Justice League Task Force was not very good

I’m not talking about Justice League Task Force the comic book, mind you. While I only own a few issues, Christopher Priest had a run as writer, and that generally ensures a certain degree of quality at least for a stretch. And while I loathe the “pro-active” super team chestnut, the Secret Defenders rotating line-up one is fun. Hey, did Justice League Task Force steal that gimmick from Secret Defenders or vice versa?

But I’m getting off topic—allow me to set the stage…

It’s 1995, I’m 13 years old, I’m huge into comics and while I’m only really versed in video games as far as my spare time at my friend Matt’s will allow me since I’ve only got an original NES with a partially rabbit-chewed wire, I do have some favorites, among them Street Fighter II. Thus the announcement of a fighting game featuring the Justice League seems like a slam dunk to me and I’m counting the days until Blockbuster gets their rental shipment in.

Any fan of comics and/or video game who has played Justice League Task Force is likely now cringing at my misplaced anticipated excitement.

To first give credit where credit is due, I liked and still dig the graphics on Justice League Task Force. The figures are colorful and energetic, looking like they’re straight out of a comic book, but the right mix of cartoony Street Fighter with more realistic Mortal Kombat living in harmony. The characters moved well enough—the women are in a kind of permanent uncomfortable looking crane pose—and the special moves look suitably neat. The mini movie that kicks the whole thing off is pretty well done too, with the cuts to all the locales and looming Darkseid promising a dope story to move this thing along.

And that’s where the good stuff ends.

The plot is that you’re a member of the Justice League going around visiting your friends to get info, but they all attack you and you need to fight them before gradually realizing they’re all android clones created by Darkseid. Then you beat Cheetah and Despero. Then you fight Darkseid. It ain’t Shakespeare, but it’s good enough for a 90’s fighting game, I guess.

You can play as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman or Green Arrow. No Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter, which is a shame as both ring constructs and shape shifting would have made for some diverse special moves, but as I’ll get to, a variety of fighting options is not really this game’s strong suit. It’s 1995, so Superman has a mullet. Also, Aquaman carries a trident around because that’s presumably easier to program than getting whales to jump on and off the screen.

Each character has their own location-specific background, which is pretty slick as far as Gotham, Metropolis, Themyscira, Atlantis and The Flash Museum—complete with statue of dead Barry Allen—but I guess they ran out of budget because Green Arrow gets a forest clearing. Cheetah is in the desert, Despero is on a spaceship and of course the final battle with Darkseid is on a so-so Apokolips.

So far not terrible, but keep in mind I’ve really just given you the set up—now it’s time to play the game.

Remember back in the 60’s where those old school Justice League stories paired off the various members of the team and so none could be distinguishable from the others they not only had the same personalities but virtually the same powers as well? By that I mean that even if Green Arrow was teamed with Superman, GA would have “fire arrows” and “ice arrows” so anything Supes could do with heat vision or arctic breath he could approximate. Likewise they’d use comics super science to explain how anything Green Lantern could do with his ring, Flash could do with speed. And maybe Batman had a magic lasso or something, I don’t know.

While I’d like to think the creators of Justice League Task Force were paying in homage to Gardner Fox and company, in reality, they seemingly just got really lazy, because everybody in this game has the same moves.

Superman has heat vision and arctic breath, while Green Arrow has fire and ice arrows and Batman has fire and ice Batarangs—all are the same. You can do the same shit with Aquaman’s trident you can do with Wonder Woman’s lasso. The only guy who really has his own move set is Flash, who has an awesomely cheap one where you can just keep running across the screen in continuous motion so whoever you’re fighting keeps getting punched and can’t stop you; it’s the JLTF equivalent of playing Street Fighter as E. Honda and doing that million punches thing (which I always do). Also, Flash can create tornados—who knew.

Anyways, you’ve basically got six characters with about six total moves between them and it gets real old real fast.

Oh, also Superman and Wonder Woman can fly, but they can’t really attack well while flying, so it’s somewhat useless.

Long story short, Justice League Task Force is a pretty game to look at, but you get sick of actually playing it really quick. You’d hope they’d redeem that somewhat with cool character endings, but again, they all have the same one.

I may not know much about video games, but I know what I like, and this wasn’t it. I will, however, throw a bone to the game’s developers because they also made Death and Return of Superman, which was awesome and my friend Chris and I stayed up through an entire night of college to beat it. I don’t see a world where I will ever grow tired of beating up thugs named Molotov as Superboy in the leather jacket and John Lennon glasses he should still be wearing today (and forever).

Underrated/Overlooked: Psionex

In most iconic super hero-super villain archenemy pairings, the two individuals or teams involved are bound by their stark differences, cracked mirror similarities, or in some cases a little bit of both.

Superman is the alien who is an everyman while Lex Luthor is the human who sees himself as above his fellow man. Spider-Man is the hopeful optimism of youth in the face of adversity battling old men like Doctor Octopus or The Green Goblin who have given up on altruism and are driven by greed. Batman is the imposition of order while The Joker is the embodiment of chaos. Doctor Doom is the intelligence of Mr. Fantastic without morality and civic unselfishness keeping him in check.

