A look back at some past memories and experiences, part six

Dear Cap: Just curious: did you at least enjoy how Grant Morrison got "trapped" in the DC Universe as a result of Animal Man and had to join the Suicide Squad? I believe that in "War of the Gods" (which I've tried really, really hard to remember the actual plot and can't), he showed up, armed with a word processor and considered insane because he believed that he could influence events around him by writing about them. If I remember correctly, he was quickly killed, and I laughed really hard.

I do remember Morrison joining the Suicide Squad -- and also laughing myself out of my chair. It was a fitting, inane counterpoint to the self-importance I perceived when Morrison wrote himself into Animal Man. It makes a nice bookend.

Dear Cap: [name withheld]'s and your stories reminded me of when I first realized that not everyone understood comic-book visual conventions. It was when I first picked up an issue of Ranma 1/2. The Japanese comic (manga) was filled with visual cues that made no sense to me at the time. I'm sitting there thinking, "Why's his nose bleeding? No one hit him ..." Thankfully, I quickly picked up the basics, but that was when I first realized, "Well, if I don't understand this, maybe there are people out there who don't understand our conventions ..."

I've come to understand some manga conventions -- like the ellipses in a word balloon to indicate a pause or confusion -- but they still annoy me! I guess I'm just too set in my ways: Kirby's in my blood!

Dear Cap:
1) <<Not that I care -- the only attraction to (Fathom) that I can, eh, fathom is the cheesecake, and I can see real breasts on the Internet if that's what I'm after.>>
Silly me. I just turn to my wife.
2) <<Green Arrow may be in stores by the end of the year or the beginning of 2001, Smith says.>>
I literally won't believe it until I see it.
3) On the "sin tax" subject: What do legal agencies (police/FBI/DEA/etc.) do with seized money and/or property? Don't they turn around and use it for good? Considering that Oracle doesn't use the money she aquires for personal gain I really don't have a problem with her diverting funds to worthy causes. Considering all the good she does for the Bat-team, the JLA, and Young Justice --plus the missions that she sends Black Canary on -- I think she is morally in the clear. Legally, probably not, but morally yes.
4) On Titan A.E.: The animation in this movie is terrific but the story
copies elements from too many other stories. The Cylon theme song from Battlestar Galactica played in my head several times when watching this movie. What worked the least for me, though, is how little humanity had evolved by the far future time this movie is supposed to take place. Humanity today is so far removed from humanity of 1,000 years ago that I'd expect even more changes in the next 1,000 years.
1) Not everybody reading the site is married to your wife. At least, I'm pretty sure.
2) Same here.
3) The questions was: Is it ethical? I consider it practical but unethical, but I seem to be in the definite minority in that opinion.
4) Your complaint about Titan A.E. is the same one I had about DC: One Million. I'd think our technology, society and perhaps our very species would have changed so much by the 853rd century that we would be almost unrecognizeable. Instead, though, DC: One Million showed us a "flying car" story:

Dear Cap: Rules are okay. But do people realize characters must change? Alfred Pennyworth is going to die someday. Someone other than Bruce Wayne is going to be Batman someday. Some of the couples are going to have kids someday, like Superman and Lois Lane. Tim Drake has to grow up like Dick Grayson did. Some rules should be broken.
(For those just coming in, […] has been making some points about fandom's attachment to continuity as a sticking point for comics to sell to a broader audience.)
Well, IS it necessary that Alfred die? Or that somebody else be Batman? Bruce Wayne's hung in there for 60 years already. It may be that some comics characters -- icons like Batman and Superman -- will remain as static in their main particulars as Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. I'd be interested what you think of that point JLA, but you'll probably be too busy with the following letter, responding to your broadside of June 29:

Dear Capn: The letter by [withheld] really gets my goat.
What bugs me is this somewhat pervasive attitude in comicdom that comics are somehow "real." Comics are NOT real. They're fiction. Fanciful fabrications. Imaginations on paper, and that's it.
When a fan has such absurdities as the Hal Jordan fiasco, Zero Hour, even Crisis, shoved down their throat (meaning favored characters become dead or drastically changed), people like [withheld] say "well, life is change and you gotta get over it." Which sounds to me like I'm being told to just buy the damn books whether I like them or not.
The furor over the Spidey-Clone debacle wasn't just whining. Fans were being told they spent hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars on 30 years of multiple Spidey titles that were NOT about Peter Parker! And fans of Hal Jordan feel just as mistreated. I don't know about [withheld], but I don't feel any obligation to support ANY entertainment product that displeases me.
Change is a factor of real life. Comics are not real life. Comics are whatever the creative teams make them. And they can make them any way they wish. Doing what fans don't like is inexcusable. It's a slap in the face. If creators are bored with a property, it is THEY who should make a change. Real life is where people get fired because the boss hates them, evicted because they're too broke to keep up the rent, and divorced because the wife found a handsomer man. This is the realm of "have to live with." This is what people "must get over." Fiction is the escape from all that. There is no "have to" in fiction.
"We need to realize that even heroes can't wear the same clothes forever," says […]. I want to know why not? It's a simple matter of the artist drawing the same lines as before.
As for Jurgens and Superman, Jurgens may have plenty of ideas but they're not Superman ideas. Jurgens is moving to Thor because he has Thor stories to tell. Letting Jurgens turn Supes into a Norse god for the sake of telling different stories would be a disservice to Superman and all his fans.
It's funny, but only in comics have the sellers convinced the buyers they have no choice in the product! Anyone remember "New Coke"? Coca-Cola tried to force a new flavor on the consumer, essentially telling them "life is change, get over it," and the consumers said "no, we don't want that so we're not buying it." And golly, if that didn't work! Hello again, old Coke!
The downward spiral in fanbase pretty much mirrors the industry's trend of forcing unwanted changes on its consumers. I don't think that's a coincidence. Cost is a problem, but this is America -- we pay through the nose for what we want. It's the content that's driven all these people away.
Capitalism is about selling what people want. Communism is about telling the consumer what they must buy. We see which economics, and which entertainment form, is on its death bed.
Wow, [name withheld], that's quite a dissertation. You've clearly given this a great deal of thought.
I have to agree that it's puzzling when DC pulls an "Emerald Twilight," from a simple economic standpoint. I understand the impulse to create a new Green Lantern if the old GL's fan base isn't strong enough to support a book (although MY solution would be to write Hal Jordan BETTER). But if your concern is sales, why alienate the existing fan base, small as it is? Why thumb your nose at ANY of your customers? As we know in newspapers, in a shrinking industry you jump through hoops to keep every customer.
Tis a puzzlement. Let's see what the rest of the gang thinks!

Hello Captain: Right off the bat, I'd like to say that I think the Ultimate line proposed by Marvel has the potential to work, not to say that it also doesn't have the potential to fail tremenously. I doubt that simply making Peter Parker work on a web site is going to draw in the kids. But I do applaud Marvel's decision to distribute their comics to more mainstream outlets. You gotta stick these comics right under the kids' noses for them to notice them I think. And putting an excellent writer such as Bendis at the helm of (Ultimate) Spider-Man is an intelligent decision.
But I don't think that Marvel has the right idea about who they're marketing to. Everyone moans about having to get children to pick up comic books, but it is the parents, the adults, who have the money -- the considerable amounts of money -- to actually buy the comics. We (the comics industry ) should instead be focusing their attention on bringing in adults to the comics industry, adults having much more money to spend on comics.
Most industries thrive on the commerce of adults, why shouldn't the comic industry? In the movie industry, it is almost always the R-rated movies, movies supposedly aimed at adults (though some are blatantly aimed at the younger audiences) which garner the highest-gross profits.
Comics don't need to eliminate the "oppressive continuity," oppressive continuity never being cited by anyone I know of who doesn't read comics as a reason why they don't read them. More often than not, they, including all of the mainstream, are so ignorant of comic books that they aren't even aware of the large amounts of continuity. Anyway, under good writers, continuity can only help, not hinder, a story. It is the poor writers and hacks who with unwieldly stories give continuity a bad name.
Back to what I said about bringing adults into the market. I often attempt to act as a missonary of comicdom, seeking converts. Usually I shove Watchmen or Sandman or something along those lines at them. My friends will read them, become amazed at the level of depth and straight-up talent shown in these pieces of art, and then -- well, just drop the comics. What I mean to say is that, after throughly enjoying a certain comic, they'll just walk away and not give comics another thought. They won't walk into a comic shop and pick up a recent comic, or even browse the trade paperbacks. And even for those few individuals who will walk into comic shops looking for some various (Neil) Gaiman or (Alan) Moore work, they'll simply walk over to that, pick it up, buy it, and leave. Without ever giving a second, even a first, glance at anything else.
The industry has been ignoring this tremendous mass audience, instead making futile attempts to lure in children who won't give comics the time of day, engrossed with their PlayStations and Limp Bizkit. It's adults, the intelligent adult market we must focus on, though I'm not saying there is no market for children's comics, there always should be. I'm just saying we should be marketing to the adult masses, something Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison are currently attempting with varying degrees of success.
Wow, I kinda got away from my thoughts on the Ultimate line, didn't I? Well, thanks for reading my lengthy letter. Though I don't attempt to propose any sure-fire answers for the predicament we are in, I hope to at least have made my opinion known, allowing others to disect, debase, support, devour what I've written. At least that's something.
It's a big something, […]. Only by dissecting and analyzing the problem, then discussing solutions, can we find our way to a healthier induustry. That's why I welcome remarks such as yours, [name withheld]'s and [also]'s. Let's keep talking folks -- we've got a world to save!
And speaking of "Ultimate" answers, I agree that the new Marvel line has the potential for tremendous success -- and equally bleak failure. It's all in the execution, and Marvel's not been noted for its success in that arena (See: Heroes World). I've got my fingers crossed, though -- if Ultimate can revitalize comics in the 12-20 market in mainstream distribution, then the NEXT generation of comics fans could be twice the size of ours.

Dear Cap:
<<Both Aztek and Primal Force were series I didn't think deserved cancellation. And of course Aztek has now gone the way of Will Payton and been permanently canceled.>>
This is not true. Will Payton has been found to be alive and is now a split person with Prince Gayvin, another former Starman (long story). He is now ruler of Prince Gayvin's world and is set to make another apperance in the either the current Starman story "Grand Guignol" or is the followup arc.
I agree though I think Aztek's death was not really needed, I almost think Morrison killed him as to not let anyone else use his character. But who knows?
Thanks for the Starman update, [withheld] -- should have caught that one myself.

Dear Cap: In the mailbag, [withheld] wrote:
<<No kid has ever made the news for setting himself on fire while trying to be the Human Torch. However, public opinion-savvy TV executives realized that if such a thing ever did occur it could cost them millions of dollars and possibly bankrupt a network. For that reason, when TV finally saw fit to air the Fantastic Four, we were introduced to a different fourth member: H.E.R.B.I.E. One tragedy was averted for another. So, the event never happened, although the fear of it is real enough.>>
Actually, this is comics' version of the Urban Myth. The boring truth is that Human Torch was optioned by another company at that time (he did appear, in all his flaming glory, in the 1960s Hanna Barbera FF cartoon, with no concern about encouraging kids to self-immolation).
Of course, I don't have the source for this at my fingertips, but when I dig it up I'll send it along.
Thanks, […], for shining the glaring spotlight of truth on the cringing celebrity of pernicious urban myth. Or something like that.

Dear Cap: Another interesting column this week, as usual. Please allow me to provide you a little assist with one of the questions in your Q&A from this week.
If there is anything I know better than comics from the Silver Age, it's television from the same era; and being home on leave this week afforded me the opportunity to consult my vast library of television references.
According to Karen Rhodes excellent book, Booking Hawaii Five-O, the final episode of the long-running series aired on April 5, 1980. This episode was entitled "Woe to Wo Fat", and, yes, granite-jawed Steve McGarrett does, indeed, put the wily Chinaman behind bars for good. The story itself is a bit ludicrous, coming across as rather James-Bondish, too melodramatic, and full of clichés. Overall, a rather lackluster ending to the frequent McGarrett/Wo Fat confrontations.
Hope this helps. Looking forward to next week.
Thanks, […]. Nice to know that the nefarious Wo Fat met his comeuppance, regardless of how anticlimactic it might have been. Dan-o, at last, got to "book 'im."

Dear Cap: I do not know if you have ever watched any episode of The Kid Super Power Hour Show featuring SHAZAM! and Hero High but I tried no to miss any episode when I was much younger. It seems that cartoon series do not last long and that is sad. Here is a web site that talks a little about the next generation of spandexed do-gooders at Hero High.
Please, do enjoy http://www.hotyellow98.com/tooncentral/toons/herohigh.html
If you have memories of cartoon shows of the 1980s then here are fine
web sites to visit.
Please, do enjoy http://www.hotyellow98.com/tooncentral/toons/index.html & http://www.tripletsrus.com/80s/cartoons.htm
I must say that B-movies are not always the best example to quote when it comes to fine scripting and scene production but they have an appeal that reminds steadfastly and uniquely all their own. The ideas and concepts that have resulted in films especially in the science fiction, fantasy, espionage and horror genres show that quirky imagination went into them. Furthermore, it was bravery on the part of filmmakers who did it "their way" and did not care what others thought. B-movie actors and fellow contributors to the genre may not be remembered in the same vein as their A-list cohorts but what an interesting autobiography one could write about oneself if one's life consisted of the storylines of these "little treasures." After all, Cap, just imagine any of these events taking place in your life ... being chased by giant- sized ants, beach babes and their accompanying beast-men, flying saucers, over-eager spies,evil dead, grateful dead, buxom androids, scorned lovers, crawling eyes or just being stranded on an island with a mad scientist.
Here's the site: http://www.bmonster.com/
Thanks for the web sites and the paean to B-movies, [name withheld] -- after all, if it weren't for B-movies, what would Warren Ellis write about in Planetary?

Dear Cap: I remember when I saw the image of the Earth-2 Superman on one of DC Comics' books that had a picture of the elderly Man of Steel among a few other characters who were there to adverise an upcoming turn of events of TITANIC proportions. It was hard to make him out at first but when I did I was glad as it meant that he would most likley be playing a pivotal role during the Crisis Of Infinite Earths. He did. How little did I know that it had meant that he would never be seen again. Ever. We saw very little of a man who was Earth's first superhero in DC Comics' 50-year history. Well, cheer up because this web site features him along with his more popular Earth-1 counterpart.
Here is a website that is dedicated to the Man of Steel mythos. Please, do enjoy http://fortress.am/welcome.phtml.
(And) here is the thinking man's article on the concept of the secret identity and its role in superhero fantasy.
Please, do enjoy http://www.popimage.com/industrial/062000culturepop.html
The article in question explores the uses and symbology of superhero secret identities. I don't agree with all of his points, and he lost some credibility with me when he confused Billy Batson with Freddy Freeman (he referred to Captain Marvel's secret ID as "a crippled newsboy.") But it is pretty interesting.

Dear Cap: As to what Bolan thought about the Punisher ... well, it should be noted that, in the first 10 years of the Punisher's existance, he was rarely used outside of Amazing Spider-Man. By 1983, he had made about 10 appearances. Since Marvel did not seem to be using the character, Pendleton seems to have let it slide; he was willing, in fact, to give Marvel an exclusive interview that appeared in Marvel Preview 2 (the origin issue for the Punisher).
However, later, after the 1985 miniseries, the Punisher was used more frequently. Also, the Executioner made his comic-book debut in 1993. Innovation put it out shortly before it ceased to exist.
As noted at http://stonyland.******.com/faq/faq6.html
Pendleton told Advance Comics:
<<Isn't Bolan based on The Punisher? Neither Marvel Comics nor the writer had permission to use The Executioner characters.>>
In 1993 Pendleton had this to say in an interview by James Eisele for Advance Comics and published in their July 1993 issue: "Let's just say The Punisher has taken a lot of liberties with my work. Anyone who knows the history of The Executioner has known that all along. I elected many years ago to just let it pass, feeling that there is room for both of us in this industry. Of course, new Executioner readers may get the impression that I have "borrowed" from The Punisher, but let me set the record straight: War Against the Mafia debuted in 1968, and has been a flagship of action/adventure in all mediums throughout these years. Sad to say, my own publisher at Pinnacle began the trend, firing off invitations to various writers with copies of my books and stating that he would be interested in considering similar stories for his publication. The way this business works, practically every other major publisher jumped on the bandwagon. Of course, I have no bitterness or sense of loss from any of that; it is the highest form of complement for a writer to become a standard-bearer, and certainly The Executioner has remained in that special place all these years, and worldwide.>>
Eisele asked <<They weren't taking stories that you had written?>>
Pendleton continued <<No, not exactly chapter and verse, but The Punisher took a lot of what I consider "signature pieces" including Bolan's War Journal, the War Wagon, and various situations which The Punisher incorporated. I created the high tech War Wagon in 1973, after using a much simpler version in previous books. The new War Wagon was built around a gutted GMC motor home put together by Bolan with the help of engineers who were sympathetic to his cause. It was a fantastic vehicle with high tech weapons on board.">>
(Information courtesy of the now-defunct Stony Man Farm website)
The site also had info on the Bolan comic books:
<<Was there ever a comic book adaptation of the Executioner series? Yes! Innovation Comics published three parts of the four parts of War Against the Mafia in 1993 but the company went bankrupt before issuing part four. The comic was scripted and adapted by Don and Linda Pendleton. Vivid Comics published in November, 1996, a 128-page black-and -white graphic novel adaptation of Death Squad, scripted and adapted by Linda Pendleton. Artist Sandu Flora, who had worked very closely with the Pendletons on the Innovation Comics War Against the Mafia editions, was publisher and artist on the Vivid publication. By the way, Death Squad the graphic novel is still available from Vivid and is worth checking out.>>
(Information courtesy Alice in Stonyland)
H.E.R.B.I.E., by the way, was actually created because the Human Torch's rights were tied up elsewhere. It did not have anything to do with the fear of children imitating those Buddhist monks who protested the Vietnam war (though that is why Firestar was created for the Spider-Man series of the 1980s -- but that is another story ...)
Which I hope we'll get to hear. Anyway, I had a nagging itch in the back of my skull that I'd read an interview with Pendleton somewhere (Marvel Premiere?) where he beefed about Punisher but wasn't going to sue. I couldn't remember the details, though, and now you've scratched the itch. Thanks!

Dear Cap: [name withheld] should be told that, contrary to his speculation, in the latest issue of Alter Ego, Mike Grell talks about his plans to bring back Jon Sable, Freelance, in comic-book form. Plans he swears are going to come to fruition.
Darren McGavin's The Night Stalker was based on an unpublished story (prose rather than comic, I assume) by Jeff Rice. There were actually two TV movies before the Kolchak: The Night Stalker series. The Night Stalker premiered in 1972 and just happened to have for its leading lady my favorite actress, Carol Lynley. It was followed the next year by The Night Strangler; Jo Ann Pflug was the lucky gal this time. Both telefilms, like the series, co-starred the wonderful Simon Oakland as Carl Kolchak's irascible editor boss, Tony Vincenzo.
The Night Stalker flick was a great piece of work, combining horror, romance, smart deadpan humor and pathos, with a fantastic cast giving super performances. But, further, just as Chris Lee feature films had over a decade earlier, The Night Stalker, in Barry Atwater's Janos Skorzeny, totally revisions film's concept of the vampire. No longer Lugosi's aloof, aristocratic and tragic mesmerist, nor Lee's seductive, eldritch creature of sexuality, Atwater's vampire is now a voracious, maniac and violently physical menace. Never before had a vampire moved so dang much, nor seemed such a feral, blood-lusting animal.
Along with 1973's Isn't It Shocking?, it's probably just about my favorite made-for-TV film.
Thanks for the Night Stalker info. I never knew much about the genesis of that show -- which I enjoyed -- and now I do.

Dear Cap: First, just a note to say how much I enjoy your site! I look forward to reading it every week, it is a very professional and intelligent conversation about comics. I also appreciate how you allow people to have their differing opinions. I just have been thinking about the loss of readers in comics and I think that it is very simple and it has been mentioned many times, but I think it also bears mentioning again.
When I was a kid, if there were any comics book shops around, I knew nothing of them, I got most of my comics at the 7-Eleven within walking distance of my house (although I usually went on my bike). I also got many that my mom would buy for me at the grocery store. She would even pick them up for me if I wasn't there because she knew I liked them and they are a good entryway to get kids reading (I know it was for me). I also got many on vacation in the convenience stores to help me keep occupied during the long drives. I even remember that my mom reading some when she ran out of magazines - she didn't like ROM but she did like Spider-Man and my sister liked the Thing. If comics were not around on those spinner tracks in grocery stores and convenience stores, I would not have gotten started on comics. Do you know why those are not there any more?
Comic-book shops for the most part I have found very intimidating, and I am 29 years old! The people who work there can be very condescending and not nice at times. I patronize only the stores where people are friendly (LEE'S COMICS in Palo Alto) and where I see they treat the kids who wander in for the latest Pokemon cards well. (I think they should stick a Pokemon comic book in their hands at the same time -- what mother does not want to encourage their kids to read?). But they have to make a special trip to these stores. We were always at the grocery store. Like you said, put them where kids are. And put them on spinner racks -- not with the magazines. I don't think trades will help that much -- they are too expensive.
The more I think about it, the more exasperated I get -- why did the spinner racks disappear from the 7-Elevens?
Spider-Man helped me through my awkward teen years. Peter's troubles I could relate to and his perserverence helped me to develop my own. Growing up gay in the midwest was not easy. Peter for years to me was gay. He still is in my Marvel Universe. These comics also helped me learn about sacrifice and friendship and like I said, they lead me to reading books, which helped me so much in school. I feel bad that kids nowadays do not get this experience. It also encouraged me to create and draw my own comics. Bad as my comics were, they were a great outlet for my imagination. What do kids gain from video games?
In closing: SPINNER RACKS, SPINNER RACKS, SPINNER RACKS AT THE 7-ELEVEN!
Hey, […], thanks for your thoughts!
The reason that the spinner racks disappeared is because the rising cost of comics made them economically infeasible for standarad magazine distributors to fool with them. If you're a distributor to 7-Eleven, and you can clear a buck off every issue of Newsweek sold but only a quarter from a copy of Action, which one are you going to spend your time on? It became so bad in the late '70s that tons of comics were sitting unclaimed on distrubution docks -- and most thought the industry would collapse. But the "direct market" evolved, where retailers keep unsold copies instead of distributors having to freight them back to the publishers for a refund -- and that, in turn, resulted in comics shops. Regular "newsstand" distribution, though, has all but disappeared.
As to Peter Parker, I'm right with you there. I'm not gay, but I also identified with Peter -- which shows the broad reach and power of the character. He was a few years older than me in the early '60s, and his travails in high school, then college, then grad school formed a Road Map Of Life for me -- and even though he's stopped aging (and I haven't) I still think of him as an old friend that I like to visit every month. I just wish the character in current Marvel Comics resembled my old friend as written by Stan Lee.

Dear Cap'n: For months now, I've been in the process of composing a letter to you regarding various items in your Mailbag and Q&A columns, and as nearly every week adds another snippet or two to my lengthy collection of Things Upon Which I Wish To Comment, I decided to address a few current items immediately, rather than append them to my epistolary behemoth which may never see completion.

In your most recent (June 29) Mailbag, a letter from [name withheld] says that the old (late '70s, if my memory serves me correctly) Fantastic Four Saturday-morning cartoon series substituted H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot in place of the Human Torch because TV executives feared the possibility that some impressionable youngster might be inspired by the Torch to set himself on fire, prompting the poor tyke's parents to sue for vast quantities of money; thus the presence of a flaming hero was forbidden, and the relatively innocuous H.E.R.B.I.E. added so that they wouldn't have to call the program The Fantastic Three. Unfortunately, this story, though widely circulated, is apocryphal, and the reality isn't quite as entertaining: In actuality, the television rights to the Human Torch, but not the rest of the FF, had already been optioned to another production company, and while the proposed Human Torch show was never made, no one else could use the Torch on television as long as the option was in effect. I learned this information from The Jack Kirby Collector, though I couldn't tell you which issue without a much more time-consuming search than I'm willing to undertake.

As stupid as the series with H.E.R.B.I.E. was, by the way, it could have been a lot worse. Remember the Thing solo cartoon from -- I think -- a couple of years or so later, in which a teenage Ben (or possibly "Benjy") Grimm would use some sort of device to cause orange rock-like objects to fly at him from who-knows-where and adhere to his body, turning him into the Thing? After the danger was past, he'd cause the rocks to fly off of him and back to who-knows-where, turning him back into young Benjy Grimm. Yeesh! (A further note: after writing the preceding, I discussed the topic with my brother, who thinks Benjy effected the transformation by touching two rings together and saying something like "Thing rings, do your thing!" If this is indeed the case, I must have blotted it from my mind, doubtless sparing myself years of emotional trauma.)

Also in the June 29 Mailbag was a letter from [withheld] commenting upon the recent JLA Annual, which included a sequence with "Wonder Woman taking the time to add some extra costuming in order to enter a Muslim temple." This "burn(ed [withheld]) no end," and, through [withheld again] description of it, disturbed even our stalwart Captain. I, like you, haven't read the JLA Annual, and cannot judge the merits of the story itself, but I'd like to reflect upon the matter discussed here. First of all, much depends on just how much "extra costuming" Wonder Woman added. If she completely covered herself in voluminous robes from head to toe, leaving only her eyes exposed, then this could indeed be considered demeaning to women. If, on the other hand, she simply put on a shirt and pants so she wouldn't offend the Muslim worshippers by looking like a stripper, then that's another matter -- which prompts a further reflection: While Wonder Woman's costume has always been rather scanty in comparison with the fashions of the time, over the years it has become considerably scantier than it once was. (Her shorts, for example, today can display only a small fraction of the stars they contained at the end of her original series in the mid-'80s -- which even then was a drastic reduction from her original culottes.) Her costume today exposes more skin than that of any male Justice Leaguer (including the shirtless-but-with-that-big-metal-combination-shoulder-guard-harpoon-strap-thing Aquaman). This is not because she's a liberated woman who can wear anything she pleases, no matter how revealing it is, but because she's drawn by male artists for (nowadays, anyway -- unfortunately) male readers, who enjoy looking at pictures of shapely women in skimpy outfits. (To those who might dispute this, I ask: Why do you think her breasts are drawn so much larger today than they were when her stories were aimed at girls?) In light of this, the idea that if Wonder Woman wears extra clothing, it somehow demeans women, seems somewhat odd. (Having said that, let me confess once again that I haven't read the comic in question, and for all I know, the sequence may in fact be exremely offensive to women. But for the supposed champion of women's equality to dress like a pin-up is probably offensive to a lot of women, too.)

In other matters, in the June 29 Q&A, you said,

<<To my knowledge, McGarrett never nailed Wo-Fat, but I'm no expert in this area. Worse, I'm going to have the Hawaii Five-0 theme song running through my head for the rest of the day. >>

I'm no expert either, and many years have passed, but if my memory again serves me correctly, McGarrett did, in the final episode of the series, finally put Wo-Fat behind bars, where we saw the villain wearing a prison uniform complete with old-fashioned black-and-white stripes. And there are far worse fates than having the Ventures' excellent instrumental Hawaii Five-O (which predates the TV series by a few years, by the way) running through one's head. (All together now: "Tiptoe, through the tulips ...")

Regarding the matter of Oracle skimming off some of various wrongdoers' ill-gotten gains in order to pay for her computers: This disturbs me, too, even if the money is used in a good cause, to help her fight and prevent crime. I think what really bothers me about it is who is doing it. I wouldn't mind it if a writer were to create a new character who stole from criminals to finance his own war on crime. And I could even see someone like Ollie Queen, who -- after Denny O'Neil gave him a personality, anyway -- tended to be more concerned with justice than the niceties of the law, turning a crime lord's cash over to charity (though I couldn't see him keeping any for himself, not even to fund his own arsenal against crime). But Babs, in her Batgirl days, was always squeaky clean, even after Batman returned to his roots as The Batman, grim avenger of the night. Babs fought crime not out of vengeance, but idealism. She was always utterly honest-despite being elected to Congress! -- and this new method of operating somehow makes her character seem tainted.

Furthermore, it's completely unnecessary. Bruce Wayne could buy her any computer equipment she could possibly need. And I don't buy the argument that Bruce can't finance superheroic activities anymore, since his spending could be traced back to him and reveal his secret identity. Yes, Ra's al Ghul was able to discover his identity this way, but I'm sure that since then, the Batman has taken sufficient steps to cover his tracks with chains of fictitious purchasers and multiple shipping addresses to make his purchases untraceable. Besides, while Bruce Wayne buying a Batmobile might raise some questions, isn't the public at large unaware of Oracle's existence? What would be suspicious about the head of a multi-billion-dollar corporation buying state-of-the-art computer equipment? Would anybody really say, "Hmmm ... Waynetech just bought a supercomputer ... Gasp! Bruce Wayne must be Batman!"?

I guess that's all for now, so, until the federal government forcibly abandons Duckburg -- Make mine Scripps Howard! (Hmmm ... doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?)

Hey, […]! As to Wonder Woman, you're inarguably on the money about Diana's diminishing costume. The only visible support -- ahem -- I can give to her decreasing outfit is that post-Crisis she's been depicted as more or less invulnerable, so she doesn't really need much in the way of protection. That's not much of a defense -- after all, why is Superman covered head to toe? -- but it's all I can offer (see Silly Super-Togs on this site for more on this subject). And it IS ironic that WW putting on MORE clothing can be a cause for argument! I haven't read the JLA Annual yet, so I can't comment more, but I am curious how it was presented.

And I have to agree with you about Batman covering his tracks with his money -- he said he was going to "plug those holes" in the very issue where Ra's tracked Bruce Wayne's expenditures to the Batcave. I assume somebody as efficient, competent and savvy as Batman has, indeed, plugged those holes. As the expression goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Oh, and thanks for agreeing with me on Oracle -- I think you're the only correspondent who does! And here's more on Hawaii Five-O:

Dear Cap: Hate to tell you this, Cap, but Dan-o didn't get to "book him." James MacArthur, who played McGarrett's right-hand man, Danny Williams, left the show the season before.
So I guess McGarrett had to do all that annoying paperwork himself for a change.
Heh!

Dear Cap: I'm wondering if the creative team on The Authority is going down the path of Squadron Supreme. The idea of beneficial godlings ruling the world and making everything better is only sustainable if those self-appointed protectors remain in power and never lose their good judgment. The now-cliche "With great power comes great responsibility" is destined to clash with "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." And yet the powerful beings who comprise The Authority seem to be without number. Everyone seems to have the same general agenda. And the bad guys keep losing. ... So maybe the plan IS self-sustaining? I haven't heard anything about the series reaching a point of closure where everything falls apart. Have you?
If you ask some of your friends a "what if?" question about how they would use absolute power (say, for example, being given a Green Lantern ring), it's sort of surprising how many of them will back down and refuse to make truly stupendous, worldwide changes. Most folks seem to have a built-in aversion to taking responsibility into their own hands, especially if they believe they'll be judged by others for doing it. If you know a certain movie star slashed his wife to death and is still free on the streets, would you be willing to wrap an airtight telekinetic bubble around his head as punishment? I might; I might not. But that's exactly what someone in The Authority would do. And in the real world, readers "ooh" and "aah" about the portrayal, and sometimes they even applaud. It's an interesting situation. Other opinions about the topic?
You raise some interesting points, […]. For example, I've often wondered what I'd do with Green Lantern's ring and come to the conclusion you point out -- not much. It's not so much a fear of responsibility, as it is one of screwing up! I'd probably be willing to handle injustices that fell on my doorstep -- but as to the bigger questions, who am I to decide? In clear-cut cases like the slasher incident you describe, I'd have no problem with nabbing the bad guy and handing him over to the police. But I wouldn't kill him outright -- I haven't the right. And I'd be terrified of tackling more complex, gray-area issues.
And the Indonesia thing that The Authority did seems pointless to me -- if the Indonesians allowed one corrupt regime to rise, they'll simply allow another to take its place. Perhaps, if I really had the ring (and therefore didn't have to go to work every darn day!) I'd sit down, dream up an organization to TEACH people how to govern themselves. Then I could limit the brute force of the ring to simply preventing Army troops from shooting civilians and other obvious coercion.
Hmm. The more I think about it, the more complex it gets. It'll be interesting to see what discussion your questions raise.

