World; and Geoff Johns with Day of Judgment on the cusp of taking over DC entirely) was called DC One Million, which was previously referenced in the "Binge-worthy" series concerning The Creeper.  Martian Manhunter was another character who greatly benefited from the event creatively, with regular series creators John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake exploring his adventures across thousands of years until he inhabits Mars itself.  It's another bold example of what sets the character apart and a welcome reminder of the undervalued work Ostrander and Mandrake did on the series, sort of the Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang Wonder Woman of its day, maybe not what JLA fans might have expected but some of the best character work of that time from an era that was steeped heavily in character work (Waid's Flash, James Robinson's Starman).

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel Halloween ComicFest Preview (Yen Press)
From 2013.
via Halloween ComicFest
Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Ransom Riggs, which I haven't read, for a graphic novel released early this year, which I also have not read, this becomes my first real exposure to the 2011 book, which will be a movie in 2016 starring the increasingly ubiquitous Eva Green (who has also starred in comics-related 300: Rise of an Empire and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For).  If this had originated as a Vertigo project, it would have fit in comfortably with Sandman and The Unwritten, a tale of a boy trying to reconcile the stories he used to hear from his grandfather which seemed too fantastic to be real, but as it turns out they were.  The Halloween ComicFest freebies are the unheralded cousins to Free Comic Book Day.  There are mini-comics (geared exclusively to kids) and also full-size releases like this one.

The Spectacular Spider-Man #229 (Marvel)
From 1995.
via SpiderFan
My earliest superheroes favorites were Robin and Spider-Man (two sides of the same coin, really).  These were the days when I knew superheroes exclusively from their TV appearances, which meant I knew Burt Ward's Robin and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.  By the time I started reading comics in the '90s, Tim Drake had become the third Robin, and...well, the Clone Saga was happening.  Every major superhero had some kind of crisis during that decade.  Superman was killed, Batman was broken, Green Lantern went insane, Wonder Woman was replaced.  And Spider-Man underwent the most extreme existential crisis ever: Peter Parker met Ben Reilly, and for a time neither knew which one was the clone.  It was a sprawling story that infuriated fans more than anything, mostly because it seemed the writers were, well, webslinging it as they went along.  I always felt it was maybe not deserving of all the hate it received, but then, I also didn't read any of it.  I was a DC guy by that point, had very little time for Marvel.  I think in hindsight, the Clone Saga is a perfect embodiment of what Marvel was for decades, a company that told the kinds of one-and-done stories DC became known for in the Silver Age, filled with sensational misdirection as a matter of course (if you heard the term "life model decoy" when people were trying to figure out how Agent Coulson was alive at the start of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. despite his death in the preceding Avengers, you have a sense of what I'm talking about), the very idea of instant retcon with every new creative team.  This issue is Peter Parker walking away from the whole mess (for a while), allowing Ben Reilly to assume the webbing as he tries to make sense of his ordinary life (again).  In case you were wondering, Ben Reilly was definitely the clone.  It's a whole era fans are still trying to remember positively, meaning its legacy in Spider-Man's history is still nowhere close to "Knightfall" or "Doomsday" despite the fact that Marvel itself keeps building off of it (to say nothing of the Ultimate Spider-Man version!).

Adventure Comics #6/509 (DC)
From 2010.
via Newkadia
Geoff Johns famously wrote into the letters column of Superboy, before he broke into comics, and offered his suggestion of the human DNA used to create Kon-El as having come from Lex Luthor.  This was something he made reality a relative handful of years later in the pages of Teen Titans.  Yet the best and subsequently undervalued work was done in the pages of Adventure Comics in what was also Johns' first collaboration with eventual Flash artist Francis Manapul, which led to the second Superboy ongoing series, written by Jeff Lemire.  After the New 52 reboot literally rebooted the character, this was a whole era that was consigned to the history books when it ought to have ushered a renaissance of appreciation.  This issue features a chilling version of Luthor, willing to do awful things to his own niece (another lost element, alas), one that trades heavily on his if-only-Superman-weren't-here self-mythology, and contrasts nicely with Johns' own Forever Evil version.  For fans like me, T-Shirt Superboy will always come in second place to Don't Call Me Superboy despite what Johns brought to the character, but this is an exception that deserves greater recognition.  Johns cleverly punctuated the arc with Superboy's running "What did Superman/does Lex Luthor do?" in the narration boxes, which I found instantly iconic, more relevant than what had been done with the character, outside of Johns and Karl Kesel, for years.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

The Multiversity: Pax Americana (DC)

writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Frank Quitely
via DC Wikia
The Multiversity: Pax Americana is all about the elephant in the room.

The elephant's name is Watchmen, by the way, but like any comic book reference there's a secret identity, too, and that's Alan Moore.  And Grant Morrison spends the entire issue deconstructing the most famous deconstruction of comic book superheroes ever created, one that has been hailed not merely as one of the finest superhero comics ever, but one of the great pieces of 20th century American fiction in general.

Late in the issue, Morrison delivers his most sly commentary on the effort when he quotes President Kennedy from a speech he made in 1963, five months before his assassination, supporting an initiative that led to the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.

You'll note for the record here that I've previously discussed how Moore's vision was perhaps influenced by his growing up under the spectre of nuclear war, something later generations perhaps may not properly appreciate.

