Watched a bit of the NFL draft today...they were talking about a young receiver that got picked by San Francisco in the first round, and as with all the players they talked about, they showed highlights of his college career, accompanied by short descriptive phrases that flashed up on the screen. So we learned he is/has "Intelligence"..."Hands"..."Leaper"...which I, unfortunately, read as "Leper".
Presumably, those "Hands" are only temporary.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
State of Comics
I'm currently reading 'The Legion Companion', a book I picked up because I knew next to nothing about the Legion of Super-Heroes but was aware they had a devoted fanbase, and wanted to find out why. It's been of sod-all use in that regard (it's a collection of interviews with various Legion writers and artists, designed to be read by people who are already intimately familiar with the LSH), but it does give me an idea of why comics today are failing.
Reading these interviews, you'll find old writers, editors, and artists talking about comics at newsstands (when was the last time you saw a comic sold outside of a comic shop? OK, yes, maybe a bookstore, but they don't sell them in drugstores, at supermarkets, or anywhere the direct market can't reach.) They talk about letters columns (vanished as well.) They talk about how they wrote self-contained stories for the casual reader (multi-part stories used to be taboo at DC, now they're mandatory everywhere.) They talk about doing eye-catching covers (sure, superdickery.com jokes about 50s DC covers, but as crazy as they were, they certainly made you want to buy the issues.) They talk about how they didn't expect anyone to be into comics for more than two years, so they had to keep doing things to get new readers interested (nowadays comics writers assume every reader is a long-time reader and is intimately familiar with the characters' backstories and key historical points.)
It's like a glimpse into an alien world.
Now, I'm not saying every single one of these changes was a bad thing--I'd be crazy to suggest that there's no room for multi-part stories, for example. But it does occur to me that comic books, as they were constituted for the first sixty or seventy years of their existence, were designed for the general public (if only the juvenile element of the general public), and that they had a goal of getting as many people as possible to look at a comic, see the cover, and at least consider purchasing it. For the last twenty or thirty years, they've marketed to an increasingly smaller, self-selected market, counting on brand loyalty to outweigh the fact that nobody knows their product exists anymore. And they wonder what's going wrong...
I'd have to say, if I were to be put in charge of Marvel/DC, the first thing I'd do is market a "Comics Treasury" monthly. It'd be a magazine, say 100 pages, and it'd have four or five self-contained comics featuring flagship characters on a rotating basis, it'd have letters and spaces for fan-art, articles on the company's history, continuity, and so forth that would be fun, interesting, and glorified ads for their other products...and most importantly, it would be marketed wherever anyone had a magazine rack. And the advertising department would make sure, every month, to have at least one page of ads for local comics stores, and those local stores could purchase ads at a discounted rate.
That'd be just the start--I'd also tamp down on excess continuity, rampant cross-overs, reboots, et cetera, and ramp up the newsstand programs and bring back the letter columns...but at the very least, I'd want a single product out there aimed at casual readers that would increase visibility of my entire line of products.
Something like that is necessary, I think. They have to start growing their business again. Because at this rate, comics will soon be down to the point where they're trying to sell every single copy to one very rich fan. And that's just not a viable business model.
Reading these interviews, you'll find old writers, editors, and artists talking about comics at newsstands (when was the last time you saw a comic sold outside of a comic shop? OK, yes, maybe a bookstore, but they don't sell them in drugstores, at supermarkets, or anywhere the direct market can't reach.) They talk about letters columns (vanished as well.) They talk about how they wrote self-contained stories for the casual reader (multi-part stories used to be taboo at DC, now they're mandatory everywhere.) They talk about doing eye-catching covers (sure, superdickery.com jokes about 50s DC covers, but as crazy as they were, they certainly made you want to buy the issues.) They talk about how they didn't expect anyone to be into comics for more than two years, so they had to keep doing things to get new readers interested (nowadays comics writers assume every reader is a long-time reader and is intimately familiar with the characters' backstories and key historical points.)
It's like a glimpse into an alien world.
Now, I'm not saying every single one of these changes was a bad thing--I'd be crazy to suggest that there's no room for multi-part stories, for example. But it does occur to me that comic books, as they were constituted for the first sixty or seventy years of their existence, were designed for the general public (if only the juvenile element of the general public), and that they had a goal of getting as many people as possible to look at a comic, see the cover, and at least consider purchasing it. For the last twenty or thirty years, they've marketed to an increasingly smaller, self-selected market, counting on brand loyalty to outweigh the fact that nobody knows their product exists anymore. And they wonder what's going wrong...
I'd have to say, if I were to be put in charge of Marvel/DC, the first thing I'd do is market a "Comics Treasury" monthly. It'd be a magazine, say 100 pages, and it'd have four or five self-contained comics featuring flagship characters on a rotating basis, it'd have letters and spaces for fan-art, articles on the company's history, continuity, and so forth that would be fun, interesting, and glorified ads for their other products...and most importantly, it would be marketed wherever anyone had a magazine rack. And the advertising department would make sure, every month, to have at least one page of ads for local comics stores, and those local stores could purchase ads at a discounted rate.
That'd be just the start--I'd also tamp down on excess continuity, rampant cross-overs, reboots, et cetera, and ramp up the newsstand programs and bring back the letter columns...but at the very least, I'd want a single product out there aimed at casual readers that would increase visibility of my entire line of products.
Something like that is necessary, I think. They have to start growing their business again. Because at this rate, comics will soon be down to the point where they're trying to sell every single copy to one very rich fan. And that's just not a viable business model.
When Brains Attack
Ever noticed how sometimes, it doesn't necessarily seem like you're in control of your own brain? I mean, you'll be watching/listening/reading something, and it's clear that the person who created it has a very specific thought or feeling in mind for you to have in response to it, and your brain just decides to jump up and transmit thoughts you had no idea were even out there?
Today's example comes from the classic horror movie, 'Day of the Dead'. It opens with survivors checking out a Florida town to see if anyone else survived the rise of the zombies; as they call out with a bullhorn, hordes of zombies slowly converge on their location, and it becomes clear that this is a city inhabited by nothing but the dead. The endless shots of living dead, walking the streets in broad daylight is supposed to convey a sense of mounting horror at the realization that humanity's day is over...
But all I could think of was, "Doesn't Florida get hit by a lot of hurricanes? How exactly do the zombies deal with 80 mph winds?" And then I start hearing, in my head, one of those very serious weather announcers you get in those situations, reminding people, "Please remember to clear any stray zombies from your property! Hurricane-strength winds can propel a loose zombie through six inches of solid concrete!"
I'm fairly sure this was never the intent of the film-maker.
Today's example comes from the classic horror movie, 'Day of the Dead'. It opens with survivors checking out a Florida town to see if anyone else survived the rise of the zombies; as they call out with a bullhorn, hordes of zombies slowly converge on their location, and it becomes clear that this is a city inhabited by nothing but the dead. The endless shots of living dead, walking the streets in broad daylight is supposed to convey a sense of mounting horror at the realization that humanity's day is over...
But all I could think of was, "Doesn't Florida get hit by a lot of hurricanes? How exactly do the zombies deal with 80 mph winds?" And then I start hearing, in my head, one of those very serious weather announcers you get in those situations, reminding people, "Please remember to clear any stray zombies from your property! Hurricane-strength winds can propel a loose zombie through six inches of solid concrete!"
I'm fairly sure this was never the intent of the film-maker.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Under the Hood: Manos
Yes, I know it's insane, but if you're talking about remaking and improving bad movies, then certainly you have to talk about one that actually has attained a perverse fame as the Worst Movie Ever Made. So let's discuss Manos--the Hands of Fate.
For starters, let's recap what we laughably refer to as "the plot". A couple vacationing with their child and dog get lost (in a long, dialogue-free sequence) and winds up at a mysterious ranch home run by a weird guy named Torgo with big knees. Torgo takes care of the place "while the Master is away". Oddly, the couple sweet-talk Torgo into spending the night there, then change their mind, then have to stay there anyway because their car won't start. Then Torgo makes a pass at the wife, the kid finds a room full of sleeping women (and a sleeping guy, the Master), the girls wake up and start wrestling, Torgo gets his hand cut off, and finally the Master enslaves the wife and daughter (which is really icky, because she's about eight.) And the husband becomes the sort of New Torgo for the next batch of unlucky travelers. All this is intercut with scenes of two cops chasing necking teenagers.
So, OK, let's go back to square one, and improve the budget, production values, acting, and keep the skeleton of the plot. A couple is on vacation with their teenage daughter (we'll push her age up about ten years, to make that less weird.) They get lost, in a much shorter scene, and wind up stopping at a house in the desert to ask directions. Their passing is witnessed by two teenagers, who wonder why anyone would drive down a road that leads nowhere.