Dear Cap: You're both a brave and a bold man for taking on Hawkman's history in your latest column. You covered it well, though.
One of the most interesting moments at last year's San Diego Comic-Con was when the JLA/JSA panel wrapped up and the moderator, Dan Raspler, asked die-hard Hawkman fans to remain behind. About half the audience left and the doors were closed. He then confessed that Hawkman's history was a "train wreck," that DC's writers and editors didn't know how to fix it, and that they were looking for ideas.
Hawkman fans around the room stood up in turn to theorize. I quickly realized that I was out of my league and totally unworthy of these Hawkman historians. I suppressed the urge to bolt for the door and sat still and listened as the diehards pleaded their cases before Mark Waid, Geoff Johns David Goyer and others.
There were plenty of interesting solutions from the audience. But Raspler said he was looking for something that could be explained away in two panels so that new readers could jump into the comic without having to understand Hawkman's convoluted past.
Well, that may have been too much to ask. I don't know. I certainly understand the benefits of a simply origin story, but it may be too late for that. Still, it was a fun panel, and that was when it was first announced that 2000 would be the Year of the Hawk. I'm happy to see they didn't shy away from the challenge. And it'll be interesting to see how they handle it.
Thanks for the background, [name withheld] -- I'd heard from a number of sources that DC was completely stumped on how to rescue Hawkman from his own twisted continuity, but I'd never heard where it originated. Now I know. And here's another Hawk-view:

Dear Cap: I just read your article about Hawkman. It was a very good read but I've never been a strong fan of Hawkman. Never loved him, never hated him. He's been barely a blip on my herometer (lol)!

So now most everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off over the wondrous return of Hawkman coming in the new JSA (which to me could stand for some improvement itself, I think the '92 JSA was much better -- excepting Steve Sadowski's art which I love, this new JSA is basically throwaway to me. It is kinda cute but I think it could stand to be much better than it is)! And now I'm sitting around reading various comic message boards wondering what's the big deal? Hawkman's just never done much for me!

If Hawkman took a permanent flying leap off the Earth I wouldn't much care. I might be a little sad for his fans but that would be all! (I'm a big fan of Obsidian so I can sympathize with the neglect/abuse syndrome that takes place with so many comic book characters & it's affect on their fans. In plain English, I HATE what JSA has done with Obie thus far. Making Obsidian, who was a somewhat troubled hero, into a villian was highly uncreative & obvious. Doesn't seem like much brainwork went into that idea. Now imagine the uproar there would've been if Charles Shultz had turned Charlie Brown evil in his Peanuts strip just because poor Chuck had many troubles? I think you get my drift! So while the JSA writers are planning their big Hawkman return party, I'm sitting around wondering what they'll do with Obsidian, who is my fave comics character, in the future!)

Now I don't hate Hawk-everything mind you. I do like the new Hawkgirl, Kendra Sanders, but I don't think even she'll be enough to make me like Hawkman!

But it does leave me in kind of an interesting position. I get to shake my head while watching people go crazy over a character who means little to me. Well, sometimes that can be fun!
I'm on record as wondering what use a guy with wings can possibly be on a major super-team. I can just imagine the first meeting of, say, the JLA:
Superman: Hi, I'm Superman! I can fly and my other amazing powers let me do anything I can imagine!
Green Lantern: And I'm Green Lantern! My ring lets me fly, and do just about anything I can imagine!
Wonder Woman: And I'm Wonder Woman! I can fly and my Amazonian powers allow me to do just about anything I can imagine!
Hawkman: Hi, I'm Hawkman! My wings let me fly, and, uh ... well, I can dust real good!
Ah, well. At least he looks really sharp.

Dear Cap: I (just) read Batman: No Man's Land (by Greg Rucka). Two BIG probs -- the whole Escape From New York premise was tough to swallow (though the political wrap-up was good), and the idea that Bats would desert Gotham for the first three months (not to mention the first NIGHT!) was absurd to me. However, I will say that it was a damn good read -- all the characters were well rounded, especially Oracle, Two-Face, Montoya, Cassandra, & Huntress. And the reunion with Batman & Gordon brought tears to my eyes. Honorable mention should go to Garrett, Penguin, Mercy and Luthor as well, not to mention Joker (Nighty-Knight -- heh) & Harley. Even with my reservations, I'd love to see this done as a miniseries on HBO. Regardless, I'm glad I waited for the novel -- methinks Mr. Rucka's storytelling (and my own visualizations, minus TOO many artists) had much to do with the enjoyment.
I also had real problems with Batman abandoning Gotham in its moment of greatest need. I just didn't get it -- what, he was so traumatized that he just wandered away? Huh? When Gordon, Oracle and others lit into him for it, I have to say I thought they were completely justified.
But, like you, I so enjoyed seeing Montoya, Bullock and other "minor"characters being fleshed out in full 3-D novel form that I forgave everything else. It really added to my enjoyment of NML -- in fact, it contributed to my being able to get over the ridiculous premise to be able to enjoy NML at all!

Dear Cap: Congratulations on a great article!

Your story writing and storytelling was magnificent. As I was reading, I felt this prickly sensation on my arms. I looked down to see what it was and, lo and behold, I had goose bumps. It was as if I was reading once again an exciting adventure of those Mighty Marvel Misfits. Job well done.

Excelsior!
Thanks, [withheld]! Apparently my "Who Are The X-Men" article ran in the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a number of other newspapers that normally don't carry me. I was also interviewed by U.S. News & World Report, Harper's and a few other big-name magazines and radio stations -- and my movie review was quoted in The New York Times. I suspect this "X-Men" thing took most major news organs by surprise, and they found themselves needing "X-perts" on pretty short notice. I think my 15 minutes are over, though -- everybody knows who the X-Men are now!

Dear Cap: Believe it or not, some of us find Claremont's X-Men "fun," cliches and all. "Comics are supposed to be fun" -- that is something that I thought was your motto. That is what I like about your site. You have always seemed to me to be a person who recognized superhero comics to be a craft and not an art. That's why it is fun, the creators do not get too serious about it and neither should the readers. The creators are serious to the point that they want to make a decent living and the readers are serious to the point where they will spend their money on the product. But that's as far as it goes.

So why do you have to bash Chris Claremont every week? It is getting old with me and I really enjoy your site except for the weekly Claremont-bashing. I was an original "Marvel-maniac" in the '60s and '70s. I made some "forays" into DC during that period and I really felt that what I read (maybe it was the wrong stuff) was crap. But that's cool and I enjoy reading the dialogue that you have with others regarding the trivia of that period.

But, from what you've said, the Claremont-Byrne period of Uncanny X-Men was the only interesting run in that comic. So, what were you reading during that period -- while many people were reading Uncanny?

It's OK that you don't like the guy (Claremont), it's OK for you to express that opinion (you have every right on your web site), but why not chill out and follow the title for a while? Maybe you could find the groove that was there when Byrne was working with him. Maybe the right artist could bring back the magic. I think the artist has alot to do with how Claremont's work comes across.

I don't think it's for the good of anyone for you to bash Claremont every week. You like it, you don't like it, you don't have to buy it if you don't want to. It's craft, it's there if you want to collect it. If you don't, you don't buy it and that's the biggest message you can send. You don't have to trash it on your web site every week.

The thing is, Claremont's return to the X-Men is a somewhat special situation. You have every right, and we expect you, to be a critic, but I think just a little respect for the past is called for on your part.

As I did with John Byrne, I've probably allowed the criticism of Claremont to go far beyond what is strictly necessary. You're right; a moratorium of snotty remarks is hereby called.

Dear Cap: All right, so I'm a geek. I was checking out your Comic Book Continuum page, and I spotted the following:
<<In fact, the Captain is still wondering why the X-Men's Storm switched to a mohawk-and-black-leather look a decade ago, then switched back to her Earth-goddess persona without a word balloon of explanation. (Perhaps she was jealous of the attention Black Canary was getting.)>>
Now, given that you wrote this on Saturday, June 27, 1998, it's probable that you've already figured this out or have reached a point where you no longer care. But, in case you're still curious, Storm undergoes her Punk-stage as a result of her ordeal with the Brood (and her peculiar relationship with Dracula); her prolonged absence from Earth, her alien relationship with and subsequent separation from the Space Whale (Asanti?), and the decline of her relationship with Kitty Pride (who is, after all, growing up) leave her feeling emotionally unbalanced. Whereas most of us would just have a beer and get over it, she goes over the edge, 'hawks her hair, and affects a punk return to her thiefy roots. Following Secret Wars, Storm rediscovers her balance, and the mohawk goes. Thank God. Then she gets shot by Forge's power-zapper, yadda-yadda-yadda. By the time she gets her powers back, she's pretty much back to her old self. Whew.

Any other questions? :-)
And you say, "Just a moment, I've almost finished If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino."
Don't worry about being a geek, [withheld] -- we're all geeks on this bus. Anyway, thanks for the Storm update. We actually did get around to discussing it later, and my point then remains my point now: That when Claremont actually got around to explaining the mohawk, not only was it a flimsy explanation but it had taken so long I no longer cared.

Dear Cap: Some unsolicited thoughts on DC 2000:

1) The artwork is great! I particularly noticed that in the 1941 scenes Jay Garrick was drawn in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way he was drawn in the Flash Comics reprints that I've seen in the past.

2) I disapprove strongly of the way The Spectre's character has been retconned into the "Spirit of Vengeance". My first exposure to DC Comics was in the giant-sized reprints which were available when I was a kid (I just turned 37) and I remember espcially a reprint of All Star Comics 3,with the first meeting of the JSA. I expect I was a fairly rare phenomenon in those days, a seven-year-old who knew more about the Jay Garrick Flash than he did the Barry Allen Flash. At any rate, The Spectre was not portrayed then the way he is now. Now I grant that a character has to change with the times or risk losing interest, but did The Spectre have to be made so vicious and vindictive? Good grief, for the JSA it would be like working with a ticking time-bomb that might at any moment decide to go off and wipe out the human race!

3) T.O. Morrow has always seemed to be an extremely inadequate villain for the JLA. Young Justice maybe, but not the JLA. They're doing their best to make him seem interesting but I can't shake the feeling that Per Degaton is going to show up in Part Two and sue Morrow for what The Rock has called "gimmick infringement" ("FINALLY, Per Degaton has come BACK to 1941!").

4) I've always loved time-travel stories, but by the same token, they're all prey to the basic pitfall of all time-travel stories, and that is if you change your own past you're liable to encounter our old friend Grandfather Paradox.

5) Oh no, it's the old "Heroes meet, heroes must fight" trick! As Agent 86 would no doubt say, "That's the third time I've fallen for that one this week!" (As an aside, how come "Nick at Nite" can show us endless episodes of Gilligan's Island, but we never see a single episode of Get Smart? Or is it all over on "TV Land"? Why doesn't my cable system carry TV Land? Arrh!) Why is it heroes who can defeat the Antichrist's Evil Twin so frequently betray an utter ignorance of basic human psychology? Have the JLA already forgotten how they felt when they met Justice Legion A? I realize the League was trying to make this a stealth mission to avoid further disruption of the timestream, but didn't they have any plan for what to do in case they met the Society? Was having J'onn J'onzz sneak down to the cellar to nab the stuff the BEST plan the combined intellects of the JLA could come up with?

Ah, well. Maybe some of these issues will be resolved in Part Two. Despite my rantings, it's not so bad of a story that I'm not looking forward to the conclusion.

Thanks for listening.
And thanks for writing, [name withheld]!

I have to admit I'm also a bit annoyed at the "retconning" of The Spectre to make him more like his current persona back in the '40s. The JSA was a pretty happy-go-lucky crew, and The Spectre was always depicted in those old stories as just "one of the boys." Heck, he used his fists as often as the other guys, and his dialogue was that weird comic-book '40s slang that existed nowhere in real life.
However, my real objection is that it doesn't make sense for The Spectre to be the fierce, frightening Spirit of Vengeance in the '40s. The other Justice Society members would have been horrified by such a teammate -- and probably would have tried to put him down. And over in Starman it's been established that Ted Knight didn't really believe The Spectre was a ghost -- and when he was confronted with undeniable proof of the supernatural (after the war), he actually lost his mind. Further, having The Spectre this horrific vision undercuts the point of the series; to wit, that the JSA is shocked and appalled by modern superheroing -- which The Spectre now represents. Phooey.
Also, I'm disappointed that the JLA resorted to trickery and chicanery to get the modern weapons back. God knows both the JLA and the JSA have been involved in all sorts of time-traveling adventures -- heck, their Wonder Woman was a time-traveling Hippolyta, according to John Byrne's Wonder Woman stint. It just beggars credulity that Wonder Woman wouldn't have gone back in time, talked to her mother, and gotten the weapons back. Just that simple, and just the sort of thing Diana would have suggested.
Still and all, I can overlook most of this for the fun of seeing the JSA in their prime again.

Hey Cap: You recently wrote that you're overly conscious of avoiding Christian iconography for fear of insulting Muslims or Jews. That hit a nerve with me. You see, I think a lot of writers go out of their way to insult Christians. I don't mean to implicate you, Cap; I've never felt insulted by you. Rather, you seem to treat all of your readers and correspondents with respect. You just happened to stumble into something that's been bothering me since I read last week's Promethea.

I know that Alan Moore isn't a Christian, so I don't expect him or his characters to act as if they are. But in the middle of last week's issue, someone invoked the name of Christ in Promethea's presence. She responded by yelling, "You dare? You dare invoke the name of Christ? When you have murdered? When you have made compact with hell?" She continued, saying, "The Lord Christ is more kin to me than you could ever comprehend. We are both sacred. We are both stories ..."

Now, I understand Promethea's indignation that those who were trying to assassinate her would beg her "in Christ's name." What I don't understand is why Mr. Moore couldn't have ended with "the Lord Christ is more kin to me than you could ever comprehend." The story loses nothing if he ends the statement there. Instead, Mr. Moore introduced us to his philosophy of religion, one in which Jesus Christ is no more real than Promethea, in which Jesus Christ is just a sacred story, something like a Superman. He didn't have to do it. But he did. He went out of his way to insult Christians (and Muslims, too, who at least believe that Jesus was a historical prophet).

I have to confess, this wasn't entirely unexpected. Having read interviews with Alan Moore, I knew something of his religious leanings. And knowing the premise of Promethea, I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier. I guess I'm just hurt, and a little bitter. Why is it okay to insult or offend Christians? Why do writers go out of their way to do it?

I'm not quite ready to give up on Alan Moore's work. I enjoy his writing skill too much to abandon him so quickly. But I can't read Warren Ellis anymore because he wrote two stories in less than a year that proclaimed, "There is no God." Not through characters either, but on one of those occasions as the narrator. I'm also relieved that Zauriel is out of the JLA. Honestly, I loved Zauriel and whenever Grant Morrison wrote him, he was a great character. But whenever somebody else got their hands on him in a cross-over or an 80-Page Giant, he became a cipher or a foil. He was a way to poke fun at Christians, either by having the angel tell them they're all wrong or by using Zauriel to portray the negative stereotypes.

Sorry about that, I just had to vent.
I'm glad you brought the issue back up, [withheld], because you've gone a long way toward explaining my "discomfort with overt Christian iconography" better than I did!
Because, not only am I worried that it will offend non-Christians, but it's a dead certainty to offend many Christians as well. When you establish anything about an existing religion as "fact," you're bound to offend SOMEone. Every word out of Zauriel's mouth is a minefield -- depending on the interpretation of the reader. Any innocuous statement can be read to mean that he does or does not support baptism, transubstantion, "born again" theology -- in short, almost anything can be interpreted to support or undermine one particular sect of Christianity over another. Heck, some sects of Christianity hold that angels are just mythology -- yet, lo and behold, here's an actual walking, talking angel as part of the JLA. And religion, by its very definition, is faith-based and interpretive -- any doubt of that, all you have to do is note how many different Christian sects interpret the Bible differently, while most claim it to be the literal word of God! From an objective viewpoint, the word of God shouldn't be open to interpretation -- but the reality of all those different sects establishes that it is.
A case in point about interpretation is the issue of Promethea that you mention. You were offended -- but here I am, raised Methodist, an editor trained to be anxious about religion, and I breezed right over that line. If you intertpret that dialogue as Alan Moore speaking, hitting us over the head with his view of the universe, then we BOTH have reason to be offended. But I didn't interpret it that way -- I saw it as the CHARACTER speaking. From that viewpoint, it's almost a compliment -- the character, being "story-based," sees other more-than-human concepts like Christ as kin -- as like her, also story-based. In that sense, it's good writing -- letting us get a glimpse into how Promethea evaluates the universe.
Which doesn't invalidate your point. I'm just illustrating my own, in that any discussion of religion in superhero comics is a disaster waiting to happen. In fact, I quite agree that mass media makes a hobby of ridiculing faith. The child-molesting priest, the fanatical cleric and the narrow-minded hellfire preacher are all cliches on TV and in the movies (and in the comics).
Further, I've got a larger point that I hope I can articulate. It is this: The establishment of the Judeo-Christian heirarchy in the DC Universe DIMINISHES the other characters. Batman has been established as believing in a God (however Old Testament), which tells us something of his worldview, his inner life, his opinions -- in short, makes him a more three-dimensional character ... IF IT'S BASED ON FAITH. But with the hosts of heaven marching down the Avenue of the Americas in Day of Judgment (and filmed on a million camcorders), and an actual angel in the JLA -- well, Batman would be a damn fool NOT to believe in God. Heaven and hell, God and the devil, the existence of souls -- these are all facts to Batman, like gravity. It tells us nothing about Batman at all that he is a deist. And it alters the DC Universe so fundamentally from our own (where we have no objective proof about the afterlife and must make life-altering decisions based on ephemeral faith) that these people really ARE different from us. They are straw men, and we have less in common with them.
I hope that makes sense, and I fully realize that everything I'VE just said will probably be interpreted by SOMEbody as offensive. But what the heck -- I wouldn't have my name in big red letters at the top of the page if I was thin-skinned.

Dear Cap: In a magazine I was reading on cartoons (I can't remember, it was years ago in Barnes and Nobles), it was noted that, originally, the Human Torch and Iceman would have guest starred in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. However, the fear that kids light themselves on fire, unlike other times, came up. (However, it never occurred to them that kids would lock themselves in old refrigerators to imitate Iceman.) So, Firestorm was created to replace the Human Torch, as she did not cover her body with flame. She has since been incorporated into the Marvel Universe. However, as noted, I don't remember the magazine where I read this, but many someone else will (or will come up with a similar source).

Anybody else remember?

Where can I find the CBG column? You're welcome.

1) Why can't heroes wear the same clothes everyday? I doubt Lois would get close to Clark if he was sweating and smelling. Would you?

2) With the exception of the Disney Tarzan movie and the recent Batman/Tarzan crossover, when was the last time Tarzan made a splash really? Sherlock Homes hasn't been seen in years with the exception of airing his old movies on a movie channel. Same goes with alot of the classic movie monsters. Although they have made a ton of vampire flicks when was the last time Dracula HIMSELF made a appearence.

3) I know comics are complete fiction. Plus, I'm not telling you what to buy, I'm just saying give new characters, costumes, ideas a chance. (Although the Spidey-Clone thing was horrible)

4) Could the reason be that comic sales are falling is that the public sees them as old hat. When you get right down to it Batman today isn't a whole lot different really then when he was first created. Could the public think they are outdated? (Batman is my favorite character by the way, I'm just using him as an example.)

You can see the CBG column in ... uh, well, CBG!

As to your other points, the debate goes on! Here's another view:

Dear Capn: I don't mean to hog your letters column, but there's more to this "realism in comics" issue than is being said. If realism is to be expected in comics, then a reassessment of our heroes is in order.

Take Superman. DC has tried to put realism into his stories, but they're pretty much only micro-realism -- about Superman himself (marriage, death, etc). But put Superman in our world today. If Supes REALLY wants to help this country, he could save the public billions by using his superspeed to help build foundations for new roads, bridges, etc.; build housing for the homeless; retrieve stolen (or illegally sold) technologies from despotic nations such as China; the list is truly endless. If Supes REALLY wanted to expose Luthor's criminal schemes, he could do so easily. But he'd rather play a game of cat and mouse. Which brings me to Batman ...

Batman, in a realistic perspective, is a joke. He's at least partly responsible for hundreds of deaths caused every year by Arkham Asylum escapees. For 60 years, Batman has played a cat-and-mouse game with The Joker (and others) with no real intention of ever putting an end to this lethal threat to society. Joker kills people; Batman throws him in Arkham; Joker escapes to kill more people; Batman throws him back in Arkham; and so on and so on. The Joker is completely un-rehabilitatable (same goes for the rest of Bats' rogues gallery) and Batman's a fool if he doesn't know it. Insanity has been defined as "doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result." That's Batman. Gotham City's 60 years of terror is a product of Batman's inability or unwillingness to solve it's problems. When push comes to shove, Bats plays games. He's been nothing more than a band-aid stuck on a cancer patient.

Superheroes just don't work well with realism. That's why the public at large has turned away from comics (which is synonymous with superheroes, unfortunately). They wonder why a man with Superman's powers or Batman's resources can't solve problems, but Dirty Harry Callahan, a cop with a pistol, can.

Funny, but when Hal Jordan used a very realistic solution to save/restore Coast City, he was cast as a villain. Hal could have saved millions of lives. But the true nature of superhero comics prevailed and Hal was deemed "evil" and thwarted. (But in Superman: The Movie, Supes alters time to save one life-- Lois Lane-- and the public at large believed he was justified in doing so.) Superman's one-time "realistic" solution remains an ignored/forgotten anomaly (when he killed the Phantom Zone criminals around ish 21).

Superheroes are unrealistic. Their problems are unrealistic. And their solutions, too, are unrealistic. Realism is a monkey wrench to the whole superhero structure. And forcing realism into it will expose the whole concept as a sham. They must be presented as allegory, or they just begin to look silly.

Well, if that doesn't start a firestorm, [name withheld], I dunno what will.

I admit to having some problems with the Batman/Joker thing -- I've long wondered why Batman hasn't "accidentally" let The Joker "slip" off a rooftop -- or, at the least, simply fail to save him when he's in jeopardy. But that wouldn't be very heroic, would it?

My real problem is that Gotham City justice system hasn't taken some action. Why is he always thrown into the revolving door that is Arkham? Why isn't a harsher penalty meted out by the courts?

In the real world, the cops caught Jeffrey Dahmer -- and the courts, recognizing a threat to society, dealt harshly with him. Damer was adjudged insane by court psychiatrists -- but he wasn't sent to a civilian asylum, he was found guilty and sent to a maximum-security prison (where, as fate would have it, he was killed by a fellow inmate -- something that was very, very likely to happen.)

My complaint isn't that Batman is unrealistic -- he does his job, capturing The Joker and turning him over to the authorities. My suspension of disbelief problems come from the court systems not dealing with him properly.

Dear Cap: Not exactly off topic, but I just had to wonder, having just seen the movie, what they thought they were doing with our favorite storm goddess.
Dunno. Halle Berry said in interviews that she felt like she was "slumming" in the role (she's saying nicer things about it now), and to be fair she really didn't have much to do. Maybe she'll be more prominent in the sequel.

Dear Cap: I'm sure you've gotten a lot of (unsolicited?) response about the X-Men movie. Here's my opinion, for the record: I enjoyed it immensely. I've got 20-plus years of comic-book reading experience to deal with, and I still loved the movie. So did my wife (also a comic-book fan). She's smitten with Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine.
On the down side, though, I actually liked the movie more than the current comic-book series. I almost wish they could start the X-Men titles over again. And I pity anyone who tries to pick up an X-comic book for the first time after being hooked by the movie.
I certainly agree with that last point; X-Men comics can be utterly confusing even for the knowledgeable readers. And is anyone in the Marvel Universe NOT a mutant any more?

Dear Cap: Yeah, I liked the X-Men movie too. Kudos to Hugh Jackman for his perfect portrayal of Logan (kinda wish he'd had more body hair, but that's Hollywood), Anna Paquin (not the Roque of the comics, but a real, genuinely troubled teenager), Stewart & McKellen (obviously), and -- surprisingly --
Rebecca Romjin-Stamos & Ray Park, for turning two secondary villains into characters that I looked forward to seeing on the screen. And another thanks to RRS -- mebbe now we'll see a bunch of Mystique "costumes" at Halloween & at future conventions, eh? A fanboy can dream ...
Surprisingly, the main criticism that I've heard from the mainstream press was that there wasn't enough of a "wow" factor. Roger Ebert said that this was one of the few films of this genre that could've benefited from MORE money in the F/X, and that forty-five minutes had been cut from the final running time. Mebbe the DVD will reinsert those! Anyway, I'm sure that the sequels will address these issues (it's the Sentinels in the second, with Phoenix slated for the third, right?)
I'm still a bit annoyed about the costumes. Oh, it didn't keep me from thorough enjoying the film ( I have seen it twice, which already puts it ahead of Phantom Menace) and I loved the comment Cyke made to Logan about yellow spandex, but I also heard (as with the Batman films) how the actors found it difficult to move or were sweating a lot in that heavy leather.
HELLOOO? My willing suspension of disbelief is finding it easier to swallow Toad's elastic tongue than athletes (the closest analogy) running around in hot leather!! If not Spandex, why not gortex? Hell, Lance Armstrong is sporting more colorful and practical garb in the Tour de France as we speak. Howzabout a Captain Comics contest for better X-Men movie costumes? You know we're all working on 'em now anyway -- except for Mystique, of course (drool ...).
I was also disappointed in Storm. Sorry, but I just don't think Halle Berry had the gravitas for that role. Ororo was worshipped as a goddess (which wasn't even mentioned), she wouldn't have any self-esteem problems; except for the scene with Toad she often seemed ready to morph into Anna Paquin's Rogue. In Berry's defense, her role was underwritten, and the focus was on Logan. I know many fans were rooting for Angela Bassett (and) I also think Lynne Whitfield (no relation) would've been good. An older actress at least -- Berry was hired for her cleavage.
As for the next Trek film ...When I first heard that the title for the last one was Insurrection, I had brief hopes that maybe we were finally going to see the long-awaited conclusion of Spock's mission on Romulus. Alas, 'twas not so. The Star Trek franchise leaves me yawning nowadays, which is sad considering I used to get such inspiration from that dream. They have such a huge panorama to play with -- why stick with the future, for instance? I'd love to see something like Spock's World get a movie or miniseries treatment. But I forgot -- Rick Berman doesn't really like Star Trek, does he?
Forgive me if I repeat myself, but I just dunno why the first Spider-Man film just doesn't focus on his origin. Spidey has Marvel's best origin: You've got teen angst, you've got wrestling, you've got celebrity culure and finally, tragedy & responsibility. We all know it's gonna be a franchise, don't crowd the origin just to get some colorful villains (who'll probably be all decked out in black leather -- grrrr!) so merchandising can have something to do! Save it for the next film! Have the X-Men cameo! Or the FF! Or the Avengers! Use the Marvel UNIVERSE, darnit! That's what always made them so much fun in the first place -- you never knew WHO was gonna pop up (the Impossible Man?)!
And Tobey Maguire would be an excellent Peter Parker! So what if he doesn't have the physique! Have the executives at Columbia READ any of the old Lee/Ditko issues? Have they seen what a skinny punk Pete was when he started out! Don't they realize what fun they could have with that in the script? Maquire could always tone up (not bulk up) for the following films, but it would be a hoot to have a good ol' skinny Spidey again! And if they're smart they'll be sure to have the scene with Pete going to the laundromat in his civvies and a paper bag to wash his costume for his TV appearance! (Yeah, I know that was in a later ish, but it would be so easy to splice in!)
Oh, no! You mean we already have to start worrying about them making a lousy Spidey movie?

Dear Cap: You wrote:
<<The establishment of the Judeo-Christian heirarchy in the DC Universe DIMINISHES the other characters. Batman has been established as believing in a God (however Old Testament), which tells us something of his worldview, his inner life, his opinions -- in short, makes him a more three-dimensional character ... IF IT'S BASED ON FAITH. >>
I could not agree more. Religious faith makes a character interresting, and if written well, can definitly expand a character, as long as its not too specific. Like your recent writer who saw Peter Parker as gay, even though the character was not written that way, I believe we all look for hooks that we can grab on to a charater with. Things that make them feel more like us. Well-written vagueness can be an excellent tool for accomplishing this, because it lets our own imaginations fill in the blanks.
As a pagan who worships some of the older deities that can be found in comics, I could take great offense at Thor being transformed into a blond Malibu surfer by Marvel Comics, or I can accept that we all see the universe our own way, and enjoy how that character overcomes great odds, and has a very stark and pronounced sense of duty and self value. Similarly I could bemoan the fact the once Dr. Strange met "God" in one of his comics, which could have easily been interpreted as the Judeo-Christian concept of God, but once again good writing saved the day.
As for what I would think if I was living in the DC Universe and had witnessed the hosts of heaven, or an angel in the JLA ... let's just say that it would be easy for Superman to claim to be the son of God, and with his powers make it very believable. It would also be very easy to see a man with wings and think him an angel, like Hawkman. In a universe full of fantastic powers and odd events, what you accept as proof or truth is a very subjective thing ... much like our own universe in that regard. It's one thing to think you are an angel, and another to prove it. Though I agree that perhaps DC should take a step back a little.
I really like that phrase: "well-written vagueness." DC's specificity is the very thing I'm questioning. When DC Comics establishes that the Judeo-Christian God and Heaven and Hell exist in a specific and objective way -- well, it's simply exclusionary. Not only to non-Christians, but I think to a variety of Christian sects and quite possibly to most individuals as well. You as a pagan must feel some sense of exclusion -- and so do I, despite being a nice Southern boy reared a Methodist. The ecclesiastical world established in stone at DC doesn't match the one I was taught, nor does it dovetail with the faith structure I've built in my head. Certainly we're all grown-ups and recognize fiction when we see it, but it just seems like common sense for DC and other publishers to avoid specificity and attempt "well-written vagueness" so that we can all fit the story we're reading into our own worldview. It just seems to me like they're dancing with dynamite.
By contrast, there was a great Swamp Thing story a decade or so ago where The Spectre or the Phantom Stranger or somebody is walking Swampy through Hell and he is surprised to see all these Thanagarians and Oans and Kryptonians and whatnot experiencing all kinds of weird torments and pleasures. Swamp Thing notes that he thought they were in the Judeo-Christian Hell and The Spectre (or the Stranger) says something to the effect of: "Well, everybody has their own idea about what they deserve in the afterlife -- and they all get it." It was just a throwaway bit, but it had me thinking for days, and it was just the sort of "well-written vagueness" that let me draw my own conclusions.
And speaking of the Stranger, I thought it brilliant when he was featured in Secret Origins No. 10 -- and he had four origins! In one he was an angel who refused to pick sides during Lucifer's fall (and was sentenced to never be able to pick sides again), in another he was the Wandering Jew, in another he was a Diogenes-type and a pagan ... at the end of it, he basically said: "Hey, pick the one you like!"
On your last topic, if I was Superman or Hawkman, I doubt I'd leap to the conclusion that I was Jesus or an angel. We've seen plenty of stories where characters with godlike powers make that assumption, and they're the BAD guys! The subtext I've always gotten from comics is that humility is an intrinsic part of being a hero.
Thanks for making me think, [name withheld]!

Hello, Cap: The site's occasional discussions of religious matters always fascinate me. I generally agree with you about the risks comics creators run by integrating "living" belief systems into comics mythology. It's far less likely to offend readers (and therefore a wiser course) to tap into "obsolete" religions (the Norse, Egyptian and Greco-Roman pantheons, etc.) or invent new ones when mystical or godlike characters are needed.