Morrison's reference to the speech is a direct refute of Moore's thesis, and represents the fundamental difference between their approaches to superhero comics.  In Pax Americana, Peacemaker assassinates the president, a direct reference to the Comedian's implied assassination of Kennedy.  Comedian is Peacemaker, and thus in this iteration Peacemaker is Comedian.  Part of what I loved so much about the recent Before Watchmen comics was the chance for creators to more heavily explore the implications of what Moore outlined in his original story, and Brian Azzarello did exactly that within his Comedian, the best of those efforts.  Now we're seeing more of the fruits of comic books directly reflecting Watchmen rather than applying all the wrong lessons, which many of Moore's successors did (I would argue Garth Ennis as being the worst offender, especially in the pages of the vastly overrated The Boys).

Moore was always a cynic in some respects, a Silver Age fan in a post-Silver Age world who clung to his memories and yet was the first to truly obliterate them.  It should be understood that when I say "Silver Age," I refer to the innocent comics that are best reflected in the popular memory by the George Reeves Superman and Adam West Batman on television, which even at that time were beginning to be artifacts of the past, with the dawn of the Marvel Age introducing a layer of new sophistication.

Morrison himself has long attempted to redeem the Silver Age through more conventional means; the "Black Casebook" aspects of his Batman stories were a way of incorporating the more outlandish elements of the Dark Knight's legacy into a more realistic approach, or at least one that better fit in with what comics have since become.  Funny enough, when he did a Bat-Mite story outside of Batman context (Happy!), he was accused of trying to be someone else (Ennis).

Such are critics.

Pax Americana is littered with ideas like this.  It's a terrific accomplishment on any number of levels, the best single issue of the Multiversity saga to date (which is saying something; this was a project that was years in development, and it shows).

There's Morrison's reteaming with Frank Quitely.  The last time they worked this well together, the result was We3, a breakthrough for both of them that still awaits its proper appreciation.  Pax Americana on this score is a perfect example of the benefits of two creators continuing to work together, pushing each other to their very best.  Clearly Quitely is asked to tackle the challenge of Watchmen's famous stylistic legacy, which is half of what everyone gushes about it.  The script itself does so, too.  Not since Grayson: Futures End #1, and this is incredible to have one let alone two comics in a single year to have tackled a story so deliberately, have I read something this sensational.
Morrison's Question reflects Moore's Rorschach, but again and perhaps more tellingly, which came first?  The Question is a character whose legacy has been all but forgotten except through the lens of a pastiche.  The last time he was relevant was in the pages of 52, and in a current iteration has an entire mystical layer that isn't a part of the original legacy at all.  A reinvented persona.  Morrison is a writer who will always be able to understand a character better than whoever else has been handling them previously.  His Question isn't a psychopath exorcising his own demons, but he does take his gimmick seriously.  Maybe the general attitude is the same, but again, Pax Americana is clearly a reflection of Watchmen already.  One that turns the story back around.

Captain Atom/Doctor Manhattan, Blue Beetle/Nite-Owl, Nightshade/Silk Spectre.  There's a lot of analytic potential here.

Bottom line is, this is one master reflecting on another.  I personally think Morrison comes out on top.  He has a better grasp of the subject material and he's more willing to side with the material, oddly, trust that superheroes can make their own defense, that stories can be multifaceted, and that a single issue can do all the necessary work.  Ever since the early days of Batman Incorporated (the first volume), he's made a concerted effort to tell a complete story while suggesting how it fits in the larger context.  That's what he did in Seven Soldiers of Victory, The Return of Bruce Wayne, and now The Multiversity.  This issue is his most subtle and yet most intricate work to date.  It may be the best comic book published in 2014, the most relevant superhero statement of the 21st century to date.

And the project isn't even finished yet.  This is a giant love letter to a medium, to a genre.  That's the difference between Grant Morrison and Alan Moore.  Moore wanted to distinguish an emerging sophisticated approach.  Morrison hopes superheroes can still explain themselves.  It certainly helps to have someone like him around to lend some assistance.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Quarter Bin #60 "Binge-worthy V: Comics Frontiers"

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Free Special Edition Preview (Vertigo)
From 2012.
via Amazon
Working in a bookstore when Stieg Larsson's trilogy became a worldwide phenomenon made it all the more impossible to ignore, so when I finally read the books last month I was pleased to discover that I quite liked them.  I'd already seen David Fincher's adaptation of the first book, and read the graphic novel version of the second, so I was familiar with some of the variations before experiencing the originals.  It was nice to come across this preview of the first graphic novel, then.  I don't remember now if I'd caught it when it was originally released, because at any rate I don't have that copy anymore much less most of the comics I had at that time.  But I want to read the rest of it now, and I hope all the more that Vertigo will adapt the third book and complete its own version of the story, which has become a personal favorite.

Godland #16 (Image)
From 2007.
via comiXology
Since catching some of Tom Scioli's American Barbarian earlier this year I became all the more interested in his Godland, which is a version of Jack Kirby's New Gods.  It's interesting, but I think I'm more interested in American Barbarian.

Green Lantern #50 (DC)
From 1994.
via DC Wikia
Hal Jordan's story reaches a climax in the conclusion to "Emerald Twilight," as the fallout from "Reign of the Supermen" and the destruction of Coast City causes him to turn violently against the Guardians and attempt to take matters dramatically into his own hands, a vigilante with the most powerful weapon in the universe.  Jordan has always been depicted at odds with the Guardians, and he'd frequently left the Green Lantern Corps because of it.  As Geoff Johns later explained in Green Lantern: Rebirth, the fear entity Parallax used his greatest personal crisis as a means to unleash its own potential.  Jordan's story continued within the pages of Zero Hour, The Final Night, and Day of Judgment.  In the wake of these events, Kyle Rayner temporarily became the last of the Green Lanterns, which was the other act that dramatically revamped the scope of the franchise within the DC landscape.  Watching Jordan battle Sinestro will always be the greatest moment from the issue, however, the moment Sinestro returned as a significant element of the mythos, regardless of the outcome at that time.