The New Warriors never really had an archenemy. Some might say it was The Sphinx, and in that case you could argue the dynamic was the young agents of change versus the timeless champion of inevitability, but he was really Nova’s bad guy first and foremost. If you look at the bad guys in other big Warriors storylines like Tai, the Poison Memories or the Dire Wraiths, they were all basically one and done adversaries.

Breaking it down to numbers, the villains who plagued the New Warriors the most frequently and were their opposite number at least in the sense of being a team of young people were Psionex, introduced in issue #4 of the original series and recurring for the remainder of the volume as foes to our heroes, reluctant allies against a larger threat like Terrax, and even Night Thrasher’s attempt at a rehabilitation project.

If there was a weakness to Psionex in their core concept, it was that they didn’t really stand for much of anything, whereas the Warriors had a very strong sense of identity. Certain buzz phrases would recur through all of that classic first Warriors series—“making hard choices,” “searching for the truth,” “the power of love over the love of power”—creating not only a clear mission statement for the good guys, but the potential for an antithesis that was never really filled outside of in part with stuff I mentioned like The Sphinx and other little cases.

The initial hook to Psionex was a simple one: They were unbalanced young people given super powers by Genetech, the faceless corporation who would bug the New Warriors because why not. As it said on the blurb of their introductory issue, “They were bred for one purpose: To destroy the New Warriors!” but aside from having powers that gave various members of the team trouble, you never got the whole “bred for one purpose” thing. This wasn’t like the Injustice League or Dark Avengers or some incarnations of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants where each member of the villain team was picked specifically to target an opposing player on the good guys; it was just a bunch of randoms with cool powers.

However, it’s in those powers and their relative inventiveness that Psionex raises a notch or two up in my mind. Fabian Nicieza clearly put some time into coming up with these guys’ abilities, and in an era where “generic energy blast” was the flavor of every month—I’m looking at you Acolytes—it was refreshing and appreciated.

Asylum was a mental patient who never spoke but had a body composed entirely of Darkforce matter that induced hallucinations in anybody she came into contact with; similar to Cloak but with a twist of mental imbalance. Coronary at first glance seemed like the team powerhouse, but who was actually a “bio-telepath,” capable of messing with people’s internal functions so as to make them vomit, give them a heart attack or do other nastiness. Impulse had an enhanced metabolism which gave him fairly generic heightened speed, reflexes and healing, but his crazy thrill seeker personality coupled with his gang background made him interesting and led to classic moments like him trying to take on Terrax singlehanded and getting his back snapped (he got better). Mathemanic not only had a great name, but the most bizarre and intriguing abilities, as he practiced “mathematical telepathy,” messing with statistical regularities so he could do things like forcing his foes to perceive interstellar measures of distance and thus not see what’s in front of them or slowing the passage of time by altering perceptions. Last but not least you had Pretty Persuasions, an exotic dancer with an energy whip who could increase and then draw power from the “erotic urges” of others, making her one of the most straightforwardly sexual characters in comics at the time, but in an odd “what you see is what you get” refreshing kind of way.

Psionex had their initial clash with the Warriors, then a rematch that ended with Terrax’s rebirth and a temporary truce/half the villains fleeing. Later, after Asylum dissipated during a fight with Nova, Firestar and Speedball, another New Warriors villain, Darkling, found her mask and took up her mantel, getting Psionex back together and attempting to make them into heroes who would use the excessive force the Warriors were unwilling to; this period showed some potential for the group to really forge their own place in the Marvel Universe—or at least in the New Warriors mythos—but while it made for a few good stories, they were heavily focused on Asylum, with the rest becoming more or less window dressing. After Asylum accidentally killed a child by inducing an unknown heart condition while trying to scare him straight, we got a pretty emotionally hard hitting story—Nicieza’s final issue—where Mathemanic tries to turn back time by affecting perceptions across New York City, but ultimately is convinced that he can’t undo what is already done.

From there Psionex joined up briefly with Night Thrasher and Rage before gradually receding into a background role in the Marvel Universe for the past couple decades, generally only showing up for cameos when Nicieza is writing a book like New Thunderbolts or part of huge villain armies in titles being penned by New Warriors fans like when Christos Gage had the reins of Avengers: The Initiative.

In addition to their powers, the other thing Psionex really had going for it was that Mark Bagley did a bang-up job on their designs. They really were a motley crew of misfits, as befit their status as nut jobs, with the nerdy Mathemanic looking like he belonged nowhere near a group that also included S&M bombshell Pretty Persuasions. Asylum’s lack of physical form anchored by that golden mask was cool, as was Coronary’s evolving crystalline shape—although the weird skirt he rocked at first was bizarre—and even Impulse’s fairly traditional super villain get-up had neat touches like the evil Spider-Man bug eyes or weird wrist gauntlet blades. Richard Pace would ramp up the exaggerated elements of Psionex during his all-too-brief run on New Warriors and breathe even more life into Bagley’s work.

But again, while Psionex had plenty of potential in the abilities and visual departments, their lack of personalities, individually or as a group, and no real direction hurt their lasting legacy. It wasn’t enough just to be crazy, particularly in the 90’s, and after that initial Genetech-sponsored fracas, it wasn’t even quite clear why they were always tangling with the New Warriors.