The recent exchanges about Wonder Woman's decision to cover her skin before entering a Mosque, however, strikes me as a far different matter -- one of earthly human respect rather than theology or sexual politics. With a disclaimer on not having read the story in question, I must assume that WW wouldn't pause to don extra togs in an emergency. She was therefore entering the Mosque when worshippers -- entitled to exercise their beliefs without disruption or discourtesy -- were present, or likely to be. Regardless of her views on Islamic law, it would be incalculably insulting -- to male and female worshippers alike -- to enter a Mosque in her gravity-defying swimsuit.

On this level, WW's covering up is no different from Superman putting on a yarmulke in an Orthodox Synagogue, or Jay Garrick removing his doughboy helmet upon entering a Cathedral. These are customary behaviors expected from visitors of any faith who enter one of those houses of worship. Any considerate person -- much less a heroic one -- would abide by them (or choose not to enter). Furthermore, any reasonable person would understand that by making those accommodations, s/he is not necessarily endorsing the belief system that prevails in that house of worship; rather s/he is showing (human) consideration for those who DO believe. (On a far more pragmatic level, adding the extra clothing presumably spared WW the practical problem of having innocent worshippers protest her appearance, try to throw her out, etc. -- and the risk of having to use force against bystanders to accomplish whatever she needed to do in the Mosque.)

Admittedly, as a demigoddess, it would require a great deal of humility and compassion for Wonder Woman to accommodate any other religious law -- much less one that has historically been used to oppress women (which would include Mosaic and Christian law, as well as Islam and many others). But, absent a fundamental respect and compassion for humankind and its myriad beliefs, fallacies and failings, a being with WW's origins would NEVER bother to play the superhero game. (Ditto for Thor and Hercules -- two characters whose mythological swagger make them even less likely than an Amazon to defer to human folly).

With full heroic intent, for the "good" of all humans, WW could easily -- and may well have in an Elseworld somewhen -- use her lasso to "evangelize" her own belief system to the world at large, or even set up a cult that worships and pays tribute to herself . She doesn't do so in "our" world because she subscribes to a humanistic notion of live-and-let-live tolerance. Not coincidentally, given her star-spangled getup -- that humanistic tolerance is largely an American value -- in theory, at least, if all too often not in practice.

It'd be interesting to see how (American-spawned) heroes would handle a fundamentalist-religious super-being, infused with evangelical zeal and godly righteousness, who subscribed to a "living" creed with evangelical tenets. Proselytizers with belief systems sufficiently "other" to avoid (obvious) overlap with "living" religions are usually seen as villains. Think Darkseid; Ares in the Silver Age WW pantheon; (occasionally) Loki and Mephisto; or even Apollo in Star Trek's "Who Mourns Adonis?". How would Justice Leaguers or Avengers respond if telepathy were suddenly conferred upon, say, a Jesuit missionary, or a Hare Krishna, or an Ayatollah, and that individual began using his/her powers to lead others down the "correct path?" I don't suppose we'll ever know, and it's probably best that way, for the reasons spelled out at the start of this missive. Fun to ponder these things, though, through the safe lens of comics.

Thanks as always for your good work.

Thanks for your thoughts, […]! But I have to note that I receive a lot of letters from pagans, who do not consider Norse or Graeco-Roman belief systems "obsolete." One of the dangers of these sorts of discussions is that incautious phrasing can so easily offend someone.

As to the rest of your points, you make them well and I generally find myself in agreement.

Dear Cap: Geez, now I feel bad about criticizing such a likeable person as yourself (about Claremont-bashing). I kind of feel now that I need to make some sort of concession also.

I know, maybe it's about time that I spent a little more cash and experienced some of the other comic titles out there, besides my old X-standbys regardless of who publishes them. The area that I live in is woefully lacking in comic shops so this will give me a little incentive for a little road trip now and then.

Your site is the greatest. And again, thanks so much for your thoughtful responses to our e-mails. There are other great sites out there but yours is very "comfy" for us old-timers who still find the whole thing entertaining, regardless of whatever ups and downs the comic industry is going through.

I appreciate the kind words, [name withheld]! I think "comfy" may be the nicest thing I've ever been called ... !

Dear Cap: Decent story on comic-books and film in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/072500comics-xmen.html
Thanks, [name withheld]! As usual with mainstream press pieces, they're not exactly dead on, but pretty interesting, anyway.

Dear Capn: Maybe you're right, I'm transposing the '70s revision of '50s Captain America onto the real thing, but I still have this feeling I saw panels from the '50s comic of him and Bucky beating up a group of 3 black men, playing cards in a warehouse, sitting on orange crates and supposedly involved in Communist organizing. Was it in Steranko's History of Comics or another book? I can't remember. You wrote:
<<The 1950s Captain America wasn't a "Negro-basher" to my knowledge. Atlas Comics (later Marvel) attempted to revive the character in "Captain America Comics" 76-78, "Young Men" 24-28 and "Men's Adventures" 27-28 in 1954 -- but apparently they didn't sell, as the character lapsed back into limbo until his triumphant return in "Avengers" 4 (1964). I've only read two reprints from that period, and neither depicted Cap as a racist -- but they DID depict him as an almost laughably rabid anti-Communist, something he WASN'T in World War II, when the Soviets were U.S. allies. (The Red Skull, formerly a Nazi mastermind, had an entirely new reason to be "red" in the '50s!)>>

But I have a working theory the young Stan Lee was at Timely or National when it was publishing that racist stuff, if it includes blacks or not ("yellow scum" is well attested), and the young editor might have been greatly ashamed of being a 1950s almost white American later, when racism went out of fashion. There's no way he would ever let those things be reprinted. The attempt to cover up would explain the need to create 4 Captain Americas (or are there more now? Was Spirit of '76 a real Captain America?).

They already passed the media law I mentioned. The Lithuanian parliament adopted it last week. That means we will now have two state censorship agencies making sure everything is fit to print before it gets printed. Things like bureaucrats' bank accounts are strictly off-limits, the range of the law is so broad, it reads almost like the Comics Code manifesto or code, I guess it is, more correctly. A wide brush, based on appearances, public norms and so on. Free speech can't be at the mercy of the whims of politicians anymore than it can be at the mercy of public whim. I'm really upset by this. It is a step backward for my adopted country, back to the days of Soviet censorship, when everything had to pass muster at Glavlit before it was published, shown or otherwise distributed.

I know it might not be very interesting to an outsider, but the Lithuanian media went the way of self-regulation, in 1997 or so. They formed a Media Ethics Commission to review cases of defamation, violation of law (we have laws banning "the divulgance of personal lives, the impugnment of a person's dignity" and so on in the press), and most (with one exception) media outlets signed on to the new insitution voluntarily. It has worked phenomenally better than the CCA worked, in the sense that it hasn't closed down newspapers and squeezed quality out of the market. It's a screwed-up situation and the parallels are many with America ca. 1950.

I've been studying journalism at Vilnius University for one year. Most of my time is spent on arcanities of the Lithuanian language and poring over legislation. When we do something besides that, we talk about how great the media in the USA is. I know better, because I've seen how wimpy networks have gotten even wimpier, how interviewers who never knew the hard questions to ask to begin with have slipped into solipistic sillogies between the "pundits," usually those abhorrent round-table discussions between journalists which should be left off the TV screens and take place in seamy bars in Jakarta. Be that as it may, America commands a lot of respect, for its democracy, traditions of freedom and other reasons, among which is the wealthier ,healther lifestyle Americans enjoy.
So what I want to do is point out that freedom didn't come easily, there were points along the timeline in this most actual of worlds were the censors and fearmongers almost ruined the day, and sometimes did. CCA is a case in point. I want to counterpose two comics: "Judgment Day" by Orlando in EC's Weird Science Fantasy and Captain America out on a rampage beating up ethnic miorities. The first was rejected by CCA, because it pictured a black man as an astronaut, an impossible thing in 1950s America. The second totally went by CCA without any problems (or maybe racist CA was BEFORE the CCA came into existance? Help me here, please!), or at least fit social norms and hence wasn't subject to censorship. In one case a tale of morality is banned, in another an immoral story is a role model for children. How fickle the whims of ever-changing society. That's what I want to show, and I want to compare the CCA code with the Lithuanian Media Law, since both use almost the same language (if it's translated, I mean!) to outlaw things somebody doesn't like.

<<Several storylines over the years established that Captain America and Bucky from late 1945 to 1950 (when Cap's series was canceled the first time) was actually a series of imposters hired by the U.S. government to fool the public into believing that Cap and Bucky were still alive. There were plenty of candidates, since red-white-and-blue heroes were as common as rocks during the war. One such character was Jeff "The Patriot" Mace, whose demise was chronicled in CA 284-285.>>

I think I have some issues from that period lying around. Captain America is the ultimate in public relations. A real symbol of America -- the good, the bad. I don't think they should have made him schizophrenic, I think the real explanation for 1950s Captain America lies in the American soul itself.

<<For your purposes, though, there's no dearth of cautionary tales from the '50s. The launch of the hypocritical and draconian Comics Code was just part of a larger picture, in which the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), radio demagogue Father Coughlin and Sen. "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy had outsized influence -- and not for the better. The acquisition by the USSR of atomic weapons,>>

And the Baltic states! Much of 1950s U.S. policy was based on the Riga Doctrine, otherwise known as "containment." There's a story of pathos in how Western intelligence agencies promised aid to Baltic partisians, who fought into the 1980s anyway (well, there were some old guys left hiding in the forests in Estonia and Lithuania, some say until independence in 1990 even. Most were killed off in the 1950s with some notable holdouts until 1965), and then never delivered, or were thoroughly hoodwinked by dupe Soviet operations pretending to be authentic partisians, Soviet agents gaining access into Western intelligence circles that way.

<<followed by Sputnik and coupled with their rabid anti-U.S. rhetoric ("We will bury you!")>>

Freeman Dyson the nuclear physicist pointed out the phrase sounds less ominous in Krushchev's native Ukrainian, where it is a folk saying meaning simply, we will outlive you, our way is better than yours.

<<had Americans building bomb shelters, doing "duck and cover" drills in elementary schools, watching the skies for nuclear armageddon -- and looking under every bed for the Red Menace. By current standards, none of it was rational -- and yet, there it was: The world's greatest democracy in the grip of horrific paranoia, and curtailing the very rights of man that are our greatest pride. (For a current comic-book look at this period, read Realworlds: Wonder Woman by DC Comics -- it's excellent.)>>

I can't get comics here at all! Wah!

<<As to Gaines, HUAC was trying to determine if comics caused juvenile delinquency, and what the other publishers had against him primarily was that he was OUTSELLING them all.>>

There's the smell of that in the new Lithuanian censorship law as well.

<<There could well have been some anti-Semitism involved from some quarters, but since most comics publishers (and many creators) were Jewish it seems unlikely. (Archie and Atlas, for example, were published/owned by Jews. Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz, Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Jack Kirby and many, many other major comics players were also Jewish.) The Code was specifically worded to outlaw Gaines's top books: Vault of Horror, Crypt of Terror, Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, etc. (For a complete version of all the Comics Codes and a thorough -- although boringly pedantic -- analysis, read Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code, by Amy Kiste Nyberg, Mississippi Press.) And, while Gaines's performance before HUAC was an extraordinary botch job -- he was on painkillers and diet pills and made an absolute fool of himself -- it's rarely remembered that HUAC ruled in FAVOR of comics But it was too late -- the witch hunt had begun.>>

I thought Gaines was joking about Johny's cover, you know, the one with the severed head, until I looked at it carefully. You can't actually tell if the head is severed, whether the body lying on the floor belongs to the head. In a way, it IS tasteful!

<<I hope that helps. As I said, I'll post your question and my response this week, and see if the Legion of Superfluous Heroes can fill in some of the blanks.>>

Thanks Cap! You're a great help. What I need most of all is to get the timeline down: Were the Captain America 1950s books handled by CCA? Did they have to go through that, or were they too early?

Brief answers to your letter:
1) I couldn't find Cap story you mentioned in Steranko's History of Comics.
2) The Spirit of '76 was indeed one of the Cap imposters.
3) I'm sorry to hear the law passed in Lithuania. It's amazing how frightened people in power are of other people speaking their minds freely.
4) Americans who know about post-war U.S. policy toward the Baltics generally have the courtesy to be deeply ashamed.
5) I have no doubt you're right that Kruschev's remark about burying the U.S. was a product of language differences. But, you have to admit, nobody in the U.S. in the '50s would have known that -- or had any reason to suspect it. I mean, the man was beating on the podium with his shoe! So, to Americans, it looked to be a serious threat.
6) Gaines said in later interviews that he was really trying to make a serious point that, for a horror comic, they WERE being tasteful. But he regretted how badly he explained it.
7) If you can't get comics in Lithuania, order them from the Internet! I recommend The Westfield Co. highly, or Another Universe, Wizard or My Comics Shop.
8) Some Legionnaires did write in about Cap in the '50s. See the Q&A this week, and the letter below.

Dear Cap:
The Earth-Two Batman died in Adventure Comics 462. Jeff Mace did not die in costume. He died of cancer at the age of 85. You were thinking of the Spirit of '76, who was killed by Adam II.
<<With the exception of the Disney Tarzan movie and the recent Batman/Tarzan crossover, when was the last time Tarzan made a splash really? Sherlock Homes hasn't been seen in years with the exception of airing his old movies on a movie channel.>>
The last straight Sherlock Holmes movie (excluding off-beat projects such as Young Sherlock Holmes and Without a Clue) was Murder By Decree from 1979. Several upcoming possible film projects include a Dracula film (which partially answers part of below) based on a story made for the screen, and adaptions of pastiches by David Stuart Davies, Laurier R. King, and Michael Dibdin.
TV projects with Holmes released in the 1980's and 1990's included Ian Richardson and Christopher Lee's telemovies/miniseries. Most comprehensive, however, was the Jeremy Brett adaptions, shown on A&E and PBS. It was considered by many to be among the most important attempts to adapt the stories.
Admittedly, as Alan Eyles has pointed out in Sherlock Holmes: A Cennetary Celebration, no Sherlock Holmes film released in modern times has been a major hit. However, remember that in the first place that the Basil Rathbone movies weren't A-list films, either (with the exception of the first two). When they came out, they were second feature B-movies.
But, over time, they kept a stable group of fans and thus had their impact. Keep in mind that staying power cannot be judged by your success at the present time alone. Robert E. Howard's Conan stories caught the public's attention in the 1960s and 1970s with eye-popping Frank Frazetta covers, and the movie adaptions in the 1980s, though only moderate hits in the U.S., were still many times more successful overseas than any Sherlock Holmes movie; yet, today, none of the collections of Howard's stories in book form are in print. (Indeed, if the Baen collections of Howard's short stories go out of print, none of Howard's fiction at all will be in print.)
To continue the comparison, many books that were turned into movies that were manyfold more successful than any Sherlock Holmes film (both domestically and overseas) are now out of print. (First Blood, for example, as well as the Shaft series of books. And also the books that Die Hard was based on ...) Yet, the Sherlock Holmes stories have not been out of print for 40 years. And, though as noted, Holmes has not made a straight movie appearance in over 20 years, the character still has a level of fame unmatched by most other fictional creations. Remember that, sometimes, even if you can't be in the lead in the race, its at least worth it to stay in it.

<<Same goes with alot of the classic movie monsters. Although they have made a ton of vampire flicks when was the last time Dracula HIMSELF made a appearence?>>
Well -- Bram Stoker's Dracula, with Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein brought back the Frankenstein's Monster (with Robert De Niro in the part).

<<Superheroes just don't work well with realism. That's why the public at large has turned away from comics (which is synonymous with superheroes, unfortunately). They wonder why a man with Superman's powers or Batman's resources can't solve problems, but Dirty Harry Callahan, a cop with a pistol, can.>>

Well, you've appealed to what the most successful movies are for your ideas. Then, let's examine some of the most successful movies of all time. (I'll keep it to non-comic book based films). Movies tha made the list of the 40 most successful movies of all time. Movies that were even more successful than the Dirty Harry movies. (As were, by the way, some of the Superman and Batman movies.)
Star Wars -- as stylized as Superman or Batman, I should think. (Actually, owes much to the New Gods). (Fun fact: the last Star Wars movie came out as recently as 1999 -- but the last Dirty Harry movie came out in 1988)
Indiana Jones -- less sytlized than Superman or Batman, but still a tad stylized compared to the Dirty Harry movies (Indiana Jones owes much to Doc Savage -- who was also an inspiration for Superman and Batman, incidentally).
The James Bond films -- okay, this should, intuitively, be in the Conservative, anti-gay Scottish Presbyterian class with the Dirty Harry movies, which they outnumber. That they are British does not exclude them. Who says the British can't do Conservative Scottish anti-gay Presbyterians? Just look at Northern Ireland's Loyalist groups -- some are as fanatical as American militias or the Ku Klux Klan!
(Not that I seek to slur any Conservatives or Presbyterians. I would not slur the Scots, who are cousin Celts, no matter what their form of Christianity. Our Celtic identity owes nothing to or loses anything because of Jesus. One must remember that Jesus was not only not Celtic, but he was not white. Our Celticity is for us to defend, the Church is for our soul.)
But, these films are far more stylized than the Dirty Harry movies. In fact, these films have often been referred to as comic-book movies or superhero movies. Note that these films got more sytlized as the Dirty Harry movies (and other R-rated, gritty thrillers) started to come out. Note that attempts to destylized these films have failed.
<<Superheroes are unrealistic. Their problems are unrealistic. And their solutions, too, are unrealistic. Realism is a monkey wrench to the whole superhero structure. And forcing realism into it will expose the whole concept as a sham. They must be presented as allegory, or they just begin to look silly.>>
Well, while the Dirty Harry characthers are more mimetic than superheroes, there is a certain amount of suspension of disbelief even with these characters. The latter Dirty Harry movies (Sudden Impact, Deadpool), as noted by some critics, particularly showed a degree of sytlizing. (You fall in the sea and you are dry five minutes later! )
How stylized a work is does not form the sole criteria for a work's success or failure. (Consider that similar movies like Cobra, I, the Jury, and Year of the Dragon have failed. None of these movies were superhero movies, and all were R-rated.) While one's personal enjoyment is a function of one's personality, a work's public success is based on a multiplicity of factors.
(Final, interesting digression: there were few super-hero movies made during the time that the early Dirty Harry movies came out. But then, poor special effects made superhero movies impossible at the time of the early Dirty Harry movies. Consider: during the Golden Age of comics, when comic books had spectacular print runs in the 1930s and 1940s, super-heroes didn't light up the cinema either -- it was more cowboys or private eyes.)
An issue I and Jess Nevins (who does a great annotations page) is whether DC ever owned the rights to Sherlock Holmes the way they owned the rights to the Shadow. Nevins said that they did. DC, after all, has put out some of the more recent Holmes appearances in comic books: Detective Comics 572, Eclipso 8-9, The Big Book of Bad (hand an entry on Moriarty), Big Book of the Unexplained (brief Holmes appearance), and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 5. Besides which, that last series uses many characters (Moriarty, Mycroft) from the Doyle stories in other issues. Is the use of the Sherlock Holmes characters in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen covered by any liscensing agreement DC has with the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate? But what complicates this further is that Holmes has also appeared in fairly recent comics from ACG, Malibu, Caliber and Moonstone.
Thanks for your insights, […]!

Dear Cap: Usually I think that your opinions are the end-all-be-all when it comes to comics and those characters that populate our funnybooks. However, I completely disagree with your recent statements about Hawkman. You stated that a character whose only ability was the gift of flight was basically useless in terms of the powers of other superheroes. I could not disagree more. First, flight aside, Hawkmen (GA and SA versions) are great hand-to-hand combatants, brilliant leaders, great combat skills, and the SA Hawkman is well versed in not only many ancient weapons, but several Thanagarian (futuristic) weapons as well. On those merits alone, Hawkman can hang with anybody in the DCU (or Marvel for that matter). Secondly, if a hero who can only fly is unneccesary, then what about non-powered heroes such as Batman, Black Canary, etc? They would be even more redundant. Surely you arent suggesting that the Bat is out of his depth are you? Hawkman has proven his worth in the DCU. Now a lot of fanboys would start up that whole business of what use is he against a Darksied, Maggedon or even a Galactus. Simple truth is that a character whether it be Hawkman, Superman, Batman or Ma Hunkel can defeat anyone in the comic-book universe as long as the writers want it to happen.

Cap, I love you man. but you owe Carter and Katar an apology.

I'd feel funny apologizing to fictional characters, […] -- but I promise to take it easy on the Feathered Fury while waiting for what I hope will be a decent resurrection later this year.

Dear Cap: I believe that the Dark Knight of DC comics can be held up as an example to persons if you wish to teach them the value of being the best that you can be in whatever career that you choose to get into. I am talking about concentrating on the fact that he has trained himself to be a master of the martial arts, a grade-A detective and olympic-level athlete in the preparation and effective execution of his craft in the "caped crusader" trade. There is a value to preparing yourself properly for all aspects of the career of your choice, you may not be invincible all of the time but it establishes a mindset within yourself that carries over to every job that you are in. Always remember, such an attitude in the little jobs carries over into the large ones.

I've discovered on this Web site alone that a profound focus on the job at hand makes it not only easy, but inevitable. That explains a lot of human history, doesn't it?

Dear Cap: A-hah ... leafing through Amazing Heroes 13, I find Lou Mougin's Thor article. He notes that circa Thor 301, after the Celestials had destroyed the Destroyer (which all Asgardians had been possessing save for Thor), Thor went on his tour of the Marvel pantheons. It was then that he met Shiva, and fought him. Shiva was inaccurately portrayed, so that one Hindu theologian wrote in to the Comics Buyers' Guide's "Fit to Print" column in protest. The theologian backed up his complaint with a copy of a picture of Shiva from an Indian religous comic book!
(By the way, this was not the first or only use of the Hindu gods in comics. Besides cameos in, I think, the Infinity Gauntlet and What If? during the "Timequake" storyline, the Hindu gods were used in an issue of The Atom and Hawkman. Also, Marvel Team-Up had a story in which the X-Men and Spider-Man confronted villains who had the powers of the Hindu Gods, though they were not actually the Hindu deities.)
http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/Recreation/Comics/Vic.html has a list of the Marvel Roman numerals, including the Captain Americas. As far as appearances of the rogue 1950s Cap, he died in the identity of the Grand Director of the neo-Nazi National Force in Captain America 236. An interesting use of the character was in What If? 44 (original series).
<<I assumed that Magneto was Jewish for the longest time, and the shift to his being a gypsy struck me as revisionism born of cowardice (Marvel not wanting to make a major villain Jewish). Of course, you're right, he's a gypsy -- but I prefer to think of him as Jewish. Gives his story more "oomph.">>

Actually, Magneto as a gypsy is not such a bad idea. It was actually foreshadowed when it was revealed that the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were his children. It had been noted long before that The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver had been raised by gypsies, so it was revealed that Magneto had given the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver to Django Maximoff, a gypsy, to raise. It makes sense that if Magneto were a gypsy that he would have given his children to gypsies to raise.
(By the way, just for the record, the gypsies are actually descendants of wandering tribes from India. That is what made the Parrajamos [see below] so tragic; according to Nazi ideology, the gypsies were Aryans, as their language comes directly from Sanskrit, the language of the original Aryans who lived and ruled in Iran -- "land of the Aryans" -- and India before mixing with the conquered population.)
I think that the change was made for the movie because the powers that be decided that audiences would think that he had been a gypsy in the comics, but that the moviemakers were trying to sanitize the concept by having him be a gypsy. Audiences would be unaware that he was in fact a gypsy in the original comics.
Keep in mind that you have to second guess the audience sometimes. The author of the aforementioned Dracula/Sherlock Holmes movie that I mentioned noted that, while he was originally going to work Holmes's drug addiction into the screenplay, he was told to leave it out, as people would think that it was something he had added for shock value -- even though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had established that Holmes used cocaine as far back as "The Sign of Four." But, the general public wouldn't know that ...
By the way, during the "Acts of Vengeance" crossover, Magneto attacked the Red Skull in order to punish him for his part in the Parrajamos (what the Romani and Sinti call the genocide). Doctor Doom (who is also a gypsy!), in an unrelated story that ran in Marvel Universe, in his early days used a time machine to go back and kill Adolf Hitler for his part in the Parrajamos, but ultimately decided to let history run its course.
This story supercedes Invaders 32-33, in which it was revealed that as a young man (and a natural temporal inhabitant of the 1940s), Doom had concealed his gypsy heritage and found his way into Nazi Germany. There, in April 1942, Doom as an assistant to a Dr. Olsen, a Quisling Norwegian scientist, met Adolf Hilter. Doom and Olsen used technology on behalf of the Nazis to summon Thor from Asgard. (Hitler convinced the Thunder God to get rid of Stalin. All things considered, some readers may wish that the Invaders had failed to stop Thor ...)
However, this story is probably not in continuity anymore, at least not without the subtraction of Doctor Doom, as any reference to his having been around during World War II would have be left out -- it would make him a little old now. (In the same vein, although it was established in Fantastic Four 11, Fantastic Four 21, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandoes 3, and Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders 7 that Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were in the army in World War II, one does not see reference to that in current comics.) It is also not clear how this story affects Thor continuity (more on Thor below).
Finally, I should mention that Marvel's version of Dracula also involves gypsies. It was revealed that, since the real, historical Dracula (Vlad Tepes) had persectued gypsies, the Marvel Univere's Vlad Tepes had become a vampire due to the bite of a gypsy healing woman (who was secretly a vampire), who had vampirized him in retribution for his anti-gypsy antics. This took place in Dracula Lives 1.
The (Superboy) story you refer to (July 27) ran in Legion 37-38, Superman 8, and Action Comics 591. The Superboy in that story was not the Earth-Prime Superboy seen in Crisis 12. (In Superman 8 Superman does, however, make reference to the Superboy of Earth-Prime seen during the Crisis, as distinct from the Pocket Universe Superboy.)
Instead, it was the pocket universe Superboy in that story. The Pocket Universe was created when the Time Trapper took a temporal "clipping" of Earth-Sigma, and grew it into a full universe. He then pared down its planets so that it held only two inhabited worlds: Krypton and Earth. The Krypton of this universe closely resembled the Krypton of Earth-1. Krypton then exploded, and Kal-El came to Earth, where he became Superboy.
In doing this, the Time Trapper exploited folk tales that were popular in the Legion's era that had grown up around Superman. Much as real-life historical figures such as George Washington have had their youths glorified (in Washington's case, the patently false story of the apple tree contrived by Parson Weems), stories which held that Superman had been an adventurer in his youth had been told throughout the universe during the Legion's era. The Time Trapper molded his universe around these folk tales.
The Pocket Universe Superboy died in the aforementioned Legion story. Subsequently, the benevolent Lex Luthor of the Pocket Universe discovered Superboy's lab., and was tricked into freeing the The Phantom Zone criminals Interestingly, Luthor formed a team comprised of himself and non-superheroic counterparts of Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen to fight the Phantom Zone criminals. He also created an artificial, protomatter Supergirl with the memories of Lana Lang (the current Supergirl). The latter teamed up with Superman after a trip to Superman's world, and came to Earth-Sigma (main Post-Crisis DC Universe) after the death of the Phantom Zone criminals, Luthor's team, and everyone on the Pocket Universe's Earth. The Pocket Universe presumably still exists, empty of all life. It was last seen in Superman 22.
Dr. Mist figured in the Primal Force regular series, and appeared at least in No. 0. Fun fact: Who's Who (first edition) stated that Mist first appeared (under another name) in Chapter 18 of H. Rider Haggard's Wisdom's Daughter! (Haggard created Allan Quatermain, the adventurer who appears in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.)
I've never read Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I know that at the end Superman-1, Lois Lane-1, Superboy-Prime, and the son of Luthor were spared from annihilation by entering some pocket dimension from which they could never leave because of the consequent destruction of the unified Multiverse. Again, this set-up seems too promising to completely abandon; do you know of any further exploration of these characters and their surroundings?
Actually, the Earth-Two Superman implicitly appeared in The Kingdom 1-2, as the white templed Superman who was bashing at the barrier. There is a Web site devoted to the Earth-Two Superman that is part of the JSA webring that may have more info, or another appearance.
The Earth-Two Superman website is at http://www.angelfire.com/ga/manoftomorrow/
And DC One Million 80-Page Giant 1 was an implied appearance of the Earth-Two Superman in a quick cameo in the story "Crisis One Million".
Batwoman's appearance in Planet Krypton was as a Hypertimeline ghost. Hypertimeline ghosts appear whenever someone is messing around with the dimensional energy so much that images of people from other Hypertimelines appear. The Batwoman Hypertimeline ghost indicates that a world with a similar history to Earth-Two exists somewhere as a hypterimeline. See Jonathan Woodward's Crisis on Infinite Earths page.
<<Were there any issues that had revealed what happened to the Earth-Two versions of the Riddler, Mr. Freeze and the Penguin?>>
Batman mentioned in Crisis 11 that only one Riddler and Penguin existed. There may not have been an Earth-Two Mr. Freeze; Mr. Freeze first appeared as Mr. Zero in an issue of Batman that came out towards the mid/late 1950s, so it is arguable as to whether that was before or after the stories did the Earth-1/Earth-Two switch. If after, there is no reason to think Mr. Freeze has an Earth-Two counterpart.
Arkham did exist pre-Crisis, altough it only predates Crisis by a few years. It appeared at least as early as Batman 327, which was released in 1980.
Thanks for all the info, [name withheld]. I find it odd that two of Marvel's top three villains (Magneto and Dr. Doom) are both gypsies, and another (Dracula) has his origin rooted in gypsy shenanigans. As if the Romani don't face enough persecution! And it is ironic, as you noted, that Hitler was determined to wipe them out, despite their Indo-European origins.
I also freely admit my confusion about the various Superboys, since I categorically refuse to accept that there was an Earth-Prime Superboy. Earth-Prime was supposed to be OUR Earth, the real world. And while I'll accept that the Earth-Prime Julius Schwartz, Cary Bates, Elliott Maggin, et al, actually met the Justice League of Earth-One, I feel that the introduction of the Earth-Prime Superboy and the Earth-Prime Ultra irreparably damaged the concept and those stories just didn't happen. Since it's just comics (and it changes all the time anyway), I will stubbornly continue to believe what I want.
Incidentally, Reed and Ben of the FF weren't in the Army in WWII. Reed was in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the CIA), and was stationed in the French Underground (at least according to "Midnight on Massacre Mountain" in Sgt. Fury 3). And Ben was a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater, presumably with the Navy. Of course, that's all moot now, as the FF's WWII roots have been retconned away. (Ben is now a fighter pilot "in the last war" -- but they never specifiy what that war was.)

Dear Cap: I've been reading your column in Memphis' Commercial Appeal for about three years now. I have always found it entertaining. Ironically, I discovered it about a month after I had to stop collecting comics due to financial responsibilities. I used to spend between 40 and 100 dollars a week on comics, cards, books and toys. I'm finally back in a position to start reading comics again although my friends try to talk me out of it because of the money. Thanks to your article on CrossGen comics, I think I'm going to try to limit myself to those few titles at first. I used to buy every (and I do mean every) book that came out about Spider-Man and his related characters and every book about the X-Men and any of their related characters. Not to mention several other books that would catch my fancy. At the time I quit collecting I was getting into all the different Batman books. ANYWAY, at this time, the only thing keeping me from heading completely back into the comic world I used to love is the new world I found, professional gambling, (Tunica, MS).
I realize it might seem like a big jump in genres, but I think WWF is about the next best thing to having a live-action comic played out three nights a week right in my living room for free.
I don't see it as a big jump at all. Comics have always had natural affinities with varying entertainment subcultures -- rock music, videogames, movies, the Society for Creative Anachronism, etc. Wrestling seems the shortest stretch of all: Good guys and bad guys, larger-than-life characters, soap-opera plots. If you like the one you'll probably like the other.

Dear Cap: 1) Your STAR TREK story was certainly imaginative but I somehow don't see the Paramount executives going in that direction. I loved the Data playing solitaire bit!

2) "And is anyone in the Marvel Universe NOT a mutant any more?"

Fortunately, we still have our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the Non-Mutant Superhero!
3) "I thought the flameball was made by Tabitha "Meltdown" Jones."