Green Lantern #81 (DC)
From 1996.
via Comic Vine
The '90s were littered with nods to longtime fans, a development that may have clashed with all the new ones the decade tried to bring in and probably part of the reason it ended up failing in permanently enlarging readership.  Hal Jordan had just sacrificed himself in the conclusion to The Final Night, and this was an issue dedicated to his memorial.  Fans like to point to James Robinson's Starman as an attempt to make a generational statement, but Ron Marz and was doing that within the pages of Green Lantern before Jack Knight inherited the cosmic rod, and Mark Waid had been doing that with Wally West in The Flash before Jordan had even heard of the Cyborg Superman.  It's funny to remember how angry fans were to what happened to Jordan, but he was constantly popping up and actually became far more relevant because of all that work.  In a span of a few years he became more important than his first three decades had managed, with the exception of the "Hard Traveling Heroes" arc.

Green Lantern #119 (DC)
From 1999.
via DC Wikia
After his transformation into the Spectre, Jordan even had a whole series as the Spirit of Vengeance, but of course had to try out his new role within the pages of Green Lantern.  This was an issue I hadn't read previously.  Jordan sports, in human form, the same bomber jacket Geoff Johns would keep him in all the time.  In fact, this issue might even be considered a soft reboot for an era that hadn't been relevant to the characters for years.  It's very interesting to see that.

Jack Kirby's Galactic Bounty Hunters #6 (Icon)
From 2007.
via Comic Vine
Kirby nostalgia is something that never goes out of fashion in comics, where his legacy is still up for contention.  Since Marvel refuses to back away from its Stan Lee-heavy approach, it's up to everyone else and whatever scraps Kirby left behind to do the job.  Galactic Bounty Hunters is just one of the many obscure projects that attempt to fill that void.  One of the participants is Karl Kesel, who notably infused much of his long run on Superboy, including a version of Kamandi, with Kirby's ideas.  Kesel rarely gets enough respect for the work he's done.  It's not surprising to see him so closely linked to Kirby.  Hopefully he won't be entirely lost in the shuffle.  DC keeps making efforts, and clearly Dan DiDio is a big devotee.  Maybe he ought to bring Kesel back to give a helping hand.

JLA Eighty-Page Giant #3 (DC)
From 2000.
DC Wikia
After Grant Morrison's run that relaunched the team, I confess to have skipped out on pretty much everything that followed in the pages of JLA.  This one-shot provides a king-size story that revisits the era.  It's definitely not Morrison's JLA but it was certainly worth a look.

JSA #67 (DC)
From 2005.
via DC Wikia
As you might see on the cover, this ties in with Identity Crisis, but for me it's another glimpse into the whole Geoff Johns run, which I didn't follow regularly until the Justice Society of America relaunch.  A lot of the issue reflects on and interacts with Identity Crisis developments, but by the end spins off in its own direction with a different story entirely featuring a villain who probably wouldn't have been on the radar if Johns were working then the way he works now, or at least he probably would have handled the story differently.  Per Degaton certainly doesn't have the same resonance that Black Adam ended up having.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Quarter Bin #59 "Binge-worthy IV: The Final Night"

These four issues were the best surprise of my back issue binge at Zimmie's, because at the time I'd been frantically searching for an inexpensive edition of the trade collection, since it's long been out of print.  The Final Night is one of my all-time favorite comics, an "event" that is still so unique that it remains a standout in that regard but is otherwise an excellent example of an undervalued era, Stuart Immonen's Superman.  From 1995 to 2000, he laid the groundwork for the kind of iconic vision Geoff Johns would become famous for, exploring the roots of a famous characters while at the same time building something for the future.  His Superman was something you could only have found otherwise in the artwork of Alex Ross, strong but not overly muscled, assured yet vulnerable.  Buried in the heart of a time when the Man of Steel faced one long arc after another with three other creative teams competing for attention, Immonen began in collaboration with Karl Kesel but eventually wrote his own stories to accompany the distinctive style he'd later alter to become more mainstream at Marvel.

I had the issues from when they were originally released, but they were part of the first comics purge I had to make a few years back and among the first ones I realized I should have put aside, which I did with only a handful that first time and then a little more the second time.  It's my opinion that no serious comics fan should go without this story in their collection in some shape or form.