Still, there’s something there in Psionex, even if it’s just that they bring something different to the table in terms of abilities that go beyond the tired cocktail of super strength, mind powers and, yes, energy blasts. I’m not saying they’re ever going to anchor a line-wide crossover or anything, but maybe next time an Avengers writer needs to kill half a standalone issue that’s really about the heroes’ relationships anyways, rather than use the Wrecking Crew yet again, they give Psionex a shot.

RIP Les Daniels

When I was a little kid, my mom would drag me along with her when she went to the Newton Public Library. It was a big, beautiful building that was cool to get lost in, but she'd usually take awhile and I'd get bored. I figured out the computer system that looked up books as well as the map of the joint easy enough, so I'd always be trying to track down stuff that interested me to hold my attention. I'd spend my time leafing through books of Greek myths, art manuals, guides to movies and whatnot, but of course what I really wanted to find was comics.

I searched the magazine section and found nothing. I braved the children's room (hated that place) and came up empty. Finally, tucked away in the center of the big section of books devoted to painting and drawing, in the middle of a big black stack, I found a tiny row devoted to cartoons. Mostly that meant old stuff from the 40's, newspaper strips and a lot of European comics, but when I was lucky and it wasn't checked out, I'd grab the big, bright hardcover with Spider-Man scaling the wall towards you and find a quiet corner that my mom would eventually have to drag me away from.

The book was Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades, written by Les Daniels, who passed away earlier this week. Though I already had tremendous affection for super heroes and their adventures at this point, it was Daniels' writing that first opened the door for me on the realization that there was a place where the comics I read came from and minds behind crafting these stories. While I may have met Spider-Man and Batman through the comics my Dad brought me home from the grocery store, it was quite frankly Les Daniels who introduced me to the comics industry and made me decide it was a place maybe someday I'd like to work.

Five Fabulous Decades tells the story of Marvel, from the Golden Age of Atlas through the birth of the Marvel Universe right up to the then-burgeoning period of 90's excess; it's a tale I've read and heard many times since, but never exceeding the clarity and color Daniels brought to the table.

Daniels' bibliography hardly begins and ends with Five Fabulous Decades. In addition to his own fiction work, he was a legit and accomplished comics historian, from his breakthrough Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America in 1971 through chronicling nearly 70 years of DC in the late 90's and into the current century. I haven't read any of these works, but in remembering the significant contribution just one of his books made to my life, I'm now anxious to.

This is a paltry remembrance for a gentleman who contributed a great deal to the business I work in and fandom I'm a part of (as always, Tom Spurgeon did a better job), but it's my way of saying thank you for giving me a dream to follow, Mr. Daniels, may you rest in peace.

My Five Favorite Subway Sandwiches

“I think I’m going to Subway.”

“You’re going to take the Subway?”

“No, I’m going to the Subway sandwich emporium.”

A conversation between Ben Morse and Rickey Purdin on Monday, November 7, 2011. Ben ended up going to Qdoba after all.

When last we left my saga with the Subway sandwich chain (Eat Fresh), the relationship was anything but healthy. I went on at length ruminating about the pangs of loss I felt from a childhood filled with bread cut from the top that gave way to an adult life consumed by rolls sliced in the traditional fashion. I had forsaken Subway, preferring to find my heroes (double meaning) across the counters of non-chain delis and the like.

But things change.

Primarily, I remained working in New York City on a regular basis where I realized that there are more Subways than there are trashcans, foot long sandwiches cost five dollars, and most delis charge like $30 for a pickle.

Also, I am told Subway is relatively healthy (by everybody except Dave Paggi and Ryan Penagos, who are food snobs).

So my love affair with Subway resumed, and I must say, while the passionate romance of my younger years may have subsided, a sensible and mutually beneficial adult relationship has taken its place.

To celebrate this renewed union, my five favorite Subways subs of yesteryear and today(year).

HONORABLE MENTION: Old School Steak & Cheese
The only sub that could lure occasionally me away from the Meatball when I was a kid (keep reading) was the Steak & Cheese. However, I remember the halcyon days where the steak was practically shredded as opposed to the cubes or uniformly sliced strips they use now; a sad loss.

Cold Cut Combo
The Cold Cut Combo is where I go once in a blue moon when I really want to let my hair down and go wild. That turkey-based bologna is the key brother; I don’t think it’s on any other sandwich and it’s probably illegal in some countries. Don’t order a Cold Cut Combo unless you’re ready for an experience.

Subway Club
In the summer of 2004, I helped work pre-camp at my beloved Camp Frank A. Day up in East Brookfield, Massachusetts, which basically meant I spent my days mowing grass, repairing cabins, setting up docks and doing other manly tasks, then found myself more or less alone in a spooky cabin in the middle of the woods as soon as the sun went down. It was a 20 minute drive to civilization and the nearest non-mess hall food, so when I grabbed dinner, I needed to make it count. Enter the Subway Club, a mountainous concoction containing turkey, roast beef and ham that when supplemented with veggies and mayo could keep your belly full and your mind keen (I also got one of the local girls who worked the counter to give me her Subway visor). I haven’t had a Club in years, but it got me through some tough nights in the (relative) wilderness.