I think someone called the guy with the flameball "James." My opinion is that the guy with the flame-flower is Pyro. Hey, not all of the professor's students have to turn out to be heroes.

4) "I also enjoyed the Godzilla movies."

I never liked the original Godzilla movies. They were, in my opinion, horribly produced. Strangely, that seems to be what so many people like about them. The American version, on the other hand, had terrific production values and a more-or-less believable monster. I didn't enjoy the film enough to buy a copy, but I'm sure glad I saw it.

5) "I've never read a Trek comic that managed the excitement of the various series."

Recommended reading: STAR TREK: ALL OF ME from Wildstorm. STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE issues 1-2 from Malibu. STAR TREK: MIRROR, MIRROR from Marvel. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION issues 47-50 ("The Worst of Both Worlds") from DC. I haven't read it yet, but Jenn recommends STAR TREK: VOYAGER--AVALON RISING from Wildstorm.

6) "Just out of curiosity, what didn't you like about Earth X?"

I hadn't thought about the consequences on society but I certainly agree with it. I also agree that it was badly written and over marketed. For a better "everybody has powers" story I suggest JUSTICE LEAGUE: MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTMARE.
The X-Men cast listing on the Cinescape site shows Alex Burton as Pyro/St. John Allerdyce, so I think you're right about the kid with the fireball. Storm did address him as "John."
Interestingly, the Internet Movie Database lists Jon Davey as Sam Guthrie/Cannonball and Donald Mackinnon as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus (as well as Sumela Kay as Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat). I'll have to see the movie again, and watch a little more carefully!

Hi from a fellow boomer who grew up reading comics in the Silver Age. You list one of my favorites: Ultra the Multi-Alien. I remember that first issue of Mystery in Space and how I loved that weird character. I would like to point out my choice for the worst hero ever. It is a Golden Age charcter called The Key. You can read his first adventure on my website at http://www.crash.to/comics. I enjoyed your website.
I've post the link for all to enjoy. And I hope to find time to look at it soon myself!

Dear Cap: I don't know about anyone else, but I started watching Hawaii Five-O with my grandfather. Grampa was a police detective and loved to relax by watching such "cop shows" as Hawaii Five-O, Adam-12 and even Barney Miller. On the other hand, he wouldn't watch The Rockford Files because the protagonist was an ex-con! At any rate, Hawaii Five-O is linked in my mind with the time I spent with Grampa, who was as loveable an old cuss as anyone I've ever known, and whom I still miss a great deal even after all these years.
As for why comics fans in general might like Five-O, well, consider the fact that Steve McGarrett was as upright as any Silver Age Justice Leaguer, and just as prone to spouting homilies on why it was a good idea to do good and a bad idea to do evil. It's true there wasn't alot of great "acting" happening on that show. Jack Lord, God rest his soul, was not stealing any parts from Olivier. There wasn't alot of character development going on either, and the plots were fairly formulaic. On the other hand, they were all competent actors and you can't beat Hawaii for gorgeous backgrounds and luscious bikini babes. Come to think of it, we need a Hawaii Five-O comic. But who to draw it? Hmmm ... Alex Ross!
And thanks for the warm memories, […]. Would that we all had grandfathers like yours.

Dear Cap:
1) Having sadly long since sold off my X-Men collection, I can't be absolutely sure on this, but I think that Magneto's history in the concentration camp was established as early (if not earlier) as X-Men 150. That was the issue which also set the stage for his brief (and to me actually more interesting) reformation: He'd almost killed Kitty Pryde, and realized that he was going as far as the people who had tormented him. So maybe that was only an allusion to his being in the camps, rather than an explicit revelation. (But that scene definitely leapt to mind when watching the movie, where McKellen's Magneto has no compunctions against sacrificing Rogue for his master plan -- chilling, believable, and all-too human.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the main reason Magneto was made a gypsy was so he could be the father to Pietro and Wanda, who from the outset had clearly been gypsies. Maybe.

2) At the Comic-Con in San Diego, the frighteningly effective spy Harry Knowles claimed that Hugh Jackman has a clause in his contract to do a Wolverine solo film should Fox want it. And you'll note in my interview with David Hayter that he, too, is fixated with Weapon X. So I think that that story is one of the likeliest to be adapted, should Fox choose to work so closely with the comics. (No guarantee).

3) Also, Famke Janssen mentioned in a press junket that one of the reasons shetook the role of Jean Grey was the possibility of working toward being Dark Phoenix. So who knows? It's the musings of an actress, but I'm just impressed that the actors (with the possible exception of Halle Berry) actually know their stuff.

4) Kid Eternity in the modern age: Yes, he was snuffed in JSA 1. But before Vertigo got ahold of him, and, admittedly pre-Crisis, Kid Eternity showed up in DC's Shazam! series when it shuffled over to the digest-sized book (was that Adventure Comics?). Anyway, the Marvels accepted him into their "family," and gave him a secret identity as Freddy Freeman's long-lost brother.

5) The Superboy of Earth-Prime is not the one who sacrificed himself in Action, though two Superboys have, indeed, sacrificed themselves there. The first was the "pocket universe" Superboy, the loss of whom of course allowed the three Kryptonian supervillains to take over that Earth until executed by Superman. The second, during Zero Hour, still closely resembled the Superboy some of us grew up with. He met with Kon-El, and that's how Kon found out that Superman was Clark Kent. The Earth-Prime Superboy actually had parents other than Jonathan and Martha, and grew up upper-middle class, though his secret identity was still Clark Kent.

I've never seen any post-Crisis reference to that Superboy, the young Alex Luthor, or Earth-Two Lois. But in Kingdom I'm told that we saw the Earth-Two Superman. I'll take people's word for it, because I couldn't find the actual clues that would have made that clear. He's in a domed version of Metropolis. I'll assume, too, that Lois, Alex, and Superboy are probably in there, too, since they all went off together.
1) Uncanny 150 is the earliest mention I've found to Magneto's concentration-camp experience, also. It may have been mentioned prior to that. In fact, given that Stan & Jack were WWII vets and often referenced the war in their work, it seems likely that it had been established before Uncanny 150 and that issue (and issue 161) just fleshed it out. I don't remember an earlier reference, though.
2) Weapon X or Dark Phoenix are my top two choices for the sequel.
3) I saw Halle Berry on The Daily Show, where they showed the clip where Storm challenges Wolverine to take sides. Afterwards, she identified the Hugh Jackman character as "Sabretooth." OK, she's no rocket scientist.
4) Adventure Comics did indeed end its run as a digest comic.
5) I've been corrected already on the Pocket Universe Superboy. We've seen glimpses of the Earth-Two Superman -- apparently he's not content to stay in HIS pocket universe.

Dear Cap: I loved your list of X-appearances in the recent Comics Buyer's Guide, but you missed one. The Angel appeared in a solo story that started in Ka-Zar 2, continued in Ka-Zar 3 and completed in Marvel Tales 30. It's a great story!
It's certainly one that's important to X-fans, […]. Not only is it credited to Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) and George Tuska, but it features the death of Warren Worthington III's father (Warren Worthington Jr., 'natch) and a certain bombshell named Candy! Of course, she's called Candy Summers instead of Southern (or, sometimes, Sothern), and she's a riveting redhead instead of a bombastic brunette! But thanks for pointing it out -- I actually remembered that story when I was writing the column, and talked myself into believing it happened earlier when I couldn't find it. D'oh!

Dear Cap: This from a recent mailbag:
<<It'd be interesting to see how (American-spawned) heroes would handle a fundamentalist-religious super-being, infused with evangelical zeal and godly righteousness, who subscribed to a "living" creed with evangelical tenets. Proselytizers with belief systems sufficiently "other" to avoid (obvious) overlap with "living" religions are usually seen as villains.">>
No one seems to remember that Marvel had/has EXACTLY such a character. "The Crusader" was a fundamentalist Christian who was given powers by a being of light that either claimed to be or was assumed by The Crusader to be (the Christian) God or an agent of same. He appeared only once, attempting to stop Thor from claiming that he was the actual pagan deity of myth. I can't remember the issue number, but it was written in a non-judgmental way so that you could both see The Crusader's point of view yet at the same time not totally condone his actions. I always thought this character would make a GREAT addition to a super-team (after all, team books are propelled by inner conflict). Imagine a character who considers himself a hero, subscribes to all the positive ideals of Christianity (thou shalt not kill, etc.) yet at the same time has major issues with characters like Thor, Hercules, and let's not even mention the Son of Satan! The character could be written to question our own perceptions about Christianity, or written "safe" simply as a source of conflict within the group. I can't believe The Crusader never appeared again ...
As I recall, [name withheld], The Crusader did appear a second time -- although where or when I couldn't tell you. At any rate, my vague memory of the character is that he was written as ... well, a loon. I could be wrong, but my impression is that he couldn't possibly be mistaken for a character who represented modern mainstream Christianity.

Hey man: I just read your thingy about Gwen Stacy. Just curious, but do you miss her as much as I do? LOL, your probably couldn't care less, but just curious. I was also curious as to who else you thought had the "Gwen Stacy syndrome." I've often thought that killing off Mary Jane (in an epic storyline) would do good to help Spider-Man. It wouldn't be just because there was nothing to do with her, but because I think it's something that Spidey needs. He's revolved around death in his life, and responsibility, and I think that her dying would add to that, help bring him back to his roots. Well, I suppose there is a selfish reason for it too: I've always been a bigger fan of Gwen than MJ. After all, Gwen was better than MJ at all those things, and she was just too sweet. :) You had to love Gwen. What do you think? Am I wrong in those thoughts? Well, I also must say I'm one that thinks it would be good if few people lived, making it for a more realistic and dramatic storyline, such as that of Rising Stars and such. Just an opinion, though. :) I seriously doubt I would ever kill MJ if I wrote (Spider-Man), but you gotta admit it would help Spidey out. I mean, could it actually get much worse? LOL Thank god for Paul Jenkins :)
I have to confess, as an aging Silver Ager, that I've always thought of MJ as -- well, the consolation prize. Sure, she's gorgeous and spunky and has great hair, but it was GWEN that Spidey loved, and was obviously going to marry. So Amazing Spider-Man 122 really through me for a loop, and Mary Jane's brusque treatment of Peter Parker for the next five years or so (until Gerry Conway left the series) reinforced in me the idea that she was too flighty to take seriously and that a confused Peter was just pursuing her "on the rebound." MJ is still, to me, the "new chick." I'm getting used to MJ now (after, what -- 20 years?), so I'd prefer they didn't kill her off. ONE dead girlfriend is enough for anyone, don't you think?
As to who else was victim to the "Gwen Stacy Syndrome," the numbers are enormous! Lady Dorma and Marinna (Sub-Mariner), Heather Glenn and Karen Page (Daredevil), Alex DeWitt (Green Lantern), Betty Ross Banner (Hulk), Mockingbird (Hawkeye), half the women Iron Man has ever dated -- I once drew up a list of dead girlfriends/wives on this very Web site, and it ran over 50 names!

Dear Cap: I recently read your column that included a reference to Chyna's new comic book. In it you stated you didn't know what the Eighth Wonder of the World was and in reading that an old memory came up. I've never been a big wrestling fan but I do remember another WWF wrestler that was often called the Eighth Wonder of the World. No other than Andre the Giant. Just a little useless info for you.
The things you learn in this business! Thanks for taking the time to clue me in, [withheld]! And, here's some more:
Dear Cap: Regarding your review of Chyna 1, to WWF fans the Eighth Wonder of the World was the late, great Andre the Giant. To old movie buffs, of course, it was King Kong.
And still more:
Dear Cap: You muse in your July 30 article "who or what the Eighth Wonder of the World is" in relation to female wrestling phenom Chyna, the Ninth Wonder of the World. The "Eighth Wonder of the World" is yet another pro-wrasslin' legend, the late ANDRE THE GIANT, who was referred to as the Eighth Wonder on many telecasts and wrestling events during his illustrious career.

Who says there's no such thing as continuity in pro wrestling?

Does this sound like a fanboy? Taken from the usenet rec.sport.pro-wrestling newsgroup FAQ:

1) What is a mark? What is a smart?
There are many interpretations and beliefs on this matter, and hopefully this will educate you enough for you to make your own decision on it.
The first, and most traditional, meaning of the word "mark" comes from carnivals and con-men, who called the paying customers "marks" in reference to them being the target of the scam. Under this criteria, we are all marks, because we are all wrestling fans and thus all the targets of the giant scam that is wrestling.
But ... Modern times have changed the meaning of the word somewhat. Thanks to the proliferation of the internet and "insider" newsletters, the word "mark" has come to stand for the ever-dwindling group of wrestling fans who still "believe." That is to say, those who think that wrestling is real and will cheer and boo those that the federations wish them to.
But ... There are another group of fans, the self-proclaimed "smarts", who have access to what they think is the inner workings of the business and who tend to view wrestling on a different level than the so-called "marks." These fans will tend to cheer the heels and boo the babyfaces. Most people who are actually connected inside the wrestling business refer to these "smarts" as "smart marks" or "smarks" for short. 98 percent of the fans on the internet are "smart marks." Always remember that we only know what they want us to know, and any information divulged by either Eric Bischoff or Vince McMahon is probably a lie told to sell tickets.
But ... Many "smart marks" will actually classify themselves as "marks" for specific things. For example, WWF fans will call themselves a "WWF mark" because they watch WWF programming and buy WWF merchandise. Some even extend this to a given wrestler (Chris Benoit being the best example).
But ... Futhermore, many of the "smart marks" will actually end up displaying the very behavior they think they oppose, upon entrance into the atmosphere of a given live wrestling show. ECW fans go out of their way to act the opposite of what they think "marks" should act like, while at the same time actually going all the way around and becoming marks themselves because that's how ECW expects them to act.
So ... In the end, a mark is whatever you want it to be. Many times on the Net the term "marks" is used as a blanket reference to those who are not "in the know" and who generate the majority of the revenue for the various promotions. This is the most popular usage and most generally accepted. But, of course, we are all marks.
Good lord! That is ENTIRELY more than I wanted to know about wrestling!

Dear Cap: I'm a 30-year veteran of the comics wars, so I'll try to shed a little light on the question of Barry Windsor-Smith drawing Avengers.

His first stint came in Avengers 66-67. This was the first return of Ultron after his initial appearance. He was credited only as "Barry Smith;" high-falutin' artiste status came later. The art is very cool, in a late-'60s Kirby/Steranko kind of way. These issues are also notable for introducing adamantium to the Marvel Universe. The story didn't conclude until issue 68, which I believe was drawn by Sal Buscema (in what may have been his Marvel debut).

Smith returned to Avengers Mansion for issues 98-100, in which the Assemblers went up against Ares and other assorted characters from Greek mythology. By this time, his art was much more stylized and distinctive; the Kirby/Steranko influence isn't nearly as apparent. Issue 100 featured every character who'd been an Avenger up to that time, which must've been a treat and/or chore for Smith! Also in this storyline, Clint Barton reverted from Goliath to Hawkeye -- but he began wearing that hideous, pale-blue, maskless outfit. Honestly, he looked like he was wearing a skirt and a headband! Don't know if that was Smith's design or not; if so, even the great ones can have their off days. Either way, the outfit was gone within a year, and Hawkeye returned to the classic look we know and love.

Hope this adds to the general pool of knowledge and/or confusion.

Y'know, I completely forgot about Avengers 66-67 -- probably because I wasn't very impressed with Smith's debut (he also drew Uncanny X-Men 53 right around that time, and a couple of Daredevils). Those early Kirby-clone efforts were ... well, bad. The Raphael-esque technique we're familiar with now began appearing in his early Conan work, circa 1970-73. So by the time he did Avengers 98-100 (1972), he was much closer to the "artiste" that we know and love now.
But thanks for the correction!

Dear Cap: As regards the [withheld]'s comments about Godzilla movies, I have noticed that most people either really like them or really dislike them. And that most people who really liked the Japanese Godzilla movies really disliked the American Godzilla movie. It is also true that they films themselves varied in quality a great deal over the years. The original 1954 Godzilla, King of the Monsters was a fairly grim picture, and the only one that really dealt with the kind of casualties a Godzilla attack would produce. It must have been particularly resonant in a Japan that was only nine years away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One should also bear in mind that while the U.S. was occupying Japan in the late '40s and early '50s the Occupation censors prohibited any kind of public debate on the atomic attacks. Godzilla may well have been of the first films to even obliquely refer to them. On the other hand, by the '70s, Godzilla had become almost lovable, fighting alien monsters like a pro wrestler. It's very interesting to watch the character of Godzilla develop over the years. And I think that may be a clue as to why many of us old-line Godzillaphiles didn't like the new G-Film -- It's Godzilla didn't have a personality.
Thanks for the recap on the Big G, [withheld]. I fall into the pro-Toho camp on Godzilla; I still find the original film engrossing and his subsequent "pro wrestler" career fun in an Adam West/Batman kinda way. The recent U.S. film I found to be overblown and boring (except for the French "accountant" who happened to have all sorts of black-ops equipment on his person -- that was good for a couple of laughs).

Dear Cap: I just wanted to add a little to letter writer Blastaar's question about when The Batman became a master detective. No corrections, or even pointing out when something "first" happened. Just some commentary.
I can never remember a time when The Batman wasn't considered a master detective. Granted, I started reading comics in the late '50s -- the start of the Silver Age, for those who mark the debut of the revived Flash as the beginning (as I do). But The Batman was always considered a detective -- even by some of the alien visitors the Masked Manhunter encountered in the early '60s. With the "New Look" (May, 1964), editor Julius Schwartz had his writers re-emphasize the detective aspect of his career and the stories became much deductive in content. This lasted until The Batman television show shifted the focus of the stories. In the early '70s, Denny O'Neil, assisted ably by Neal Adams's art, again underscored the detective in The Batman.
But, one might say, what about before you started reading DC comics? Before the Silver Age? During the Silver Age, DC published quite a few Batman Giant Annuals, reprinting stories from the '40s and '50s; and in nearly all of those, The Batman was shown to be a detective. Some of those 80-Pagers had as a central theme "mystery stories," and again nearly all of these referred to The Batman as "the world's greatest detective."
In Detective Comics 226 (Dec 1955), the lead story reveals that the pre-teen but level-headed Bruce Wayne -- in preparation for his anticipated career -- apprenticed himself with "the great detective" Harvey Harris to learn the science and skill of criminology and detective work (as opposed to today's take on the subject, where a psychotic Bruce Wayne spends his life studying under mystics, gurus and yoga masters -- ye gods!)
But Blastaar's question refers to the gradual evolution of The Batman into being a master detective. This implies that at the start of the Caped Crusader's career, he did not function in this manner.
I would argue differently. It seems to me that, from the start, the concept of The Batman -- or "The Bat-Man" -- embraced the idea that he was a detective, that he didn't solve cases by knocking down walls or melting them or seeing through them with X-ray vision - -but by putting clues together and deducing the facts leading to uncovering and/or catching the villain. The fact that DC debuted his character in Detective Comics strongly implies that. And a reading of those first 15 or 20 "Batman" stories, in both Detective and later on, Batman, shows clearly that the character collected clues, and pieced them together to reach fact. Many of these clues were scientific in bent -- as goes back to his chemistry training; but many more of them were not.
I will stipulate that, in the earliest of stories, The Batman's level of deduction would not put Dr. Watson to shame, let alone Sherlock Holmes. In his first recorded case, "The Case of the Criminal Syndicate," the most ratiocination The Batman applies to the case is catching two thugs stealing a secret contract, putting them out of action, and then reading the contract, which essentially tells him everything he needs to know. But these initial rudimentary puzzles and solutions were due to the limitations of Bob Kane's writing. As other, more knowledgable and more versatile writers came along, to prepare more ingenious mysteries, the level of The Batman's deductive skills leapt proportionately. But the concept of The Batman as a skilled detective was there from the beginning.
On a different subject, I wanted to weigh in with my vote on the conflicted responses between you and your lovely missus on the "Should Wonder Woman have had sex with the tyrannical despot in return for his ending the war?"
I have to agree with the good Mrs. Comics' answer, Cap. The sacrifice to WW's principles would have been minor (in relative terms) to the much greater good in the lives she would have saved.
You rely upon the higher ideal, which is admirable; however, it is sometimes, regrettably, not practical. I'm not saying that one should sacrifice one's principles if there is an alternative but more difficult way of accomplishing the goal. In those instances, principles come first. But there are occasions in life, when there is no viable alternative to a goal but to sacrifice one's own principles.
You wrote, "(Wonder Woman would) find another way to stop the war without violating her principles." But you don't state how. A similar argument raged through the Captain America letter pages about 15 years ago, when Cap was forced to gun down a member of a terrorist group to prevent him from killing hostages. Many of those who deplored this argued that "Cap would have found another way to stop the gunman without killing him;" but none of them proposed a workable solution that would have not have resulted in the death of at least one of the innocents. This is the thing: it's a simple thing for a reader to insist that a character uphold his principles; but the charge lacks validity if that same reader cannot provide just how that character would have effectively accomplished that. I feel that was the situation which Wonder Woman confronted (knowing only the details you provided).
Not to be too critical of you, Cap --as I said, I admire your stand for principle, and nine times out of 10 I would agree with you. But in this case, a principled solution for Wonder Woman would not have been practical. The only other option might have been to kill the despot in cold blood. Presumably, that be a violation of an even stronger ethic. So I put it to you, Cap, what was WW's alternative?
You answered The Batman question as I should have […]. I mean, the guy debuted in DETECTIVE Comics. A-duh.
As to Wonder Woman, I have to agree with you: In a real-world practical sense I'd see no alternative to her sacrificing some personal dignity for the higher principle of saving lives. No contest.
In a comic-book world, though, it's a lot easier: The writer can give her a way out! I guess my sense of outrage was heightened by the fact that OTHER heroes are always given ways out to avoid unpleasant decisions.
The only reason I mention this is because the denouement of the Captain America question you mentioned played out exactly that way: Marvel's higher-ups decreed that Cap would in no circumstance use a gun to kill again. And he hasn't, lucky guy -- because the writers have arranged it that way.
Which brings me to another irksome nettle that's settled in my craw: When did Cap get to be such a stickler about gunplay? The guy was a soldier (and superhero) in World War II! Are we to believe that he's gun-shy? That he never used a weapon in his many combat adventures? That every time he dropped a hand grenade into a German pillbox that he was careful not to hurt anybody?
Frankly, Cap's world-weary understanding of his role (as envisioned by Stan Lee and Jack Kiby in those old Tales of Suspense backups) was part of the reason I preferred him to namby-pamby heroes like Superman and Batman in the '60s. This was a guy who was prepared to do whatever was necessary for the common good, and he knew it wasn't always pretty, and he knew that sometimes people got killed no matter what you did. Of course, now Cap is the bleeding heart, and Batman is the hard-nose!
Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful insights, […], as always!

Dear Cap:
<<LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE #32 ... Frankly, I'd like our original take to have been the actual plot, since it provoked a long discussion between the Vixen and I. I voted Diana NOT appease the dictator with sex ("She'd find another way to stop the war without violating her principles!") and my sweet, lovely, innocent wife voted yes ("Oh, get off your high horse -- if one night of meaningless sex can save lives, then it would be selfish of her to say no. Think of all the women raped daily while the war goes on"). It was an interesting, revealing moment, when we both realized that we had taken opposite stands from what we ourselves would have expected. Say, how would YOU have voted?>>
Tricky situation! You and your wife both make good and valid points! I'm leaning more with your side, Cap, but your wife may be right that it is a more selfish decision. I'd like to believe that Diana would find a way to save lives and still not bow to such a demand, though.
<<I admit I enjoyed the 1978 (Superman) movie thoroughly, despite the ridiculous turn-back-the-clock scene and the utterly pointless inclusion of Marlon Brando.>>
I prefer to look upon the "turn-back-the-clock" scene as symbolic, rather than literal. I think of it as Superman going back in time, as opposed to reversing it.
Marlon Brando was added to Superman: The Movie solely as a draw. It wasn't to long after Apocalypse Now and the Godfather movies. Brando was not only already a legendary actor at that time, but a "hot" actor, still. The flake that he was/is, Brando was originally wanting to play Jor-El as a piece of luggage or something (no joke). Thankfully, that indulgence wasn't humored by the producers and director.

<<Oh, and the new Spider-Man has been cast: An actor named Tobey Maguire, about whom I know exactly nothing. I hope he's a skinny, nerdy Steve Ditko illustration brought to life!>>
Tobey Maguire was the teen brother of Reese Witherspoon's character in Pleasantville and he was also in Cider House Rules. He looks like a decent enough choice for Peter Parker (and a better choice than I was afraid we'd get). Of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, they can't leave well enough alone; Spider-Man will reputedly have organic webshooters. Ugh! This is being done, according to the movie's director, Sam Raimi, in order to make Peter feel like an outcast. Pardon, but wasn't Peter Parker already an outcast before the radioactive spider bite? If anything, the spider-powers make Peter feel more accepted and he shows off, to boot! -- That is, until Uncle Ben is murdered ...
<<Uncanny 150 is the earliest mention I've found to Magneto's concentration-camp experience, also. It may have been mentioned prior to that. In fact, given that Stan & Jack were WWII vets and often referenced the war in their work, it seems likely that it had been established before Uncanny 150 and that issue (and issue 161) just fleshed it out. I don't remember an earlier reference, though.>>
There was some discussion about this very topic lately on A**'s "Byrne Ward" message board. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby never indicated that Magneto was Jewish or a Gypsy. Neither did Roy Thomas or Neal Adams, for that matter. In fact, Stan and Jack have Magneto acting very Nazi-like in his earliest appearance, which would be very strange for a Jewish person. Byrne was one of the first people to suggest that Magneto was the real father of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, therefore making it possible he was a Gypsy.

<<I can't remember any story addressing why the FF's original outfits demonstrated the same abilities as their owners. Of course, we've never learned where the Hulk's mass comes from when Bruce Banner transforms, or where it goes to when he changes back! Hopefully, some of the correspondents reading this have some more specifics.>>
The way I remember it, the Fantastic Four's space outfits were affected by the cosmic radiation as much as they were, themselves. That is why the outfits don't tear (well, except for The Thing's outfit), burn, stretch, etc. The costumes molecules basically became unstable when irradiated.

<<Was racist or anti-commie (1950s) Captain America pre- or post-Comics Code Authority? What's the time line? [name withheld]

A: I'd think it was pre-Code. The attempted Captain America revival ran from roughly May to September of 1954, and the CCAA code that we are most familiar with was adopted in October, 1954.>>
Those issues with Captain America were pre-code, as you guessed, Cap.
So, Cap, have you seen the pictures of Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man in Previews and recent select Marvel comics? I know that the Ultimate line is a separate continuity from the regular Marvel Universe, but I think Marvel still doesn't quite understand its own characters anymore. Aunt May is shown to be younger and full of energy. The text says that she will no longer be an old biddy. If Aunt May is so healthy, why does she need Peter to look after her? Part of the reason for May was that it gave Peter an added responsibility and made him more humanistic. Sure, it got to be annoying the umpteenth time May had a heart attack, but her frailness and Peter's doting over her added to his character. Uncle Ben now looks fit enough to have beaten the burglar on his own! Over in the X-Men book, Beast is shown furless. I hate to break it to older fans, but as a retailer I've noticed that the "blue" Beast is more popular with the youngsters; the ones that Marvel hopes to attract with Marvel Ultimate. It seems an odd choice, considering that is the case. Sabretooth looks more like Wild Child ...
Oh well, I don't want to knock the books before they arrive. In fact, I am supportive of the line in general, but I hope they don't get too screwy with the changes.
I think that the Marvel understanding of Peter Parker these days is so askew of what I knew him to be in the '60s and early '70s that an energetic Aunt May and organic webshooters probably makes as much sense to them as Ben Reilly. Funny that I'm pinning my hopes for a restoration of "my" Peter Parker on Paul Jenkins -- who's probably half my age. Sheesh.

Dear Cap: Pre-Crisis, it was revealed that Kid Eternity and Cap Jr. literally were brothers! This revelation took place in World's Finest Comics. It was established that Kid Eternity (Kit Freeman) and Cap Jr. (Freddie Freeman) had been brothers, who, after their parents died, where adopted by diffrent grandfathers (one went with the paternal grandfather, the other the maternal grandfather). Kit's grandfather was a sailor who was killed by a Nazi U-boat. Kit died too -- but Shazam stopped him from going on to the afterlife, as Kit had been taken before his time. The occult being Mr. Keeper argued with Shazam, pointing out that a Freeman was due to die at the hands of a Nazi.
But it was the wrong Freeman and the wrong Nazi. Freddie Freeman was supposed to have been killed by Captain Nazi (as per his origin), not Kit by the U-boat. To make the most of a bad situation, Kit was allowed to become the semi-deceased Kid Eternity, and Freddie Captain Marvel Jr. Freddie did not know that Kit existed as Kid Eternity until World's Finest Comics.
This story was unusual for several reasons. First, though the original Kid Eternity comics were published by Quality Comics, not Fawcett (the publisher of the original Captain Marvel stories), this story established that Kid Eternity existed on Earth-S (where the Fawcett characters existed), not Earth-X (where the Quality characters were set). This complicated matters, as Kid Eternity had summoned Blackhawk and Plastic Man (both Quality Comics characters) during his original Quality Comics run in the 1940s. This seems to establish that these heroes had counterparts on Earth-S-unlucky ones, actually. Since Kid Eternity's power was only effective in summoning dead people, we must assume that the Earth-S Blackhawk and Plastic Man were dead by the 1940s!
Second, this story also involved Sherlock Holmes (see link) http://web.archive.org/web/20000817170143/http://www.lib.umn.edu/special/rare/ush/12B.html#D.
It was revealed that Kid Eternity had secretly helped Freddie over the years, including summoning Sherlock Holmes to help Freddie defeat Captain Nazi. I don't have the actual issue of World's Finest with me, so I can't say whether or not there was an actual Golden Age story in which Freddie teamed up with Sherlock Holmes against Captain Nazi that this story retconned by having it that Kid Eterntiy, who, as noted, was never even a Fawcett comics character, and thus could not have been mentioned in the original story, had summoned Holmes. Earth-S's Sherlock Holmes's presence in the story would have to be explained in this way, for, if his history followed that of the original Conan Doyle Holmes, he would have been 80-90 years old by the time Captain Marvel Jr. showed up ...
By the way, in the Who's Who Update'87, someone asked how the wiping away of the Marvel Family that was done with the Shazam: The New Beginning series (and undone years later by Jerry Ordway) would influence Kid Eternity, him having been Cap Jr.'s brother. It was noted that this letter got Karen Berger thinking about doing a Kid Eternity project ... and we all know where that led.
It led to an unrecognizeable character in Vertigo's brief Kid Eternity series.

Hello Cap'n! While gathering material for my radio show, I came across this. Hope you like it.
Rules for Choosing a Superhero Name
1. Don't call yourself by your real name, e.g., Ms. Jenny Pinchuck, The Amazing Stevie Foster.
2. Don't call yourself by someone else's real name, e.g., Mr. Teddy Kennedy, Captain Al Gore.
3. Choose a name that suggests power, heroism, and prowess, e.g., Captain Power, Thunderman, Mr. Invincible, Justiceman.
4. Don't be too modest, e.g., Mr. Pretty Good, Captain So-so, Fairly Incredibleman.
5. But don't labor the point, e.g., Mr. So-Powerful-Don't-Even-Think-About-It-Buddy.
6. Don't choose a name detrimental to your crime fighting image, e.g., Captain Spongecake, Mr. Silly, Yellow Streak, Purple Slippers, Captain Evil.
7. Don't choose the name of an existing Superhero unless you have lots of money and enjoy fighting litigation rather than supervillains.
8. It's no use calling yourself Captain Invincible if your only power is control over Hostess Twinkies and you suffer from a congenital hole-in-the-heart condition. That's just asking for trouble.
9. Don't call yourself the Invisible Boy if you're not.
10. Don't call yourself the Invisible Boy if you're a girl.
11. Don't call yourself the Invisible Lady if you're a man -- even if you do feel like a woman trapped in a man's body.
12. Don't give away important information in your name, e.g., The Glass Jaw, Captain Vulnerable To Strontium 90.
13. Don't call yourself The Green Avenger if you wear an orange costume. You'll confuse people.
(Author unknown, from http://www.the-mouth.com/)
I'm pretty sure Captain Spongecake, Mr. Silly, Yellow Streak and Purple Slippers have all applied for membership with the Legion of Superfluous Heroes.

