Flashpoint Ramblings

So I've been reading Flashpoint, and I while I've been enjoying some of the alternate timeline ideas, I haven't really been able to get into it as being consequential. This might be due to the upcoming reboot, or my disdain for Reverse Flash as a boilerplate EEEEVIL TORTURE VILLAIN, but the fact remains that I just can't bring myself to care all that much about the outcome of the whole thing.
Ironically, this has led me to think about it a lot. Specifically, I've been trying to work out what the theme of this alternate world is - every good alternate timeline story has a compelling theme, after all, like Red Son being all "what if Superman was a Commie?" or Justice Riders posing the compelling question "what if everybody was cowboys?". 

I know that the impetus of the whole thing was Reverse Flash evil torturing Barry Allen by messing with the past, but that's no kind of theme. Based on the differences that I've been able to glean so far, I reckon that the theme of this world might just be "what if The Nail was about the entire JLA instead of just Superman?" Consider:

[BIG SPOILERS IF YOU CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING]

Superman - Kal-El's baby-rocket impacted in Metropolis instead of Kansas, leading to him spending his entire life in government custody. Also, his DNA was used to create a Super Sayan.

Batman - Lil' Bruce Wayne was shot while his parents survived. Thomas Wayne became a meaner version of the Batman as a result, while Martha Wayne became the Joker.

Green Lantern - Abin Sur never travelled to Earth and consequently never died. Hal Jordan still a test pilot.

Martian Manhunter - Captured by super-villain the Outsider, tortured, experimented on and then sold to the Russians. Became evil as a result of these torments.

Aquaman - Taken away from his human father at a young age and thus never given a gentler moral upbringing. Sinks Western Europe as a part of his war with the Amazons.

Wonder Woman - We'll come back to Wonder Woman.

So: DCU big guns removed = the world becoming a hellhole. But wait, now something else is bothering me: Reverse Flash went to great trouble to either kill (Batman) depower (Green Lantern, Flash) or scramble the morality of (Superman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman) all of the A-list super-heroes, but what about Wonder Woman? As far as I can tell, Evil Time-Travelling Apparently Space-Capable Possibly-Magic Reverse Flash didn't mess with her past at all.

Therefore, baseline Wonder Woman is capable of being manipulated into a devastating war, the invasion of a sovereign noncombatant nation and the subjugation of its people. She can be fooled into not noticing her people deploying death squads to other countries and starting concentration camps in her own. She's foolish enough to try negotiating with Aquaman while wearing the helmet that she took from his wife's severed head. Flashpoint Wonder Woman is, evidently, a moron.

Whether this means something big or cosmic or misogynistic or pants-phobic (Moron Wonder Woman does, after all, wear those very controversial garments) I cannot say. All that matters is that it is on the Internet and thus will no longer be rattling around in my head.

What Have I Wrought

In response to my recent post about Lois Lane's dentition and its implications for the larger DCU, extremely funny commenter damanoid had this to say:

Oh for god’s sake man, do you realize what you’ve done?! This could take YEARS to sort out!

First there’ll need to be a Dentistry Crisis, to explain that Lois Lane had her memories erased to cover up the fact that she was raped while under anesthesia.

Then you’ll have Infinite Caries, a massive crossover event in which an earlier version of Lois, with perfect teeth, attempts to ‘bite through history’ to ensure that her alternate self’s tooth decay never occurs– which alters the dental history of the entire DC universe!

That leads into “One Regularly Scheduled Appointment Later,” which reveals how everyone’s life has been changed by their gleaming new smiles, followed by “32,” a series that explores how each tooth in Lois’ mouth has been affected by these changes.

After that of course is “Blackest Teeth,” in which Lois’ missing tooth returns as a zombified fang bent on destroying all teeth everywhere, followed by “Brightest Smile,” in which all of Lois’ teeth change color and get superpowers, or something.

Not that it matters! Because right after that is “FlossPoint,” another massive crossover which explores the premise of what would have happened if Lois had lost a DIFFERENT tooth. This will result in another reboot, and an entirely new continuity that starts out before Lois had lost her tooth to begin with.

Once all that is out of the way, though, they’ll finally be able to move on to the good stories and solid writing we’ve been waiting for. It’ll be the perfect jumping-on point for new readers! Yes indeed, no doubt about it at all. Blue skies ahead, my friends; nothing but blue skies.