As soon as they stop the car, it dies and won't restart. They're forced to ask the caretaker for a place to stay for the night. Still Torgo, still with the lumpy and unusual body, but this time we're actually going with the production team's original intent, which is that it's lumpy because he's not human anymore. Manos, the god of primal darkness, slowly changes anyone who stays too long in this sacred place, and Torgo's body is metamorphosizing.
They bring their stuff to their rooms and Torgo insists that they have to leave in the morning, and shouldn't poke around. The parents agree (because they're sensible), the daughter doesn't (because she's rebellious.) She sneaks off to take a look around. She goes down into the basement, and finds that there's more basement...and more, and more, and more. And at the heart of all this, she finds a black altar with a sinister man lying on it, completely immobile, and several women, all also immobile, on altars of their own. The women are all in various states of transformation--all beautiful, in their own way, but many in a fashion that's clearly no longer human. The daughter's approach awakens them, and their inhuman eyes snap open...
Meanwhile, the cops come to harass the two teenagers, and the teenagers give them attitude about how they should maybe go harass that other couple that drove up the road with the teenage girl. The cops call their bluff, and tell the teens to show them where they went.
Back at the house, Torgo lures Dad away with the promise of finding them something to eat in the kitchen, then knocks him out and stuffs him in the pantry. He then goes back and starts macking on the mom, with promises that are (to her) nonsensical, promises of finding a way to escape the house together. (He realizes that with Dad here, Torgo's now redundant.) She freaks when he takes his shirt off and she sees that a) he's not human under all that, and b) he's seriously macking on her and she doesn't know where her husband or daughter is. She flees deeper into the house.
Daughter, meanwhile, is fleeing out of the house. The Master has awakened, and he's planning to add her to his collection of "brides of Manos". He's struck a deal with the dark god; he procures fresh brides, and he gets to stay immune to the corruption that affects everyone else. The god's power makes it more difficult to leave the longer you stay; after a while, you just can't bring yourself to leave, no matter how urgent it seems. Once the Master leaves, the women discuss whether it would be more merciful to just kill the new arrivals. This discussion gets violent, as one of the "eldest" brides, who is furthest along in her corruption, insists that although they can't rebel, the new brides still might have the strength.
The Master bumps into Torgo, and decides to take this opportunity to deliver his termination papers. He accelerates the corruption until Torgo's nothing more than a misshapen beast, then sends the beast to hunt the girls. They, meanwhile, have bumped into each other, and are looking for Dad. Instead, they find the cops and the teens, who are fairly surprised to see a decades-old house where there was nothing but desert a few days previously. The cops deal with the Torgo-beast, and go looking for Dad.
Dad, meanwhile, has been released from the pantry...by the Master. He's already been corrupted, just slightly, and feels compelled to obey. He sets about luring the group deeper into the house.
At the edge of the basement, though, Daughter panics. She's been there, she knows what's down there, and she's not going any further. She runs back for the cars. Mother is torn between following her daughter and finding her husband; the other teenage girl, though, makes it easy for her by offering to follow Daughter and make sure she's OK.
The remaining four descend into the basement, where the Master has re-established his hold on his brides. Dad is by his side as his new servant, and all around him, the darkness rustles with the sounds of movement. See, he has room for any number of brides in the harem, but he only needs one caretaker...
From out of the darkness, dozens of fully-corrupted brides spring forth. They drag the teenage boy into the shadows and consume him--one of the cops, though, manages to get a shot off at the Master. He falls, dead. The brides, all of them, stop their assault. They smile. Could it be that they're free?
Nope. From out of the Master's corpse, darkness boils up--Manos itself, god of primal darkness. It flows into one of the cops, entering through his mouth, nose, and eyes, and when he looks up, he's filled with dark power. He commands the brides, and they rip apart his former partner. Then he sends them after the two remaining girls.
Back upstairs, the girls are headed out...except that one of them can't seem to make herself leave. She sees Daughter crossing the threshold, running for the car, but...she just can't do it herself. Behind her, she hears the brides coming for her. Daughter encourages, pleads, even grabs her arm and yanks, but it's of no use. She's been trapped here. She hands the keys to Daughter and tells her to go and don't look back. Daughter, being no dummy, does exactly that.
The epilogue is substantially as in the original: A new set of victims drives up to the same house, and we see Dad at the steps, wearing baggy clothes that conceal his transformation, explaining that "he takes care of the place while the Master is away." In the basement, we see Mom and the teenaged girl, asleep and already some distance along in their transformation...
Of them all, I think this is the one that has the best chance of actually getting made--after all, you make remakes to capitalize on the notoriety of the original, and if there's one movie that has plenty of "notoriety", it's 'Manos'.
For starters, let's recap what we laughably refer to as "the plot". A couple vacationing with their child and dog get lost (in a long, dialogue-free sequence) and winds up at a mysterious ranch home run by a weird guy named Torgo with big knees. Torgo takes care of the place "while the Master is away". Oddly, the couple sweet-talk Torgo into spending the night there, then change their mind, then have to stay there anyway because their car won't start. Then Torgo makes a pass at the wife, the kid finds a room full of sleeping women (and a sleeping guy, the Master), the girls wake up and start wrestling, Torgo gets his hand cut off, and finally the Master enslaves the wife and daughter (which is really icky, because she's about eight.) And the husband becomes the sort of New Torgo for the next batch of unlucky travelers. All this is intercut with scenes of two cops chasing necking teenagers.
So, OK, let's go back to square one, and improve the budget, production values, acting, and keep the skeleton of the plot. A couple is on vacation with their teenage daughter (we'll push her age up about ten years, to make that less weird.) They get lost, in a much shorter scene, and wind up stopping at a house in the desert to ask directions. Their passing is witnessed by two teenagers, who wonder why anyone would drive down a road that leads nowhere.
As soon as they stop the car, it dies and won't restart. They're forced to ask the caretaker for a place to stay for the night. Still Torgo, still with the lumpy and unusual body, but this time we're actually going with the production team's original intent, which is that it's lumpy because he's not human anymore. Manos, the god of primal darkness, slowly changes anyone who stays too long in this sacred place, and Torgo's body is metamorphosizing.
They bring their stuff to their rooms and Torgo insists that they have to leave in the morning, and shouldn't poke around. The parents agree (because they're sensible), the daughter doesn't (because she's rebellious.) She sneaks off to take a look around. She goes down into the basement, and finds that there's more basement...and more, and more, and more. And at the heart of all this, she finds a black altar with a sinister man lying on it, completely immobile, and several women, all also immobile, on altars of their own. The women are all in various states of transformation--all beautiful, in their own way, but many in a fashion that's clearly no longer human. The daughter's approach awakens them, and their inhuman eyes snap open...
Meanwhile, the cops come to harass the two teenagers, and the teenagers give them attitude about how they should maybe go harass that other couple that drove up the road with the teenage girl. The cops call their bluff, and tell the teens to show them where they went.
Back at the house, Torgo lures Dad away with the promise of finding them something to eat in the kitchen, then knocks him out and stuffs him in the pantry. He then goes back and starts macking on the mom, with promises that are (to her) nonsensical, promises of finding a way to escape the house together. (He realizes that with Dad here, Torgo's now redundant.) She freaks when he takes his shirt off and she sees that a) he's not human under all that, and b) he's seriously macking on her and she doesn't know where her husband or daughter is. She flees deeper into the house.
Daughter, meanwhile, is fleeing out of the house. The Master has awakened, and he's planning to add her to his collection of "brides of Manos". He's struck a deal with the dark god; he procures fresh brides, and he gets to stay immune to the corruption that affects everyone else. The god's power makes it more difficult to leave the longer you stay; after a while, you just can't bring yourself to leave, no matter how urgent it seems. Once the Master leaves, the women discuss whether it would be more merciful to just kill the new arrivals. This discussion gets violent, as one of the "eldest" brides, who is furthest along in her corruption, insists that although they can't rebel, the new brides still might have the strength.
The Master bumps into Torgo, and decides to take this opportunity to deliver his termination papers. He accelerates the corruption until Torgo's nothing more than a misshapen beast, then sends the beast to hunt the girls. They, meanwhile, have bumped into each other, and are looking for Dad. Instead, they find the cops and the teens, who are fairly surprised to see a decades-old house where there was nothing but desert a few days previously. The cops deal with the Torgo-beast, and go looking for Dad.
Dad, meanwhile, has been released from the pantry...by the Master. He's already been corrupted, just slightly, and feels compelled to obey. He sets about luring the group deeper into the house.
At the edge of the basement, though, Daughter panics. She's been there, she knows what's down there, and she's not going any further. She runs back for the cars. Mother is torn between following her daughter and finding her husband; the other teenage girl, though, makes it easy for her by offering to follow Daughter and make sure she's OK.
The remaining four descend into the basement, where the Master has re-established his hold on his brides. Dad is by his side as his new servant, and all around him, the darkness rustles with the sounds of movement. See, he has room for any number of brides in the harem, but he only needs one caretaker...