Dear Cap:
<<It was an interesting, revealing moment, when we both realized that we had taken opposite stands from what we ourselves would have expected. Say, how would YOU have voted>>
I'd go with your assessment; Diana would have found another way. [name withheld], on the other hand, agreed with [withheld]. Figure that one out.
<<BOFFY THE VAMPIRE LAYER #2: Oooh, what a clever title.>>
You don't know the half of it. Or, to be more accurate, you know exactly half of it. I saw a copy and the cover proclaims, "Boffy the Vampire Layer Meets Sabreena the Teenage Wench." Oh, those wacky Eros guys.
<<Can you imagine Jack Kirby's Capt. America running the trenchs, dodging bombs, sporting around 40 lbs. of rubber? No amount of Super-Soldier Serum could prevent him from sweating to death!>>
40 lbs. of rubber is probably lightweight when compared to the chain-mail shirt that the "real" Cap wears!
<<Would you happen to know if Marvel ever put together a collection of his stint with Conan, & if it's still in print.>>
I just finished reading the recently released Essential Conan, which reprints the first twenty-some issues of the barbarian's first Marvel series. I've never been a Conan fan before but I sure enjoyed these stories!
The first 24 issues of Conan the Barbarian are some of the best comics Marvel has ever done. Here's another corroboration:

Dear Cap: To add to your answer regarding Barry Windsor-Smith, there is the excellent ESSENTIAL CONAN collection that was done less than three months ago that should still be easily available. This is in the B&W "phonebook" format that characterizes the Marvel Essentials, and contains Conan the Barbarian 1-17 and 19-24, also including a non-Smith story by Gil Kane. Needless to say: GET THIS!
Off the top of my head, BWS didn't do any other interior Conan work beyond that initial run except for 1995(?)'s CONAN VERSUS RUNE crossover.
That "Rune" book was indeed in 1995, Jose, and I don't believe BWS did any interior Conan comic-book work aside from what we mentioned. He did do interior work for the original Savage Tales magazine, though, as well as some work for Savage Sword of Conan. And a bunch of his work was reprinted in Conan Saga magazine. There's probably one or two other things I'm not thinking about, also.

Dear Capn: I haven't even seen (X-Men), but I'll comment on the sequel anyway.
If they don't include the Sentinels, they are pretty freakin' stupid. The first film is a success, they'll have a bigger budget for the second one. Passing up the chance to use it to apply F/X wizardry to a such a cinematic concept as the Sentinels -- think how impressive they could be on a big screen, if done right -- would be a sign of stupidity practically.
Bryan Singer said at San Diego that he imagined the second movie as being about the Sentinels -- all the stuff in the first movie would lead directly to it, and they'd have a big enough budget to do it. Of course, he was talking through his hat: No script has even been started, and he might not even be the director. But it's nice to see Singer, DeSanto and other movie muckety-mucks thinking like us fanboys!

In a previous Mailbag, [name withheld] brings up "realism in comics."

For me, complaining that comics are unrealistic is like complaining that rain is wet. Moreover, I find that any time anyone talks about making comics "realistic," they inevitably mean doing something that takes all the fun out of it.

[withheld] criticizes Batman for playing cat-and-mouse with the Joker "with no real intention of ever putting an end to this lethal threat to society. Joker kills people; Batman throws him in Arkham; Joker escapes to kill more people; Batman throws him back in Arkham; and so on and so on."

He doesn't say how, exactly, Batman is to put an "end" to the Joker's lethal threat, although he implies very strongly that a "realistic" solution is a final sanction. Let us be clear: Batman is not a killer and, more important, Batman is not a murderer. (Let us also be clear: Dirty Harry's way of solving problems leads to more problems, like L.A.P.D.'s Rampart scandal. Or detectives in New York shooting an unarmed man to death because they can't tell the difference between a gun and a wallet.)

Besides, what's so "unrealistic" about catching a crook again and again? There are police officers all over this country who re-arrest people who have gone through the criminal justice system more than once. I wouldn't say those cops are responsible for the new crimes those people commit; it's unfair to blame Batman for the new crimes Arkham escapees commit. Criminals are at fault for their crimes.

What strikes me as "unrealistic" is the idea that, once caught, the Joker isn't chained to the wall in his cell 23 hours a day, and let out only for an hour's exercise while being watched every second by a contingent of burly guards. And given that the Joker has murdered, injured, terrorized or harmed a relative of just about everybody in the big house, it's "unrealistic" to think somebody in there wouldn't use him for a demonstration of the versatile uses of a shiv.

You'll notice that, half the time, they don't even bother showing the Joker being delivered to Arkham; that way, they don't have to explain how he got away. I thought it was extremely poor planning on DC's part to have the Joker surface in BIRDS OF PREY within weeks of the end of "No Man's Land" -- and apparently without the knee injury Commissioner Gordon inflicted on him.

Which brings me to my main point: It's time for a moratorium on Joker stories. At least two years, maybe three ... maybe even five. The character is overexposed, and now that he's personally struck our family of heroes, more than once, it's ever harder to suspend our disbelief. I'm not surprised that Gordon didn't put that bullet in the Joker's heart; after all, he'd spent a year leading a volunteer force to maintain the rule of law, so he could hardly be the one to violate that ideal, no matter how much it pained him. On the other hand, I don't believe that someone else -- Harvey Bullock, say -- wouldn't have finished the Joker off. (I remember when Harvey wasn't so noble; he'd have done it for sure, except for the shortage of bullets.)

Denny O'Neil has said in interviews that part of the reason for "Knightfall" was to explore what it means to be a hero in these times, and to show the readers that a Batman who is brutal and bloodthirsty isn't really a hero, and isn't really Batman. I think that's why there needs to be a Joker moratorium -- so that when the character is reintroduced, the writers can explore that theme some more. They need to show the readers why Batman doesn't just "accidentally" let the Joker "slip" from a rooftop. Or why Oracle doesn't hack into Arkham's systems and, say, steer Killer Croc into the Joker's cell for a late-night heart-to-heart. Or why Commissioner Gordon doesn't change his mind and aim his next shot a little higher. It clearly needs to be shown.

Thanks for a thoughtful, insightful letter, [withheld].

I've mentioned before that where "realism" is lost in the Joker situation isn't Batman or Gordon: It's the courts. I use as my example Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, he was crazy -- the court ruled so. But he was also dangerous. So what did the court do? Send him to Earth-Prime's version of Arkham? Nope -- they sent him to a MAXIMUM-SECURITY PRISON.

That's how society deals with predators, crazy or not. And need I mention what happened to Jeffrey Dahmer in prison?

But, of course, DC can't send a great villain like The Joker to "Ryker's Island" and have him offed by another inmate.

I guess where we have a problem is that they haven't offered any sort of explanation, even a bad one, for the revolving-door treatment of The Joker. He's not an ordinary crook -- he's murdered, what, thousands of people by now? And clearly intends to go ON killing people. So Earth-DC's court system ought to do SOMETHING -- and if they don't, a fig leaf of explanation would help.

But, no, I wouldn't want Batman to provide final sanction, either in comics, or in the real world. That way lies madness.

Anyway, thanks again for a great letter!

While re-reading Kingdom Come (which the more I read the more I am amazed at the greatness I see in it) I was struck with how true the fate of Captain Marvel was. His inability to live as a light-hearted superhero in today's comic-book world shows why he does not have a series anymore. Think about it, this is a guy who is on par with Superman in power and in the early days of his publishing existence was beating Supes in sales! We all have heard how between court battles with DC and the general decline in sales killed him at a time when his adventures could work.

I remember the revival that was tried in the '70s. Even with C.C. Beck as artist and some of DC's best writers of that day it still did not work. And the latest series with Jerry Ordway drawing/writing it was still, I think, uneven. I think it was hard to balance the whimsy of the early adventures with the "realism" that is wanted by the comic-book audience to make a book successful.

I also remember the characterization that Captain Marvel had during his stint with the JLA in the '80s. He was portrayed as being a"Captain Whitebread." I found this to be a problem. Yes, Cap was basically a kid at heart but remember he also had the wisdom of Solomon to rely on. This also another problem with writing Cap today.

This is a shame because I think a book with that light tone that the early Captain Marvel had would make a great introduction for young kids. The problem is that it still might not last. We see that today any book must be a moneymaker to last. Look at the small number of such books.

I look forward to Paul Dini/Alex Ross's take on Cap in the oversized format and hope it works. Maybe Dini will prove to be the right person to write Cap and hopefully bring him back to the DC Universe the right way.
I've speculated on my site before that perhaps Captain Marvel is just a character whose time has come and gone. What made the Big Red Cheese separate and distinct from other caped folks in the '40s was his sense of childlike whimsy -- and that sort of thing doesn't fly any more. In the cynical '80s and '90s that approach just appears naive and childish. But if you update Cap -- which has been done numerous times -- then is he even Captain Marvel any more? And if not, then what's the point?
Worth thinking about, anyway. Thanks, [name withheld]!

Hey Cap: Your columns are just too good. It's hard enough to read all of one week's new stuff in one sitting let alone catch up on past lettercols. But I did it. And naturally, I have a comment or two.

1) I thought that Rachel Summers gave Jean Grey back the name of Phoenix. It happened in either The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries or over in Excalibur (issue 73 or 75) as a wedding present to her mother. Now that Rachel is Mother Askani, she doesn't really need the code name.
2) There are not one but two comic stores on my drive from home to work. One concentrates more on trading cards and has about a quarter of the back issues I do (as in they have only four boxes of back issues and I'm closer to 14). The other store is simply incredible. It's amazing how the little things like finding a good comics store can make a new city less intimidating.

3) […] was wondering about the ramifications of super-powered zealots. Although most books shy away from that topic, the Wolfman-Perez era of The New Teen Titans dealt with it on a regular basis. Check out the Brother Blood storylines, although some of the more interesting discussions took place between major story arcs as the heroes debated their course of action.

4) When Mike Baron started the Wally West Flash series, Wally used to have to stop and eat a huge meal in almost every issue. He took a number of odd jobs (such as speed-delivering vital organs for transplant surgeries) in order to defray his expenses. I thought that Baron made that aspect of The Flash very interesting but as later writers switched to standard superhero fare it didn't work as well. I'm content with "The Speed Force" as an explanation. If I wanted real science, I wouldn't be reading comic books.

5) Tobey Maguire (the new Spider-Man) is most famous for his role in The Cider House Rules (the movie that earned Michael Caine another Best Supporting Actor). However, I will always remember him for his appearance on Saturday Night Live and one of most hilarious skits I've ever seen. He impersonated Dustin Diamond (Screech from Saved by the Bell) as a guest on the Actor's Theatre.

6) Magneto is Jewish and I don't really care if Marvel has changed their official stance on that. I don't mean to offend those of you who have Gypsy in your heritage but that's the way I feel. Why else was Erik Magnus Lensherr working in an Israeli hospital when he met Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller?

I know that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are very proud of their Gypsy heritage and in my opinion they should be. They were raised by Gypsies, particularly Django Maximoff, not by their Jewish father. Like many adopted children they choose to celebrate the culture that raised them. That isn't such a stretch, as both Wanda and Pietro have kept their adopted surname of Maximoff rather than reverting to their birth name Lensherr. If it's essential that Wanda and Pietro be Gypsy by blood, the history of their mother Magda is relatively undeveloped and she could very well have been a Gypsy.

I don't know why anyone would have retconned Magneto's heritage. He was established as a Jew for a long time and I thought that worked very well for the character. It gave him yet another connection to Charles.

7) Okay, okay, I relent. After the esteemed Captain Comics kept praising Captain Marvel, I decided to give it a try. I picked up six back issues and dagnabbit if I'm not on pins and needles waiting for the next issue. Cap just said that Young Justice is one of Peter David's best books. I've read YJ since the beginning but Captain Marvel is much better. Unlike YJ, the humour is never forced and I was laughing out loud during the scene in which Rick and Marlo were making out while thier respective "ghosts" watched.

8) Okay, I relent again. I was the one who said that Black Panther was indecipherable but so many people have stood up to me and said that isn't the case that I've decided to give it another shot. I found a string of eight back issues and read them all in a row. I still wish that Everett Ross (and Christopher Priest for that matter) could tell a story in order (why was that Hulk issue out of place?) but I have to admit that I was really enjoying the showdown between T'Challa and Killmonger.

9) I also gave all of the CrossGen and Gorilla Comics a try. Boy, I'm picking up a lot of new books lately. And just when they're all becoming $2.50 or $2.99. What do you think, Cap? Of the Gorilla books, Shockrockets is easily my favourite but that's mostly because we've seen four issues of it and only one of any of the others. I wasn't very excited about Section Zero, but the first issue was incredible and if it gets better with each installment (i.e. Shockrockets) it could become one of my favourite books. Empire was interesting but I don't know if I could read about villains all the time. And Crimson Plague was kind of boring and confusing. I am one of George Perez's biggest fans (I even own copies of I*Bots) but there were just too many characters to meet in one issue.

As for CrossGen, Scion is easily my favourite book out of the bunch. I really like the art and I can't wait to find out what kind of trouble Ashleigh and our hero will get up to. Meridian and Mystic are both quality books and I'll keep picking them up but Sigil has been sort of disappointing. Part of it is the art. Two of the main characters are indistinguishable from each other (the two blond guys) and it makes the story hard to follow. Of all the books, it's also the one that is the least accessible. Mystic explained the guilds, Meridian the two flying cities, but I have no idea what the world of Sigil is like except that the ships look like Titan A.E.

10) One of these days I'm going to write a long letter about Oracle's unethical actions. For now, I'll just say that the Robin Hood comparisons don't hold up. Robin gave the money away. Barbara keeps the money for herself. Yes, she uses that money to buy equipment that she then uses to help the world's superheroes in their quests to improve society but Robin Hood did more than buy a bow and arrow with the money he commandeered. She is using the money.

Second, Barbara has access to other funds (such as Bruce Wayne's fortune) and therefore she doesn't have to steal in order to make her job as Oracle effective. Rather she is choosing to take this money. The money may not be Blockbuster's by right, but it definitely doesn't belong to Barbara Gordon.

By doing this she has stepped across a line. Batman and his like have long endorsed vigilantism as a way to get around the inefficiencies of the police system. But Barbara has now set herself up as a court system, in effect, leveling fines against unconvicted felons. How many times has Batman told his associates that they aren't "judge and jury"? Like I said, I could write about this all day as it ties into the discussion as to why Batman lets criminals continue to escape from Arkham. For now, Cap, suffice to say, I agree with you that Barbara has stepped out of line.

11) I agree with you again, Cap. The Legends of the DCU story was a lot more interesting when I thought the dictator was talking about more than a date. Now it's a sleeper whose only real purpose is to reintroduce Fury.

Here are my responses where they seem justified:

1) Jean is indeed calling herself Phoenix these days -- but so is Rachel Summers, at least according to her last two miniseries (X-Men: True Friends, Sep-Nov 1999, and X-Men: Phoenix, Dec 1999-Feb 2000). In fact, in the third issue of True Friends Chris Claremont wrote, "She is named for the Bird of Fire -- that fabled creature out of legend, part and parcel of the mythology of every planet which ever spawned a sentient race ... She was born Rachel Anne Summers, but she is far better known as Phoenix!" Meanwhile, Claremont is referring to Jean as Phoenix over in Uncanny X-Men. Hey, don't ask ME to explain it!

2) I had the same experience in Austin, TX, in 1985. A good comics ship can really be a warm, fuzzy blanket.

3) I could have taken the Brother Blood story more seriously if he didn't call himself by such an obvious supervillain name, and wasn't wearing a skull on his head. I mean, really -- how many people is he going to fool?

4) I'm content with the "Speed Force" explanation as well. Frankly, during his "gotta eat, gotta run" phase, Wally came off as something of a pig.

6) I'm with you. Marvel can tell me Magneto's a Gypsy until they're blue in the face, but as far as I'm concerned, he's Jewish. It makes more sense for the character as established, it makes the character's motivation stronger, and it's better for story purposes. Besides, I can believe what I want!

(And point of information for all budding copy editors out there: Magneto has been Erik Magnus Lensherr in the comics for about 20 years. But all of the official newspaper movie promo material lists him as "Lehnsherr" and IMDB and Starlog and Cinescape and all newspaper articles are following suit. It will be interesting to see if Chris Claremont -- who named him originally, and is Grand Poo-Bah For Style at Marvel now -- will follow suit.)

7) Yup, Cap's a hoot and some of David's best work. I'd have pushed CM harder, but I just assumed everybody was reading it. We are all reading it, aren't we?

9) My column next week elaborates on my feelings vis-a-vis CrossGen/Gorilla, but my faves resemble yours. Either Shockrockets or Section Zero is my favorite primate (depending on which one I've read most recently) with Crimson Plague unreadable gibberish. And I enjoyed the first Empire, but I'll be darned if I can figure out where he can go now -- the protagonist's character arc is complete, and the most sympathetic character (who wasn't terribly sympathetic) is dead. At CrossGen, Mystic and Scion compete for my favorite title, but Sigil remains cliched and unremarkable.

10) I'm having a hard time arguing the point successfully, but I really don't think Oracle should be lifting funds, vigilante or not. And as you note, she has other funding sources, including the Justice-bloody-League!

I think you've hit on something, though: The line she's crossed (for me, at least) is that she's stopped acting as the executive branch (cops and law enforcement, like Batman) and is now acting like the judiciary branch (by "fining" crooks). The judiciary (like the Supreme Court) is the branch we rely on to sort out the "gray areas," as opposed to the law-enforcement branch, which is pretty straightforward (stop the mugger/rapist/murderer before he hurts somebody). You may have cut to the chase on the argument here.

11) Yeah, the Wonder Woman story in Legends could have been a real thumbsucker -- but instead, as you noted, it became simply another "secret origin." Although I was mildly surprised to see Superman acting like a jealous schoolkid. What was THAT all about?

Dear Cap: Just to give credit where it's due: Those rules cited by [name withheld] are adapted from the book How To Be A Superhero. I can't remember the actual author, but it's illustrated by a pre-Preacher Steve Dillon, and if you can find it, it's well worth a read.

Duly noted, sir. Posted to set the record straight.

[name withheld] again

You wrote:

<<I always figured the reason that DD changed his suit was a never-before-seen panel from Amazing Spider-Man 16 where the webspinner says, "Nice teaming up with you DD, those Circus of Crime boys are tough! But I gotta ask you: Who designed your outfit? A blind man?" Chagrined, Matt slinks home and sews a new costume ... >>

Actually, a scene like that appeared in a What If ... ? (Can't remember the number.) The story was "What if the world knew Daredevil was blind?" Spider-Man and DD fought Electro, who used his power to flare up brightly, blinding Spider-Man but of course not DD. Electro accused him of being blind, and proved it by asking DD what color Electro's costume was (a lovely pre-Byrne green). Afterward, Spider-Man commented that his blindness should have been obvious because of the red-and-yellow costume.

That scene probably settled into my subconscious, […], and came out of my fingers years later. Thanks for the info! Now if only I could lay my hands on the issue number of What If ... ? I've flipped through my "What Ifs" and found 12 stories involving Daredevil, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna read them all to look it up.

Please! Someone called Section Zero a rip-off of Planetary? That's like calling one Elvis impersonator a rip-off of another Elvis impersonator! I'm with you. I love Section Zero. Frankly, I like it better than Planetary. Section Zero is great fun.

Hear, hear! That's another vote for Section Zero! We'll win over the unbelievers yet!

<<As to the Human Torch connection, for a while there it was completely true. Roy Thomas established in the long-running "Celestial Madonna" storyline criss-crossing Avengers and Giant-Size Avengers in 1974-75 that Ultron had customized the original Human Torch's inanimate android body to create the Vision. Unfortunately, other writers resurrected the Torch, causing a contradiction. We all know what that means: It's Retcon Time! So it's been RE-established that Ultron kidnapped Prof. Horton (the original Torch's creator) and forced him to use his schematics to create the Vision. The original Torch, it now appears, was slumbering under the sands of a Nevada desert all along, unaware of his near-miss with Avengerhood.>>

And just to top it off, the Avengers Forever limited series has somebody claiming that the body that Vizh was rebuilt from was a duplicate created by Kang, leaving the original to be buried in the desert. I think that's how it worked, anyhow ...

Is that definite? Now I'll have to go look it up. The whole Avengers Forever series struck me as a "possible" take on the Marvel Universe, and I didn't memorize it -- like all the "Ages of Apocalypse" and other X-stories featuring alternate futures. I mean, are we to accept as carved in stone that Songbird (the former Screaming Mimi) will not only be an Avenger in the future, but will still be wearing the same clunky, unflattering outfit she's currently wearing in Thunderbolts?

Hey! Good to get a reply! It's always great to talk to someone that knows more about comics than what the cartoon shows (which aren't even right half the time). On the others that you felt suffered the "Gwen Stacy Syndrome," I agree with them all except Betty Ross and Karen Page. I think those two were kosher deaths. And yes, that would suck to have two of your girlfriends killed, but I think the same way you do, Gwen was Spidey's girl. Have you read the Spider-Man: Webspinners any? I can't recall what issue right now (second or third or so) but in the back was a nice little Gwen Stacy story. What I remember most is how excited Peter was after seeing her. He was jumping up and down and screaming "woo hoo!" Y'know, it just truly showed he loved her.

I've tried to forget Webspinners entirely, but the story you're referring to is "The Kiss," by J.M. DeMatteis and John Romita Sr. in the very first issue (Jan 1999). Anyway, I'm with you -- call me an unreconstructed Silver Ager, but in the back of my head Gwen Stacy is Spidey's girl, and nobody else.

Dear Cap: A few thoughts:

1) Wasn't it established in Avengers Forever that Kang interfered with The Vision's timeline and made it contradictory for some nefarious purpose of his (Kang's) own?

2) Regarding Wonder Woman's momentous decision: Since I'm not familiar with the story in question, I don't know all the details. I do believe that there are times when we have to do things we aren't happy with for survival's sake. On the other hand, I wouldn't have been surprised if WW had offed the dictator in question as soon as the opportunity presented itself. As for the argument that the writer could have written her a way out, since that's not option in "real life," perhaps the writer was trying to be "realistic"

3) On the other hand, perhaps it's unrealistic to expect to much "realism" in superhero comics, when Superman, the original superhero, was so inherently unrealistic. I mean, did anybody ever really buy the fact the Daily Planet reporters (And what is a reporter but a trained observer?) spent a fair amount of time with both Clark Kent and Superman and never figured out they were the same guy? Even when I was eight, I never bought that one!
1) Yep, I forgot all about that Avengers Forever bit, because, frankly, I don't trust anything Immortus or the Space Phantom have to say. In Avenger Forever 8 (Jul 1999), the Space Phantom said that Immortus created a divergent time stream, and then merged the "alternate" Torch into our own, so that there were TWO Torches -- one of whom became The Vision at the hands of Ultron. So I guess that's the way things stand -- at least for now.
2) I have to wonder, though, how the other JLAers (and the world) would view Wonder Woman if she openly prostituted herself, even in the course of saving lives. While I don't know what Themysciran philosophy would have to say on the matter -- it's rife with contradictions -- but Western civilization calls prostitution a crime. Superman would have been profoundly disappointed, I'd guess, and Green Lantern would probably have been turned on (Hey! I have a chance!). Dunno what Batman's take would be -- probably a grudging practical approval, but more evidence for his belief (according to Kingdom Come) that WW's "mission" is more grounded in hypocritical elitism than anything to admire. Would have been interesting, to say the least, and I'm curious what others think.
3) When I was a kid in the '60s I dismissed Lois anyway -- hey, she was a girl, and had cooties -- but I always thought that Superman must have really bad taste to love a girl who was always trying to reveal his greatest secret, and was too dumb to realize that two guys she had kissed were the same guy -- with only a pair of glasses standing in the way. Many efforts have been made subsequent to the Silver Age to make Superman's "disguise" more plausible -- including mass super-hypnotism in the '70s! -- but I guess the ultimate answer is simply "suspension of disbelief." After all, we accept that a man can fly -- with no visible means of thrust!

Dear Cap: You said:

<<Unfortunately, other writers resurrected the Torch, causing a contradiction. We all know what that means: It's Retcon Time! So it's been RE-established that Ultron kidnapped Prof. Horton (the original Torch's creator) and forced him to use his schematics to create The Vision. The original Torch, it now appears, was slumbering under the sands of a Nevada desert all along, unaware of his near-miss with Avengerhood.>>

Actually, I believe in Avengers Forever this was re-re-established again so that Immortus split the body of the Human Torch into two identical bodies. One was turned into The Vision, the other was buried. He then mentally manipulated Hank Pym and Professor Horton into making every one believe that The Vision wasn't the original Human Torch. The "other writer" was Byrne during his Avengers West Coast run IIRC. Unfortunately, I don't really remember why Immortus did this, but the issue in question had Immortus splitting the Torch in two on the cover.

You also said:

<<Hellstorm was driven to suicide in Hellstorm 14 by D'Spayre. But she was resurrected in Thunderbolts 2000.>>

Well you obviously meant to say Hellcat instead of Hellstorm. I also believe that she was goaded by Deathurge (that guy from Quasar) not D'Spayre, but my memory could be faulty.

D'oh! You're right on both counts, […]. I addressed the Avengers Forever question above, and Hellcat was driven to suicide by the minor demon Deathurge, not the minor demon D'Spayre. Gee, how could I have made THAT mistake?

Thanks for the corrections!

Dear Cap: You wrote:
<<(Captain America) was a soldier (and superhero) in World War II ...This was a guy who was prepared to do whatever was necessary for the common good, and he knew it wasn't always pretty, and he knew that sometimes people got killed no matter what you did.>>

I couldn't agree with you more, Cap. No, I do not find today's crop of barely-restrained homicidal psycho-heroes as heroic. A superhero is to preserve life -- all life. That goes with the cape and cowl. However, I readily admit there is a rare occasion when killing will be the only choice, such as in the Captain America story I referenced in my last post. (And to which I'll return in five or so paragraphs.) While I don't hold with a so-called hero slaying his foes right and left; the other side of the coin is, I can understand the circumstance when the hero truly has no other choice but to kill.

The only exception I have to this pragmatic stance is the case of Superman. The old, pre-Crisis Superman, that is. The real Superman. (I couldn't care less what the new guy does or doesn't do.)

Superman does not kill. It has been part of his code of ethics for most of his career. With his array of powers, he has the greatest opportunity to find an alternative to killing, so from that aspect, his code makes sense. To be honest, his vow to retire/remove his superpowers (take your pick) if he ever does kill is a bit extreme and unfair. You have to ponder the moral imperative if Superman, after accidentally killing, say, the Parasite, removes his powers with gold kryptonite; and the next day a busload of schoolchildren plunges off a bridge right before Clark Kent's eyes.

Nevertheless, it is a keystone to the Superman mythos, a corollary to the notion that Superman is the most decent, noble hero of them all.

Ironically, I have no problems with a character such as The Punisher. Frankly, he is the kind of individual I would be if I had Superman's powers. There are criminals who have abrogated their right to treatment as human beings. They have to be put down, just like rabid dogs. (As might be apparent, Cap, I have no spiritual concerns about the nature of life.) But when a character like this is presented, it should be depicted that this kind of revenge-driven behaviour could only be called "good" in a relative sense; that it brings its own set of negative consequences. I don't have a problem with the "judge-jury-and-executioner" aspect of such a character, since the writers (usually) take pains to show that The Punisher's kills are those whose acts are reprehensible and whose guilt is evident.

But somewhere between these two extremes, the other heroes should lie. And more to Superman's end, frankly. Superheroes should make every effort to preserve all life. However, if a circumstance forces a hero to kill, while it should be regretted, it is not to be abhorred.

My vision of Captain America was formed from the same Tales of Suspense stories which you read, Cap. And my take on him was the same as yours. Captain America did not kill wantonly, nor casually. But he was also a soldier, and he killed when necessary; like every other American fighting man in World War II, he killed for the greater good. And the Sentinal of Liberty regretted it, but it was an inescapable part of war.

Reflecting this verity, there are few scenes of Cap and Bucky committing any lethal acts in those stories, or for that matter, even in the Captain America magazine back in the '40s. But there are a few. In the retold origin of Captain America run in the Tales of Suspense title, the final scene shows Cap and Bucky, after having defeated a group of Nazi infiltrators, load their raft with explosives and send it back to the delivery U-boat. The charges are set and blow on target, sending the U-boat -- and the seamen within -- to the bottom.

But there are few scenes like this. When Cap and Bucky were shown in action with G.I.s, as with their appearances with the Howling Commandoes, they did not use guns. (Yet, they had no problem with the soldiers who did use them.)

My memories of the theme of the Captain America series at the time when Captain America was forced to kill that member of the terrorist group ULTIMATUM are vague, so I can't remember how far from the notion of being a soldier the image of Cap had drifted. But I do remember that subsequent issues depicted Captain America in a crisis of conscience. I found that to be a bit absurd. Surely, Captain America is decent, noble -- by implication and inferrence, the most noble and decent hero in the Marvel Universe -- however, he is also pragmatic. He understands that sometimes life doesn't present a choice of good-or-bad; that sometimes it's a choice of bad-or-worse.

When the Marvel writers started steering Cap down this "representing the American dream" path, it also turned him from a practical man striving for an ideal to a man impractically and foolishly adhering to an ideal.

I don't even want to think about the essence of heroism lost when DC changed the Batman from a well-adjusted man who overcame terrible tragedy to a psychotic warped by it.

What made me first start thinking about the Cap-doesn't-kill thing was that Ultimatum story you mentioned, in that I was surprised and annoyed that Cap was having a crisis of confidence/conscience. I just couldn't accept that a guy who sunk a whole boatload of Germans (as you noted) and other wartime acts would have the same reaction to having to kill as did Superman when he executed the Phantom Zone supercriminals.

I WANT Superman to have that crisis of confidence/conscience. For Cap, though, it just didn't make sense to me.

And I'm enjoying the new Punisher series enormously; I haven't any problem with the character -- except when he's portrayed as a HERO. He is not. That's how he was more-or-less depicted in the '80s (other heroes, like Spidey, seemed to grudgingly accept him into the "fraternity") and I couldn't accept it. As the looney, revenge-crazed wacko he is now, though, I'm having a blast reading about him.

<< Well, except for one visceral reaction. Spider webs shooting out of a guy's hands? Yuk!>>

Hi there, a similar scene appeared in the film version of Mortal Kombat with the character Scorpion. In the game, Scorpion throws out a harpoon on a line, stabs his opponent and reels them back while shouting "get over here!" In the film a creature comes (literally, and quite graphically) out of Scorpion's hand. This creature is tethered to him and (unlike the game) can hunt for it's prey and twist and turn around in all directions. I would have preferred that they kept the original license the way it was, but for the scene they wanted, it worked.

So is that a vote for the organic webshooters? Here's some more on the subject:

Dear Cap: It's been awhile since I wrote in, but I have been following (and enjoying) your columns every week. I thought I would add some things to questions or comments I have seen on your letters page:

As to the appearance of Colossus in the movie X-Men, Colossus appears in what I like to call the "enroll-at-Xavier" scenes of the movie. These are the scenes where Xavier tells Wolverine of his school, what Xavier is doing, etc. I call it the "enroll-at-Xavier's" scenes because they remind me of college commercials. The way those scenes are shown looks like a commercial for Xavier's Academy. Lots of exterior shots of the school, people being taught, etc. Anyway, in the shot where the kid runs over the pond, on the left of the shot is a boy painting an image on an easel. That's Colossus.