Meatball Marinara
A sentimental favorite, the Meatball sub from Subway (we didn’t use fancy terms like “Marinara” back in the 90’s) was a staple of my childhood. After basketball games on Saturday mornings (I was terrible at basketball and gave it up the minute I was old enough to wrestle, but my dad, bless him, held out hope during those early years), my father would take me by either Burger King or Subway to combat the physical fitness I had just taken part in, and if it was the latter, I always got a Meatball sandwich. It doesn’t rank higher at the moment because my two favorite components of the sub were the top cut bread which I’m complained about being gone already and coating it in American cheese that would melt right on. Time and lactose intolerance have robbed me of these simple pleasures, but I’ll still fire up a cheese-less Marinara now and again for old time’s sake.

Black Forest Ham
My favorite option at the moment off the $5 Foot Long menu. As I have already mentioned several times already, I am lactose intolerant, meaning I need to find sandwiches that can give me that hit of flavor even when devoid of cheese, mustard or mayo (I think I can actually have the latter two, but I don’t, because I’m paranoid). Ham is nice and salty with a kick if done right (and Subway does everything right), so you don’t need to rely on dressing for flavor. Throw some lettuce, cucumbers, pickles and black olives on for added value and nutrition or whatever, toast the bun and singe the meat a bit, and you’ve got an ideal lunch for your hungry comic book web site editor on the go.

Roast Beef
For years, I struggled with the fact that I love to eat hamburgers and would gladly have them for lunch, but for the most part they are too heavy/filling for me to go back to work after having, and thus I relegated them to dinners and special occasions. Imagine my joy at experiencing the revelation about 20 years after most do that a roast beef sandwich is essentially a hamburger you can eat without resulting fullness-induced lethargy! The Subway near the Marvel offices slings a mean Roast Beef foot long, and you can further simulate the burger experience by topping it with lettuce, pickles and ketchup (I don’t like tomatoes on my burgers/roast beef sandwiches, that’s what the ketchup is for) and making sure the bun is nice and toasted. I also get black olives because I love black olives. This is my current go-to when I’ve got enough to splurge outside the $5 menu (during October, it was Anytober, where all foot longs were $5, including the Roast Beef—it was glorious) and thus at the moment it tops the list.

Leather Fetish

I’m currently in the process on working on a fairly epic series with Marvel.com video whiz Rich “The Dragon” Herrera that should hopefully be up in the next couple weeks on the site in time for the 600th issue of Fantastic Four. Without giving away the game, we’ve got about three hours or so of footage interviewing Tom Brevoort about the history of the FF from start to finish with plenty of anecdotes and neat facts along the way. It was basically like taking a master class in Marvel from a gent very qualified teach it and one of the cooler experiences I’ve had in a very cool career.

One of my favorite bits from the whole thing, oddly enough, was when we got to the 90’s and Tom spent a substantial spot of time talking about the period where the Fantastic Four got leather jackets and specifically that The Human Torch had a leather jacket (“Was he cold? He’s on fire!”). Tom of course acknowledged that the folks working on the book at the time, Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan, were just going with the general trend in the industry at the time, but as those were the comics coming out when I was a kid and I was part of the audience who more or less said “we would like to see The Human Torch in a leather jacket,” it got me thinking (again).

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (right now, in fact): If you wanted your comic book character to look cool in the 90’s, you gave them a leather jacket with option of earring, ponytail and possible razor stubble. But did “looking cool” actually translate to “being cool”? Heck, did it even look cool? Let’s examine…

FANTASTIC FOUR
Y’know, from a functional standpoint (if not a fashion one), leather jackets really aren’t that out of place on the Fantastic Four. After all, they’re more explorers than super heroes at heart, so it does make a degree of sense they’d want plenty of pockets to carry around gear for wherever they’re headed and whatever they’ll encounter so they can always be prepared (and also stay warm, I suppose). Although Tom is right that a jacket offers very little use to the Torch, since he’s got built in weaponry and it would take excess time to treat anything he’s going to be carrying around or picking up in asbestos or whatever. And The Thing would never actually use anything but his fists so long as those are handy, plus he’ll tear through those suckers frequently enough to make the Hulk’s purple pants budget look frugal. And a jacket would actually hinder The Invisible Woman since at least part of her power hinges on not being noticed, which becomes more difficult with something making noise, causing wind resistance, etc. Ok, so maybe Mister Fantastic could wear a leather jacket from a functional standpoint.

WONDER WOMAN
Covered this recently, but the answer is no, Wonder Woman should not wear a leather jacket (in my opinion). Her gear is more than just a costume, it’s a uniform; the honor guard of a proud people symbolizing their greatest champion yada yada yada. You can alter it slightly (as has been done currently), but in story there’s a certain level of prestige and heritage that’s integral to Diana’s character, while on a real world level Wonder Woman has one the most recognizable costumes in comics and you shouldn’t be covering that up with a leather jacket (or bike shorts). To be fair, there was a very valid story reason why she wore what she wore—she wasn’t Wonder Woman anymore so keeping the garb would be disrespectful to her mother and her people—plus it was only ever designed to be a short term gig, but Diana should never be a slave to fashion trends.