From out of the darkness, dozens of fully-corrupted brides spring forth. They drag the teenage boy into the shadows and consume him--one of the cops, though, manages to get a shot off at the Master. He falls, dead. The brides, all of them, stop their assault. They smile. Could it be that they're free?
Nope. From out of the Master's corpse, darkness boils up--Manos itself, god of primal darkness. It flows into one of the cops, entering through his mouth, nose, and eyes, and when he looks up, he's filled with dark power. He commands the brides, and they rip apart his former partner. Then he sends them after the two remaining girls.
Back upstairs, the girls are headed out...except that one of them can't seem to make herself leave. She sees Daughter crossing the threshold, running for the car, but...she just can't do it herself. Behind her, she hears the brides coming for her. Daughter encourages, pleads, even grabs her arm and yanks, but it's of no use. She's been trapped here. She hands the keys to Daughter and tells her to go and don't look back. Daughter, being no dummy, does exactly that.
The epilogue is substantially as in the original: A new set of victims drives up to the same house, and we see Dad at the steps, wearing baggy clothes that conceal his transformation, explaining that "he takes care of the place while the Master is away." In the basement, we see Mom and the teenaged girl, asleep and already some distance along in their transformation...
Of them all, I think this is the one that has the best chance of actually getting made--after all, you make remakes to capitalize on the notoriety of the original, and if there's one movie that has plenty of "notoriety", it's 'Manos'.
Friday, April 21, 2006
To the Tune Of... (again)
I'm so very, very sorry for what I'm about to do to your brain...
He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?
He, a Jedi
She was a queen
What more can I say?
He wanted her
She'd never tell secretly she wanted him as well
But all of his friends
Stuck up their nose
He couldn't have sex 'cause of Jedi oathes
He was a V8der boi
She said see you l8er boi
He was just far too young for words
She had a pretty face
When he met her out in space
He used that "angel" line on her
Five years from now
She sits at home
Having his baby
She's all alone
Obi-Wan stops by
Guess what she sees
V8der boi messin' up Jedi kids
She calls up her friends
They already know
And they started
Rebelling long ago
She tags along
Has kids and dies
Thinking of the man that choked her throat
He was a V8der boi
She said see you l8er boi
He was just too creepy for her
Now he runs the Death Star
He has a cool facial scar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?
He was a V8der boi
She said see you l8er boi
He was just too creepy for her
Now he runs the Death Star
He has a cool facial scar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?
Sorry girl but you missed out
Tough luck that boy's mine now
We are more than just good friends
This is how the story ends
Too bad that you couldn't see
See the Sith that boy could be
There is more than meets the eye
I see the evil that's inside
He's just a boy
And I'm Emperor
Can I make it any more obvious?
We are in love
Haven't you heard
How we rock each other's world?
I'm with the V8der boi
I said see you l8er boi
I'll meet you here after you go
And kill all the young Jedi
You'll love watching them all die
Like Sandpeople you used to know
I'm with the V8der boi
I said see you l8er boi
I'll meet you here after you go
And kill all the young Jedi
You'll love watching them all die
Like Sandpeople you used to know
He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?
He, a Jedi
She was a queen
What more can I say?
He wanted her
She'd never tell secretly she wanted him as well
But all of his friends
Stuck up their nose
He couldn't have sex 'cause of Jedi oathes
He was a V8der boi
She said see you l8er boi
He was just far too young for words
She had a pretty face
When he met her out in space
He used that "angel" line on her
Five years from now
She sits at home
Having his baby
She's all alone
Obi-Wan stops by
Guess what she sees
V8der boi messin' up Jedi kids
She calls up her friends
They already know
And they started
Rebelling long ago
She tags along
Has kids and dies
Thinking of the man that choked her throat
He was a V8der boi
She said see you l8er boi
He was just too creepy for her
Now he runs the Death Star
He has a cool facial scar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?
He was a V8der boi
She said see you l8er boi
He was just too creepy for her
Now he runs the Death Star
He has a cool facial scar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?
Sorry girl but you missed out
Tough luck that boy's mine now
We are more than just good friends
This is how the story ends
Too bad that you couldn't see
See the Sith that boy could be
There is more than meets the eye
I see the evil that's inside
He's just a boy
And I'm Emperor
Can I make it any more obvious?
We are in love
Haven't you heard
How we rock each other's world?
I'm with the V8der boi
I said see you l8er boi
I'll meet you here after you go
And kill all the young Jedi
You'll love watching them all die
Like Sandpeople you used to know
I'm with the V8der boi
I said see you l8er boi
I'll meet you here after you go
And kill all the young Jedi
You'll love watching them all die
Like Sandpeople you used to know
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Meet 'N Greet #1
As previously noted, this blog is here for little creative bits that I don't think will make me any money anywhere else, but that I want to share with other people because I'm immensely egotistical and think I'm very clever. So, in that spirit, I thought I might share some of the character concepts I've used on "City of Heroes/Villains", because if there's anything that fits the above definition, it's that.
Today, we meet Isaac Barnes. Isaac was an ordinary man, a homeowner who paid off his mortgage quickly due to a bit of luck with the lottery. He found himself with some spare cash, and decided to build a deck in the backyard. As it turned out, the project was a great success--aesthetically pleasing, increased the value of his home, and nice for barbecues. The people at the local home improvement store were a great help.
So he decided to add on a bit more, expanding the master bedroom. It turned out to be another easy, economical project. Isaac started to suspect he had a gift for this sort of thing. He then moved on to expand the living room, widen the garage, and he was thinking of adding a spare bedroom when he realized there was a small problem. He was out of property. Naturally, there was only one thing to be done.
Isaac built himself a suit of power armor, an army of robot followers, declared martial law, and annexed his neighbor's house.
From there, things spiralled out of control pretty rapidly. Now, Isaac Barnes is no more. Obsessed with home improvement projects, he has become...The Home Despot!
Today, we meet Isaac Barnes. Isaac was an ordinary man, a homeowner who paid off his mortgage quickly due to a bit of luck with the lottery. He found himself with some spare cash, and decided to build a deck in the backyard. As it turned out, the project was a great success--aesthetically pleasing, increased the value of his home, and nice for barbecues. The people at the local home improvement store were a great help.
So he decided to add on a bit more, expanding the master bedroom. It turned out to be another easy, economical project. Isaac started to suspect he had a gift for this sort of thing. He then moved on to expand the living room, widen the garage, and he was thinking of adding a spare bedroom when he realized there was a small problem. He was out of property. Naturally, there was only one thing to be done.
Isaac built himself a suit of power armor, an army of robot followers, declared martial law, and annexed his neighbor's house.
From there, things spiralled out of control pretty rapidly. Now, Isaac Barnes is no more. Obsessed with home improvement projects, he has become...The Home Despot!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
And the Winner Is...
Got an odd mental picture at work today, can't even remember what I was thinking of that led into it...oh, wait, now I can. I was thinking about 'Only Human', a Doctor Who book about someone attempting to create a "better" dominant species, send it back in time, and have it supplant humanity like we supplanted the Neanderthals. And I paraphrased the message of the book as, "Why? It's not like there's a prize awarded at the end for 'Best Evolved Species'!"
And then I thought, "What if there was?" It's not a very 'Doctor Who' idea, more 'Monty Python', but you have to admit, you can picture it. God stepping out from behind the firmament, saying, "Yes, thank you all very much for turning out, I certainly hope you enjoyed yourselves. Now, before the Apocalypse, I have a few prizes to give out..."
"The 'Best Evolved Species' Award goes to...the cockroach! Yes, sorry humans, I know you made a jolly nice run and I'm sure you'll win it next time."
"And the 'Best War' goes to...World War II! A tour de force production for all involved, with a twist ending I'm sure nobody saw coming."
"The 'Most Likely To Succeed' Award goes to Augustus Caesar...better luck next time, Napoleon!"
"And, for 'Best Prophet In a Religious, Sacred, or Fortunetelling Role', the award goes to...drum roll please...the Prophet Mohammed! Yes, wonderfully done. Unfortunately, My son was ineligible for the award."
"Again, thanks all for coming, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the total destruction of the material realm. Orange drink and cookies will be served."
And then I thought, "What if there was?" It's not a very 'Doctor Who' idea, more 'Monty Python', but you have to admit, you can picture it. God stepping out from behind the firmament, saying, "Yes, thank you all very much for turning out, I certainly hope you enjoyed yourselves. Now, before the Apocalypse, I have a few prizes to give out..."
"The 'Best Evolved Species' Award goes to...the cockroach! Yes, sorry humans, I know you made a jolly nice run and I'm sure you'll win it next time."
"And the 'Best War' goes to...World War II! A tour de force production for all involved, with a twist ending I'm sure nobody saw coming."
"The 'Most Likely To Succeed' Award goes to Augustus Caesar...better luck next time, Napoleon!"