The Final Night #1 (DC)
From 1996.
via comiXology
"The sun shone down warmly on Metropolis, the city of hope."  That's the copy from the first page of the issue.  Soon enough an alien spacecraft arrives, and its unknown occupant is greeted by Superman and a group from the time-displaced Legion of Super-Heroes (it should be noted that Immonen had worked on the Legion prior to his Superman run).  Soon the alien is identified as Dusk, and she reveals that she is the herald of the end of the world.  Somewhat standard material, story-wise.  Eventually we have a shot of all the heroes populating the DC landscape at that time, who've gathered for the occasion.  If this were George Perez (or anyone else for that matter) there would be all kinds of action in this shot, but Immonen is content to let them rest.  There's the Legion (including Inferno, subject of an Immonen mini-series), The Ray, the Wonder Twins (as presented within the pages of Extreme Justice), Robin, Big Barda, Mister Miracle, Guy Gardner (Warrior style), Wildcat, Takion (an attempt to create a new New God that was fun to read in his own series for the short while it lasted), Doctor Light (the female/hero version), Phantom Stranger, Captain Marvel and family, Alpha Centurion (subject of an Immonen one-shot), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), Jade and Obsidian (children of Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern), Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, Firestorm, Impulse, Fire and Ice, Doctor Polaris (the first villain to join the fight), Amazing Man, Maxima, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman.  Captain Atom is featured in a later panel.  Batman is there, too, but keeping to himself, which is exactly what you'd expect from him but what rarely happens in these event books.  The absence of the Spectre is discussed and then explained (he'd played a crucial role a few years earlier in Zero Hour, and would later return to prominence within the pages of Day of Judgment).  Lex Luthor finally appears, alongside the Contessa, near the end of the issue.  His role becomes increasingly prominent as the story continues...
via Boosteriffic
via Read DC Entertainment

The Final Night #2
via Comic Vine
By the third page of the second issue, Luthor is publicly shaking hands with Superman.  It's a historic moment for any number of reasons, a precedent later echoed in Forever Evil and subsequent issues of Justice League most significantly.  It's the first time Luthor is not merely the villain but someone trying to do what's right, not because he's looking to exploit an angle but because for once he's living up to his bluster, that he could very well have been Superman himself if the Man of Steel hadn't dropped out of the sky to, well, eclipse him.  The issue also sees Superman weakening, ironically enough, the result of the sun no longer giving him its strengthening rays.  Luthor's mind, and ego, meanwhile, are quickly going to work, and this is the other half of what makes Final Night worth preserving, other than its gorgeous art.  Dusk falls under attack by angry civilians who blame her for what's happened, only to be rescued by Ferro, which leads us to another echo, this time of a story that had already happened, the famous Legion story entitled "The Death of Ferro Lad" from 1967.
via DC Comics

The Final Night #3
via Comic Vine
"The universe isn't as simple as you might think, Superman.  To the trained eye, it's obvious that the sun is trying to heal itself -- but not quite in the way we'd want.  We don't know much about this phenomenon on Earth, but I'm sure where the young Brainiac comes from, they have all the timetables figured out."  That's Luthor again (you could've guessed, right?), and a page later it gets better: "Without the sun your powers are nearly gone.  I really think you should leave this to the big boys..."  Who else could get away with that?  And what other story than Final Night has ever produced such a scenario?  In more humble developments, Phantom Stranger helps Dusk see humanity in a better light by showing superheroes in more ordinary duties than we're used to.  Then humanity itself shows, well, humanity to Dusk.  Guy Gardner tries to get drunk, and the best thing that crazy alien DNA he had at that time ever did was provide a perfect setup for...

The Final Night #4
via Comic Vine
The most unexpected development was what came in the last issue, the start of the redemption of Hal Jordan, once and future Green Lantern but at the time Parallax, the villain who haunted Zero Hour and who would be expunged thanks to Day of Judgment and then Green Lantern: Rebirth.  But also, with all original emphasis included this time, these words from our old pal Lex Luthor: "Fascinating, Flash.  Thank you for sharing that essential information."  Who wouldn't want to read a whole series dedicated to that Lex Luthor?  And to think, we've only just gotten back to something even close (although Paul Cornell's Luthor-centric arc, collected in the "Black Ring" volumes, from Action Comics are also worth noting)...!  When his petty thought process is finally exposed, it leads to Superman doing what only Superman can do, unless it's Ferro trying to do it for him, and then finally what Jordan must to redeem himself.  The story ends with a rumination on Superman and Batman, but with the words of the Green Lantern oath, grounding the whole thing in the superheroics that seemed to have been cancelled by the unique scope of the event.
via iFanboy
Would I love for DC to acknowledge at the very least Final Night's significance to the Green Lantern mythos?  That's be great.  It's worth rediscovering for any of the reasons I listed otherwise, too, regardless of where it stands in current continuity.  With Convergence coming next year, does that even matter anymore?

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Reading Comics #138 "Character rundown from The Multiversity: The Just, plus other October 2014 comics"

Boom! Studios Halloween Fright Fest 2014 (Boom!)
via Previews World
The only Halloween freebie I picked up this year.  Frazer Irving illustrated the Adventure Time lead story, which was interesting insofar as Irving always does good work and Adventure Time is, well, interesting.  There were a few vintage Peanuts strips reprinted, plus background information on Charlie Brown's infamous luck with kites explained by the late Charles Schultz.  Finally, the lead-out was Fraggle Rock.  Hey, it was free.

Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration (Marvel)
via Hero Complex
I'm not really a Marvel guy, but I like it when Marvel celebrates itself (which does seem to happen often).  Anyway, this was a special that featured a couple of stories and retrospective essays.  The first story is from James Robinson and is close to the Marvel version of Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier comics over at DC.  It's also, I guess, like Marvels.  Reflects on "where were you" when the Fantastic Four were born.  Bruce Timm next adapts Stan Lee's first-ever Marvel story, featuring Captain America.  Works better in a modern, Timm style.  Also included is the original text version.  Then there's Brian Michael Bendis revisiting Alias (his comic, not the unrelated TV show).  I never read Alias, but if it was as good as this was, hopefully Bendis really does consider bringing it back, as is suggested in the story.  A text piece explores forgotten Golden Age creations, and curiously includes Rockman, a character revived in the pages of the excellent The Twelve.  Tom DeFalco does a pretty typical young Peter Parker Spider-Man tale.  A text piece on Marvel's black superheroes.  Len Wein returns to his most famous creation, Wolverine.  A text piece on the real world intruding in Marvel's pages.  Goofy covers that mock things that would never happen (What If? for the Instagram generation).  All told, I thought it was a pretty good reflection.