In addition to unleashing a much denser agglomeration of tooth/comic jokes than I'd ever imagined possible, damanoid is of course pointing out the fact that bad comics trends propagate just as readily as good ones. This is sadly true, though I hold hope in my heart that the continuity-heavy title-wide crossover will soon go the way of the foil-embossed cover.

Someday.

The Unfunnies: Honey in Hollywood

"Honey in Hollywood" is a strip about a would-be starlet trying to achieve her filmic dreams. It's as innocent as any of these comics, but I'm afraid that decades of layered cliches have irreversibly sullied my mind. I can't read a "Honey" without mentally inserting sleazy casting couches and coke parties and similar debauchery just off-screen.

I will leave my thoughts on the potential subtext of this installment unsaid.

From the Adventures of Alan Ladd No. 5

Lois Lane is Missing a Tooth, OR, Rappin' About Reboots With Uncle Johnathan

The other day, I was reading some Silver Age comics (natch) and I came across this plot point in Lois Lane No.50, from July 1964.

 

At first I was going to merely point this out and mention that from my experience with people of the generation that Lois would have been sliding through at the time, she almost certainly didn't get any sort of replacement; that right up until the original Crisis Lois Lane was missing a molar. How very strange by today's standards! How uncomfortable that would make some people feel!

And then the next day I heard about the Great Upcoming DC Reboot and the surrounding kerfuffle and the two got a bit muddled together in my head, such that when I got distracted by the new puppy and such I kept mulling it over and turning it around, and I came to this conclusion: Lois Lane's missing tooth means that reboots don't matter.

Think about it: by the strict rules of the ContinuiNerd, that tooth was gone up until the Crisis, but realistically it was probably forgotten by the end of the issue. The extraction, after all, existed solely as a means for Lois to learn about laughing gas (so that when she went back in time later on she could use some to try to disrupt Superboy and Lana Lang's first kiss - SILVER AGE!). But it happened, right? Theoretically, it should occupy as valid a space in the canon as Brave and the Bold No. 54, which came out the same month and featured the first teamup of Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash in what would become the Teen Titans.

The obvious difference, of course, is that the tooth doesn't matter and that its absence isn't really interesting, whereas the concept of teen sidekicks getting together to fight crime does. If Lois had had her tooth replaced by a cunning fake that contained a Superman signal device or a piece of emergency kryptonite or something then it might have cropped up a few more times during the Silver Age, and had an appearance in All-Star Superman, and maybe Flashpoint Lois would have a secret spy tooth that shoots lasers or contains an emergency raft or has the Atom hiding inside.

Over time (and given good writing, of course), the fun, interesting, compelling stuff will keep coming back, while the drek and garbage and redundancies will fade away or be changed for the better: Krypto the Superdog will always come back, but Comet the Superhorse never will. Jimmy Olsen will never die but if we ever see the Blood Pack again it will be because someone has made something interesting of them.

Lois Lane is missing a tooth; Lois Lane is not missing a tooth.

It doesn't matter if Lois Lane is missing a tooth. Unless it makes for a good story, of course.

O Captain! My Five Favourite CAPTAIN AMERICA Moments From The Comics

 The comic book movies I really love (the first Superman, the first Spider-Man, the first Iron Man, The Dark Knight) always send me back to the comics, and Captain America: The First Avenger was no exception. A faithful translation of a four-colour hero’s adventure leaves me jazzed about that character, and reminds me why I like ‘em in the first place. With that in mind, I decided to compile my five favourite Captain America moments from the comics. Keep in mind, these aren’t intended to be the best Cap moments, by any means—just the ones that always stuck in my mind and made him a favourite character of mine since I was a kid. They’re kind of odd choices—they’re not particularly exciting or badass or cool, in many cases. In at least one, they’re downright embarrassing. Still, I think that the basic elements of these scenes, which have always stayed with me for one reason or another, add up to help round out Cap as a standout character for me. So…

If It Ain’t Supposed To Be Broke, Then Fix It (From Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12)

In the penultimate chapter of Marvel’s first big ensemble maxiseries, a Beyonder-powered Doctor Doom blasted all of the superheroes to bits with a bolt from the blue. However, in the series’ final chapter, Doom accidentally revived the heroes (with a little bit of subliminal suggestion from a Beyonder-possessed Klaw), and the good guys triumphed in the end. Unfortunately, Captain America’s prized shield was shattered by the blast that (temporarily) killed everybody, but that didn’t stop the Star-Spangled Avenger from leading everyone into battle with its fragmented remains. Anyway, as the heroes prepared to return home, they noticed that there were still some residual side effects of the Beyonder’s cosmic powers floating around—side effects that included paranormal wish fulfillment, like Spider-Man being able to restore Dr. Curt Conners from the dead. Cap decided to try and use some of this power to try and restore his most trusted asset from oblivion…

I love this whole sequence—the emotion Cap feels for an inanimate hunk of metal always got to me, even as an eleven-year old. And I love the look of sheer joy on his face when the shield is magically repaired.