"And, for 'Best Prophet In a Religious, Sacred, or Fortunetelling Role', the award goes to...drum roll please...the Prophet Mohammed! Yes, wonderfully done. Unfortunately, My son was ineligible for the award."
"Again, thanks all for coming, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the total destruction of the material realm. Orange drink and cookies will be served."
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
To the Tune Of...
Ahem-hem...
Scratched by thorns of roses or by claws of kittens
Smacked by large men wearing thick lead-lined mittens
Beaten with mallets and dropped out of planes
These are a few of my favorite pains!
Kicked by large ponies and burned by hot streudel
Rapped with a large brass bell right in the noodle
Hit by two fast-spinning steel weathervanes
These are a few of my favorite pains!
Girls choking my throat with their blue satin sashes
Fires that burn off my nose and eyelashes
Needles injecting things into my veins
These are a few of my favorite pains!
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
It makes me feel glad
I simply remember my favorite pains
And why I love feeling bad!
[Repeat all verses until you pass out from the pain]
Scratched by thorns of roses or by claws of kittens
Smacked by large men wearing thick lead-lined mittens
Beaten with mallets and dropped out of planes
These are a few of my favorite pains!
Kicked by large ponies and burned by hot streudel
Rapped with a large brass bell right in the noodle
Hit by two fast-spinning steel weathervanes
These are a few of my favorite pains!
Girls choking my throat with their blue satin sashes
Fires that burn off my nose and eyelashes
Needles injecting things into my veins
These are a few of my favorite pains!
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
It makes me feel glad
I simply remember my favorite pains
And why I love feeling bad!
[Repeat all verses until you pass out from the pain]
Friday, April 14, 2006
No, The Other Superman
Been reading a few DC comics lately (Starman had a very sad ending, I thought), and it reminded me of an old writing exercise I set myself in my early twenties. Never going to be of any use, since DC generally doesn't look kindly on writers who suggest they start an alternate-universe imprint with their flagship characters, so...
The idea was, every so often DC continuity gets utterly messy. That's because they decided to work under the idea that all their stories are part of the same continuity, the same fictional universe, the same history. This wasn't always the case. Back in the 50s, they just made new versions of them and went with those versions, and left it for later decades and more continuity-minded writers to explain how it all "fit together". So you wanted a new Green Lantern? Sure. Totally different man, different origin, just took the "power ring" idea and went with it. Wasn't until the 90s that they explained how Alan Scott fit in with all that.
So, with that in mind, I thought: What if I did the same thing? What would my starting premises be for a New DC Universe, if I didn't have to explain how it fit into the old? So, here are the concepts I came up with...and the caveat, which is that technically Batman and Superman should be the same Batman and Superman they've always been. They're too iconic to mess with. But I did anyway. Oops.
Superman: A self-made billionaire, athlete and adventurer, Jason Clark is the perfect human being in every way. He's the epitome of human ability in every field, and that's come with only one cost: He bores easily. As such, he's always on the look-out for strange and unusual challenges that test his abilities to their limit.
Batman: Latest in a line of mystic protectors whose roots come from the Native Americans, Brian Oake has it in him to summon the totemic spirit of a bat to aid him in his never-ending battle to keep the world safe from the Chaos Demons that constantly seek a way into our universe.
Wonder Woman: Laura Burke, formerly of the FBI, has gotten a new government job. She's the government's latest Wonder Woman, the official super-hero of the United States of America. Truth to be told, the job's supposed to be nothing more than public relations, staged appearances, and good press. But Laura didn't sign up for a fake super-hero job, and she's finding some very real super-villains.
The Flash: Anna Martinez thought she was an ordinary librarian until the day she was struck by lightning. That day, she learned that she had always been unusual, a human capacitor with the ability to store and discharge electrical energy. Now, she's decided that she has to use her abilities for good.
Green Lantern: Alec King was an ordinary beat cop until the day the starship crashed into his city. It was a ship filled with dangerous specimens, and one of them escaped onto him--a parasite with the ability to form and manipulate energy constructs. Now, he and the parasite are reliant on each other for survival, but there's a catch. Every time he forces the parasite to use its powers, it gains a little more control over him.
Manhunter: Lisa Duval is a professional bounty hunter who specializes in the criminals that even the cops can't catch. She's got an arsenal of cutting-edge technology, contacts in every city in the world, and most importantly, the instinct of a hunter.
Aquaman: Contact with a mysterious life-form in the Marianas Trench turned marine biologist Eric Saunders into a being made of "living water". Now, he has to find a way to turn himself back into a human being.
And last but not least, the Justice Department of America: Authorized by the government to form a strike team to deal with threats to the nation's security, Wonder Woman deputizes six of America's leading super-heroes to form the Justice Department.
Of course, the fun part would come twenty years down the line, when someone tried to tie it all in to the regular DCU...
The idea was, every so often DC continuity gets utterly messy. That's because they decided to work under the idea that all their stories are part of the same continuity, the same fictional universe, the same history. This wasn't always the case. Back in the 50s, they just made new versions of them and went with those versions, and left it for later decades and more continuity-minded writers to explain how it all "fit together". So you wanted a new Green Lantern? Sure. Totally different man, different origin, just took the "power ring" idea and went with it. Wasn't until the 90s that they explained how Alan Scott fit in with all that.
So, with that in mind, I thought: What if I did the same thing? What would my starting premises be for a New DC Universe, if I didn't have to explain how it fit into the old? So, here are the concepts I came up with...and the caveat, which is that technically Batman and Superman should be the same Batman and Superman they've always been. They're too iconic to mess with. But I did anyway. Oops.
Superman: A self-made billionaire, athlete and adventurer, Jason Clark is the perfect human being in every way. He's the epitome of human ability in every field, and that's come with only one cost: He bores easily. As such, he's always on the look-out for strange and unusual challenges that test his abilities to their limit.
Batman: Latest in a line of mystic protectors whose roots come from the Native Americans, Brian Oake has it in him to summon the totemic spirit of a bat to aid him in his never-ending battle to keep the world safe from the Chaos Demons that constantly seek a way into our universe.
Wonder Woman: Laura Burke, formerly of the FBI, has gotten a new government job. She's the government's latest Wonder Woman, the official super-hero of the United States of America. Truth to be told, the job's supposed to be nothing more than public relations, staged appearances, and good press. But Laura didn't sign up for a fake super-hero job, and she's finding some very real super-villains.
The Flash: Anna Martinez thought she was an ordinary librarian until the day she was struck by lightning. That day, she learned that she had always been unusual, a human capacitor with the ability to store and discharge electrical energy. Now, she's decided that she has to use her abilities for good.
Green Lantern: Alec King was an ordinary beat cop until the day the starship crashed into his city. It was a ship filled with dangerous specimens, and one of them escaped onto him--a parasite with the ability to form and manipulate energy constructs. Now, he and the parasite are reliant on each other for survival, but there's a catch. Every time he forces the parasite to use its powers, it gains a little more control over him.
Manhunter: Lisa Duval is a professional bounty hunter who specializes in the criminals that even the cops can't catch. She's got an arsenal of cutting-edge technology, contacts in every city in the world, and most importantly, the instinct of a hunter.
Aquaman: Contact with a mysterious life-form in the Marianas Trench turned marine biologist Eric Saunders into a being made of "living water". Now, he has to find a way to turn himself back into a human being.
And last but not least, the Justice Department of America: Authorized by the government to form a strike team to deal with threats to the nation's security, Wonder Woman deputizes six of America's leading super-heroes to form the Justice Department.
Of course, the fun part would come twenty years down the line, when someone tried to tie it all in to the regular DCU...
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Lessons In Real Life, #1
I've always thought that there are some things that they should teach you in school that they don't (big shock, right?) But seriously, there are just some things that everyone should know that will help them, and I'm going to share them, as and when I think of them. So, learn for today:
1. Whenever any politician starts talking about immigration, they're trying to distract you from how shitty they are at their job.
2. Whenever a rich man proposes a new tax plan, they're really just trying to find a way to pay less taxes.
3. Everyone promises more than they can deliver when campaigning for public office; only a fool attempts to keep every promise they made, and only a bigger fool believes that they will.
4. Whichever presidential candidate tries to suggest fewer debates is the guy you shouldn't vote for. He's the guy who's worried that in an unrehearsed high-pressure situation, he'll do or say something stupid that will cost him votes. Since he'll be spending the next four years in nothing but unrehearsed high-pressure situations, you don't want a guy who tries to avoid them.
5. A good, reliable field-goal kicker is worth his weight in gold. They score you points, they can make the difference in a game, and they all have long careers because nobody's allowed to tackle them.
1. Whenever any politician starts talking about immigration, they're trying to distract you from how shitty they are at their job.
2. Whenever a rich man proposes a new tax plan, they're really just trying to find a way to pay less taxes.
3. Everyone promises more than they can deliver when campaigning for public office; only a fool attempts to keep every promise they made, and only a bigger fool believes that they will.
