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Friday, August 02, 2002 ( 8/02/2002 10:00:00 AM ) Bill S. “THAT’S SO SILVER AGE!” – Well, the concluding chapter of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Strikes Back came out just in time to spark a rally of fannish indignation at this year’s annual San Diego Comic Book Convention. (You just know the book’ll be subjected to dozens of cheesed-off slams at the con panels, right?) After one quick read-through – and zip time for critical reflection – my first thought is that Miller did precisely what he intended: he took the Silver Age DC World and blowed it up real good! Took me more than one try to read the book, incidentally. First time I picked it up, I was in bed; I gave up after five pages – visually, the book is like glutting on a densely frosted & filigreed wedding cake and washing it down with Code Red Mountain Dew. The cover looks like something Gary Panter might assay in the midst of a profoundly debilitating hangover. Finally read it this a.m. in the tub and found it easier to make my way through the volume. Having gone through all three chapters only once – as they were released – I have no idea if Miller’s work hangs together. That’s for another day and more intensive examination. For now, though, I’m more than a little in awe of the guy’s willingness to so cavalierly screw with the fantasies he grew up on. # | ( 8/02/2002 07:41:00 AM ) Bill S. PLAY IT SAFE – Jim Treacher links to an ongoing blogosphere discussion of which superhero/ine would be the hottest one to, um, do it with. But, really, in this day and age, isn’t it just as important to know which ‘un would provide the safest sex? My vote would be for Sue Richards, Invisible Girl/Woman. She could use her mental powers to provide her own condom – and rib it for her own pleasure! (Come to think of it, what does she need Reed for?) # | Thursday, August 01, 2002 ( 8/01/2002 08:14:00 AM ) Bill S. BROOOOOCE! – Kinda fun to see all the media attention that’s been lavished on The Boss this week: boomers struggling to take back the pop light and say, “Yes, our music still matters!” I admit I made a point of buying The Rising (Columbia) this week: while I’ve never been a Springsteen fanatic, I nonetheless enjoy the man’s rock ‘n’ roll releases. Still, the amount of attention that his return to E Street has engendered can’t help but recall the days when Broooooce was the Future of Rock ‘N’ Roll. I guess the future is what it used to be. # | ( 8/01/2002 08:08:00 AM ) Bill S. IT’S A SMALLVILLE, AFTER ALL – This summer I’ve been availing myself of its twice-weekly broadcast schedule (Mondays & Tuesdays) to catch up on eps of WB’s Smallville. As pure television goes, the series is moderately successful: not as crisp as Buffy (with which it shares obvious similarities – Sunnydale’s plot-spurring proximity to a Hellmouth serving the same function as Smallville’s kryptonite-dotted landscape) or as darkly humored as the best X-Files, but still entertaining thanks to a game cast that’s usually able to pull us through the show’s drippier teen angst moments. As for its merits as a comic book adaptation – well, how you respond probably depends on which generation Clark Kent is most familiar to you. Depending on when you started reading the books, Superboy is a.) the hero of Smallville, who regular traveled into the future to play with the Legion of Super-Heroes; b.) a clone created in the days when Superman was supposed to be dead; or c.) non-existent. How close Smallville gets to your memories of the Boy of Steel depends on which version is closest to your heart. Me, I grew up with “The Adventures of Superman as A Boy,” so I had to do some mental adjusting (Martha Kent, a still-hot Annette O’Toole? Jonathan, one of the Duke boys? Lana Lang brunette? Pete Ross black? And who’s that irritating Chloe chick, anyway?) But Tom Welling makes a convincing nascent superman – and Michael Rosenbaum is even better as Anakin Luthor. In fact, it’s not stretching things to note that some of the better eps I’ve seen have been more Lex’s shows than Clark’s. Alternately arrogant and whiney, powerful yet desperate for emotional connections he’s never been taught to make, Luthor is the show’s most complicated character. (And if I use a Darth Vader comparison, it's because the ongoing series has given writers Mark Verheiden, Alfred Gough and Miles Miller room to flesh out Lex in ways that have eluded George Lucas.) Lex also got the season’s most unforgettable scene: an FX-laden premonition that had him standing in a field of death, being showered in blood. As appealing as the character can be, Smallville never lets us forget what a scum-wad he’ll become. Monday night’s ep was from early in the season – I’d missed it the first time, but that’s what reruns are for, right? Best bit of the show revolved around our hero Clark’s acquisition of x-ray vision: one of the show’s premises is that Clark’s powers don’t fully blossom until adolescence. (In this, the series seems to’ve taken a page from Marvel’s X-books.) Our hero’s new powers flash on and off uncontrollably. But happily for Clark one of the first times he gets to use his improved eyesight, he’s close to the girls’ locker room. The look on Clark’s face as he realizes what he’s seeing brought back every fifth grade conversation about the character I can remember . . . # | Wednesday, July 31, 2002 ( 7/31/2002 07:50:00 PM ) Bill S. NO MORE EXCUSES – So I go into my local comic book shoppe for the first time in two weeks, and what do I see but the newest issue of Batman (#605) wrapping up the interminable “Bruce Wayne Murder?