As for the movie itself, I really enjoyed it. I thought that despite the changes to some characters (Rogue's and Cyke's age, Jean Grey as a scientist), the movie nailed the characterization of each character perfectly. Sure, Rogue was younger than portrayed in the comics, but that is how she would have acted at that age. I would even go as far to say that I almost liked Rogue better in the movie than in the comics. After all, of all the X-Men, her mutant power may be the biggest curse in the fact that she can't never touch someone's warm skin or share a kiss or be physically intimate. Given that, one can imagine that her story at its most tragic is when she had just discovered her powers, is a teenager and is just beginning to deal with the implications of her powers.

One of your readers mentioned that one of the reasons they didn't want to see the movie is because Wolverine was a foot taller than he should be. While it may be nice to have found someone matching Wolverine's height, his height is almost the only thing missing from Jackman's performance. That and his lack of huge amounts of body hair, but I think we are all grateful that we didn't see the movie Wolverine be faithful to that aspect of the character. Regardless, Jackman did a superb job of being the Wolverine we all know and love.

On to Spider-Man, recent rumors (one even from a Sony Films newsletter) have said that Nicolas Cage may be cast as Norman Osborn/the Green Goblin. I think that may be a good fit, at least a lot better than Cage as Superman. Plus, the guy has to be in a movie adapting a comic book once. After all, when he changed his last name from Coppola, he chose Cage after the Marvel charcter Luke Cage.

Now on to the organic webshooters. I am not going to say that I think it's the best thing in the world and that I am all for it. As people have pointed out, other than being faithful, the mechanical webshooters seem to have two advantages over organics. 1) The fact that Peter invented the webbing and shooters demonstrates his genius. 2) The fact that the webshooters can run out of fluid has made for some great drama in the books.

Playing Devil's Advocate, does the movie need to show Peter making the webbing and shooters to establish his genius? No, that can be done in other ways. Plus, one rumor I heard (based on a draft of the script) has the shooters being organic and mechanical. Peter has the shooters in his wrists, but alone he is unable to accurately shoot and control the webbing. So he creates two wrist-directional devices that allows him to direct his webbing where he wants it and presumably allows him to make nets, shields, etc. For me, if this rumor is true, it takes a lot of the problems with the organic shooters.

However, this still leaves the "running-out-of-fluid" problem. Someone I correspond with suggested this can still be accomplished by showing that Peter's organic fluid isn't an infinite supply. He may run out and have to consume more food, etc. to create more webbing. While this can be used, to me, it's not as good as the mechanical fluid and cartridges and may be harder to get across to the audience.

However, in the end, I am willing to put up with organics. Why? I have read some interviews with Sam Raimi the director about Spider-Man and the movie. This guy truly seems to love the character and understand his appeal. Unlike other directors who have made comic book movies (cough -- Schumacher), he gets the character. If getting a great Spider-Man movie means that I have to accept some differences from the comics (like the organic shooters), fine. The end project is what counts more. The most important thing is that they nail the characterization, so that when I see the final product I say "that's Peter Parker, the amazing Spider-Man."

Finally, are you going to do a column for the last issue of Preacher? Sort of a culmination piece? I don't think you have done one yet (though I could easily be wrong). This series has been phenomeonal and the last issue should be commemorated. While I have questioned its some aspects of the story (some of the graphic violence and deviant sex), the story and characterization have been great. And what may be the best thing about the series is that all the issues are (or will be) in trade paperback form allowing people to hop on and get the entire story without hunting for back issues. That's how I got hooked.

I hadn't thought about a Preacher finale, and in fact haven't done much with the series in my newspaper gig. The problem, as you noted, is the sex and violence -- that's going to be hard to address without triggering the "Outraged Moms of America" or somesuch. But it was such a good series that it's worth a thought.

As I've said before about the webshooters, my preference is to stick with the source material, but I'd be fine with it if it was handled as well as the X-Men uniform switch.

And I never gave a moment's worry to Hugh Jackman's height (or lack of body hair). The actor carried the whole movie, made me BELIEVE he was Wolverine, and did it superbly. That's all that matters to me -- anything else is picking nits.

And here's still more on the webshooter controversy:

Dear Cap: Hey, I read your Captain Comics column in the News Tribune, and was thinking of writing to you about the travesty otherwise known as Spider-Man's organic webshooters. You beat me to it, though, by mentioning the issue in your latest column. I agree that the organic webshooters are gross and unnecessary, and have the potential to completely mess up the character of Peter Parker. There are a lot of people that feel that way, so a couple of fellows (who I've never even talked to, I just thought I'd spread the word) who are very dedicated Spider-Fans have started a Web site called http://www.no-organic-webshooters.com/. It is a site made to draw attention to this, erm, issue, and lets people discuss their opinions of changes to Spider-Man in his upcoming moive. The site also features a no organic webshooters petition, which they intend to send to Sony and Sam Raimi when they have an impressive enough number of signatures. The site has only been around for a couple of weeks, and has already been mentioned at a number of major Web sites and has grown tremendously so far. I, as well as countless other fans, would appreciate it if you were to mention this site at some point in your column, so people upset by the organic webshooters will know that there is a place where their voice will be heard. This is different than most changes to characters in comic book movies, because they aren't just changing the costume or anything, they're changing his powers and possibly his entire outlook and behavior. Comic-book fans deserve more than unfaithful movies, and it would be a pity if X-Men was the first and last of the great modern comic adaptations. If the fans are loud enough, there is a chance they can fix this webshooter problem before the movie begins filming in November.

And as I've said before, I'd prefer seeing the Spidey movie stick as close to the source material as possible. If director Sam Raimi does the organic thing WELL, I suppose I'd have no complaint. But that's the trick, isn't it? Here's a lighter look:

RE: Your Aug. 13 article and the new Spider-Man movie:

If they wanted to stay true to the "spider" powers idea and have "organic" web hooters, they'd have the web come out of Peter Parker's butt ...

Also in a bit of Spidey-flick news, Nicolas Cage has been asked to portray the Green Goblin -- a role he's much more suited for than Superman.

(And) if Spider-Man was Jewish, it would be "Spiderman."

I really, really try not to think about that spinnerets-on-the-butt bit, […]! Can you imagine how he'd SWING?

Interestingly, Sherlock Holmes fan David Stuart Davies runs a magazine called Sherlock Holmes Detective Magazine that recently did an article on The Batman. (It also did one on The Shadow.)
The Hulk's mass, it was conjectured in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition, comes from and goes to an extradimensional source, as does Giant-Man's, Goliath's, etc.
The 'fifties Captain America stories were recently reprinted in The Golden Age of Marvel Comics tpb.
Atari, in the 1980s, had a sword-and-sorcery videogame called Swordquest. It came with a premium comic book in small size. I have one with me, and the art looks to be like it was done by George Perez. Did he in fact draw it?
As to the Crusader, he appeared in Thor 330.
A few times in the Capn Comics site the issue of when Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman's adventures switched from Earth-Two to Earth-One. The Cap used 'Tec 327 as the marking point of the switch for Batman, and although Who's Who seemed to agree in its entries for Batman and Nightwing (based on the addition of the gold emblem around the bat-symbol), it was fairly recently pointed out that that is not so, as later stories indicated that the Earth-One Batman had in fact worn a costume without the gold oval.
It is even trickier for Superman, as his costume did not have as dramatic a change. The Cosmic Cards set that came out a while ago listed Superman 76 as the first appearance for the Silver Age Superman, although the only milestone in that issue was an important Superman/Batman team-up. (Batman, by the way, did not appear in the Cosmic Cards set, which were released in 1992). Who's Who scuttled the issue by not covering Superman's Silver Age history in his entry, but rather the Byrne version ,with Action Comics 1 listed as the first appearance in homage to Siegel and Shuster. The Official Index of the JLA also did the latter, although it noted that the definitive origin of the Earth-One Superman was Superman 146.
But, perusing some Crisis sites, I found that it was noted that the Earth-Two Superman did not have a career as Superboy, as established in 1970s stories. So, any Superboy stories involved the Earth-One Superman's youth. Hence, More Fun Comics 101 was the first Earth-One story -- and thus the first appearance of the Earth-One Superman, as Superboy.
Sigh. Now I'm REALLY confused! So when did the SuperMAN switchover occur?
Incidentally, the Handbook also used that unnamed dimension to explain where the "equal and opposite reaction" inertia goes when Cyclops fires his power beam. Pretty convenient, that extra dimension.

Dear Cap: I have a question for ya. Why do most word balloons have a word in bold-face type? I thought it might be because it was an important word or maybe it was where the inflection should be. But it seems that (many words are) in bold-face type for no reason whatsoever! Why is that? I need to know!
I have always assumed that the bolded words were for emphasis, or to give the dialogue a more "natural" feel. Without taking anything away from Jack Kirby, a genius by any stretch of the imagination, he was just awful at it. His "Fourth World" dialogue -- particularly Terrible Turpin's -- was so eccentric in its use of emphasis that it's become a running gag in Kirby parodies and homages.

Dear Cap: Interesting bit from [name withheld] about The Joker. I recently re-read the Devil's Advocate graphic novel by Dixon and Nolan, which attempted to deal a little more deeply with the character from a legal standpoint (he's finally given the death penalty, but for a crime Batman knows he didn't commit). The story was okay, could have been better, but it got me to thinking, too.

I've always found The Joker to be a sticky obstacle in the "realism" of Batman. In the real world, he'd be dead by somebody's hand -- if not Batman's, then Gordon's, an enraged citzen's, or another criminal's. For a little while, I thought that DC should actually have Batman kill The Joker for good, within continuity. Yes, Batman isn't a killer and shouldn't be, and it would be editorial idiocy to kill off a valuable property like The Joker, but I thought that having Batman consciously decide to make this one exception would be a nice bit of dramatic realism. We have gotten to see it a few times in Elseworlds stories (Dark Knight Returns, of course, and JLA: The Nail), the results were always pretty powerful.

The real problem with the Joker is that he is so incredibly weird. Most of the Batman cast we could imagine existing in the real world, more or less. The Joker is beyond any scope of reality. That's part of his appeal, of course, but it makes fitting him into a logical framework of three-dimensional characters with actions and consequences very difficult. Personally, I tend to see him less as a character -- a guy with thoughts and emotions and reactions -- and more as a sheer force of destruction, like a hurricane or something. (Strangely, I love The Killing Joke, which more than anything else attempts to frame The Joker as a real person. Alan Moore, after all.) Frank Miller once put it well when he said that The Joker is less an evil doppleganger of Batman and more of an antithesis. Batman is grim darkness in the service of good and order; The Joker is light-hearted frivolity in the service of evil and chaos. That's the dichotomy between the two of them, and that's why their rivalry is so appealing.

[name withheld]'s suggestion -- that The Joker has been overused lately and there should be a moratorium on Joker stories for a few years -- is a good one. They tried that in the late '80s, after Jason Todd died -- he wasn't really around for at least two years (in the comics -- the movie hit and he was everywhere else). But they really should try a hiatus again. He's been used a lot lately, and The Joker is really a difficult character to do right. There are far more stupid or awkward Joker stories than truly good ones.

I remember a great line from one of the many reviews I read about the first Batman movie. It said "Batman is depressed because there's so much evil in the world, and The Joker is a happy guy because there's so much evil yet to commit." I still chuckle over that one.

Incidentally, Batman didn't kill The Joker in Dark Knight Returns. Joker killed himself by breaking his own neck, just to frame Batman.

I've always had trouble with The Joker's continued survival, too, simply because he's not super-powered and pulls all sorts of outrageous stunts that would kill a normal guy (leaping off rooftops onto blimps, fighting Batman on a swinging girder). Plus, he's constantly offing his henchmen for imagined slights -- who would sign up? And why hasn't one of them put a bullet into the back of his head by now out of revenge or self-preservation? I accept that somehow he can take on Batman toe to toe because he's sneaky and his madness may give him extra strength -- but madness doesn't make it any easier to maintain your footing on slick rooftops in hand-to-hand combat.

Ah, well, as you say: DC will never let him die. And I have no problem with Batman not killing him and re-arresting him constantly -- I just have a problem with the court system not finding some way to keep him locked up. Arkham is a joke, and the lawsuits from victims' relatives ought to force the issue.

Dear Cap: I just read your (Tony Twist) column online and thought I would weigh in with my two-cents' worth. I live in St. Louis and I am an avid hockey fan. So I followed this case closely, seeing as how it involved my favorite hobby and my favorite sport. It is my belief that if the case was held in any other city than St. Louis, Twist would not have had such a large settlement awarded him, if he was awarded it at all.

Twist had a few endorsements here in St. Louis. He hosted a Blues pregame show on a local channel and he appeared in commercials for a TV station and a car dealer. That is all I can think of. He was an enforcer, a fighter who played maybe five minutes a game when he was in the lineup at all. He wasn't even really prominently featured in the Blues commercials, billboards or any other marketing campaign. The Blues actually drafted Tony Twist in the late '80s. He was promptly traded after he took a run at a goalie in a minor-league game, ending this goalie's career. And just at the end of the 1998-99 season, the Blues had decided to not offer Twist a contract, making him an unrestricted free agent. That day he had an accident on his motorcycle and suffered potentially career-ending leg and hip injuries. I can't really see the advertisers beating down his door for endorsement opportunities.

Now for the comic-book angle. An average issue of Spawn sells, what, 100,000-125,000 copies? Would these people avoid any product endorsed by Tony Twist because he shares a name with a mobster in a comic book? Or do advertisers read Spawn and avoid Tony Twist for an endorsement opportunity because of the name similarity?

I read the summaries of the laws involved in the case in your column and I think Twist has a leg to stand on, especially with it being a recurring character. But I also think Twister (as he is referred to by Blues fans) got a classic home-town call from a St. Louis jury in this case. I think if the trial was held in Chicago, or Kansas City or Des Moines or anywhere else where Tony Twist isn't a popular enforcer for the local hockey team, the award would have been smaller, if not dismissed altogether.

No doubt having the "home-team advantage" helped, particularly with the enormous size of the award. But my honest take on it is that McFarlane stepped out of bounds, and got his knuckles rapped -- and that probably would have happened anywhere.

Hey Cap: It seems that everyone on this Web site spends a lot more time talking about writers than artists. I also turn to comic books more for plots than pretty pictures, but it strikes me that bad art can ruin a good story, and that all of our favourite plotlines of the past were enhanced by the quality of the visuals.

So, I was wondering, who are your favourite artists? You've mentioned that you don't really care for manga or Japanese-stylized work but are there other styles that turn you off or that cause you to pay attention?

I myself have never been a big fan of Mike Mignola. His style does work with Hellboy but any time he gets his hands on superheroes like Batman or the X-Men, I shudder. Of course, part of what makes his style work is that he has such an incredible sense of page layout. Some of his imitators don't share that trait and so I've been scared away from Judgment Day and from the recent Hawkman story because of the art.

Another recent trend that has me distressed is muted colours. For some reason (and perhaps we rightly blame Joel Schumacher and his Batman and Robin debacle), the comics industry is starting to shy away from bright colours and quite frankly, it's making some books hard to read. The current Inhumans is a case in point. If everything has the same brownish overtone, it's difficult to make out foregrounds and backgrounds. I don't know if (Jose) Ladronn is to blame for that as well, but the colours don't help.

The same thing is happening over in the X-titles where both the colourist and I have trouble figuring out if any one figure is Shadowcat, Rogue or Psylocke. Pay attention sometime. Every issue features Psylocke in Rogue's colours speaking with a Southern accent or Rogue wearing Psylocke's purples and speaking like a Brit. I wonder, what was wrong with using the whole colour palette?

The last complaint I have is the Kirby imitators. You know, I love reading Kirby's work. I have a large number of hardcovers and paperbacks featuring his work on Captain America, the Fantastic Four or the New Gods, but when current artists try to make a Kirbyesque story, the characters just look blocky. What made Kirby great was that his figures were always in action and that every story was a new world. If people imitated that instead of the square heads, I'd be a lot happier.

Now, I don't want to just complain.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: My absolute favourite artist is George Perez. He's probably the only artist that I'll pick up no matter what the title. Unlike the vast majority of artists, each of his characters have different facial features. He gave Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch a distinctive jaw so that they look like siblings. For that matter, Hawkeye and Captain America finally had jaws that didn't match. Not only does he differentiate faces but also body types. The Wasp is somewhat boy-ish, Warbird is lithe and athletic, the Scarlet Witch is also thin but not quite as muscular. I loved Joe Madrueira while he worked on the X-Men but you just can't say the same. Everybody from Iceman to Cyclops to Cannonball had the same basic facial structure.

I'm also a big fan of Chris Bachalo but I just couldn't follow him over to Steampunk. I had no idea what was going on in the story and the technojargon was unnecessary and indecipherable. However, with a good writer, Bachalo is one of the best at using the scenery to create a mood. He's also trying to break new ground and his use of visual keys tying together an issue are usually interesting and fun (see his run on Generation X where he used apples, bubbles, ship piping, frogs and even Stan Lee to give each issue its own unique visual feel). He was still experimenting on the Witching Hour and I enjoyed that series more for the art than the plot.

I'm also a big fan of Carlos Pacheco and Salvador Larroca. I try to follow Pacheco but then again he's been working with Kurt Busiek of late while Larroca's been stuck with Chris Claremont. That seems to be my pattern. I just can't follow a good artist when he gets saddled with a bad writer.

Finally, I like a lot of the new guys like Leonardo Manco, German Garcia and Leinil Yu (who, in my opinion, was more suited to an individual book like Wolverine than a team piece). I'll usually look into the work of Tony Harris (Starman, Dr. Strange), Steve Skroce (great on Youngblood and Wolverine, half-hearted on Gambit), Travis Charest, Scott McDaniel (who got me to finally read a Batman book) and Jim Lee. And I'll never turn down a book by a competent professional like Brent Anderson or Barry Kitson.

I don't want to get into who I like and who i don't -- that would take all day. But my general feeling about artists is that, while I appreciate virtuosity, what I really want to see is art that serves the story. Art that makes it difficult to tell one character from another, or makes it difficult to tell what's going on, is an immediate turn-off.

Also, as you noted, artists that lift bodily from other artists are annoying. Whether you're copying Jim Lee or Jack Kirby, I'm disappointed. I'd rather see a mediocre artist with his own style than a polished style that is actually somebody else's.

Batman:Year Two was wiped out of the continuity by Zero Hour, when it was decided that for the new continuity, never caught his parents' murderer. Batman:Year Two was thus effectively superseded by Batman: The Long Halloween. (Unfortunately, the jettisoning of Batman:Year Two also wipes out the one-shot Batman: Full Circle, a tigher sequel to Year Two which was well-liked by some.)
During Zero Month in 1994, the zero issues of the Batman titles such as Detective, Batman and Shadow of the Bat established that the murder of the Waynes was never solved. (Doung Moench has also commented on this in an article about him for Comics Scene.)
Batman's part as a detective was recently covered in the magazine Sherlock Holmes Detective Magazine, a periodical edited by David Stuart Davies. (The same magazine also ran an article on The Shadow the issue before.)
Thanks for the updates, [name withheld]!

Hey Cap: Just checked out your last couple of Mailbags and thought I would throw in my two cents on a couple of things:

<<Actually, a scene like that appeared in a What If ... ? (Can't remember the number.) The story was "What if the world knew Daredevil was blind?" Spider-Man and DD fought Electro, who used his power to flare up brightly, blinding Spider-Man but of course not DD. Electro accused him of being blind, and proved it by asking DD what color Electro's costume was (a lovely pre-Byrne green). Afterward, Spider-Man commented that his blindness should have been obvious because of the red-and-yellow costume.
That scene probably settled into my subconscious, […], and came out of my fingers years later. Thanks for the info! Now if only I could lay my hands on the issue number of What If ... ? I've flipped through my What Ifs and found about 12 stories involving Daredevil, and I'll be darned if I'm gonna read them all to look it up.>>

That must have been a recurring theme in those old What If ... ? stories then! I remember a What If in which Peter Parker never became a crimefighter, but instead concentrated on his show-biz career (and turned into a totally pretentious creep). When DD subsequently makes his public debut, Spider-Man contacts him and becomes his agent... and suggests an immediate costume change, because he'd have to be color-blind to have come up with that red-and-yellow monstrosity.
<<Jubilee did appear in the X-Men movie: she was the Asian student that was the last to leave Xavier's office (after Kitty phased thru the door) when Wolverine barged in on the class the Prof was teaching. She's in her distinctive yellow jacket.>>

She's also sitting next to Kitty in class, if I remember correctly.
<<As I recall, […], The Crusader did appear a second time -- although where or when I couldn't tell you. At any rate, my vague memory of the character is that he was written as ... well, a loon. I could be wrong, but my impression is that he couldn't possibly be mistaken for a character who represented modern mainstream Christianity.>>

He appeared a second time in Avengers Spotlight 39, where he battled the Black Knight, but ended up surrendering and shattering his sword & shield.

He was written as extremely overzealous, and I think was supposed to be a bit of a takeoff on Don Quixote (especially considering his fat squire, a gravedigger or cabbie I think, who was the cynical yet dopily gullible observer of his misadventures much like Pancho Sanza was for DQ). I'm not sure if I would go so far as to say he was written as a loon (since, after all, the visions of his ancestors extolling him to fight paganism really did result in him developing superhuman powers, so they weren't grounded in madness), but he was certainly an extremist totally blinded by faith. No, he can't be mistaken for a character representing mainstream Christianity, but could represent some of the fringe sects.
<<Thanks for the recap on the Big G, […]. I fall into the pro-Toho camp on Godzilla; I still find the original film engrossing and his subsequent "pro wrestler" career fun in an Adam West/Batman kinda way. The recent U.S. film I found to be overblown and boring (except for the French "accountant" who happened to have all sorts of black-ops equipment on his person -- that was good for a couple of laughs).>>

I'm definitely in the Toho camp too. Here's an interesting tidbit about the big G: the Japanese title of the first sequel to Godzilla translates as Godzilla Raids Again. However, when it was released in the U.S., the title of the movie (and name of the monster as he's referred to in the flick) was changed to "Gigantis." At the end of Gigantis, the big G gets buried under a ton of ice. At the beginning of the next movie, King Kong vs. Godzilla, big G is shown digging his way out of the ice (meaning it was the same monster buried in Gigantis). So, technically, in the American continuity, the monster that appears in all of the subsequent sequels (up to 1975) isn't Godzilla at all -- it's Gigantis.

<<Which brings me to another irksome nettle that's settled in my craw: When did Cap get to be such a stickler about gunplay? The guy was a soldier (and superhero) in World War II! Are we to believe that he's gun-shy? That he never used a weapon in his many combat adventures? That every time he dropped a hand grenade into a German pillbox that he was careful not to hurt anybody?>>

Retcon, Cap, retcon. A lot of the actual WWII era comics show the classic characters of the era (Captain America & Bucky, Namor, the Human Torch & Toro) doing some pretty bloody stuff. I remember seeing an old issue with the Sub-Mariner mowing down the crew on the deck of a submarine (German, I think) with a machine gun, and cracking wise about it. They don't acknowledge any of that in the current continuity since the rules nowadays say that real heroes don't kill, ever. Not even in wartime, even though there's no real stigma attached to wartime killing (it's seen as a necessary evil, but not a dishonorable one). So, now, whenever they show a WWII appearance by Cap or one of the other Golden Age characters, they never resort to or reference the rough stuff. I agree that it doesn't make much sense for Cap, who was, after all, intended to be the ultimate super soldier.

I think the only one of those old violent incidents still in the official continuity is the one that has the Human Torch and Toro incinerating Hitler in his bunker (the suicide story being a lie concocted by Hitler's followers to save face), unless that's been retconned out since the last time I picked up a comic.
<<Marlon Brando was added to Superman: The Movie solely as a draw. It wasn't too long after Apocalypse Now and the Godfather movies. Brando was not only already a legendary actor at that time, but a "hot" actor, still. The flake that he was/is, Brando was originally wanting to play Jor-El as a piece of luggage or something (no joke). Thankfully, that indulgence wasn't humored by the producers and director.>>

I'm not sure what that line about playing the part as a piece of luggage means ...? In any case, one interesting tidbit: Marlon Brando's brief cameo made him the highest-paid actor in history for a single role, according to Guiness Book of World Records (at least, as of a few years ago -- it may have been surpassed since then). See, he made sure to get a few points of the gross in his contract, and, at the time, Superman: The Movie was one of the highest grossing movies of all time. Brando was obscenely paid for his now much reviled cameo, though I don't have the exact figure here.
<<Spider-Man will reputedly have organic webshooters. Ugh! This is being done, according to the movie's director, Sam Raimi, in order to make Peter feel like an outcast. Pardon, but wasn't Peter Parker already an outcast before the radioactive spider bite? If anything, the spider-powers make Peter feel more accepted and he shows off, to boot!>>

I'm in the minority here, but I don't mind the webshooters being organic. I think it's a good change for the movie. Frankly, I've always had a bit of a problem with the idea that a high-school student could whip up a chemical formula as sophisticated as he did. Granted, Peter's supposed to have been a science whiz, but over the years they've shown a number of real geniuses and/or corporate research labs trying and failing to duplicate the formula. How the heck did he ever make something so sophisticated so quickly and easily?

Granted, in a comic book this sort of thing is perfectly acceptable. A comic-book reader automatically brings a certain suspension of disbelief to the table every time he picks up an issue. So does anyone who goes to see a Spider-Man movie, but there are different degrees of suspension of disbelief. A movie has to appeal to a much broader audience, and I think the "young kid invents super-polymer in his spare time" thing doesn't sell as easily to that audience as it does to comic-book fans.

My real objection is the choice of Sam Raimi as director in the first place. I like some of his stuff, but I'm not sure I want to see his over-the-top, wild motion, semi-surreal cinematography style applied to a Spidey flick.
<<What strikes me as "unrealistic" is the idea that, once caught, The Joker isn't chained to the wall in his cell 23 hours a day, and let out only for an hour's exercise while being watched every second by a contingent of burly guards.>>

Yep, and let's not forget: they've lobotomized patients for significantly less aberrant behavior. Lobotomy is reserved as the last recourse when it's determined that no other treatment will be effective. I think in The Joker's case, it's safe to say that determination has been reached.

What strikes me as even more "unrealistic" is that Arkham continues to operate at all despite their abysmal security failures. The Joker and others escape at will, have run their criminal empires from within Arkham, and have even taken over the institution on numerous occasions. One would think that the state (or city or county, whomever foots the bill) would, at the very least, put them under new management. I mean, the lawsuits alone from the families of the escapees' victims must be costing many millions of dollars.
<<I've mentioned before that where "realism" is lost in The Joker situation isn't Batman or Gordon: It's the courts. I use as my example Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, he was crazy -- the court ruled so. But he was also dangerous. So what did the court do? Send him to Earth-Prime's version of Arkham? Nope -- they sent him to a MAXIMUM-SECURITY PRISON.>>

Uh, say what? The courts didn't rule him insane. He claimed a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity (against his lawyer's advice), but the case presented by prosecutor Mike McCann convinced the jury that he was not legally insane. Dahmer was found sane and guilty on 15 counts of murder.

Dahmer was a psychopath (that was the cornerstone of his defense), but psychopathy alone does not constitute legal insanity. Legal insanity is defined as an inability to distinguish right from wrong. Had the court ruled that he had such an inability, that he was legally insane, he could not have been legally convicted of murder. He would, indeed, have been sent to a mental hospital, rather than prison (which, frankly, is the right thing to do). But, they never made such a ruling, and, in fact, Dahmer's confession to the police after the arrest repeatedly indicated that he felt great guilt over his crimes and therefore did understand the difference between right and wrong. That's why they sent him to a maximum-security prison (incidentally, there are maximum-security wards in mental hospitals too -- apparently just not in Gotham).
So Dahmer was ruled NOT insane? I must have misinterpreted what I read. Well, let's rule The Joker sane, and put him out Gotham's misery!
And it is pretty hard to believe a high-school kid could come up with such a clever super-glue ... but, of course, it's hard to believe that a police scientist could whip up a costume that shrinks automatically into a ring (Flash) or that a college professor could turn a hunk of white dwarf matter into a costume, complete with size-and-weight controls (Atom) or that Tony Stark could come up with the amazing armor that he has, when nobody else on the planet has anywhere near the same technology. But I get your point.

Dear Andrew "Captain Comics" Smith: So too do I agree that altering Spider-Man's webshooters from mechanical ones to organic in the planned movie would be too unfaithful to the premise of the good ol' comics. And what's really wrong is that it could make his battles much less challenging: Although Peter Parker/Spider-Man has some superhuman strength, he's still far from being as powerful as say, Superman, and so he's but one of many characters who use their brains to outwit and beat the brawn. In fact, there are a lot of characters in both the Marvel and DC universes, including Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Wolverine, The Punisher, Beast, etc, who use their brains to conquer brawn. By changing Spidey's webshooters to organic ones, they'd be giving the character the advantage of never having to refill his webshooters with web fluid, which would make it much too easy for him to face some of his foes.

I once read a reprint of the very first Spider-Man story from Amazing Fantasy No.15 about a decade ago, and I think he'd first manufactured his web fluid from rice and milk (he probably came up with tougher materials later). And when it came to battling enemies like Dr. Octopus and Doctor Doom, he had to use his brains to beat them. And boy, were those stories brilliant. So to change his webshooters to organic ones would be making it too easy to battle the baddies.

Luckily, for all those loyal to the comics, some loyalists have ridden to the rescue on the Web, and they've formed a Web site called http://www.no-organic-webshooters.com/ to try and persuade Sam Raimi and the other writers not to make such changes. On this Web site, readers can find a signup form on which to join the effort to petition Columbia Pictures, and also some hypertext links to the IMDB's pages about the movie. Hopefully, there's still time to petition the studio.

If the subject of manga-style artwork finding it's way into U.S. comics is an interesting one, I think I've started spotting some signs of it. In a recent X-Men annual, one of my favorite heroines, Psylocke, was drawn with an adorable purple coiffure, which is what a lot of manga comics artists have done in the past years, draw girls (and sometimes boys) with bizarre hair colors. It's something very stylish and clever that I hope to see in more American comics to come.

For more on the subject of manga and anime, you can go to http://www.manga.com/ and http://www.animeiga.com/

Thanks for adding to the webshooter debate, Avi -- it seems to be running neck-and-neck. I'm sure the web site you mentioned will have some strong opinions!

Dear Cap: Hate to correct you, but in the interest of historical accuracy, I'm afraid I must.
Regarding your answer to Ben-Jonathan Tribble, Congo Bill did indeed have a young male sidekick. Janu's origin and time of introduction escapes me. His creation though, owes more to the depiction of "Boy" in the Weissmuller/Tarzan series than anything else. And while the African sun may have tanned his normal complexion quite a lot, make no mistake, he was white.
As for a "straight" line between Ebony and T'Challa, I think that's a bit of a stretch (even for Plastic Man). Unless you want to run that line through Amos 'n Andyville. Eisner's Spirit is a masterpiece of superb storytelling, populated with colorful characters. But, no matter what type of paint job you put on Ebony, that's one black eye the Spirit can never hide behind a mask
The early '40s Congo Bills didn't have Janu in them, and my next encounter with Congo Bill was the late '50s/early '60s, and Janu was there. I wasn't really sure where or when he first appeared; I'm the Silver Age Captain, and the Golden Age Captain is trapped in a time/space distortion and unavailable for comment. The "Boy" connection makes tremendous sense. (I did toss in a weasel phrase in the original column, if you noticed, where I mentioned that the sidekicks didn't necessarily begin with the strip. Well, except for Lothar. I was aware that all the characters I mentioned weren't necessarily born of the Golden Age, and just spoke in generalities.)
As to Ebony -- ahh, don't be so crabby. Amos and Andy was TV. After state-sanctioned Jim Crow ended in the '20s and '30s, it continued culturally -- Blacks were virtually invisible and marginalized in America for decades, including "mainstream" entertainment -- except for comics, which attempted here and there to portray African-Americans as something a bit more than butlers and maids. Credit where it's due; Lee & Kirby (a couple of New York Jews) established the cliche-shattering Black Panther months before Lt. Uhura did the same for TV in ultra-liberal L.A.
We, as comics fans, have something to crow about here: Ebony wasn't a stereotypical black character in the '40s. Sure, he was a blackface, minstrel-lookin' comic relief type -- but little else would have been accepted in the '40s by white America. Eisner did a LITTLE bit more with the character than that, pushed the envelope a bit, and comics in general (well, perhaps excluding the '50s) have kept up the trend.
Of course, Ebony is hard to swallow these days, and I'm not about to give Eisner the MLK award. But to carry on the Jackie Robinson analogy, look at the misery Robinson went through -- and look how unremarkable it is to have blacks in sports (or anywhere else) now. I think it unfair to judge '40s Eisner work by '00s standards. Instead I look to the period in question and what he did within those confines -- and Eisner was doing better than his contemporaries, wasn't he?