4. Whichever presidential candidate tries to suggest fewer debates is the guy you shouldn't vote for. He's the guy who's worried that in an unrehearsed high-pressure situation, he'll do or say something stupid that will cost him votes. Since he'll be spending the next four years in nothing but unrehearsed high-pressure situations, you don't want a guy who tries to avoid them.
5. A good, reliable field-goal kicker is worth his weight in gold. They score you points, they can make the difference in a game, and they all have long careers because nobody's allowed to tackle them.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Review: House of Wax
This would be the remake, not the William Castle original. I'm not qualified to comment on that, as I haven't seen it.
But if you wanted to describe the remake in two words, they would be: "Aggressively Unwatchable". This is a film that actively dares you to care about anything happening on-screen. It's a 100-minute movie in which absolutely nothing happens until easily the 45-minute mark. Seriously. The dramatic highlight of the first forty-five minutes is that a truck flashes its high beams at the main characters for a minute or so, then leaves. (Later on, it's presented as a plot point that a character drives THAT SAME TRUCK! Cue musical sting...except that last I checked, flashing your high beams at a bunch of rowdy campers until they break one of your headlights with a beer bottle, then driving away isn't exactly sinister behavior. Certainly not sinister enough to drive the inexplicable guilt reaction the character shows.)
Even after the 45-minute mark, the story spends a good twenty minutes or so ambling into the events we should have gotten to five minutes before the movie started, with the Cute Survivor and her Doomed Boyfriend wandering around the Creepy Town and finding the eponymous House of Wax. (Which is so blatanly silly that I must pause to explain: It's a literal House of Wax. As in, "made out of." I defy anyone to make a house which has load-bearing girders made out of wax, and further defy them to construct the house in a fashion that you could put a furnace in the basement.) From there, more non-scares ensue--there's a few creepy moments, but in general the director puts a lot of effort into trying to make you believe something's about to happen when it's not.
Oh, and it's got the worst "twist ending" you've ever seen. Finding out your pop's gone flat when you open the bottle has a better "twist ending" than 'House of Wax'.
All in all, it says a lot about how awful this movie is that I can honestly say Paris Hilton's not the worst thing in it.
But if you wanted to describe the remake in two words, they would be: "Aggressively Unwatchable". This is a film that actively dares you to care about anything happening on-screen. It's a 100-minute movie in which absolutely nothing happens until easily the 45-minute mark. Seriously. The dramatic highlight of the first forty-five minutes is that a truck flashes its high beams at the main characters for a minute or so, then leaves. (Later on, it's presented as a plot point that a character drives THAT SAME TRUCK! Cue musical sting...except that last I checked, flashing your high beams at a bunch of rowdy campers until they break one of your headlights with a beer bottle, then driving away isn't exactly sinister behavior. Certainly not sinister enough to drive the inexplicable guilt reaction the character shows.)
Even after the 45-minute mark, the story spends a good twenty minutes or so ambling into the events we should have gotten to five minutes before the movie started, with the Cute Survivor and her Doomed Boyfriend wandering around the Creepy Town and finding the eponymous House of Wax. (Which is so blatanly silly that I must pause to explain: It's a literal House of Wax. As in, "made out of." I defy anyone to make a house which has load-bearing girders made out of wax, and further defy them to construct the house in a fashion that you could put a furnace in the basement.) From there, more non-scares ensue--there's a few creepy moments, but in general the director puts a lot of effort into trying to make you believe something's about to happen when it's not.
Oh, and it's got the worst "twist ending" you've ever seen. Finding out your pop's gone flat when you open the bottle has a better "twist ending" than 'House of Wax'.
All in all, it says a lot about how awful this movie is that I can honestly say Paris Hilton's not the worst thing in it.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Spring Cleaning
Wow, has it really been February since I posted here? Um, I can explain, really.
See, I've actually been posting all this time, but Internet dogs ate it. All those posts, every single one. Internet dogs. They're big and angry, and they love text. That's why it sometimes seems like there's nothing on the Internet but porn--it's because the dogs ate everything else. They look kind of like Rottweilers, but they're all in ASCII.
You're not buying this, are you?
OK, seriously, every time I was about to post something, a man came along and took it. He had a scar over his left eye, and he claimed his name was "Ramon", but I think that might have been an alias.
No?
Fine. Firefox ate my Bookmarks folder, so I forgot that this site existed, and I didn't post to it.
No, that's actually really it.
Yes, there is such a thing as a Firefox. It's a giant fox made of flame, and it waits at the center of the Earth. Occasionally it will manage to get its jaws out, and it eats Bookmark folders whole...someday, it will loose its bonds, and devour all the folders in the world, and nobody will know where anything in the Internet is.
Except the Internet dogs. They can track by scent.
See, I've actually been posting all this time, but Internet dogs ate it. All those posts, every single one. Internet dogs. They're big and angry, and they love text. That's why it sometimes seems like there's nothing on the Internet but porn--it's because the dogs ate everything else. They look kind of like Rottweilers, but they're all in ASCII.
You're not buying this, are you?
OK, seriously, every time I was about to post something, a man came along and took it. He had a scar over his left eye, and he claimed his name was "Ramon", but I think that might have been an alias.
No?
Fine. Firefox ate my Bookmarks folder, so I forgot that this site existed, and I didn't post to it.
No, that's actually really it.
Yes, there is such a thing as a Firefox. It's a giant fox made of flame, and it waits at the center of the Earth. Occasionally it will manage to get its jaws out, and it eats Bookmark folders whole...someday, it will loose its bonds, and devour all the folders in the world, and nobody will know where anything in the Internet is.
Except the Internet dogs. They can track by scent.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Geek Parody Theatre
The following is an actual call from the Onslaught archives.
WOMAN: Hello, Onslaught? I just got into an accident, on--
ONSLAUGHT: I know where you are. I know everything. The powers I stole from Magneto, the puny whelp, have already repaired your pathetic vehicle. But you, I have judged guilty of crimes against mutant-kind. The penalty is death.
WOMAN: I--ARRRRGH!
The Onslaught system costs you only your free will and eternal allegiance to the unholy combination of Charles Xavier and Magneto. And isn't that a small price to pay for peace of mind? Total peace of mind? Enforced, soul-crushing, will-deadening peace of mind?
ONSLAUGHT: Emergency services are on the line. Hello?
AMBULANCE: Yes, Onslaught?
ONSLAUGHT: We've had an automobile crash on the Santa Monica Freeway. I crashed it, the woman has died.
AMBULANCE: Excellent, my lord.
ONSLAUGHT: There'll be another crash about five miles away in three minutes--I don't like the color of that Lexus. Finish off any survivors, would you?
AMBULANCE: Of course, mighty Onslaught!
The Onslaught system comes installed on all GM vehicles, whether you want it or not, and can't be removed. Press the red button to unleash the might of Onslaught!
WOMAN: Hello, Onslaught? I just got into an accident, on--
ONSLAUGHT: I know where you are. I know everything. The powers I stole from Magneto, the puny whelp, have already repaired your pathetic vehicle. But you, I have judged guilty of crimes against mutant-kind. The penalty is death.
WOMAN: I--ARRRRGH!
The Onslaught system costs you only your free will and eternal allegiance to the unholy combination of Charles Xavier and Magneto. And isn't that a small price to pay for peace of mind? Total peace of mind? Enforced, soul-crushing, will-deadening peace of mind?
ONSLAUGHT: Emergency services are on the line. Hello?
AMBULANCE: Yes, Onslaught?
ONSLAUGHT: We've had an automobile crash on the Santa Monica Freeway. I crashed it, the woman has died.
AMBULANCE: Excellent, my lord.
ONSLAUGHT: There'll be another crash about five miles away in three minutes--I don't like the color of that Lexus. Finish off any survivors, would you?
AMBULANCE: Of course, mighty Onslaught!
The Onslaught system comes installed on all GM vehicles, whether you want it or not, and can't be removed. Press the red button to unleash the might of Onslaught!
Monday, February 06, 2006
Hulk 2
A recent discussion prompted this out of my memory, one of those ideas I know I'll never get to use, so...my idea for 'Hulk 2'. It draws freely on comic elements, in particular those of Peter David's run on the Hulk (in fact stealing one scene outright, but since it is an adaptation, I think that'd probably be alright assuming he was credited. Which he is, here.)
Basically, it picks up where the first Hulk movie left off--Banner's on the run, hiding out in some Third World country and trying not to get "angry". The US government suspects they might know where he is, but they don't have extradition treaties with that country, so they hire, through back-channels, an ex-KGB mercenary named Emil Blonsky to go retrieve Bruce Banner, dead or alive. He's briefed on the Hulk situation, but is very confident (over-confident, even) that he can take care of the situation without problems.