THE X-MEN
X-Men and leather go together like peanut butter and jelly; it’s a beautiful and symbiotic relationship. In the 80’s, you had Mohawk Storm’s gear, in the 90’s you had the brown jackets that carried over from the comics to the animated series, and this century you had the black and yellow (and white) gear Frank Quitely introduced. It’s my belief that the reason the X-Men floundered commercially in the 60’s and early 70’s was not due to lack of Wolverine, but because they were hung up on spandex. Also, Gambit would probably curl up in the fetal position and weep if you took his duster away from him, and that’s a story nobody wants to see (unless Mike Carey has a really good angle on it, maybe).

SUPERBOY
A thousand times yes. That Superboy to this day is not sporting a leather jacket, an earring, John Lennon sunglasses and a fade cut is a crime against fashion. And since he was supposed to be not that much older than me when he was introduced, it made total sense he would emulate the same looks I did (particularly when his genetic role model had a mullet). I only wish his aesthetic dynamic had stopped aging along with his physical body.

THE AVENGERS
No.

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
There are aspects of the Five Years Later run of Legion of Super-Heroes that I enjoy, but on the whole, making the best bright and shiny future in comics into the typical dystopian fare was a misstep. It felt wrong all the way to the way the characters dressed, since colorful attire with potent symbolism was central to the “carrying on for the greatest heroes ever” Legion conceit while the drab gear the FYL crew wore signaled how out of place they were. Only Ultra Boy and Timber Wolf are street enough to rock leather jackets (Karate Kid could if he wanted to, but he would never want to).

CAPTAIN AMERICA
What I said about Wonder Woman, probably magnified. Cap is literally draped in the American flag; play that all out, or don’t play it at all. Covering up the symbol he’s proud/brazen enough to wear in that manner is not Steve Rogers at all. He’s also all about grace and agility, so all that extra weight is no good (again, there was a reasonable story reason, and the character was actually against the change, but it was still not so hot).

NIGHTWING
Actually never wore a leather jacket, but he made a disco collar and mullet reasonably cool well past their respective expiration dates, so if anybody is gonna bring it back, Dick Grayson is the man. Also: pixie boots.

Halloween 2011: Jesus Left Chicago & Other Adventures

All right!

Once again, the collective crew of The CKT have made it through our traditional Halloween adventures. Well, Ben has been unfortunately delayed in his costuming, but I believe he's rocking out in some kind of Satanic getup this weekend (NOTE: I have no actual confirmation of Satanism in Ben's life). As in year's past, we're happy to provide the highlights of our ongoing attempts to act like more like children the closer we get to 30. Let's run down our nights one Cool Kid at a time!


Kiel!

So over the past few years of living in Chicago, my girlfriend Jami and I have gotten back into Halloween in a major way. And while we've had some pretty decent couples costumes the past few years (recall: Flint & Lady Jaye, Chuck & Blaire, Scott & Ramona), this year I think we took things as far as we could in assembling pieces to be Ned and Cat Stark from "Game of Thrones." The actual choice for costume came late in the game, but once Jami decided this was the one, she also decided to make a lot of the costumes herself on a sewing machine she got last Christmas.

Baby did a good job too! The capes and my tunic and other bits and bobs were put together by her, and she painted up my shield to be a bit more Winterfell-ish (you can't read it in his pic, but it says "Winter Is Coming" across the front). My main contribution was super-gluing the world's cheapest Hand of the King broach. More on that in a minute.


Jami was a little bummed we couldn't find some suitable fish flair into her costume, but she pulled Cat off pretty great (that wig was super long and out of control!). Overall, our goal at Halloween parties has become tallying how many people actually know what we're supposed to be. This year about ten folks knew, many of them from the Song of Ice And Fire books and NOT the TV show. Props.


On Friday night, we went and saw my buddies Wally Dogger play in the musical costume of ZZ Top at a bar in the Loop. The openers were a band dressed as Doctor Teeth And The Electric Mayhem (who I was told played some Muppets shit but were rocking some modern pop song when we showed up) and a band of dudes in USPS shirts who played as, you guessed it, the Postal Service. They were all right, I guess.

But the Dogger crushed it as ZZ Top. Pauly was in character as Billy Gibbons all night, and they made their way through most of the big hits: Tush, La Grange, Gimme All Your Lovin, Cheap Sunglasses, Sharp Dressed Man and you know what they closed with. Solid night.

Also: at one point, Dogger guitarist Swerve came up to me and said, "What's that pin for?" I say, "I'm the Hand of the King." Swerve says, "You give the King handjobs?" And I say, "No, I said I'm the Hand of the King." And Swerve says, "Yeah, but what if the King wakes up some morning and is like 'Hey, where's my hand?'"


While we were at the show, we saw a couple good costumes. This new guy to the crew named Brandon impressed with a Starfleet uniform. I've said it before and will say it again: Star Trek cosplay is the original cosplay. Also: my pal Thumbtack is up there and his costume is...well...it's Thumbtack's costume.


Here's Pauly's fiance Megan as Mrs. Potato Head and Swerve's girlfriend Elise as Harry Potter. I know the latter is pretty obvious from this pic, but when I first saw her, I thought the tie signified she was a waitress or something? Megan's also a pretty involved Halloweener (a few years back she came to our party as a functioning beer pong table), and this year I thought her hat really pulled Mrs. PH together.