Dear Cap: Here's a rather good article from the Dallas Observer effectively articulating the current State of the Industry -- sharply declining readership in the face of the greatest creative flowering in 15 years, the reasons behind this and possible directions for the future. Recommended reading for any fan:
http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2000-08-10/feature.html/page1.html
It is a good article, [name withheld]. And the writer actually has his facts straight, which is phenomenal -- most reporters seem to get their information from half-remembered Batman TV shows from 30 years ago.

Dear Cap: I missed out on the whole Superman "mass hypnosis" thing; that's right up there with Jay Garrick "vibrating" his face so no one would recognize him.
As regards Superman and Lois, the thing that weirded me out when I read Superman from the '30s to the '70s were some of the early Silver Age stories in which Superman became almost hysterically fearful that Lois would find out he was Clark Kent, not to mention his almost pathological fear that he might be forced to marry her. I mean, from a psychological standpoint, some of that stuff was just downright ODD, even by superhero standards. I suppose to a certain extent it was because comics in those years were more blatantly aimed at young boys of an age were girls were still "icky".
As far as Wonder Woman goes, I'm not sure what to say. I suppose one could ask oneself "How would I feel if a woman I considered a respected friend did such a thing?"
I have to wonder that, too. Particularly since her decision was so very public.
The story where it was explained that Superman was actually subconsciously using his super-vision (through his super-glasses) to hypnotize everybody into seeing Clark Kent as physically different than Superman (smaller, spindlier) was during the brief period in the '70s when Julius Schwartz was editing the Superman titles and Kent was a GBS-TV broadcaster. His chief nemesis was former NFL quarterback/GBS sports guy Steve Lombard, and his new boss was skinflint Morgan Edge. I believe Lana Lang was brought in at the TV station (in what capacity I don't recall) to put a new, "logical" spin on the Lois/Lana rivalry of the '60s. Anyway, this "update" of Supes didn't last long that I recall, and the "hypnotism" thing was never mentioned again.
As to the "icky" thing -- well, the whole Superman/Lois relationship in the '60s was written for kids, and it played just like Lucy and Charlie Brown in a sandbox. I don't remember thinking it too odd when I read those stories under the age of 10 -- except that I thought Superman must be a moron to date a woman who was too stupid to know that Clark and Superman were the same guy when she had dated (and kissed) them both. (Hey, even as a kid there was a limit to my suspension of disbelief!). After puberty, however, those old stories were waaaaay weird. Now, as a cranky old Silver Ager, I just enjoy the stories both for their nostalgia factor and to laugh at their misogynist absurdity.

Dear Cap: I've read all the comments, positive and negative, about the possibility of the movie version of Spider-Man having the organic webshooters, and just thought I'd bring a couple of points up that I don't think have been addressed.

First of all, the idea is straight from a Spider-Man comic book: Spider-Man 2099. The series was written by Peter David for almost the entire run, and in it, the main character, Miguel O'Hara, gets his DNA merged with a spider's, and gains webshooters on his arms, among other powers. This to me is more "realistic" than Peter suddenly inventing a web-like substance that no one else is able to duplicate.

Also, in the Cameron "scriptment" that I've read, Peter has the organic shooters, and creates fake mechanical webshooters, in order to try to hide from people how inhuman he's become. It creates quite a bit of drama, with Peter wondering to himself if he's going to become or if he already is some sort of monster, especially with seeing Doctor Octopus turn into a monster due to a similar situation. In my opinion, this is far more interesting and dramatic than the far overdone, "Oh, no. I'm out of web fluid!" situation, which Brian Kemper brought up.

All in all, I think the organic shooters is a perfectly acceptable idea. It's a modern update that won't leave non-comic fans saying to themselves "If he needs money so badly, why doesn't he just patent his web fluid and sell it?"

Pretty good points, [name withheld] -- and ones that Mr. David himself brings up in his CBG column this week.

Dear Cap: Thanks for your answer. Everyone needs to see a representation of themselves in a positive light that is free from discrimination or at least has the strength to overcome it. I do not condone homosexuality as a life choice, but I will not condemn those who are gay. Life is already hard enough without people adding their two-cents' worth.
The only comment I have to add is that I've never met a homosexual who considered his lifestyle a "choice." Common sense tells us it's genetic -- after all, who would choose to face a life of prejudice, intolerance, bigotry and often physical danger?

Dear Cap: Thank you for saying that homosexuality should be portrayed in comics. Your answer was short and matter-of-fact as it should be.
As a gay male should I not see myself represented in the comics that I read? Earlier I had written in and said that I saw Peter Parker as gay. I know he is married and straight in the comics, but his hassles in high school mirrored my own greatly. It was so wonderful to see someone going through the same harrassment that I got. You have no idea as a gay adolescent what it means to see positive, human role models out there to tell you that you are not alone and what you are going through is not new to the human condition.
By the same token (no pun intended) I think that comics still have a long way to go in working to incorporate a wider range of ethnicities and races in their comics. It is still a very white world, and I love that Kurt Busiek has attempted to address that in the Avengers.
There already is homosexuality in comics, so the point as to whether there should be is moot. The real question is: Should there be more? I, of course say yes. I know of the cop in Superman ( who was also portrayed in the cartoon with her lover -- Fox sure slipped that one by and that is great! ) I bought Alpha Flight when Northstar came out and continued reading it, despite the crap it became soon after. What made me mad was when Marvel did it they got tons of publicity ( I remember a spot on CNN ) and then they never seemed to mention it again . Someone correct me if I am wrong, but he even had a miniseries and it wasn't mentioned in that. Do superheroes have a don't ask don't tell policy? I'll never forgive Marvel for that.
A question for you and your readers -- can you recommend good gay comics? Comics with interesting portrayals of gay characters? I seem to remember hearing that DC has more than Marvel (which is interesting ). I also seem to remember from my DC friend that the gay characters were mainly villains ( draw your own inferences ).
Why is this important to have more gay characters? Well, number one, the more you have going on in a story, the more interesting it will be. More fodder for stories. Two, the important factor of letting some kid out there see that being gay is a natural part of the mosaic of life. When you are young and gay you think you are alone, granted it is a lot better than when I was growing up, but it is still necessary to show kids they are not alone. The suicide rate for gay teens is more than for straight kids. The next time you go to utter a slur, think about that and who you may be hurting. Peter Parker was one reason I made it through my adolescence. Three, the important factor of reflecting life and not warping it to some twisted vision. Now, granted this is fantasy, but I sometimes wonder if the DC and Marvel Universe are not more white than ours. I could go into into how the mass media shapes our perception of reality, but I won't.
Maybe I should have just said "thank you for your answer, cap" and left it at that. Down off my soapbox I must say that I love SCION so far and MERIDIAN, too. These books have such wonderful visuals! I love the floating cities of MERIDIAN. I also love the recaps. Great idea, I wish more comics had those. I do like SHOCKROCKETS, but did not like SECTION ZERO. But then again I am not an X-Files fan, either.
Now that they have Jenkins doing a good job on the massacred Spider-Man, isn't it time for Mackie to move on and see if they can find a better writer for that title? God, I would love to have them retcon the whole clone and Norm Osborn being alive out of existence.
Speaking of Spider-Man, one reader wrote in saying that they don't like the organic web-shooters and wanted James Cameron back. Well, he is the one to throw the organic webshooters into the mix. He also had Peter and Mary Jane have sex on a bridge, and he had the Kingpin as the villain with Electro's powers. Can you imagine the fan uproar had that gone ahead? On the downside they have shoehorned Dr. Octopus in with the Green Goblin in the latest drafts and I (bet) it does not work and that Ock gets bad dialogue and poor character development. It is the Batman Returns syndrome. How could a script fit in the origin, the Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus and do it all justice? It can't, I hope they change it. But the X-Men rocked and I am hopeful again.
One last thing -- I will never forgive John Byrne for what he did to Spider-Man. He has wasted too much of my time and money and he owes an apology to the fans. OK, if he apologized then I would forgive him. Maybe.
Ah, the webshooter debate grinds on!
I'm with you though -- I've never found Mackie's writing to be more than pedestrian, and I've hoped for a Roger Stern or someone to ride to the rescue. Add to the mix the return of Norman Osborn, the incredible blunder that was the clone saga and the egregious Spider-Man: Chapter One, and you really couldn't dream up a better way to alienate hard-core Spider-fans from a character they once loved. Thank God for Paul Jenkins!
As to homosexuals as heroes or villains, I haven't noticed a trend one way or the other. There's Destiny, Mystique, Starr Saxon (old DD villain, now Machinesmith) and a couple of other gay bad guys on one side, and the JLA's Ice (the second one), Maggie Sawyer, Northstar, Tasmanian Devil, Apollo & Midnighter and a couple of other gay heroes on the other side. And the Flash's Pied Piper has been both hero AND villain. Seems a non-issue to me.
But I will agree with you that more positive role models for gay adolescents would be a positive thing. The suicide rates for gay adolescents are far above the norm -- in fact, alarming.

Dear Cap: The Red Bee wore red- and pink-striped clothes, but didn't dress like one of Saturday Night Live's early years Bee. Oh, no (snicker-snicker) he had a beehive in his belt buckle filled with trained bees who (ha-ha-ha) attacked criminals. If he dressed like a bee, he probably would have been better off.
I understand why the character's ghost was so bitter in Starman. I mean, really -- was that a bee in his belt pocket, or was he just glad to see us?

Dear Cap: I just read your comments on the Red Bee.

The Bee took his name, not from his suit, but from the fact that he had a SECRET COMPARTMENT in his belt buckle and he had a pet bee in there ... when he got in a fight, he would let the bee out, the crooks would run and slap at the bee and he's knock the crap out of them.

Ah, what a wonderful hero ...

He's shown up in STARMAN once or twice since then.

I think personally that FRUITMAN was the worse idea for a hero. He appeared in BUNNY, the teenage comic Harvey did in the 1960s. He had no costume, but could turn into fruit. And he made hideous PEARS of puns, ORANGE you glad you didn't read any of his comics. He probably retired and tried to marry but CANTELOPE because she didn't CARROT all about him.

I guess you can tell I started as a writer for Harvey. RICHIE RICH, not FRUITMAN.
I have to admit, I have no idea what Red Bee comments I made set off these impassioned memories -- but I'm glad I did! Maybe I could become "Alzheimer Lad."
Fruitman, eh? And I thought all the good names were taken!

Dear Cap: A number of questions came out of your 24 August column which I can address.

[name withheld] raised the question of when the adventures of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman switched from Earth-One to Earth-Two. Based upon the sidebar to my Batman of Earth-One/Two comments of two weeks ago, vandaljack correctly points out that DC's stories about The Batman did not change to Earth-One with the adoption of the yellow circle around his bat-emblem, but rather, sometime before. Thus, essentially, the precise issue of the change for any of the "big three" has yet to be pinpointed to the consensus of comics readers.

Outside of torpedoing the "Batman changed when his insignia did" theory, I can add very little definitive information to the discussion. But I can introduce a few facts to help your readership make their own determinations.

Since I have no ready information on Wonder Woman, let's set her outside the scope of my commentary.

I can submit the following information on Superman: The late E. Nelson Bridwell, DC triviamaster extraordinaire, considered the story "Superman vs. the Futuremen!" from Superman 128 (April, 1958) to be the last Earth-Two Superman story because of so many radical inconsistencies with Earth-One history. Or, more accurately, Earth-One future history, since the villains came from from an A.D. 2000 which was depicted in radically different ways from the future that DC eventually presented. Moreover, as part of the plot developments, Superman records a tape, to be left for Perry White, in which he describes his birth on Krypton, his arrival on Earth, his boyhood and identity as Clark Kent. None of Superman's account mentions his career as Superboy; this is not simply an omission, since the Man of Steel's account of his teenage years in this story specifically rules out a Superboy career. At the same time the June and July, 1958, issues of Action Comics (Nos. 241-242) featured the introduction of the distinctively Earth-One concepts of Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and the Bottle City of Kandor. I do not know why Bridwell did not consider Superman 129 (May, 1958) part of the Earth-Two Superman mythos; but plainly, the Superman of Earth-One's adventures started no later than June, 1958.

Falling into the Why I Get So Frustrated Sometimes At Not Being Home To Consult My Own Collection Department: in the early 1970s, during that brief period when DC boosted the regular price of its comics to 25 cents (!) but included an extra 20 pages (!!) of reprinted material, a letter appearing in the Metropolis Mailbag in Superman posed the same Earth-Two/One question. Editor Julius Schwartz provided an issue number of what he considered the last "Superman of Earth-Two" story. Unfortuately, all I can remember from his response is the year of the issue he quoted --1958. He may even have used the same issue as Nelson Bridwell did as his benchmark. (Captain's Note: It's listed below.)

It would not be unreasonable to presume that the adventures of the Earth-One Batman began approximately the same time as those of the Earth-One Superman -- June, 1958. Declaring that with certainty is problematic since there are no solely-identifiable-as-Earth-One concepts to debut in the Batman mythos at that time. The "New Look" Batman, debuting in May, 1964, brought many changes --t he Hot Line, a convertable Batmobile, an elevator to the Batcave and the yellow circle around the bat-emblem -- however, as has been proven, that cannot demark the change from the Earth-Two Batman to the Earth-One version, since there are a number of New Look stories which are based on or refer to The Batman, depicting him prior to the changes. But setting the change in Batmen at mid-1958 would synchronise with the change in Supermen. (Captain's Note: It would also dovetail neatly with the debut of the Silver Age Flash in 1956, Silver Age Green Lantern in 1959 and the S.A. JLA in 1960.)

The problem with just declaring this the right answer is even DC muddied the waters on this subject. Case in point: World's Finest Comics 271 (Sep 1981). This issue commemorated the 200th issue of "your two favorite heroes together" as a team in World's Finest. This story established that the first meeting of the Earth-One Superman and Batman was depicted in the story from Superman 76 --even though this story was published in the May, 1952. For the record, World's Finest 271 also presented the first meeting of the Earth-Two Superman and Batman was the adventure of their first meeting from The Adventures of Superman radio programme, a sequence which ran in March, 1945.

Ultimately, a number of Superman and Batman stories which were published in the late-'40s to mid-'50s could have occurred to the heroes on Earth-One or Earth-Two, since there are no Earth-specific details, nor topical references to pin-point it one way or the other. Therefore, within the scope of the facts I have presented here, the readers are free to fix the time of the Earth-Two/Earth-One change with a fair amount of discretion.

The other subject I wanted to address -- and in an oblique way, related to the first matter -- was the story in which you vaguely remembered Thomas Wayne wearing a bat-like costume to a masquerade party, thus laying the foundation for his young son, Bruce, to take a bat motif as his crime-fighting guise. You got the facts right, Cap, but that event was only part of a story which contained an even more significant change to the Batman mythos.

The story you remembered was entitled "The First Batman!" and it originally appeared in Detective Comics 235 (Sep 1956). The plot unfolded thusly: Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson discover a bat-costume which vaguely resembles the Batman's costume and a journal and a spool of 16-mm film, all of which describe an incident when Bruce was a small boy. He saw his parents leave for a masquerade party in which the theme was "flying creatures." Dr. Wayne was wearing the rudimentary bat-costume. While the party was in full swing, it was crashed by gang boss Lew Moxon, who had taken a slug in the shoulder from a rival gangster. While his men held the party-goers at gunpoint, Moxon forced Dr. Wayne to treat his wound. Instead, Wayne managed to pull a Batman-type trick and subdue Moxon and his men.

Moxon was convicted on Dr. Wayne's testimony. Moxon, as Dr. Wayne's journal revealed, swore revenge on the physician-socialite. Discovering this information, the Batman re-opened the Wayne murder case, and his investigation revealed that, instead of just being the random victims of a hold-up man, the Waynes had been deliberate victims of Joe Chill, who had been hired by Moxon to kill them.

In the '70s, when DC was making efforts to distinguish the Earth-One and Earth-Two versions of Batman, it established that the Lew Moxon/Joe Chill deliberate-murder version of the Waynes' death belonged to the Earth-Two Batman, while the Earth-One Bruce Wayne's parents were the chance victims of Joe Chill, hold-up man. Personally, I have always preferred the notion that the tragedy of Bruce Wayne's life was purely random circumstance -- that the Waynes just happened to come along at the wrong time. Somehow the very capriciousness of their deaths seemed more fitting to the notion that their son would dedicate his life to waging war on all criminals.

Finally, a mea culpa --and an excellent example of why all facts should be referenced: my friends, Jo and Terri-Anne of Canada, made the remark that I had advised them that Batman had become a member of the Gotham City Police Department in Batman 12. That is true; I did tell them that. And I was accurate in the story I recalled for them -- Commissisoner Gordon did deputize Batman and Robin as members of the police force in that story -- however, it appeared in Batman 7 (Oct-Nov, 1941), not No. 12. Once I was able to research it, I discovered I had been mistaken.
It takes a big man to admit a mistake, [name withheld] -- or so my mother used to tell me right before grounding me!
You've got me convinced on the Batman/Superman earth switcheroo -- after all, we can pretty much choose what dates we like, and I think yours are pretty hard to argue with. Of course, if you're so smart, you won't have any trouble figuring out when GREEN ARROW switched over, will you? (Evil laugh.)

Dear Captain,
The story you are looking for was called "The First Batman!" which first appeared in Detective 235 dated September 1956. It was a retro story of sorts because in the origin of Batman, Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by an unknown thief. The appearance was of a random robbery. In the story "The Origin of Batman!" in Batman 47 dated June-July 1948, the thief was established as Joe Chill. In the story "The First Batman!" Dick Grayson finds an old Batman costume in the attic. From a diary and an old movie reel, they find that it was a costume that Thomas Wayne wore to a costume ball whose theme was "Flying Creatures." During the ball, Thomas Wayne was abducted and he had to remove a bullet from Lew Moxon, a bank robber. Thomas Wayne later causes Moxon to be caught and convicted. Moxon swears revenge. Bruce Wayne as Batman reopens the case of the murder of his father and brings Moxon in. Moxon pleads that he is not guilty and offers to take a lie detector test. He passes it. After his release, Batman finds out that Moxon had suffered from amnesia. In chasing Moxon, his costume is tore, so Batman puts on his father's old costume. The sight of the old costume snaps Moxon out of his amnesia, he confesses his crime and runs out in front of a truck. Bruce Wayne decides to put the old costume in a trophy case and it appeared from time to time over the years.

I do not know if there was any other changes to the origin or whether it was further retroed. The story of "The First Batman!" was reprinted in: Batman Annual No. 4, Winter 1963; Batman No. 255 (100 page), April 1974; Best Of DC No. 2, November-December 1979; and Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told (hardcover), 1988.

I hope this is of some help.
Of course it helps, [...]! Thanks for the info! And here's some more on further retconning:
Dear Cap: This story first appeared in Detective Comics 235 in 1956. This story was written by Bill Finger and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff. It was reprinted in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, and retold in Untold Legend of The Batman, an early 1980s miniseries by Len Wein and John Byrne/Jim Aparo. Untold Legend of The Batman was collected by Tor (Tom Doherty Publishing) into paperback form. ...
This story (which has no similarity to the origin of Frances Kane, but the Cap probably meant Barbara Gordon's Batgirl) was a part of the Earth-One continuity (as per the retelling in Untold Legend), although the Untold Legend version is slightly different (in the original story, Batman is shown without his gold oval on his chest; Untold Legend shows him with the gold oval. Also, Untold Legend depicts the death of Joe Chill in a way similar to that of Batman 47, in which Chill was shot by his own men when they discovered that he had inadverently created The Batman). This story may or may not fit in with Earth-Two, as film with synchronized sound was not invented at the time that the Earth-Two Bruce Wayne was a young boy. It was probably not a part of post-Crisis/pre-Zero Hour continuity, as per Batman:Year Two. This story probably is not a part of current continuity, as the current idea is that the Batman never caught his parent's murderer.

Although it intuitively seems so, Luthor was not the first recurring Superman villain; the first recurring Superman villain was actually the lesser known Ultra-Humanite. (Ultra being a synonym of "Super", and Humanite being a synonym of "Man"... Superman first encounters the Ultra-Humanite, who was an old, bald man with Superhuman intelligence in a wheelchair (presumably his original body; the Humanite developed a process by which he could transfer his brain to other bodies). Their first battle took place in Action Comics 13.
The Ultra-Humanite transferred his brain into the body of the actress Dolores Winters in ACTION 20. Scientist Terry Curtis was kidnapped by the Ultra-Humanite and forced to build an atomic disintegrator for the villain. (Terry Curtis later became the villain Cyclotron in the 1980s) in Action Comics 21. Superman Family 201, in a story set in the past (the comic book came out in the 1970s/1980s), featured a return of the Ultra-Humanite. The Ultra-Humanite returned -- in the body of a giant ant -- in Superman Family 211. The Humanite's post-Golden Age appearance saw him transferring his brain into a mutated white ape (JLA 195-197) and several All-Star Squadron appearances. John Byrne used him in Batman/Superman: Generations, an Elseworlds, in which he was once again Superman's foe. An entry for the Ultra-Humanite can be found at http://www.execpc.com/~icicle/ULTRAHUMANITE.html

Gladiator was adapted by Marvel for one of their black-and-white magazines in the 1970s. I don't remember which, exactly. DC's hero Iron Munro is the son of the Gladiator (as per Young All-Stars 10). Whether Wylie's book is public domain or not I cannot say.

Ah, yes, I gave a very perfunctory answer to the question of the Earth-Two Joker. The Earth-Two Joker made his first post-Golden Age appearance in JLA 135-137, in which he teamed up with Brainiac, the Weeper (Earth-S villain), King Kull (not the Robert E. Howard charachter), Mr. Atom and various other villains from Earth-One, Earth-Two and Earth-S. The Earth-Two Joker, if I am correct, next appeared in Wonder Woman. He did not challenge Wonder Woman, but rather The Huntress, who had a back-up series in Wonder Woman at the time. The Earth-Two Joker went on a crime spree, but The Huntress and the adult Robin of Earth-Two (who donned the Batman costume as part of a ruse to fool The Joker; Earth-Two's Batman was dead by then) defeated him. The Earth-Two Joker next appeared in Brave and Bold 200. In that story, The Joker told Brimstone (see July 27, 2000's Q&A) about the death of Earth-Two's Batman. The Joker, appearing very old and with grey streaks in his green hair, thus made his last appearance. His existence was wiped out by the Crisis.
See http://www.intelcities.com/Hobby_Lane/argent/batman2.htm

I apoligize about my last letter about the changeover from Earth-One/Earth-Two for Superman. I did establish the first appearance of the Earth-One Superman (as Superboy) in the SuperBOYstories, but I did not establish when the SuperMAN titles switched over.
Well, Mikel Midnight noted that E. Nelson Bridwell has called the 1958 story in Superman 129 "the last Earth-Two Superman story," because of its inconsistencies with Earth-One history (this same year featured the introduction of the contemporary Fortress of Solitude in Action 241 and of Brainiac and Kandor in Action 242). I suppose Bridwell's guess is as good as any. See the Earth-Two timeline on http://www.best.com/~blaklion/comics.html
Between you and [2 names withheld], I may never have to do any research ever again! Thanks!

Dear Cap: I remember the original story of Thomas Wayne's costumed exploit only vaguely. He called himself "The Flying Fox." The name, I believe, was resurrected during DC's first period of JSA revisionism.
Actually, Thomas Wayne was referred to as a "Bat-Man," but I wanted to give you credit for writing in, [...]! And, while I don't know the first use of "Flying Fox," Roy Thomas did use the name for the "Batman stand-in" in his Young All-Stars stories.

Dear Cap: Another great article (on Carl Barks). It's really terrible that some of your best work this year has been eulogies.
I'm not the biggest Disney fan, but as I've gained more and more bits of knowledge of the history of comics, I've come to very much appreciate the work of Carl Barks in particular -- what struck me the most is the sheer scope of his work, especially when compared to the contemporaries of his day ... it seems to me that Barks was doing the opulent splash spreads on a regular basis in the 1940s before Kirby brought them to superheroes in the 1960s. Jack did bring some of that to Captain America in the 1940s, but Barks I would argue was at the top of his game at that point, and wasn't really matched in the wild detail until Jim Steranko came along.
Another remembrance: I remember in the mid-'80s one of the greatest compliments given to Dick Sprang (which may have led to his latest renaissance) was that he was dubbed "the good Batman artist," which also served as a tribute/reference to Carl Barks, "the good Duck artist." We lost both men this year -- comics in heaven must be amazing this year, with new issues of both "good Batman art" and "good Duck art" gracing them, as much as they graced us here.
<<Thanks, Duckman.>>
You betcha.
I also read somewhere that the "four pillars" of American comic-book art are Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman and Barks. From these four men spun out virtually everything else seen in American comic books (not counting strips I guess). Only one remans living, but the impressions left by them will probably never be erased.
Certainly their influence is evident in most American comic books.

---

I’m not so sure. Look at how awful storytelling has become, and if Rob Liefeld is the influence, the art too. Incidentally, wonder what the correspondent and Smith think of Eisner ever since his last graphic novel?

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Dear Cap: That was a wonderful article which made me even sadder than I already was about the passing of Carl Barks. There will never be comics like that again, sadly. Thanks for that moving tribute.
I also checked out that Dallas Observer Article, which made me even sadder than I was after I read your column (are you trying to depress me?). To even think of comics going the way of the dinosaur because of inept management is really maddening. I feel sorry for kids of America who will miss out on this marvelous form of entertainment if all the doom-n-gloomers are right. You were right though, the author did seem to know what he was talking about, and he had some impressive quotes from industry people.
Oh, yeah, I read the review of the last issue of Preacher. I know alot of people really like that comic, but I really hated it. The sight of folks getting their noses (and various other body parts) graphically blown off just turns me off completely. Do we really need to see that? And if anybody used the language around me that the folks in that comic did, I would walk away from them. So I'm sure not gonna spend my money to read it.
Which is as it should be. If you don't like it, by golly, don't buy it and don't pretend you like it because others do. The only vote we have for the material we prefer is that $3 at the counter.
Which is not to say I didn't like Preacher -- I did. There SHOULD be comics for every conceivable taste, and we don't all of us have to like all of 'em. That's what makes horse races. I don't read any of the wrestling-derived comics, but I'm glad they're there to tap that market. Every little bit helps.
Where I get annoyed -- and you didn't do this, bless your pointy li'l head -- is the self-righteous people who insist that because THEY don't like a comic book, it has no right to exist. Phooey. Preacher's there for them what likes it, and for them what don't, there are other things.

Dear Cap: Been following the column, so I need to get my two bits in. Gotta start off by saying that the first three pages of Top Ten 9 has to be the funniest scene of the year -- I laughed so hard I was in tears for at least 10 minutes. Highest recommendations -- "Galactapuss," indeed ...
Loved the link to the "No Organic Webshooters" website! I signed the petition right away! Yes, we may well be arming a fascistic Columbian army, prescription drug prices are too high, and the U.S. public is seriously considering whether to hand over the reigns of political power to an oil-addled idiot, but I know where my priorities lie -- let's get that movie right! (Hey, it's where I imagine my voice might actually be heard!)
I still must strongly disagree with you on the costumes for the X-Men movie -- no, I did enjoy the film, but I find all of this emphasis on leather (or rubber, in Batman's case) to be even less realistic than the Spandex. The film's success is attributable to a good story and good acting; it succeeded IN SPITE OF timid costumes. Every few days, as I go dogwalking with my roommate in the Oakland hills, we will consistently meet several mountain bikers along the way. They do not wear black leather, but opt instead for the most brightly colored, wildly designed, SKIN-TIGHT gortex outfits. Why? Because they are athletes existing in the today's world -- they want to be visible and to be COMFORTABLE during their workout. Superheroes have more in common with this group, functionally, than they do motorcyclists, and should dress accordingly. To those who say that the superhero costume won't fit into the look of the "real world," have you seen the look of said real world lately? Everything from candy bars to dot-com billboards utilizes the bright colors and Mondrian-like designs of our Spandex-clad friends. Essentially these characters are naked -- like classical artists, we love drawing and viewing the human form in an idealized state. The modern superhero costume, whatever its circus-inspired origin (and what is circus, anyway, but a small, focused world unto itself), is simply that idealized human clad in the cacophany of life as it is lived today. If those who translate these stories to the silver screen do not have the imaginations and creativity to understand and realize this, then perhaps fans are better off in settling for well-animated versions.
On the recent Wonder Woman debate: I talked with some of my Bay Area female friends (yes, I do have some!) and heard some interesting insights. Mind you that most of these women do not read comics (at least not mainstream) and mainly knew WW from Lynda Carter's '70s television show. Nonetheless, Diana is held in pretty high esteem, even by those of the lesbian persuasion. (Actually, I guess that piece of info isn't too surprising, since she grew up in the ultimate all-girl community.) What was surprising is that everyone loved her costume. Many of the artists actually preferred her old breastplate (with the eagle) over the newer "WW," which has the PC advantage of mirroring her name. As far as the skimpiness of the costume is concerned, while the emphasis on the huge breasts was universally ridiculed, the actual cut of the outfit was viewed as befitting a woman who was comfortable in her body and confident with her sexuality. Even the large breasts are seen to be part of the WW mythos, it's just that the women wondered why fanboys can't be content with normally large measurements, (like Ms. Carter's), rather than slobbering over the hyperbolic fetishistic imagery that can only be found with artificial help.
The issue of sexual confidence also plays into the recent Legends storyline. Like you, I thought the story raised better issues than it ultimately addressed. I was reminded of ancient Greek culture, and the role that sexually independent women played in it. I unfortunately forget the actual term by which they were called, but these women were similar to geishas in that they were far more than prostitutes, they were very well educated, and though they couldn't vote or hold office themselves, they were often very well respected and had a great deal of influence on their customers and consorts, who often were men of high office. I bring this up because it seemed that much of the discussion was viewed from a modern perspective. OK, Diana really IS a modern character, but I wonder if an emphasis on a "pure" WW isn't hiding a fear of a strong, sexually confident Diana? The point is moot; the story didn't go there and any mischievous mortal male who would be foolish enough to bed WW would find that she could teach Lorena Bobbitt a thing or two with a single contraction of (certain) muscles.And why not a bisexual Wonder Woman? If she is truly here to enlighten us, that would certainly do the job.
As far as Clark Kent and the glasses go, I'll proceed in a more metaphorical direction here. One of the few (if only) contributions of the early '90s Lois & Clark television series was the idea that often we don't recognize the most important person in our lives, even when they are standing right in front of us. The glasses are just a symbol for the emotional or psychological armor that we all employ, every day, so that our true selves can be protected and hidden. I always thought that it was quite touching that, as strong and brave as Superman was, he NEEDED that space to be Clark, because that's who he truly was. It gave his character a human vulnerability that kryptonite alone couldn't supply.
Clearly, if Supes and WW were invented today, they'd be paired up in no time. They represent the kind of idealized partnership between men and women that we aspire to today. However, ... there is also a mythic connection for his relationship with Ms. Lane. In the great tradition of patriarchal folklore, Superman is a figure of the sky, he even derives his powers from the sun. These are ancient male associations. Lois, meanwhile, is absolutely mortal, "down-to-earth," (think of the Christian Madonna) which is an equally old feminine attribute. She represents that which he must be connected to in order for wholeness to be achieved, or else he will fly off into fantasy. She connects him to the "real world."
As fans we do tend to make our discussions tricky; we want the realism of good fiction, but our characters can never be real -- they exist best as metaphors. (This is why I can't accept a character like Gambit -- the archetypal connection just isn't that well-drawn. Obviously he's meant to be a Hermes/trickster type, but there are just so many examples of it being done better: The Flash, The Torch, Hawkeye, (or to stick with the X-Men themselves) Nightcrawler, Wolverine or the Beast. I mean, so he's "lucky" -- we've already got The Scarlet Witch, and she's much more attractive!) Like many mythic cosmologies, seemingly contradictory associations, such as Supes/Lois and Supes/Diana can both exist simultaneously. In the end, they are both approaches that can fulfill mythic needs.
As an experiment, I changed clothes before going to work yesterday, and took my glasses off. Oddly, everybody recognized me.