Meanwhile, Bruce is approached by a man calling himself "The Leader". He's an insurance salesman who was contaminated by waste products from Bruce's gamma experiments, and his intelligence has been increased a hundred-fold; however, without the stabilizing nanites and Bruce's genetic alterations, the gamma radiation is killing him. He's super-intelligent, but doesn't have Bruce's background in the field. He offers Bruce a deal; if Bruce stabilizes his condition, he can a) take care of Blonsky, whose pursuit is news to Banner, and b) stabilize Bruce's condition. (The Leader also implies that if Bruce doesn't stabilize his condition, he has it in him to sic Blonsky on him as a last act.) Reluctantly, Bruce agrees.
The two begin working together--Banner is the expert in the field, but the Leader's natural intelligence allows him to quickly outstrip Bruce's knowledge. While they're working, the Leader displays other, disturbing aspects of his power--he can use the power of his mind to control others with a form of hypnosis. Banner wonders why the Leader didn't just control him, but the answer is simple--he can't implant suggestions into another gamma-irradiated person. Finally, the process succeeds and the Leader is stable. Now, the same process can be used on Bruce...
...but Bruce doesn't get time to test it right away, as Blonsky makes his move, kidnapping Betty and forcing Bruce to come after her. Blonsky thinks he's outplayed Banner with this trick, forcing Bruce to drug himself rather than risk Blonsky hurting his girlfriend, but Blonsky hasn't reckoned with Bruce's new ally. The Leader helps Bruce defeat Blonsky and rescue Betty, taking her back to his base for "safe-keeping." Blonsky's fate remains a mystery...for now.
With that out of the way, Bruce is free to try his cure......but Bruce discovers too late that the Leader double-crossed him. The process doesn't stabilize Bruce Banner, it stabilizes the Hulk, creating a new creature not as smart as Banner, not as strong as the Hulk, but with many of the properties of both. This new, grey Hulk is also totally amoral, and quickly agrees to help the Leader boost his mind-control powers a thousand-fold and take over the world's governments.
An appalled Betty tries to get through to the Hulk as they work on the device, but the Hulk is unswayed and steals the necessary parts from the US military in a major action sequence. The Leader assembles the device and activates it, enthralling not just the world's leaders but every human being on the face of the planet, save the Hulk and himself. The Hulk is actually fine with this--until he finds out that Betty, too, is now a mindless slave of the Leader, and that the Leader plans to use her as nothing more than a "brood mare" of his new humanity. With that, the alliance is off and the fight is on--despite his avowed lack of morality and conscience, he still deep down loves Betty Ross.
The Leader is more than a little irked, since he can't control the Hulk. He can't implant suggestions into the mind of any gamma-powered being. Luckily, he explains as Blonsky bursts into the room, he can implant suggestions into someone and then transform them. Blonsky turns into a larger, uglier, scalier, mutated Hulkish thing that the Leader dubs, "My own personal Abomination", which then proceeds to stomp nine kinds of hell out of the weaker, grey Hulk.
The Hulk fights valiantly, but the Abomination gets him into a choke-hold. As his brain begins to die from lack of oxygen, we zoom through his eye to his mental state, and see him start to lose his hold on the mental "cages" he's trapped Banner and the green Hulk in. The green Hulk breaks free and the two of them fight, the grey Hulk refusing to relinquish the body he's fought so hard to attain, even if he dies in it. Their battle is inconclusive, finally ending in the two of them strangling each other to death even as the Abomination strangles his physical body...
...and then Banner steps up to the pair. He says, "That's enough. This stops now. I'm stopping it. Because you might be stronger out there, but in here?" BAM! One punch and the grey Hulk drops. "Banner is strongest one there is!" He turns to the green Hulk. "Go. Save Betty."
...and we zoom back out through the eyes as they change from grey to green, as the Hulk grows more massive, stronger, greener, breaks the Abomination's hold, and Round Two begins. The Abomination just isn't a match for the stronger green Hulk, and their conflict destroys the lab and the Leader's equipment. The Hulk breaks out with Betty as the lab is engulfed with fiery explosions, seemingly killing both the Leader and the Abomination.
After a time, the Hulk reverts to Banner. He explains to Betty that the changes the Leader made further fragmented his mind and body. What was a struggle between himself and the Hulk is now an uneasy three-way war between himself and two Hulks that hate each other, him, and probably everyone else...and it's not safe to be around her, or anyone. With that, he turns and heads off into the night, leaving Betty to wonder when she and Bruce will ever be free of the curse of the Hulk.
Basically, it picks up where the first Hulk movie left off--Banner's on the run, hiding out in some Third World country and trying not to get "angry". The US government suspects they might know where he is, but they don't have extradition treaties with that country, so they hire, through back-channels, an ex-KGB mercenary named Emil Blonsky to go retrieve Bruce Banner, dead or alive. He's briefed on the Hulk situation, but is very confident (over-confident, even) that he can take care of the situation without problems.
Meanwhile, Bruce is approached by a man calling himself "The Leader". He's an insurance salesman who was contaminated by waste products from Bruce's gamma experiments, and his intelligence has been increased a hundred-fold; however, without the stabilizing nanites and Bruce's genetic alterations, the gamma radiation is killing him. He's super-intelligent, but doesn't have Bruce's background in the field. He offers Bruce a deal; if Bruce stabilizes his condition, he can a) take care of Blonsky, whose pursuit is news to Banner, and b) stabilize Bruce's condition. (The Leader also implies that if Bruce doesn't stabilize his condition, he has it in him to sic Blonsky on him as a last act.) Reluctantly, Bruce agrees.
The two begin working together--Banner is the expert in the field, but the Leader's natural intelligence allows him to quickly outstrip Bruce's knowledge. While they're working, the Leader displays other, disturbing aspects of his power--he can use the power of his mind to control others with a form of hypnosis. Banner wonders why the Leader didn't just control him, but the answer is simple--he can't implant suggestions into another gamma-irradiated person. Finally, the process succeeds and the Leader is stable. Now, the same process can be used on Bruce...
...but Bruce doesn't get time to test it right away, as Blonsky makes his move, kidnapping Betty and forcing Bruce to come after her. Blonsky thinks he's outplayed Banner with this trick, forcing Bruce to drug himself rather than risk Blonsky hurting his girlfriend, but Blonsky hasn't reckoned with Bruce's new ally. The Leader helps Bruce defeat Blonsky and rescue Betty, taking her back to his base for "safe-keeping." Blonsky's fate remains a mystery...for now.
With that out of the way, Bruce is free to try his cure......but Bruce discovers too late that the Leader double-crossed him. The process doesn't stabilize Bruce Banner, it stabilizes the Hulk, creating a new creature not as smart as Banner, not as strong as the Hulk, but with many of the properties of both. This new, grey Hulk is also totally amoral, and quickly agrees to help the Leader boost his mind-control powers a thousand-fold and take over the world's governments.
An appalled Betty tries to get through to the Hulk as they work on the device, but the Hulk is unswayed and steals the necessary parts from the US military in a major action sequence. The Leader assembles the device and activates it, enthralling not just the world's leaders but every human being on the face of the planet, save the Hulk and himself. The Hulk is actually fine with this--until he finds out that Betty, too, is now a mindless slave of the Leader, and that the Leader plans to use her as nothing more than a "brood mare" of his new humanity. With that, the alliance is off and the fight is on--despite his avowed lack of morality and conscience, he still deep down loves Betty Ross.
The Leader is more than a little irked, since he can't control the Hulk. He can't implant suggestions into the mind of any gamma-powered being. Luckily, he explains as Blonsky bursts into the room, he can implant suggestions into someone and then transform them. Blonsky turns into a larger, uglier, scalier, mutated Hulkish thing that the Leader dubs, "My own personal Abomination", which then proceeds to stomp nine kinds of hell out of the weaker, grey Hulk.
The Hulk fights valiantly, but the Abomination gets him into a choke-hold. As his brain begins to die from lack of oxygen, we zoom through his eye to his mental state, and see him start to lose his hold on the mental "cages" he's trapped Banner and the green Hulk in. The green Hulk breaks free and the two of them fight, the grey Hulk refusing to relinquish the body he's fought so hard to attain, even if he dies in it. Their battle is inconclusive, finally ending in the two of them strangling each other to death even as the Abomination strangles his physical body...
...and then Banner steps up to the pair. He says, "That's enough. This stops now. I'm stopping it. Because you might be stronger out there, but in here?" BAM! One punch and the grey Hulk drops. "Banner is strongest one there is!" He turns to the green Hulk. "Go. Save Betty."
...and we zoom back out through the eyes as they change from grey to green, as the Hulk grows more massive, stronger, greener, breaks the Abomination's hold, and Round Two begins. The Abomination just isn't a match for the stronger green Hulk, and their conflict destroys the lab and the Leader's equipment. The Hulk breaks out with Betty as the lab is engulfed with fiery explosions, seemingly killing both the Leader and the Abomination.