Saturday night, we headed out to the 'burbs for a party with Jami's grad school crew. I don't know if you can tell, but her friend Lauren as Snow White above is like seven months pregnant. She's hiding it well up there, but it made for a super adorable costume at the party. Tiff is Snooki for the second year in a row, but I fucking loved it both times because of all that bronzer. She's actually quite pale!

The party was full on with folks in costumes and fire tossers and stuff. There were some folks dressed up as Spike and Dru (those "Buffy" fans aren't going anywhere, guys) as well as this hilarious kid of about 11 who was super pumped I could tell that his costume was supposed to be Steampunk (Steampunk Van Helsing to be precise, which I should have known from the crossbow). But the award of the night went to these folks:


I think Scott Pilgrim's costumes are going to be around for a while at Halloween. This pair was great because duder was a super big comics fan, and he said last year he got really bummed because he went as Mr. Sinister and no one knew what he was supposed to be, but I spotted Todd Ingram from across the room, and we high fived.

Late that night, I stopped off at one more party to see my buddy Guy Zach Nie, and guess what?


"Do you know a girl with hair like this?" BOOM! It was pretty spectacular catching up with The Guy for the first time in maybe three years.



Rickey!

My girlfriend Sam and I went to a costume party at a friend's house on Friday and we dressed as Gonzo, the Great and Animal! Sam even made the Muppet costumes from scratch!

On Saturday, we braved the snowstorm and went to the Chiller Theatre horror convention with two objectives: Meet/take a photo with Elvira and buy some DVDs.

Sam convinced me to dress in my Pee-Wee Herman costume from last year cause it would make a more fun photo with Elvira, whose appearance at the show would be her last in costume EVER.

The show was STUPID fun. Every single person there was nice and excited to be around. And Elvira! We found out she was doing one of those photo op things where you go with her behind a curtain and take a photo with a backdrop. But that was at 6 PM and cost $40, and we wanted to leave earlier than that, so we found where she was signing and walked into that area. Dominique Swain, Martin Landau, Furio from Sopranos, Robert Carradine and a bunch of others were in the same area, but Elvira's line was so long it stretched from one side of the room to the other and then back again. So we fought the crowd to get in it.

The line was so long that being in the back of the line meant we were snaked back to the front of the table and got to stare at her for a second. She's so gorgeous in person! I mean, that woman is polite and energetic and just breath-taking. I asked Sam to go over and ask her handler how much it cost to take a photo with her. The lady told Sam it was $60 at the table. Holy shit! I don't have that much money!

But as Sam's about to walk back over and ask how much it costs just to say hello to Elvira, someone grabs my arm from behind. IT WAS ELVIRA!

She'd gotten up to take a picture with a fan at the front of the line and spotted me. "I want to take a picture with Pee-Wee," she said out loud so her handler could hear her and get the Mistress of the Dark's cellphone camera. Sam looked back in the chaos at me - her eyes wide.

So, I'm standing there. Elvira's got her arm around me to my left. "Can you do the laugh?" she asks. And I can, really well, so I do it. She's cracking up. "That's great, I love it!" she squeeled.

So, in Pee-Wee's excited voice I say, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?" And she's dying! She's laughing hard! So I put my hand on her left hip like it's a prom picture.

Her booth lady snaps it, but there's no flash. "Do you mind waiting while we get the flash on? I want to put this online," she tells me up close. "Sure! That'd be so rad!" I tell her. By this point I have no charm left and my brain is melting and holy EFF, it's ELVIRA! And she's asking ME if it's okay to take a photo!

So in the second picture attempt, I raise my free right arm in a screaming pose and she's laughing and I know it's better and the flash goes off and she says thanks so much - Elvira's thanking me!!! - and I can't think straight and I say thanks to her. Just a real fast, "Thanks!" And she'll never know how much that whole series of events meant to me - how heartfelt and sincere my thanks was.

Cause I've this lady has been an idol of mine my whole life! And I never made it a point to meet her, let alone try and get a picture with her. And this was her last appearance IN Elvira make-up on the East Coast. And this whole thing happened during THAT!

So Sam is pretty dumbfounded, too. And I feel like I'm dreaming. And she asks if I want to stay in line since I didn't end up taking a picture with her on MY camera phone. And I tell her nah, this story is better than ever getting a picture with her. And so we walk away.

A little while later, the electricity went out - TWICE. The whole con floor went BLACK. The snow knocked down power lines. But everybody kept having fun. The electricity came back up and everything was fine. Cause like I said, everybody was completely polite and fun. Just a really nice crowd.

And later that night, Elvira Tweeted this:




Kevin!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Hands down. Dressing up in costumes. Decorations. Haunted houses. Costume Parties. I absolutely love it all. But along with the usual festivities, there's another reason I look forward to Halloween each year.

Not too long ago, my friends and I began a yearly tradition for Halloween: every year, we all head to Orlando, Florida, and do a three-day extravaganza at Disney World--specifically hitting up the very, very awesome Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party where we all dress in themed costumes and rock out at the Magic Kingdom! It's tons of fun and we have a blast walking around the park in our costumes, going on rides and taking photos. Past themes included Peter Pan (I was Tic-Toc the Croc), Disney Villains (Scar) and Prince and Princesses (Beast).