The Multiversity - The Just (DC)
via Comic Vine
The third issue of The Multiversity from Grant Morrison explores a world populated by all the DC characters created from the '90s onward, a next generation experience that takes a different tack from Kingdom Come, more akin to Morrison's ideas previously represented by Zenith and Super Young Team, superheroes straight from our media-obsessed age, who have less fighting and more angst to fill up their days.

Here's a rundown of the characters who appear"
  • Sister Miracle (Sasha Norman), new creation, based off Shilo Norman, the Mister Miracle alternate Morrison used in his Seven Soldiers of Victory project.
  • Megamorpho (Saffi Mason), new creation, based off Metamorpho, also known as Rex Mason.
  • The Atom (Ray Palmer), long-established character who in the '90s was de-aged and became a member of Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans.
  • Alexis Luthor, Lex Luthor's daughter, based on a concept from late '90s Superman comics.
  • Batman (Damian Wayne) one of Morrison's most famous characters.
  • Superman (Chris Kent), based on the "Last Son" character created by Geoff Johns.
  • Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley), his costume on display; the post-"Knightfall" replacement Batman.
  • Offspring (Ernie O'Brian), featured in Mark Waid's follow-up to Kingdom Come, The Kingdom.
  • Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), the '90s addition to the franchise.
  • Green Arrow (Connor Hawke), Oliver Queen's son and one-time successor.
  • Loose Cannon, Chronos, Gunfire, Max Mercury, Anima, Risk; group shot.  Loose Cannon, Anima and Gunfire were part of the "Bloodlines" generation from 1993.  Chronos was the anti-hero star of a brilliant, short-lived series.  Max Mercury was another Waid creation, within the pages of The Flash and Impulse.  Risk was part of Jurgens' Titans.  There are a few others I can't positively identify.
  • Superboy (Kon-El), whom Morrison cleverly has suffering from Bizarro syndrome.  I have no idea why this is the first time the idea has ever come up.  Brilliant.
  • Red Amazo, combining Red Tornado with classic Justice League villain Amazo.
  • The Flash (Wally West), the defining Flash for a generation thanks to Waid and Johns.
  • Alpha Centurion (Marcus Aelius), a character I've badly wanted to see make a comeback for years.  This may be it.  For now.
  • Steel (Natasha Irons), daughter of John Irons, the original Steel, with a long history herself.
  • Argus (Nick Kovak), another "Bloodlines" creation.
  • Wonder Woman (Artemis), the Azrael of the Wonder Woman '90s.
  • Aquaman (Garth), also known as Aqualad and Tempest.
  • Menta (Holly Dayton), daughter of Mento, Steve Dayton, associated with Doom Patrol.
  • Doctor Midnite (Pieter Cross), part of the revived Justice Society at the turn of the century.
  • Bloodwynd, part of Dan Jurgens' Justice League, famously described by Morrison in the pages of Supergods as being one of the worst examples of '90s comics.  Should be noted that his distinctive speech bubble (a crackly red outline) is omitted.  He, Alpha Centurion and Max Mercury are characters I'd want to explore given any possible comics career.
  • Arrowette (Cissie King-Hawke), taking the name of a character who was part of Young Justice.
  • Gypsy (Cynthia Reynolds), a member of the '90s Justice League scene.
  • Jakeem Thunder, a character Morrison created to join the revived Justice Society, succeeding one of the original members.
  • Impulse (Bart Allen), later known as Kid Flash.
Anyway, loved this issue.  Although of course I've loved all of them.  But this one in particular.

Saga #24 (Image)
via Previews World
The Brand enters (re-enters? I don't know) the picture, looking to figure out whatever happened to The Will, one of my favorite supporting characters who hasn't been around in a while.  Just a truly excellent issue, classic example of what made me love the series in the first place.  Pity, since the series now goes on hiatus until sometime early next year.

Superman #35 (DC)
via Ain't It Cool
Geoff Johns returns after the Futures End interlude to continue the Ulysses saga as he and Superman step up their efforts to end the threat of the Machinist.  Ulysses ends up making a bold move that may prove to be the definitive transition of the arc.

Wonder Woman #35 (DC)
via Rhymes with Geek
The conclusion of the Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang era has been getting mediocre reviews from the circles I visit, but I was going to have to read this one for myself even though I've had a spotty record reading the series so far.  This is basically the end of the First Born arc, too, with the most feeling of conclusion coming from Azzarello revealing the true nature of one of his supporting characters, a twist that underwhelmed other observers, but to my mind tracks well with what the series had done previously, exploring the nature of conflicting allegiances that has always been one of the worst-explored aspects of Wonder Woman (previously relegated to "you represent us!  you don't represent us!").  All along I've been convinced that this was a classic interpretation of the character, completely unusual and therefore with that much greater opportunity to say something new, which has been badly needed for decades.  It's distinctive, not just because of the art, but because it's allowed Wonder Woman to completely own her own mythology, not just "Greek gods, Greek gods, Greek gods" but what that means to her specifically.  Again, something that's needed to be done for a long time.  The instinct in the future will be to distance Diana as much from this material as possible without outright erasing it from the record, but that would be a mistake.  DC's already had other writers doing a more traditional interpretation simultaneously, including within the pages of Geoff Johns' Justice League and a burgeoning, unprecedented-in-the-modern-era line of sister titles, Superman/Wonder Woman and Sensation Comics.  I don't think any of that would have been possible without Azzarello's confident take