After a time, the Hulk reverts to Banner. He explains to Betty that the changes the Leader made further fragmented his mind and body. What was a struggle between himself and the Hulk is now an uneasy three-way war between himself and two Hulks that hate each other, him, and probably everyone else...and it's not safe to be around her, or anyone. With that, he turns and heads off into the night, leaving Betty to wonder when she and Bruce will ever be free of the curse of the Hulk.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Top 5 Lines You'll Never Hear In A 'Frosted Flakes' Commercial
5. "Gee, Tony, I've never knocked over anything bigger than a liquor store!"
4. "Gee, Tony, I've never gotten past second base with a girl before!" (This one presumably would bring new meaning to 'brings out the tiger in you'.)
3. "Gee, Tony, the picketers outside this abortion clinic look pretty scary!"
2. "Gee, Tony, she looks cute, but she's only thirteen!"
1. "Gee, Tony, I just don't think I have the guts to kill myself."
4. "Gee, Tony, I've never gotten past second base with a girl before!" (This one presumably would bring new meaning to 'brings out the tiger in you'.)
3. "Gee, Tony, the picketers outside this abortion clinic look pretty scary!"
2. "Gee, Tony, she looks cute, but she's only thirteen!"
1. "Gee, Tony, I just don't think I have the guts to kill myself."
Thursday, January 26, 2006
*boggle*
So, on a whim, I decided today to try to find a webpage that would give me some information on DC's latest cross-over, 'Infinite Crisis'. (Not to be confused with 'Identity Crisis', or 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'. DC seems to be in full-on panic mode way too often for a universe that has Batman and Superman. Marvel seems much calmer.) And so I made the horrible mistake of trying to read a FAQ on IC.
DEAR GOD. Seriously, this is the most convoluted, over-complicated, bloated mess that any human being could conceive of--in fact, almost certainly moreso. It sincerely looks like if you want to make any goddamn sense out of the current DC storyline, you have to have read every single DC comic since 1985...minimum. They're bringing back every single bad idea that they got rid of in 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' (well, every one they hadn't already brought back--they brought back Krypto the fucking Super-Dog a few years back, which was probably a sign of the end times then and there), they've turned every single super-hero in the DC Universe into a paranoid psychotic, and by the time I've finished writing this, they plan to jump the entire universe a year ahead and release a 52-issue miniseries explaining what happened in the missing year. (OK, it happens next month, but almost certainly by the time anybody reads this, that'll happen.)
I'm of two minds about this. One, the sensible part, which has listened to comics gurus like Warren Ellis and Alan Moore, and who isn't part of the completist grind anymore (and don't fool yourself, it is a grind. If you want to be a comics collector, you have to read a lot of shit to "keep up" with developments in the fictional universe you enjoy some stories in. Otherwise you'll be reading a fun Garth Ennis book like 'Hitman' and wondering, "Who's this Keanu-looking doof who's claiming to be Green Lantern?") This part of me is shrieking, "Have you gone out of your ever-loving minds, DC? This--this abomination of a bloated mess--is why comics readership is declining! With comics being as expensive as they are nowadays, if you make your readers choose between following everything in order to understand the events of the one or two books they like, and dropping comics altogether, they're just going to drop everything! You must, must, must release books that appeal to the casual reader, and stop huge bloated 'event' cross-overs that just perpetuate the insane soap-opera that only masturbatingly-obsessive DC continuity freaks care about! Listen to Warren Ellis! Short, sweet, self-contained, well-written! Not never-ending, bloated, and forcing you to read each panel from each book released over the course of two years in order to understand what all the different Luthors are doing fighting each other!"
Then there's the other, either more realistic or more cynical part, which says, "Screw it. Maybe they're right. Maybe it's just not possible for DC to get the casual readers anymore, maybe their continuity is just too entrenched and convoluted to get rid of, and maybe their only hope is to pander to the small obsessive, rich, DC fanboy market for all it's worth, using the trade paperbacks as a lure to that extremely rare marketing segment that picks up an issue of something like 'Infinite Crisis' and, instead of saying, "This is incomprehensible shit!", says, "I have got to know what this is all about." And hoping that niche market is enough to sustain them.
We'll see which part of me is right in ten years' time. If it's the first part, I'm buying the rights to Hawk and Dove. That series rocked.
DEAR GOD. Seriously, this is the most convoluted, over-complicated, bloated mess that any human being could conceive of--in fact, almost certainly moreso. It sincerely looks like if you want to make any goddamn sense out of the current DC storyline, you have to have read every single DC comic since 1985...minimum. They're bringing back every single bad idea that they got rid of in 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' (well, every one they hadn't already brought back--they brought back Krypto the fucking Super-Dog a few years back, which was probably a sign of the end times then and there), they've turned every single super-hero in the DC Universe into a paranoid psychotic, and by the time I've finished writing this, they plan to jump the entire universe a year ahead and release a 52-issue miniseries explaining what happened in the missing year. (OK, it happens next month, but almost certainly by the time anybody reads this, that'll happen.)
I'm of two minds about this. One, the sensible part, which has listened to comics gurus like Warren Ellis and Alan Moore, and who isn't part of the completist grind anymore (and don't fool yourself, it is a grind. If you want to be a comics collector, you have to read a lot of shit to "keep up" with developments in the fictional universe you enjoy some stories in. Otherwise you'll be reading a fun Garth Ennis book like 'Hitman' and wondering, "Who's this Keanu-looking doof who's claiming to be Green Lantern?") This part of me is shrieking, "Have you gone out of your ever-loving minds, DC? This--this abomination of a bloated mess--is why comics readership is declining! With comics being as expensive as they are nowadays, if you make your readers choose between following everything in order to understand the events of the one or two books they like, and dropping comics altogether, they're just going to drop everything! You must, must, must release books that appeal to the casual reader, and stop huge bloated 'event' cross-overs that just perpetuate the insane soap-opera that only masturbatingly-obsessive DC continuity freaks care about! Listen to Warren Ellis! Short, sweet, self-contained, well-written! Not never-ending, bloated, and forcing you to read each panel from each book released over the course of two years in order to understand what all the different Luthors are doing fighting each other!"
Then there's the other, either more realistic or more cynical part, which says, "Screw it. Maybe they're right. Maybe it's just not possible for DC to get the casual readers anymore, maybe their continuity is just too entrenched and convoluted to get rid of, and maybe their only hope is to pander to the small obsessive, rich, DC fanboy market for all it's worth, using the trade paperbacks as a lure to that extremely rare marketing segment that picks up an issue of something like 'Infinite Crisis' and, instead of saying, "This is incomprehensible shit!", says, "I have got to know what this is all about." And hoping that niche market is enough to sustain them.
We'll see which part of me is right in ten years' time. If it's the first part, I'm buying the rights to Hawk and Dove. That series rocked.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Hot Stoves and Brick Walls
At some point during our Thing With Iraq (it can't be a war, since we declared victory; people get very shirty if you call it an occupation; and I'm not sure if we really want to try to explain why we're "liberating" them with torture centers, guns, tanks, and in a few rare cases, body armor)...well, at some point, the administration pretty much waved the white flag in the "moral authority" department. Basically, the argument has gone, "Alright, yes, there were no weapons of mass destruction. Yes, the intelligence was, at best, shoddy, and at worst so overtly shoddy that it's blatantly obvious that we were willfully misreading it to construct a causus belli, and everyone knew it even at the time. Yes, the entire war has been nothing but a blatant power grab. BUT..."
The new conservative rationale for the war. "Now that we're there, we have to win, because the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate."
Discussing a pull-out of the troops is considered to be "defeatist" talk, the same sort of thing that people did in World War II because they secretly supported Hitler or something. We're told that this "hurts troop morale", because after a long hard day of getting shot at, watching your friend get scissored in half by a chunk of shrapnel the size of a cat, and missing your wife and kids desperately, nothing will really lower your morale like hearing that people back home want to get you the hell out of Iraq.
The fact of the matter is, any realistic discussion of the war in Iraq must consider the question, "What are the conditions for victory, and are those conditions still attainable?" If the answer to the latter half of the question is "No," then it is not defeatist to say that we should cut our losses and go, any more than it would be defeatist to suggest that we shouldn't try to break a brick wall with our skulls. We can't do it, and we'll probably do ourselves serious harm in the process.
The current administration is refusing to consider this question. They have sub-ordinated the best interests of the American military, the realities of public policy, and quite possibly the well-being of the nation for the forseeable future, to the egotistical belief that they will be vindicated by history if they can simply pour a sufficient amount of resources into the war. By attempting to salvage their reputation, they are in fact making it worse. It's like touching a hot stove, and instead of pulling your hand back, holding it there to prove how tough it is.