Now, you may have noticed an non-human theme in my costumes. Keeping with that, this year, when we decided our theme was going to be X-Men, I immediately jumped at the chance to dress as one of my favorite characters: Kurt Wagner, aka, the incredible Nightcrawler! I decided to go with the movie version of the costume because not only was Alan Cumming absolutely amazing in the role but also because I would have looked TERRIBLE in tights. Completing the X-Men was: my friend Chrissy as Emma Frost; her boyfriend Dustin as Cyclops; Dustin's best friend Johnny as Gambit; and my friend Amanda as the very awesome Kitty Pryde.

Before we get to the pictures though, I want to share my favorite story of the night.

The evening was coming to a close and before heading back to the hotel we decided to hit up one more ride: Splash Mountain. Now, if you've never been on this ride, let me sum up. It starts off as this nice water ride through an inside cavern. It's very peaceful, and there's nice music, animatronic woodland creatures frolicking about and a innocent story about a rabbit playing a prank on a Bear and a Fox. Then all of a sudden, the tone changes, the storyline gets really dark and you suddenly go on this massive drop straight down and get soaked to the bone. Normally, it's insanely fun and totally cool, but considering my costume, I really, really didn't want to get wet. To make matters worse, Kitty Pryde and I were in the front seat. Thankfully though, Nightcrawler's a teleporter.

As we were going down the drop, we all threw up our hands for the picture, and as soon as I saw the flash of the camera, I curled into a ball and ducked, which caused the massive splash of water to fly right over me and smack Gambit in the face. I then popped back up like I was there all along. Whereas the others were soaked, I was totally dry. It absolutely looked like at the last moment I BAMFed away for a second. It was awesome.

So, anyway, it was a really great trip and I can't wait for next year! And now, pictures!









The Crew

Hey, it's Kiel again! I put out the call to some of our rad bros in the comics biz to share their Halloween's with us too, and they killed it!


Above is Marvel TV bad ass and "Thundercats" writer Todd Casey as Peter Parker, which he wore to be a photographer at a fancy, shmancy Hollywood party. Oo la la. Included is his buddy Ben in a Flash costume that Todd helped him glue together after Ben's boyfriend made it from scratch (maybe they read our Ben's post?).


And it wouldn't be a holiday without a hugable photo of Archaia's Mel Caylo which we have here as our boy snuggles up to a chick-a-dee while dressed as a Hawaiian. That lei joke never gets old on Halloween, y'all.


Finally, to remind y'all of what the holiday is really all about, here's my niece LuLu in a Rapunzel costume she begged my brother to make, and which he dually begged my mother to chip in on (and that's great, because Lynn Phegley thought she was all done with Halloween when I went to college).

Hope you guys got lots of apples with awesome and useful razor blades! See you next year!

First Impressions (and more): Wonder Woman

My first memory of Wonder Woman (as a comic book fan—blah blah blah usual disclaimer about how I saw her on Super Friends and lunchboxes as a kid) is her wearing a baseball cap and serving tacos at a fast food joint. I’m referring to the Brian Bolland cover pictured above to Wonder Woman #73, an issue set in the midst of William Messner-Loebs’ mid-90’s run with the character.

I didn’t read Wonder Woman growing up so my exposure came solely from DC house ads and seeing the covers, which more often than not featured her doing stuff I’d more expect out of Batman like fighting the mob or posing for sight gags like the aforementioned waitressing gig or having a delicious pasta dinner with Flash.

As a reader (rather than a cover viewer), I made Wonder Woman’s acquaintance when she became leader of the Justice League following the death of Superman. Now this was a ways before I understood what “pre-Crisis” and “post-Crisis” meant, so the concept that Wonder Woman wasn’t part of the Justice League already and further that her joining was a big deal first time thing baffled me a bit, but I rolled with it. More puzzling to me, I suppose, was how she come off almost as a bit of a wallflower with super strength. Fun Bolland covers aside, my abstract concept of Wonder Woman was still that she was a bad ass—she was an Amazon warrior after all—yet to my mind she was written in Justice League America as a figure whose name and reputation intimidated those around her, but she would then win them over with how down to Earth she was, which was a perfectly valid characterization, but seemed still off to me. I wanted to see her punching Guy Gardner in the face like Batman did, showing him there were women who could stand up to him physically as well as verbally, but instead she tended to reason with him.

Not long after this, Wonder Woman had her Death of Superman/Knightfall/Emerald Twilight prerequisite mid-90’s DC shakeup storyline wherein she was replaced in her role by a redhead named Artemis and took to just calling herself Diana and sporting a leather jacket and biker shorts as her look. I read the stories years later, and as is generally the case with Messner-Loebs (along with a young Mike Deodato) it was solid stuff, but again, at the time it was strange to me how there seemed to be this trending pattern toward making Wonder Woman/Diana “just one of the gang,” and humanizing her whether through comedy, fast food jobs, complacency on a team or losing her status; even at that age, I held the opinion—even if I couldn’t articulate it yet—that Marvel characters fit the “feet of clay” mold better while DC heroes were cool when they were aspirational, so humanizing Wonder Woman didn’t really work for me personally.