/Fugitive” plotline and the final issue of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight 2. Damn, now I’ve got no good reason to avoid finishing my Batman “Comic Book Catch-up”! UPDATE – Read the “Fugitive” series finish after posting the above, and – at the risk of anticipating my still-unfinished “Catch-Up” piece – my reaction to the revelation of the true culprit’s identity was a big huh? Plowing through this Bat mini-series was like playing a game of Clue and finally being told that the identity of the killer is Mr. Plaid. # | Monday, July 29, 2002 ( 7/29/2002 09:42:00 AM ) Bill S. THE BUN’ RETURNS – Fox has dumped its unseen eps of Greg The Bunny into the Sunday cartoon pocket between Futurama and The Simpsons: good news for fans of Seth Green or Eugene Levy who don’t mind seeing either when they’re not being all that funny. (Admittedly, I’ve watched and enjoyed Levy in much worse!) I’m tuning in – if only for isolated moments of post-Muppet crassness like last night’s scene w./ a gorilla puppet pissing thru a studio exec’s open sun roof. It may not be good, but how often do you get to see it? # | Sunday, July 28, 2002 ( 7/28/2002 07:28:00 AM ) Bill S. LIVIN’ LIFE A QUARTER MILE AT A TIME – Hadn’t really seen one of his flicks before – can’t really call Saving Private Ryan a Vin Diesel Movie – so with the hype machine going full tilt for XXX, I took in Fast and the Furious on cable last night. Saw a pic not far removed from the cycle & car gang movies I recall enjoying as a teenager back in the mid-60's. Lots of fetishized car imagery (made cooler by the moments when, C.S.I.-like, we get to zoom into a C.G.I. view of firing engines), same minimal attention to characterization and story – the one thing that separates it from the cheesy exploiflicks of my youth is the filmmakers’ leaden need to set up a sequel. Back in the days when drive-ins ruled, you can bet that Diesel’s bad boy racer would’ve snuffed it in the flick’s final big car crash. These days, The Deal keeps stories from reaching their inevitable conclusion. As for the man himself, well, he’s certainly more watchable than putative undercover cop hero Paul Walker. But whether he’s the Century’s First Action Hero remains to be seen. # | ( 7/28/2002 05:36:00 AM ) Bill S. HAVE IT YOUR WAY – Between this week’s fast food lawsuit and the Southwest Airlines two-seat deal, it’s been a rough summer for fat Americans: both news stories have opened the gates for a lotta lame stand-up fat jokes. Watching Dennis Miller limp toward the end of his HBO run last night, I expected him to throw some dumb similes at the lawsuit – and the man didn’t disappoint: he made it subject for the opening volley on his rant. Nuthin’ like calling someone a “fat fuck” on cable to get the yahoos cheering. As for the lawsuit, which involves a fat American suing the big four fast food companies for “making him fat and unhealthy,” this ‘un has been long in coming. My own belief is that some of our politicians helped pave the way for it every time they started talking about adding a “fat tax” to fast or junk food (if it’s a taxable activity, it’s an actionable activity!) But outside of a few nights of talk show jokes, I don’t think the lawsuit is gonna hold up. In the first place, today’s fast food restaurant doesn’t just offer high-fat/high-cholesterol foodstuff: every one of ‘em makes a point of offering several “heart smart” items. I travel through the state several days a month, and at times I’ve been at the mercy of the fast fooders. One of my co-workers, in fact, is a vegetarian, who has to look even harder in small towns for something she can eat. But even MacDonald’s offers a meal-sized salad-in-a-cup that’s fairly low-fat and not bad eatin’; Burger King has even added a garden burger to its menu (they slather it with mayo, but still. . .) So customer choice remains a pretty potent counter-argument. Heck, cigarette company lawsuits didn’t grow any teeth until evidence started popping of the tobacco companies’ efforts to make cancer sticks more addictive. So unless someone comes up with a smokin’ email describing MacDonald’s efforts to slip nicotine into their special sauce, I’m betting this lawsuit is deader than the 400-lb Gorilla's HBO contract. Size acceptance advocates have long tried to downplay the one-two connection between fatness and overeating: an argument that may have some medical backing (we know, for instance, that genetics plays a major role in your body size) but runs counter to the intuitive sense most Americans have about the way this works. But – NIH to the contrary – fatness does not automatically equate with poor health (which is really what the lawsuit is about: theoretically, skinny Americans with bad lipid levels could also pony onto the suit). Just as most of us know folks who’ve grown fat through observable overindulgence, we also typically know folks who manage to remain both fat and healthy. Perhaps the most damaging aspect of the suit from a size-supporting standpoint is the way it bolsters the automatic assumption that if you’re larger than average, you’re clearly-unhealthy-end-o'-story. # | |
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