Monday, November 10, 2014

Digitally Speaking...#22 "Greg Rucka, Loeb & Sale, Beast of Wolfe's Bay, Bikini Cowboy, Binary, The Black Well, Blastosaurus, Bob and His Beer, Boobage, Brandi Bare, The Bunker"

Batman: The Ten Cent Adventure (DC)
From 2002.
via comiXology
Yeah, a comic that cost ten cents!  This was also the start of the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" arc.  This lead-off was written by Greg Rucka; the art from Rick Burchett (best known for his Batman: The Animated Series comics) and lettering by Willie Schubert (I know, I never mention the people who work on these things other than the writers and artists, but it's a whole team effort) combined with Rucka's scripting end up with the closest I've ever seen any team match the classic duo of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale (The Long Halloween).  It's Rucka who I've got to spend this time talking about, though.  He's one of the four writers responsible for one of my all-time favorite comics, 52, along with Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns and Mark Waid.  Of the four I'm least familiar with Rucka's work.  At DC he was best known for his Wonder Woman and Gotham Central, which among other things was best known for fleshing out the character of Renee Montoya, who in the pages of 52 would go on to become the new Question while at the same time Batwoman emerged.  Suffice to say Rucka's had a vested interest in strong female characters.  Ten Cent Adventure features another of those, Sasha Bordeaux, who eventually went on to have a career in Checkmate and an interesting relationship with OMAC.  It's Rucka's depiction of Batman as a tragic story that may have deserved a different payoff than the "Murderer?" arc, something other than the Dark Knight Returns future, something bleaker.  It'd be nice to see if Rucka could nail such a story if he ever returned to the DC fold.  Rucka is also known for creator-owned titles like Queen & Country, Whiteout, Lazarus, and Stumptown.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Special Edition (DC)
From 2014/1993.
via View Comic
Speaking of Loeb and Sale, here's their first Batman collaboration, the first of three Halloween one-shots later collected in Batman: Haunted Knight.  It reads a lot more like their brilliantly underrated first collaboration, collected as The Challengers of the Unknown Must Die! but long out of print, than their later work, and a freebie this year hopefully helped remind readers, or make new ones aware, of their considerable legacy.

The Beast of Wolfe's Bay (Evensen Creative)
From 2013.
via Wolfe's Bay
Well, this was pretty darn brilliant.  Well before I reached the background material that acknowledged the graphic novel's origins, including the Kickstarter campaign that helped make it a reality, I'd been thinking this was like the Scream version of monster movies, what I wished the dreadfully overrated Blair Witch Project had actually been like.  But as it turns out, Erik Evensen actually started out with the concept of modernizing Beowulf.  And in that context, the whole thing may be more fascinating than it first seems.  Other than that, this is a Bigfoot story, and in the past I've been a very amateur Bigfoot buff, so I always like to revisit that territory.  Evensen pulls double duty as writer and artist, and the remarkable thing is that he not only knows how to tell a story but visualize it as well.  The art gets better as the story continues, to the point where it started looking a lot like the excellent Fiona Staples' (Saga).  This guy has a bright future, but as far as I'm concerned, he's already given himself a head-start in building a legacy.

***** (out of five)

Bikini Cowboy Vol. 1 (Fresherluke)
From 2013.
via comiXology
Once in a while you come across something that transcends your normal evaluation of "great."  I've read a number of comics from the handy pack comiXology put together that I've really liked, including the above Beast of Wolfe's Bay and the Archeologists of Shadows series.  But Bikini Cowboy is better than all of them.  If this were a movie, I'd be ranking it alongside similar discoveries like The Fall and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  In my Goodreads review I referenced Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained as a similarly Weest-shattering experience, and called Bikini Cowboy a modern Peter Pan.  It's phenomenal.  It's astonishing.  And it sneaks up on you.  At first it seems as close to absurd as you can get.  Girls did not wear bikinis back then.  They just didn't.  But the longer L. Frank Weber spins his tale, the more it works.  The artwork is similar to Sean Murphy, and the story itself is comparable to Murphy's own breakthrough work Punk Rock Jesus.  And this is only the first volume?  I want to read more.  Holy a-cow, Batman!

Binary (ilfeld comix)
From 2013.
via Amazon
Based on Chris Hinz's own book Liege Killer, this graphic novel reads like the Philip K. Dick genre but needed a lot more streamlining to have a real impact.  The art of Jon Proctor is similar to Tony Harris (Ex Machina), so that kept it visually appealing.  Interesting concepts, anyway.

The Black Well
From 2012.
via Lulu
A graphic novel that features the style of underground comix but is generally easier to read, even if Jamie Tanner leaves his story somewhat open-ended.  The Black Well might be described as a cross between The Island of Dr. Moreau and Kafka's Metamorphosis.  It's pretty interesting.

Blastosaurus #1 (Square Planet)
From 2014.
via All Comic
I...guess this is kind of the dinosaur version of Terminator.  Not terrible.  It is terribly imaginative, but all I can really say beyond that is that it's not really for me.