Hey Cap'n! Just to let you know, I just bought the new Spider-Man game for the Sony PlayStation. It is truly "Amazing." While the graphics are a little blocky, the gameplay and controls more than make up for that. For the first time, Spidey can move in a completely 3-D world. Crawl on walls, ceilings, ventilation shafts, or anywhere you can reach with your web!

Every now and then I forget that Spidey is the coolest hero there is. This game hit me over the head with an anvil and made me remember. (Well, not really, but that would have been a good marketing ploy.) I almost called in sick today so I could stay home and play it.

P.S. Finish the game, and you can play it again with the symbiote suit!

Well, now I'm gonna have to bug PlayStation to let me review it! Thanks for your review!

With reference to (your sidekick) column, you were dead on the money when you pointed out to [name withheld] that the Congo Bill of the 1940s did not have Janu the Jungle Boy as a sidekick. As for when Janu made the scene, it's understandable that you, the Silver Age Captain Comics, did not hold that knowledge. However, the Golden Age Cap (or would he be the Captain Comics of Earth-Two?) would know that Janu made his first appearance as the orphaned son of a famous guide left to fend for himself in the jungle, to subsequently become Congo Bill's sidekick, in Action Comics 191. That was the April, 1954 issue -- well before the beginning of the Silver Age.
As usual, [withheld], thanks for filling in the blanks in the Silver Age Captain's knowledge! But [withheld] wasn't through with me yet. Two weeks ago I wrote: "Of course, if you're so smart, you won't have any trouble figuring out when GREEN ARROW's adventures switched from Earth-Two to Earth-ONe, will you? (Evil laugh.)"
(Confident chuckle.) No problem, Cap.
The precise moment when the adventures switched from the Green Arrow of Earth-Two (Golden Age) to the Emerald Archer of Earth-One (Silver Age), like those pivotal points for Superman and Batman, are largely within the individual discretion of each reader; however, there are certain benchmarks which act as guideposts.
After debuting in More Fun Comics 73 (Nov., 1941), the Green Arrow and Speedy went for 16 issues before given an origin in issue 89 (Mar., 1943). This was the origin in which Oliver Queen and Roy Harper were thrown together when they were confronted by gangsters on Lost Mesa. Using their archery skills, learned independently, the pair defeated the villains and decided to pursue careers as mystery men, taking their names from the shouts of the crooks they captured: "Golly, that kid's speedy!" "Watch out for the big guy! He shoots a mean green arrow!"
As with Superman, the best way to determine when the change to the Earth-One version is to look for the first G.A. story with an element which would be incontrovertibly Earth-One-specific.
The first time this occurs would be in Adventure Comics 256 (Jan., 1959) -- during the brief period the series was drawn by Jack Kirby. Adventure 256 contained the story "The Origin of Green Arrow!"; this was the familiar "Oliver Queen falls overboard, swims to a deserted island, teaches himself archery for survival, and catches pirates" version. Not only is this clearly the Silver Age version of the archer's origin, it in no way resembles the original origin, ruling out the idea that the second origin was simply a re-telling or presented new facts. This is a clear demarcation point.
Adventure Comics 258 (Mar., 1959) -- two issues later -- was the first time the name "Star City" was used for the metropolis in which the Ace Archers operated. That is suggestive, but not conclusive. If the earlier Green Arrow stories had taken place in an unnamed city, then it could very well have been Star City; if the adventures had taken place in a differently named city, one could surmise that the archers had moved to Star City at some point.
The clincher, however, comes in Adventure Comics 262 (July, 1959), which provides a new and completely different origin for Speedy (the one in which Roy Harper is the orphaned son of a forest ranger, taught archery by Brave Bow, and he petitions Green Arrow -- already a known crime-fighter -- for the position as his partner). Like the newer Green Arrow origin, this story cannot be confused with the earlier origin of Speedy.
Therefore, plainly, the adventures of the Earth-Two Green Arrow must end in January, 1959 -- the first of the two new origins. This is seven months after the adventures of the Earth-One Superman must begin, therefore coincides with the approximate time frame.
Of course, nothing precludes that the Earth-One G.A. adventures couldn't have taken place earlier than January, 1959. This is the sticky wicket with Green Arrow, since there are very few landmarks or references which are distinctively Golden Age or Silver. However, I can at least provide a no-later-than date of January, 1959.
Rats! Since I knew when the GA shift occurred, I thought I might catch YOU for a change. Then, you wrote with a correction of your own -- about one of yourown answers:
In my previous submission to you -- "The Supermen and Batmen of Both Worlds" -- I made the following statement, based upon an article about E. Nelson Bridwell:
<<The late E. Nelson Bridwell, DC triviamaster extraordinaire, considered the story "Superman Vs. the Futuremen!" from Superman 128 (April, 1958) to be the last Earth-Two Superman story because of so many radical inconsistancies with Earth-One history. Or, more accurately, Earth-One future history, since the villains came from from an A.D. 2000 which was depicted in radically different ways from the future that DC eventually presented. Moreover, as part of the plot developments, Superman records a tape, to be left for Perry White, in which he describes his birth on Krypton, his arrival on Earth, his boyhood, and identity as Clark Kent. None of Superman's account mentions his career as Superboy; this is not simply an omission, since the Man of Steel's account of his teen-age years in this story specifically rules out a Superboy career. At the same time the June and July, 1958 issues of Action Comics (241-242) featured the introduction of the distinctively Earth-One concepts of Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and the Bottle City of Kandor. I do not know why Bridwell did not consider Superman 129 (May, 1958) part of the Earth-Two Superman mythos; but plainly, the Superman of Earth-One's adventures started no later than June, 1958.>>
However, while pursuing another topic, I stumbled across a troubling fact, so I went back and checked all of the issues quoted by the writer of that article. The stories introducing the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and Brainiac and Kandor did appear in the cited issues of Action Comics in June and July, 1958. However, the story which Bridwell stated was the last Superman of Earth-Two story -- "Superman Versus the Futuremen!" from Superman128 -- did NOT have a cover date of April, 1958, but rather, of April, 1959.
While researching the article from which I drew Bridwell's comments, I encountered another article which also referred to Bridwell's belief that the "Superman Versus the Futureman!" story was the last Earth-Two Man of Steel tale; so, the error, evidently, was not that of the writers of the articles. (They tend to corroborate each other.) I believe Bridwell's fabled memory actually led him astray in this case. I take this belief from the fact that the April, 1958, issue of Superman -- a scant two months before the Fortress of Solitude story in Action Comics 241 -- featured the story "The Bride of Futureman!" While this story had nothing in common with the Futuremen story appearing a year later, in Superman 128, the titles were similar enough that it is plausible that Bridwell confused the dates when recalling the latter story.
The problem this poses, obviously, is that the reasons for the "Superman Versus the Futuremen!" story being that of the Earth-Two Superman are still valid. (The second article I read on this subject listed still more contradictions to the Earth-One Superman mythos, which I omitted in my letter above for space.) Yet the Fortress and Brainiac stories from nearly a year earlier are distinctively Earth-One Superman stories. What this means -- for me, anyway -- is that there is no definite demarcation point which divides the adventures of the Supermen; instead the stories overlap. This makes sense, because any distinct line drawn anywhere would be artificial. This is because the Superman stories of the 1950s and early '60s were written before the concept of parallel Earths was introduced; any differences in the Superman stories to that point were attributed to the evolution of the character and the natural continuity errors of many different writers drafting stories about the same character.
I hate ruining such a perfectly fitting piece of work as my previous missive on the subject was -- and I don't know what you're going to do with it, now that I have discovered it is factually imperfect -- but I had to raise the truth. Somehow, I figured the answer to the Earth-One/Two question could not be that pat; real life never is.
Ain't that the truth. Anyway, what I did with your correction is what I do with my own: I print 'em

Dear Cap: I just wanted to offer you a sincere thanks for the spotlighting you've been giving a number of wonderful non-mainstream/superhero comic books in your reviews sections lately. Along with Black Hole, Nowhere and Berlin, Evil Eye is my favorite ongoing title right now, with Richard Sala being one of my favorite alternative cartoonists. And Good-Bye, Chunky Rice is one of my very favorite comic books, ever. If Mr. Monkey liked that one, tell him he needs to hunt down a copy of Walt Halcombe's self-published (Accordion Press) short graphic novel, King of Persia, from a few years back. While actually differing in some significant ways, Good-Bye and King are nonetheless something like kindred spirits.

And wasn't James Kolchalka's wonderful new Monkey vs. Robot reviewed a while back, too? Other GNs and collections your contributors should consider, I think, are: Jordan Crane's The Last Lonely Saturday, from Red Ink; Jason Shiga's Double Happiness, from Shiga Books; John Porcellino's Perfect Example, from Highwater books; Jay Hosler's Clan Apis, from Active Synapse; and Catherine Doherty's Can of Worms, from Fantagraphics. There are so many others I'd recommend, but these all use accessible, "cartoony" art to tell some very human (if not always 100-percent, realism-based stories. More challenging, perhaps, but just as rewarding would be Seth's Clyde Fans, Part One, from Drawn & Quarterly; Brian Briggs's Dear Julia, from Top Shelf; and Chris Lanier's Combustion, from Fantagraphics.

And two tremendous recent releases that successfully wed the personal memoir to acute journalism really, really deserve all the exposure they can get. Joe Sacco's Safe Are: Gorazde, from Fantagraphics, is the beautifully-designed, flawlessly executed and utterly heart-breaking story of the "UN-protected" neutral town in Bosnia that Sacco visited a handful of times during the civil conflict. It's already become something of an "event," and rightfully so. Talk about showing what comic books can achieve. ... But, in the midst of SA:G's acclaim, one really shouldn't overlook the much shorter, much more low-key, but wonderfully gripping Surviving Saskatoon, by David Collier, from Drawn & Quarterly. As it relates the monkey-trial conviction and incarceration, for rape and murder, of a young Canadian named David Milgraard, and intersperses it with the authors visit to, and ruminations on, the town where the Milgaard's horror began, you'll feel your pulse -- and your indignation -- surely rise.

Well, thanks for letting me prattle. As a fan with one foot firmly planted in Mainstream comicville and the other equally set on Alternative soil, I appreciate your open-ness to the smaller-press titles. And thanx for your continual -- and oh so justified -- pushing of P. Craig Russell's current and sublime Ring of the Nibelung adaptation. I believe there are also some other independents you've mentioned in your columns or This Week's Comics features, too, and if you remind me of them now, well, then you'll be plugging them again!

Thanks for the suggestions, [withheld] -- I've posted this so that […] and […] can peruse them as well. And, while I'll take all the bows in the world for posting them, it's the monkey and the fishboy who are doing all the work -- and they do darn good reviews!

Hello once again, Captain! First, you should know (if you don't know already) that your assessment of the legal issues at play in the Tony Twist vs. Todd McFarlane case is on point. You concisely nailed just what the arguments would be and what the court would have to consider. You might as we sit for the Bar -- that is, if you don't have time to flog yourself (the Bar is too painful to describe, and the people who nearly explode from nervousness are too numerous to count).
My main reason for contacting you is this -- have you heard Bob Harras has been fired as Editor-in-Chief? maybe I'm late or maybe I'm early with this news, but I just heard this yesterday and I was FLOORED!
Bob was one of the best Editors marvel has ever had, he kept the X-Men on a steady track during rough time and, quite frankly, he deserved the top editor's position YEARS before he actually received it. Now he and I are not best friends, and he may not remember me, but I sure remember him. Always pleasant, usually stressed (he has a couple of children to deal with in the art world, and he has kids of his own at home), but always great editor.
As I understand it, the final breaking points were when he refused to take Stan Lee's name off of the masthead and splash pages (Ichan wanted it done and he refused to do so until he had an official statement from Arad that he was to take Stan off), and when he pushed to have comics given to autistic children and Ichan found that to be unnecessary and costly (I was told that "paper clips" have been deemed a luxury -- no joke).
I don't know what you've heard, if my understanding is incorrect, or if people are exaggerating. However, I have talked to people who are still inside (there aren't many of us from the old days), and other displaced Marvelites who have also talked to people from the inside, and the stories are consistent -- Bob is OUT! Joe Quesada is IN!
I'm afraid I will simply have to win the Lotto, buy he company, and rehire the people who were in place from 1990-93. At least the fans were relatively happy, the employees were EXTREMELY happy, and the books and related merchandise were selling well.
Just thought you should have a heads up on a changing of the guard in the House of Marvel.
It's a jaw-dropper, all right. I don't know much about Harras, except that I enjoyed his writing when he was "just" a writer, and his tenure as EIC has appeared (from this side of the great divide) as being less heavy-handed and more productive than, say, Jim Shooter's.

Dear Cap: There was an Earth-Two Aquaman, but as I recall it, he made only the briefest of appearances. I don't remember the precise issue number, but I do remember that in All-Star Squadron Roy Thomas held off the effects of the Crisis for some months as he carried out a prolonged pseudo-adaptation of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The issue in question involved the entire Squadron gathering for a group photograph. Aquaman showed up for the photo shoot and was greeted with something like, "Aquaman, so you DO exist!" At any rate, the Crisis took effect mid-issue, and the book ended with the Squadron members looking at the developed photo and pointedly NOT noticing that the picture had changed and no longer included the Golden Age characters who were retconned out of existence. And that was about it for the Earth-Two Aquaman. One of the more effective Crisis tie-ins, I always thought.
What made me think of it was the recent reprint of More Fun Comics 101, which had a Golden Age Aquaman story in it. As far as I can tell, the only difference between the Golden Age and Silver Age Aquamen is that the Golden Age Aquaman wore yellow gloves! I liked The Spectre story in that issue, too. I hadn't known about his period playing "deus ex machina" for "Percival Popp, the Super-Cop." How things have changed ...
You're absolutely right; I looked it up and it was All-Star Squadron 59-60. My only excuse for forgetting it is that after 30 years of hearing "there is no Earth-Two Aquaman," I read those issues and dismissed them from my personal continuity.
But thanks for pointing it out! We'll invite the Earth-Two Aquaman to our "Comic-Book Limbo" party, once we're ALL written out of continuity ...
Also, your information was corroborated also by [name withheld] and fleshed out by the estimable [same here]:

Dear Cap: It seems strange that DC decided that Lex Moxon did not exist on Earth-One; after all, Detective Comics 500 had a story in which the Earth-One Batman and Robin were sent to an unnamed parallel Earth by the Phantom Stranger in order to prevent the death of that Earth's Thomas and Martha Wayne. (Since the death of the Earth-Two Batman's parents had taken place 20 years before the Earth-One Batman's parents' death, the death of the unnamed Earth's Waynes was to take place soon, since at the time of the story, it was 20 years since the death of the Earth-One's Waynes.) During this story, Earth-One Batman explicitly stated that Lex Moxon was behinds his parents' death. Also, Untold Legend of the Batman reinforces that Lex Moxon existed on Earth-One. (As noted, it makes more sense for this story to take place on Earth-One, not Earth-Two; after all, film with synchronized sound was not available when the Earth-Two Batman would have been a boy.)
There was an Earth-Two Aquaman; he was a member of the All-Star Squadron, though he was not a member of either the Justice Society or the Seven Soldiers of Victory. His existence first became clear in All-Star Squadron 34, where he was mentioned, though not seen. The Earth-Two Aquaman was seen in All-Star Squadron 59. He last appeared in All-Star Squadron 60, in a bit of fun. See http://www.fanzing.com/fanzing07/feature1.shtmlin which a photo containing the Earth-Two Aquaman changes to one of the Black Condor!
Info on Earth-2 Aquaman from http://www2.bitstream.net/~myke4/jsa/jsachron2.html For info on Earth-Two Atlantis: http://www.intelcities.com/Hobby_Lane/argent/batman.htm
Batman 19, 10-11/43, contained a story in which, after a Nazi U-boat commander persuades the naive rulers of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, Emperor Taro and Princess Lanya, to allow him to use Atlantis as a submarine base, Batman and Robin visit Atlantis and convince its monarchs of the Nazis' treachery. Note: This version of Atlantis bears no resemblance to the ruins of Atlantis that figured in the origin of the Golden Age Aquaman (who, unlike his Silver Age counterpart, was not a native of Atlantis), as told in More Fun Comics 73 (1941). It is possible that on Earth-Two, as on Earth-One, there was more than one undersea civilization called Atlantis.
Switching from Earth-Two to Earth-One, the Earth-One switch for Wonder Woman may have taken place for Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman 105, as Wonder Woman's origin in that issue is different from her '40s origin. The JLA Index from Eclipse listed that as the Earth-One Wonder Woman's origin, and DC's Cosmic Cards Series listed it as the first appearance of the Earth-1 Wonder Woman. This story was reprinted in Secret Origins in the 1960s, which as itself been reprinted.
Green Arrow: Adventure Comics 256 featured an origin for Green Arrow that was very different from his '40s origin; Who's Who and the JLA Index point to this as being the origin and first appearance of the Earth-One Green Arrow. (Aquaman also received a revised origin in Adventure around this time, which was reprinted in Secret Origins.)
Adventure Comics 275 (Aug, 1960) featured a story that had it that a young Bruce Wayne had gone under the identity of The Flying Fox, in which identity he met Superboy. See http://www.elseworlds.net/books/genannot4.html
Thanks, as usual, for the comprehensive info. Y'know, I own the Eclipse JLA Index and the other sources you reference, […], but I don't seem to have them memorized as well! Thanks again!

Dear Cap: First, the second Ice you were referring to is I believe the one called Sigrid who appeared in JLA's Zero Hour era, issues 0, 93-113 (years '94-96, this was the last JLA before the revamp that returned Big Seven returned to its lineup). If so her name is only Icemaiden.
As far as I know, her name was never shortened to Ice unlike her successor/predecessor Tora who appeared in the silly Giffen '80s JLA and eventually perished. Why the slashed words? It's because the info on both is rather confusing. It was stated in the ZH JLA that Sigrid was Icemaiden briefly but then quit allowing Tora to take over the name for a while until Tora's death, sometime after which Sig decided to take up the mantle again.
Secondly, reading the letters on homosexuality in comics this week got me thinking on the ambiguous sexuality of my fave comics character Obsidian.
I myself am a straight married woman who has had little exposure to homosexual people in person. Only in the last couple years has that changed. I've chatted with several gay males online and at my job I work with a lesbian woman.
In the past year or two I've seen many discussions about Todd's sexual preference but before then as far as I knew he was straight.
Let's look at his social relationship track:
1) In early issues of Infinity Inc. he dated a young woman named Sharon who left him after:
a) First seeing him using his shadowy superpowers to fight some gang members and being repulsed by him being a metahuman.
b) Then coming to the realization that they had no sparks going in any case (actually their breakup was kind of a mutual decision -- it was shown in Inf Inc 14)
2) Then in later Infinity Inc. issues (late 30s-early 40s) he dated Marcie Cooper, the second Harlequin.
They seemed pretty close. It was even hinted at they might have had sex at least one time (I believe issues 42 and 46 had dialogue that pointed in that direction).
But Marcie turned out to be a bigtime baddie. She had dated Todd (and previously Norda a.k.a. Northwind until he left Inf Inc.) in the hopes of recruiting him to join the evil Manhunters as was revealed in Inf Inc. 46. Of course his integrity was fully intact back then (this was prior to his villian turns in the GL/Sentinel: Heart of Darkness mini and JSA's "Darkness Falls" arc), so he refused even after she threatened to create a scandal that would badly hurt him. And then he fled her angrily berating himself for being so stupid (Ah but aren't we all fools for love?).
3) His most recent relationship took place between issues 106 and 111 of the Zero Hour JLA. He was set up with a psychologist (LOL) named Karen by his friend Al (then Nuklon now Atom Smasher a.k.a. Sock-On-Head Guy ;-) )
His first date with Karen was a disaster. He was forced to fight a reptillian baddie and after defeating it was berated by Batman for being too violent in that battle After that, he had at least one more date with her and they seemed to be happy for a little while.
But then Todd revealed to Al he wasn't physically drawn to her, he was just enjoying her company. He in fact told Al that since he had only a shadow body felt it impossible for him to have a desire for a physical relationship with anyone, male or female. He told Al all he had was 'love' and that he did indeed love Al, just as he loved his sister Jennie (a.k.a. Jade). Al then wondered if Todd meant that in a 'more than platonic' way causing Todd to fly off in anger.
Todd told Al in JLA 111 that he had broken up with Karen. He realized she was dating him strictly because she was a fangirl of JLA and he was a JLA member so he let her go. I found that interesting because some guys would be more than willing to take full "advantage" of such a situation if you get my drift ;-)
Al later was shown giving Todd a big hug and saying he loved him too but that didn't really give us confirmation of anything. At the end of JLA 113, in their last scenes the two were shown having some friendly banter and then going off to play some basketball and that was it.
But could Todd have had lusty feelings for Al and/or Al for Todd despite the vaguarity of what we saw in JLA? We can only guess.
I didn't think so at the time of their JLA era, I thought they were only close platonic freinds and that was it.
Then last summer (1999) I was chatting with JSA penciller Stephen Sadowski (who is homosexual and out of the closet) and he told me that they were going to be dropping hints about Todd's 'sexual preference' in future issues of JSA.
I said that sounded interesting but they should be careful not to turn Todd into a 'flaming homosexual' stereotype. Sad (my nickname for him) told me they wouldn't. He said they would make sure to leave that open for some time after Todd's villian hitch in the "Darkness Falls" story arc.
Lastly I asked JSA scribe David Goyer in a chat this past February whether a homosexual angle was indeed being planned for Todd, to which he replied "no." Since then I've pretty much believed what he said was true but I keep wondering if a comics writer might not resurrect that idea in the future anyway.
So is Todd asexual, gay, straight or bisexual? I guess only future comics will hold either confirmation of that or just more confusion.
We covered the Ice/Icemaiden thing a few years ago on the site. If memory serves, what my research showed is that Tora Olafsdotter joined the Global Guardians as Icemaiden, then shortened it to Ice when she joined the JLI -- whereas Sigrid Nansen did the reverse. In other words, Tora was the first Icemaiden but the second Ice, whereas Sigrid was the first Ice but the second Icemaiden. I have to stop now; my head is starting to hurt.
As to Obsidian, I found him something of a whiner in the JLI and liked the character much better as a villain in his recent JSA turn. I know, I know -- there's a lot of Obsidian fans out there who'd like to tar and feather me for holding such an opinion. I can't help it -- I don't like Bishop, Psylocke or Gambit either, and someday these heresies will do me in.
But thanks for the dating history of Jennie-Lynn's brother! It makes me feel better about my own ... :)

Dear Cap: Let's see if I can redeem myself from my flawed commentary of last week, and address the matter of the "impenetrable" disguise of Clark Kent's spectacles raised by [withheld].
I delayed this note by a day, trying to find the issue numbers for the stories I am about to reference- -w hich is usually possible, even 8,000 miles away from my collection, by some assiduous online research -- but I could not locate the Spellbinder story which you mentioned, Cap. You have the approximate time frame correct (Lana Lang was hired away from her field reporting job over at WMET to be Clark's co-anchor), and as I recall, the story was published in the late '70s or 1980.
The matter of no one recognising Superman when he dons his Clark Kent glasses is perhaps the most widely accepted convention of comics. This conceit is so cast in stone that, even in scenes where Clark removes his glasses, readers are perfectly willing to go along with idea that no one sees that they are the same person. Few even question the credibility of it, so deeply engrained in popular culture is the idea of Superman.
Nevertheless, as comic-book readers grew more sophisticated, DC felt it incumbent that they address the idea somehow. That was a mistake. I remember that story quite well; but I remember the reader reaction in the subsequent "Metropolis Mailbags" even more clearly. While one or two brave souls applauded the idea, generally the fans gave a resounding "thumb's-down" to the idea that Superman subconsciously used his super-hypnotism to make everyone see Clark Kent as a frail, withered milquetoast. If Curt Swan had not drawn the image of "Clark Kent" which the people of the DCU were supposedly seeing as a virtual Don Knotts look-alike with glasses, the explanation might have drawn more favour.
But as it was, this story joined the ranks of a select few in DC history -- stories which are so resoundly despised and rejected by the readers that they are never mentioned again by DC and simply "drop off the scope." Other tales which come to mind are the infamous "Mopee" story from The Flash 167 (Feb 67) , the Superboy story of the late '60s which disclosed that Jor-El and Lara had survived Krypton's explosion, but could never be revived, and the "Black Zero" story from a late '60s Superman, which held that a space pirate was actually responsible for Krypton's demise.
The Spellbinder story was a case of DC going too far to explain something which really didn't require any more explanation.
The real question which DC needs to explain is about the original Flash -- not how he concealed his identity without a mask, but how he managed to keep that sauce pan he wore for a hat (actually, the name for it is a "petasus") on his head whenever he moved at super-speed!
In the first few decades of the Man of Steel's existence, it was enough explanation to simply state that people noticed that Clark Kent resembled Superman -- and a handful of stories were actually written around that premise. In the early '70s, after Mort Weisinger retired and Julius Schwartz took over the editorship of the Superman family of magazines, Schwartz addressed the matter in one of his letter columns by amplifying an excerpt from the text piece "The Superman Legend", which Weisinger ran occasionally in his books.
In response to one of those rare readers who actually questioned the effectiveness of a pair of eyeglasses as a disguise, Schwartz pointed out that Superman's disguise was more than just donning a pair of specs. He pointed out the change in hair style; the fact that Superman slumped as Clark, to make Clark appear shorter; that he used a higher voice as Clark. He went on to indicate that, after a lifetime of maintaining the pose as Clark Kent, Superman had virtually created a whole and different personality -- with its own mannerisms and habits and traits -- as Clark. It was these underlying differences, as much as the obvious changes, which made Clark Kent seem like a different person.
Granted, one had to take that explanation with a large chunk of salt; but, keeping in mind the abilities of some actors on the screen to completely change their persona with little make-up, Schwartz's explanation was not too far out of the realm of possibility. It even accounted for the occasions when someone saw Clark without his glasses and still allowed for people to see his "resemblance" to Superman.
Personally, I always accepted this explanation. It was just enough to allow my suspension of disbelief to kick in.
Before I close, I also wanted to clear up Bob Besco's confusion over "the Flying Fox." The Flying Fox was an identity used by the teen-age Bruce Wayne in the lead story of Adventure Comics 275 (Aug '60 -- and reprinted in Superman Giant Annual 7 in the summer of 1963). The story was titled "The Origin of the Superman-Batman Team," and it described how Superboy, while tinkering with his time-scope, discovered that his adult self would be partnered with the Batman. Very shortly thereafter, the young Bruce Wayne moved to Smallville for a brief period. (NOTE: this must have been an unknown side-effect of that blasted time-scope -- that everyone Superboy saw in it moved to his town; the same thing happened with Oliver Queen and Lois Lane.) The exact events of the story elude me, but at some point, the situation arises where Bruce dons a fox mask and cape and, calling himself "the Flying Fox," thwarts a band of gunmen.
Thanks for the thoughtful discourse on Supie's ID. I just accepted the silliness of it as part of my suspension of disbelief until the first Superman movie, where Christopher Reeve convinced me for the first time that a good actor could very well pull it off. Well, except for when Lois kissed the both of them, though -- I still can't believe any woman would be stupid enough to kiss the same man in two different sets of clothes and not know right off that they were the same guy. Unless ... hmmm. Maybe Clark French kisses, but Superman uses a Kryptonian technique? Never mind -- I really don't want to go there!

Dear Cap: Once again we see comics fans working themselves up into an hysterical fit over a change in a beloved comic hero. Namely, the decision by director Sam Raimi to have organic web-shooters be part of Peter Parker's/Spider-Man mutation.
I've seen this before: Remember the outcry when it was announced that Gene Hackman was going to play a Lex Luthor sporting a full head of hair?
Remember the gnashing of teeth, the rending of garments and wailing in the land when Michael Keaton was announced as playing Batman/Bruce Wayne?
Remember the threats of a boycott if The X-Men didn't wear their comic-book costumes in the movie?
And last time I looked, comic book fans were hailing SUPERMAN, BATMAN and X-MEN as three of the greatest comic-to-film adaptions ever.
Me, I think it's a little too early to jump on this issue and say that Raimi should do this or do that. Sure, I'd like to see to the origin of Spider-Man done exactly as portrayed in the comics, but it's not gonna happen and I refuse to work myself into a lather over it. Let's take a mature attitude about it and wait for the movie.
Jeez, you think Shakespeare fans get this worked up over the almost yearly remakes of HAMLET that have little relation to the original?
You pretty much sum up my attitude, [withheld], which I espoused in a recent Comics Buyer's Guide column (heck, you even use many of the same phrases! Great minds think alike, I guess ...). My fanboy instinct is to react negatively to any change whatsoever, but that's just unrealistic. And besides, you point out just SOME of the times that I've gotten worked up in a lather over some TV/movie adaptation of a comic book, and was proven completely wrong. (Most recently, the X-costumes debate.) I think I'll reserve judgment until I actually see the movie.

Dear Cap: I just wanted to point out that there was indeed an Earth-Two Aquaman. He made his first modern appearance in All-Star Squadron 59 (July, 1986), and his final appearance in the very next issue! He made one impressive entrance before blending into the mob of mystery men who had gathered for the very last Crisis-crossover ever. This came at the end of an eleven-part story where Roy Thomas was trying to wrap up every loose end he could before the Crisis made Earth-Two irrelevant. It's a shame more people don't remember the Golden Age Sea King, but at least they finally reprinted one of his stories (Millenium Edition More Fun Comics 101).
Thanks [withheld] -- a lot of folks responded about the E-2 Aquaman, but yours was so comprehensive and well-written that I swiped it for my CBG column!

Dear Cap: I read the Hulk annual on your advise, and it was very very very good but ... it did remind me why I don't read the book. Life as the Hulk sucks. Overall I find the concept extremely depressing and I'd have to be into pain and suffering to read it regularly.
On the question about the popularity of Boba Fett your response was that it's because he looks cool. I agree but there's more to it than that. Inside the majority of people is a villain waiting to get out and characters like Boba Fett, Punisher and Wolverine are not bad enough to avoid and just bad enough to find interesting. Nobody wants to be like The Joker but everybody wants to wreak a little havoc now and then. A little mystery helps too cause then the imagination takes hold and you think, "Well, maybe he isn't always sleazy, maybe he does some good things now and then to make up for it." Personally, I'll be lame and stick with Captain America.
Me too -- I'm a Cap-man all the way! But I read with interest your Boba Fett comments. Makes as much sense to me as anything else.

Goodbye, Cap! Me hated your column. You am not funny, and neither am the Bizarros. Everybody can't read their comics without crying!
Me going to write more now! Hello!
[Next one:]
Goodbye! Me am very sad about your Bizarro column -- it make me cry.
You should do less Bizarro columns and not let Bizarro Cap run the web site for a week, or at least not let him answer the mail.
Me am very sad also about LONE WOLF AND CUB -- nobody should read this book! But me LOVE the Bizarro Spider-Man movie here on Bizarro world -- Bizarro-Spidey's organic web-shooters came out of Bizarro-Spidey's hands, not the butt like in the Bizarro-Spider-Man comics.
Hello!

Bizarro-Captain Comics replies:
Ugh! Bizarro HATE slip-sloppy compliments from dumb readers! Him wish Bizarro-[…] and Bizarro-[…] would stop writing mushy hate notes and hit him on head properly, like good Bizarros! Him only write columns so dumb readers will find something smarter to do, like watch TV!