Old Soldier (From Daredevil Vol. 1 #233)

The Born Again arc from Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s run on Daredevil is the gold standard by which I’ve always judged every DD run that’s come after it. It’s never been matched for storytelling power, grit, or just plain coolness ever since. But one of my favourite aspects of it is its treatment of Cap, who is never actually referred to by name in any of his appearances, and is simply called “the soldier” in the narrative captions. In this series, the Kingpin unleashes a maniacal washout from a failed super-soldier program—the drug-addled lunatic called Nuke—on Hell’s Kitchen, trying to flush out Daredevil. Nuke is defeated, but questions about his origin linger, and Captain America decides to investigate. Looking for Daredevil, he finds his alter ego Matt Murdock instead, who urges him to ask his bosses in Washington about where Nuke came from.

 

This last panel is such a beautifully short and simple distillation of Cap’s entire character—his idealism, how out of place he feels in today’s world—and it’s done with such a simple image and so few words.

3.     Red, White, and Blue Movie (From Incredible Hulk Vol. 1#417)

It’s perennial Marvel sidekick Rick Jones’ bachelor party, so with most of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four (plus numerous other heroes to boot), you know it’s gonna get crazy! Nick Fury kicks off the night by sending a stripper, then the gang settles in to watch a nudie flick. The Vision, like all good nerds, insists on running the projector…

…then he busts Cap for covering his eyes!

Stands to reason that the Marvel Universe’s biggest boy scout would feel embarrassed to be watching a dirty movie…although not as embarrassed as Rick Jones, when he discovers that the star of said movie is his bride-to-be, Marlo! But that’s another story.

Thanks For The Memories (From Avengers Vol. 1 #277)

I’ve written at length here before about my love for the Under Siege storyline from Roger Stern’s outstanding Avengers run. In it, Baron Zemo and his latest incarnation of the Masters Of Evil take over Avengers Mansion, holding several team members hostage while brutalizing others (Hercules is beaten into a coma by the Masters’ biggest bruisers, while poor Jarvis is tortured half to death by Mister Hyde). As always, the Avengers turn the tide and take the Mansion back from Zemo and his goons, but not before they’ve taken the time to trash a bunch of the heroes’ personal effects…including most of Cap’s pre-WWII memorabilia, like his original triangular shield and the only photo he has of his mother.

Man. What a bunch of jerks. Like the Daredevil appearance noted above, this one always drove home the pathos of Cap for me, and immeasurably deepened him as a character.

Sargasso? (From Avengers Vol. 1 #154)

This particular Avengers issue sticks out in my mind as being one of the first comic books I ever owned as a kid, so it obviously already has great meaning for me. It’s a pretty killer issue, starting off with the Vision being taken captive by a bunch of Atlantean renegades, and ending with their ally Tyrak the Treacherous invading Avengers Mansion (notice a theme here?) disguised as the Inhuman known as Triton. Scarlett Witch sees through his disguise, and all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Tyrak is able to make short work of them—he takes out the Witch, Yellowjacket, and the Wasp with knockout gas, crushes Iron Man’s power pack (which renders his armor useless)…but that’s when Cap steps up to the plate, delivering this memorably salty line of dialogue:

Wow, only the Living Legend of World War II could spit that out with a straight face. And he means it, too! That is a guy I want on my side. Too bad Tyrak drops a wall on him a second later—only the Beast escapes to bring reinforcements for next issue’s rematch.

 So there you have it. I’m not sure why none of these scenes are actually from Cap’s own title—there are certainly lots of great moments to be found there—but these are, as I said, the ones that always stayed with me. And if you don’t like ‘em, feel free to shove them up your Sargasso…whatever the heck that means.

The Unfunnies: Tiny

So I still have a puppy, as per the last installment of the Unfunnies, and I must say that they are a lot more work than I remember from my youth. It's almost like I had some sort of help, someone to clean up the poops and endure the early-morning urination excursions.

In honour of young Branston Pickle, who is a delightful dog despite the amount of matter he ejects over the course of each day, here is another dog comic:

Not shown: Tiny dodging an enormous cleaver.

- From Action Comics No. 27