Bob and His Beer
From 2012.
via Comic Vine
A little too convenient in how it all plays out, and it reads like a student's effort for a classroom writing assignment, but it works, generally, and at least for me, it's a unique comics experience.  There's one point where it even takes advantage of the digital format, which is all too rare even today, more than a decade after Scott McCloud gave a lecture in my own school days about the possibilities of the form.  I'd encourage a little more of that the next time the Stringfields collaborate.

Boobage (Lipstick Kiss Press)
From 2013.
via Comic Vine
Literary-style, you know, the kind of comic book and/or graphic novel that usually gets all the mainstream love and/or awards; more graphic novella than novel, basically a one-shot, because it's about as long as a standard issue; all that being said it's a pretty good, enlightening read on the insecurities of a small-chested woman, her perspective growing up.  The only problem is that it doesn't really nail the landing.  Is this an excerpt, then, for something Gallagher will later release?  She's talented either way.

Brandi Bare
From 2014.
via comiXology
It's not really bad, per say, but the book remains open, as it were, if Joe Pekar is doing this comic for reasons other than the cheesecake factor.  There are plenty of cheesecake comics out there, and most of them disguise their intentions by doing genre work of some extraction.

 The Bunker #1 (Oni)
From 2014.
via Rhymes with Geek
Not surprisingly, the best "regular" comic experience of the bunch belongs to a seasoned pro, Joshua Hale Fialkov.  For a few years now he's been plying his trade in superhero books, but Hale made his reputation on Elk's Run, and it looks like he's interested in getting back into that vibe.  The Bunker is like Lost by way of Robert Sawyer's FlashForward, which not so coincidentally was adapted into one of the many TV series that tried to be Lost.  It also reads a lot like Stephen King, actually.  A group of friends discover a hatch that leads them to a set of letters addressed individually to each of them.  The letters come from the future and don't speak especially well of what's to come.  Do they believe the letters?  It's fascinating stuff, and instantly becomes some of the best 2014 material I've read.  I'll be coming back to this series for sure.  It's just a matter of when.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Quarter Bin #58 "Binge-worthy III: Mark Waid's Marvel, and other artifacts"

Bloodbath #1 (DC)
From 1993.
via DC Wikia
DC's 1993 annuals represented an effort to introduce an entire generation of new superheroes under the "Bloodlines" banner, surviving victims of a parasitic alien invasion who discovered hidden powers.  A few of these characters were featured in their own short-lived ongoing series (Gunfire, Anima) or mini-series (Loose Cannon, Razorsharp in Psyba-Rats), or else in various teams (Sparx) or as supporting characters in the titles whose annuals they debuted (Argus in The Flash).  The most famous alumnus, Hitman, branched off to create his own Garth Ennis-fed legacy.  Critics generally dismiss the whole effort as a crass attempt to cash in on the Image craze at the time, and maybe it was, but it was considerably ambitious and also the last time DC tried to replicate the success of its breakthrough Silver Age boom, which was followed by the Marvel Age renaissance a few years later.  I've been interested in these characters being revisited ever since, but that day still hasn't come, so the next best thing is to revisit "Bloodlines" itself, which I've done on a few occasions now.  This time I couldn't help but enjoy the snapshot of the DC landscape of that time that Bloodbath helps capture.  There's Mullet Superman, "Azbats," Bulky Armor Booster Gold, even my good buddy Bloodwynd.  There's also an advertisement for the DC adaptation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, something I didn't read at the time and am still hoping to track down some day.  I'm one of the few people out there who wouldn't mind owning the complete "Bloodlines" event, and its related material.  That would be binging!

Captain America #444 (Marvel)
From 1995.
via Marvel Wikia
Until now I'd never read Mark Waid's Captain America, which at the time was distinguished as the first time he'd been noticed for something other than The Flash.  It was a run that was interrupted by the "Heroes Reborn" thing, another effect of the Image revolution, but popular enough that Marvel brought Waid back after the "Heroes Return."  I'd always wondered if Waid really was as ideal with Cap as he'd been with Wally West.  What made his Flash so special was a deep love for the character and his history, and everything Waid added to that legacy, notably bringing all the speedsters together, creating a few of his own, and introducing the concept of the Speed Force, basically a prototype for everything that Geoff Johns would do for Green Lantern a decade later.  After reading some of Waid's Captain America, I'm still not sure what to make of this work.  This issue in particular seems determined to make readers appreciate Steve Rogers for the idealistic and idealized hero he is, a Marvel concept if I ever saw one, the sacrifices and triumphs he's experienced over the years.  Steve isn't even in the issue, it's his supporters standing up for him against the doubts a skeptical government agent.  It's not very subtle work, although by the end of the issue Waid has done his trademark work of focusing on an iconic image, a frozen Captain America, except this time he's in the clutches of his enemies.  Most telling, perhaps, is Waid's heavy use of Quicksilver, Marvel's resident speedster, either a concession to fans of The Flash or a storytelling crutch for someone who was more than familiar with that kind of character at that point.