Apparently, somebody at DC in the late 90’s thought teenage me was right on, as the next era of Wonder Woman—which coincided with my getting out of comics temporarily, so I didn’t witness it first hand—brought her back in the direction of being a formidable and imposing figure who commanded respect through words as well as actions, both in her solo title under the reins of John Byrne and particularly as Grant Morrison penned her in JLA. Morrison’s Diana was certainly more along the lines of what I always expected, with her being an advocate for peace, but also somebody who understood it may take a smidgen of aggression to get there, at least in the short term. I dug how Wonder Woman fit into the team dynamic, with Superman and Martian Manhunter as her buddies, holding even Batman’s respect, flirting with Aquaman and then reducing Flash and Green Lantern to nervous man-children with her beauty/brassiness combo (Mark Waid was pretty great at writing that last one as well).

I finally jumped into the Wonder Woman well as far as her solo title when my good friend (not then, but now) Phil Jimenez was serving as both writer and artist. I’m a little nervous about using hyperbole here, particularly since I’m talking about a pal, but honestly, Phil’s Diana was the one I’d been waiting for.

Initially I picked Phil’s Wonder Woman up for the art—I’d been a fan since he did Robin fill-ins for Tom Grummett when I was a kid—but I stayed for an endearing take on a character I’d always been flummoxed by in regard to where her following came from. Ok, first off, the art was gorgeous, but I’ve talked about that before. What worked for me was that Phil was able to make Diana the fierce warrior I’d read about in JLA but also give her the softer side I’d always understood she was meant to have without having her roll over when challenged by her friends and teammates or depowering her. The key as I saw it and see was that where past creators had tried to make Wonder Woman more relatable in some way by “humanizing” her and attempted to bring her closer to somebody we felt like we knew, Phil made her empathetic by playing up that while the world may see her as a goddess, this can often make her feel more apart than embraced.

(This is about when I’ll get an e-mail from Phil explaining who this isn’t what he was going for but he can totally see where I’m coming from because he’s the nicest, most charitable person in comics)

She appreciated and loved the people who stood in awe of her, but felt a sad distance from the friends who had grown old while she remained young, the supposed peers who got weak-kneed around her, and the family she had reluctantly put at a distance so she could do her work. Phil’s Wonder Woman was powerful, regal and graceful, but she also had a loneliness in her eyes that made me feel like I knew her more than wearing a baseball hat ever would. This was a woman who could stare Lex Luthor in the eyes and not be intimidated, but didn’t know how to ask a normal man out on a date and was devastated when he said no (both scenes and several other terribly insightful ones occur in Wonder Woman #170, an issue narrated by Lois Lane who follows Diana around for a day and jots down observations, many of which I’ve cribbed for this article; I consider this essential reading for anybody who wants to tackle the character).

I would later read George Perez’s late 80’s reimagining of Wonder Woman—which came directly before the Messner-Loebs run—and see where Phil got a lot of his inspiration from. Perez brings Diana to Man’s World for the first time and grounds his story in her journey of discovery and her relationships with ordinary people. She is very much the foreign exchange student who is fascinated by everything around her and makes mistakes because she doesn’t understand, but she’s also still definitely Wonder Woman, able to stand up inspirationally to any challenge through strength and wits; just because she may be naïve doesn’t mean she’s not plenty clever. It was certainly a far cry from the Wonder Woman I remembered playing second fiddle to Captain Atom in my Justice League comics.

When Allan Heinberg launched a new Wonder Woman series back in 2006, I did a retrospective piece on the character speaking with him, Phil, Greg Rucka and others who had worked on her. It was an article about what was upcoming and what made Diana tick, but inevitably a lot of the familiar questions about her relative lack of commercial success against Superman and Batman came up. I explored the gender issue—character and fanbase—as well as the lack of a “Dark Knight Returns” (i.e. classic pivotal story), but also examined the other side of the coin: when Wonder Woman was a success. Two points came up specifically: Wonder Woman was a hugely popular character in the Golden Age, specifically during World War II, and that the Lynda Carter TV series remains a fondly remembered and cherished piece of Americana. While the character has been around over 70 years and had some great stories (and not so great stories) along the way, my conclusion was that her prominent place in the public consciousness came from images ingrained by those earliest tales and her multimedia portrayals in animation and live action TV shows.

I’m no expert on Wonder Woman, I’m just a guy who can kill an evening rambling 1500 words about her while waiting for the new episode of Happy Endings. But the take away I got from that article and really all my experiences reading the character is this: On Wonder Woman either go big or go home (coincidentally enough, a patented Phil Jimenez expression). She succeeded in the 40’s because perhaps even more so than Captain America she was over-the-top American propaganda, but also plain fun. She succeeded on TV because Lynda Carter embraced the role quirks and all. I love the work Perez, Jimenez, Morrison and others did because they enjoyed the fact that they were writing an Amazon princess who had a magic lasso and fought Greek gods; they didn’t feel like they needed to ground her in mundane trappings so readers wouldn’t be intimidated.

I’ve said it before, but it applies double to Wonder Woman: You don’t want to relate to every comic book character, sometimes you just want to read about them having crazy adventures. I’d much rather watch Wonder Woman hanging out with centaurs and fighting Joker with snake hair than serving fast food in a leather jacket.