So, let's take a moment and actually consider the question. "What are the conditions of victory in Iraq?" The answer would seem to be, "The creation of a stable, humane, US-friendly government in the country." If this is, in fact, the answer, we should pull out now, because that was never an achievable goal and never will be. Any government that is stable is stable because it is responsive to the needs of its citizens; any government that is humane is humane because it values its citizens; any government that is US-friendly (in the terms we are attempting to impose upon Iraq) values our goodwill higher than it does its own citizens. Meaning that any government that is US-friendly will either have to resort to violence to keep power, or else ask us to do it for them. "Stable, friendly, humane" is the "cheap, close, nice" of nation-building: Pick two.
So what's a realistic "condition of victory" in Iraq, one we can actually achieve that won't make us feel that this is a total failure (or worse--a chaotic, unstable Iraq would be a total failure, a stable-but-actively-hostile-to-the-US Iraq would be worse). This is something that is changing day to day, which is another thing that the Bush administration is failing to understand, or possibly deliberately refusing to understand. "Events are in the saddle, and ride mankind." It was spoken of Vietnam, but it's equally true here. The statement, "We have to stay until we win," presumes that there will always be an existing condition of victory, that we have an unlimited supply of time, money, manpower, material, and goodwill (both of the US and Iraqi public) to accomplish our aims. We do not. The clock is ticking.
It may already have run out.
The new conservative rationale for the war. "Now that we're there, we have to win, because the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate."
Discussing a pull-out of the troops is considered to be "defeatist" talk, the same sort of thing that people did in World War II because they secretly supported Hitler or something. We're told that this "hurts troop morale", because after a long hard day of getting shot at, watching your friend get scissored in half by a chunk of shrapnel the size of a cat, and missing your wife and kids desperately, nothing will really lower your morale like hearing that people back home want to get you the hell out of Iraq.
The fact of the matter is, any realistic discussion of the war in Iraq must consider the question, "What are the conditions for victory, and are those conditions still attainable?" If the answer to the latter half of the question is "No," then it is not defeatist to say that we should cut our losses and go, any more than it would be defeatist to suggest that we shouldn't try to break a brick wall with our skulls. We can't do it, and we'll probably do ourselves serious harm in the process.
The current administration is refusing to consider this question. They have sub-ordinated the best interests of the American military, the realities of public policy, and quite possibly the well-being of the nation for the forseeable future, to the egotistical belief that they will be vindicated by history if they can simply pour a sufficient amount of resources into the war. By attempting to salvage their reputation, they are in fact making it worse. It's like touching a hot stove, and instead of pulling your hand back, holding it there to prove how tough it is.
So, let's take a moment and actually consider the question. "What are the conditions of victory in Iraq?" The answer would seem to be, "The creation of a stable, humane, US-friendly government in the country." If this is, in fact, the answer, we should pull out now, because that was never an achievable goal and never will be. Any government that is stable is stable because it is responsive to the needs of its citizens; any government that is humane is humane because it values its citizens; any government that is US-friendly (in the terms we are attempting to impose upon Iraq) values our goodwill higher than it does its own citizens. Meaning that any government that is US-friendly will either have to resort to violence to keep power, or else ask us to do it for them. "Stable, friendly, humane" is the "cheap, close, nice" of nation-building: Pick two.
So what's a realistic "condition of victory" in Iraq, one we can actually achieve that won't make us feel that this is a total failure (or worse--a chaotic, unstable Iraq would be a total failure, a stable-but-actively-hostile-to-the-US Iraq would be worse). This is something that is changing day to day, which is another thing that the Bush administration is failing to understand, or possibly deliberately refusing to understand. "Events are in the saddle, and ride mankind." It was spoken of Vietnam, but it's equally true here. The statement, "We have to stay until we win," presumes that there will always be an existing condition of victory, that we have an unlimited supply of time, money, manpower, material, and goodwill (both of the US and Iraqi public) to accomplish our aims. We do not. The clock is ticking.
It may already have run out.
Friday, January 06, 2006
The End of the Conversation
(Go watch 'Anne', the first episode of Buffy Season Three. Pause it right at the end of Scene 15, the conversation between Giles and Joyce. This is what I always figured Giles must have said.)
"She's a young woman who's been placed under any number of burdens, Ms. Summers. Some of them are the same as any other girl her age, but others are absolutely unique, and she has borne them when any number of others would have broken. She's saved my life on more than one occasion, and more than that, she's saved the lives of her friends, of her family, of total strangers and of every man, woman and child in the entire world. I realize that it's a bit hard to take in a phrase like that, so I will repeat it so that you don't miss it.
"Every living being on this planet today owes their life to your daughter. In fact, we all owe her our lives several times over; her courage and skill has saved the entire planet more than once. She saved all these people without thought of the considerable danger to herself, without any wish for reward or recompense, and indeed at great personal cost. If you have to put that into a single word, Ms. Summers, I believe the one I'd select would be 'hero'...and frankly, if you wish to place the 'blame' for that onto my shoulders, I take it as the greatest of compliments. Good day to you."
At which point Giles walks out, leaving Joyce to maybe feel a bit bad about the way she's been handling things.
"She's a young woman who's been placed under any number of burdens, Ms. Summers. Some of them are the same as any other girl her age, but others are absolutely unique, and she has borne them when any number of others would have broken. She's saved my life on more than one occasion, and more than that, she's saved the lives of her friends, of her family, of total strangers and of every man, woman and child in the entire world. I realize that it's a bit hard to take in a phrase like that, so I will repeat it so that you don't miss it.
"Every living being on this planet today owes their life to your daughter. In fact, we all owe her our lives several times over; her courage and skill has saved the entire planet more than once. She saved all these people without thought of the considerable danger to herself, without any wish for reward or recompense, and indeed at great personal cost. If you have to put that into a single word, Ms. Summers, I believe the one I'd select would be 'hero'...and frankly, if you wish to place the 'blame' for that onto my shoulders, I take it as the greatest of compliments. Good day to you."
At which point Giles walks out, leaving Joyce to maybe feel a bit bad about the way she's been handling things.
One Tiny Thing
Changed my mind about 'Purge', by Bif Naked. It's dreamy. (I must have been in a bad mood the first time I listened to it.)
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Alternative Ending to V for Vendetta
(Or, I Can't Be The First Person To Think Of This)
We enter the scene with Finch, the detective assigned to track down V, staggering into Victoria Station. He's heavily under the influence of LSD, a drug he took to try to understand the enigmatic killer, and although it's exacted a heavy mental toll, it's done its work well. He's finally close to V's lair...and its secrets.
He heads down into the abandoned Underground. At last, he spots V himself. He pulls out his gun...prepares to fire...
And suddenly a vast dog leaps past him, spoiling his aim! The dog, some sort of breed of Great Dane, lets out a strange and poignant howl. In Finch's drugged state, it almost seems as if it's calling out, "Roverrr here!"
V turns. He spots Finch, but seemingly just as importantly, he spots the massive dog. He moves towards the pair with a swift, gliding motion, and Finch knows they're both doomed...
When suddenly, a giant net drops from the ceiling onto V, entangling him! Finch stares in utter confusion as four people step from the shadows, four civilians who've managed to do what the entire British government could not--capture the terrorist known as V.
"Good work, Scooby!" they chorus, as one of them, a young man dressed in green, scratches the dog's head. Another, dressed in white, steps forward to V, who's only managed to free his head from the weighted net. "And now, let's see who V really is!" With a flourish, they remove the mask.
Everyone, even Finch, gasps. "Old Man McAllister!" they shout. The girl with spectacles nods knowingly. "Of course. He was using the V costume to frighten people away from organized governmental authority...and the old mill!"
"That's right," snarles V. "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you meddling kids...and that dog!"
We enter the scene with Finch, the detective assigned to track down V, staggering into Victoria Station. He's heavily under the influence of LSD, a drug he took to try to understand the enigmatic killer, and although it's exacted a heavy mental toll, it's done its work well. He's finally close to V's lair...and its secrets.
He heads down into the abandoned Underground. At last, he spots V himself. He pulls out his gun...prepares to fire...
And suddenly a vast dog leaps past him, spoiling his aim! The dog, some sort of breed of Great Dane, lets out a strange and poignant howl. In Finch's drugged state, it almost seems as if it's calling out, "Roverrr here!"
V turns. He spots Finch, but seemingly just as importantly, he spots the massive dog. He moves towards the pair with a swift, gliding motion, and Finch knows they're both doomed...
When suddenly, a giant net drops from the ceiling onto V, entangling him! Finch stares in utter confusion as four people step from the shadows, four civilians who've managed to do what the entire British government could not--capture the terrorist known as V.
"Good work, Scooby!" they chorus, as one of them, a young man dressed in green, scratches the dog's head. Another, dressed in white, steps forward to V, who's only managed to free his head from the weighted net. "And now, let's see who V really is!" With a flourish, they remove the mask.
Everyone, even Finch, gasps. "Old Man McAllister!" they shout. The girl with spectacles nods knowingly. "Of course. He was using the V costume to frighten people away from organized governmental authority...and the old mill!"
"That's right," snarles V. "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you meddling kids...and that dog!"
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