Captain America #445 (Marvel)
From 1995.
via Comic Megastore
Perhaps the most ironic part of Waid's arc at this point is that it's happened again under the current Rick Remender regime: Steve Rogers losing his super-soldier edge.  In this issue, he's given his strength back by his worst enemy, the Red Skull.  Part of the reason I know the fans were exaggerating a little, or that there were far fewer fans championing this run, is that until now I had no idea any of that even happened.  Waid creates the Speed Force and it's a permanent addition.  Waid monkeys around with Captain America and it's just his version of the classic '90s crisis every superhero underwent.  This is not to say it's not good storytelling, but that it doesn't seem to have had much impact.  I've been wondering the same about Waid's current Marvel cult favorite, Daredevil, which seems headed in the same direction.  Which leads me to this conclusion: Waid knows how to work the angles of any given iconic character, but he rarely seems interested, or motivated, to significantly add to that character's legacy.

Captain America #5 (Marvel)
From 1998.
via Comic Vine
Obviously, this is part of Waid's return engagement.  This one's got a pretty interesting idea: What happens when an enemy (in this case the shape-shifting Skrulls) actually undermine Cap by making him popular?  All of Marvel's superheroes have inferiority complexes in one shape or form, part of the gimmick that's supposed to make them more relatable to the angst-ridden teenage market (also why the company has somewhat distanced itself from that approach in the big box office era).  If you ever wanted to know the biggest difference between Superman and Captain America, there it is.  Although a dude with "America" in his name, that doesn't automatically mean Cap is always aces with his country (something Captain America: The Winter Soldier helped demonstrate).  Although it should be noted that Waid did a similar story in the pages of The Flash.

Captain America #20 (Marvel)
From 1999.
via Comic Vine
Cap working alongside S.H.I.E.L.D. sounds like the movies, doesn't it?  Other than that, there's Sharon Carter drama (which was also a theme of other issues I sampled), and Andy Kubert (the Kubert who now has a functional Batman legacy under his belt thanks to helping Grant Morrison introduce Damian) proves there's at least one thing he can't draw, which is Steve Rogers drinking wine.  Maybe I don't know the character well enough, but I highly doubt he'd hold the glass like a dandy.  The man's a soldier.  I think people sometimes forget that.  Somehow...Actually, come to think of it, if I'd formed any impression of what to expect from a Mark Waid Captain America, I would have expected a heavy emphasis on that.  Although he seems to have done anything but.

The Creeper #1,000,000 (DC)
From 85,271/1998.
via DC Wikia
Another event I have a great affinity for is Grant Morrison's DC One Millioni, which imagines what the legacy of today's superheroes will look like in the year the one millionth issue of their current comic books would be published.  Turns out, despite all that time, pretty familiar.  Except The Creeper keeps it close to home, featuring the present version, possibly because this also happens to be the last issue of the series, meaning writer Len Kaminski has to come up with a statement on the character that makes sense in the event context.  He pulls it off.  Creeper is one of those wild card characters DC loves to experiment with, a sort of Joker combined with the Mask and Deadpool, with the same body-swapping gimmick as Captain Marvel and the Demon Etrigan.  I'd never read the series, so picked up the issue mainly out of interest in One Million, but I ended up loving the issue.  In hindsight this was another of those comics DC should probably have published under the Vertigo banner, as it features many of the classic hallmarks of a more abstract interpretation of superhero storytelling.  But if that had happened, the One Million issue would never have happened.

DC Universe #0 (DC)
From 2008.
via DC Wikia

Technically the last issue of Countdown to Final Crisis, this one was written by Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns and is best known for Morrison's interlude between Batman and the Joker, which ties in with "Batman R.I.P."  The narration is provided by Barry Allen, whose return is revealed at the end of the issue.  He'd been the most famous victim of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which Final Crisis undoes by bringing back the concept of the multiverse in full force.  But readers who expected it to be more like Infinite Crisis probably have only this issue to hold onto.  Probably Johns' biggest influence on it.

Dinosaurs vs. Aliens Free Comic Book Day Special Preview (Liquid Comics)
From 2012.
via Comic Vine
This is Grant Morrison's intended film collaboration with Barry Sonnenfeld, a project that followed on the hinges of a similar release in 18 Days.  Dinosaurs vs. Aliens sounds gimmicky, especially when you consider the similarly-titled Cowboys vs. Aliens and how poorly that went over with wide audiences, but it's actually pretty interesting.  It's Morrison in minimalist mode (We3, Joe the Barbarian), although as gorgeous as the art is (I should note that I've previously read the whole graphic novel release), it's almost better to read the script excerpts, where you can truly appreciate how much effort Morrison puts into his concepts.  The trouble with this one, though, is that it risks being, ultimately, about as interesting as that underwater chase in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in which the heroes are confronted with a succession of large fish.  The animators put a lot of work into that, too, details you might not have caught, even a whole story you might have missed.  It's a little hard imagining that a potential movie version of this concept would play differently, which might be part of the reason there still isn't, well, a movie version of this.  Maybe it just needs more Rip Torn?

Fantastic Four #508 (Marvel)
From 2004.
via Marvel Wikia
The final Mark Waid in the binge, this issue features Dr. Doom possessing successive members of the Fantastic Four, a concept straight out of the Silver Age, although it also features the "death" of the Thing, although by the end of the issue Sue Storm is already talking strategies on how to bring him back.  So in that regard, Waid is ahead of his competitors.  I can't judge his First Family on one issue, but I didn't find it to be too remarkable.  The biggest hook for me is Howard Porter on art.  Ever since his JLA with Grant Morrison, I've been interested in Porter's career, and although he's never had another high profile run like that, I'm happy whenever I see him on a new project (current one: Justice League 3000).  Some artists change their style over time, but Porter's is the same in this issue as it was in JLA.  I consider that a good thing.