Monday, March 22, 2010

Unions, Flash & Transmetropolitan

Unions. Women in wrestling.

I just wanted to prove that there were at least two other things I hate as much as Spider-Man.  I've been getting some suggestions from people that maybe I am letting a lot of my own personal anger manifest in the topic, but I assure everyone that I retain special levels of contempt and dislike for many other things in this world.Stupidity might be at the top of my list.

As much as I detest Spider-Man, I love The Flash.  Like the explanation regarding Parker, I didn't grow up adoring Flash.  Sure I knew who he was, and sometimes when I was running around in my backyard as a kid, with my towel wrapped around my neck playing super heroes with the neighborhood kids, I would run really fast and claim I was the Flash.But my love for the character never really manifested until the strangest of Novembers (or was it Decembers) in Ottawa.

I was in the Silver Snail, walking through the aisles with my then girlfriend, and commenting on the different books that had been released that week.  She asked me if I read The Flash, and I told her that I had never gotten into it.  I explained that it wasn't that I didn't like the hero, but for me The Flash died with Barry Allen's noble sacrifice in Crisis On Infinite Earths.  This was the first time that DC felt that a teen sidekick was ready to take over and they made a big play by doing it through the death of a well established character.  While I had been explaining this to her, she had been leafing through the recent issue, and she put it back on the rack awkwardly, and before I could walk away, the issue fell open to the back page.

Standing there was Barry Allen.

I paused, and did a double take.  I bought the issue, because I needed to know how, and why.  At first I was excited, but as I drove back to my dorm trying to get my head around what I was going to read, I started to get angry.  Barry alive?  Didn't that slap Crisis in the face, and demean his sacrifice? The read was actually very good, and so I bought the next issue.  And the one after that.  What unfolded before me changed my view on The Flash forever.  I had read Waid's work before, but I had never been so captivated by the story that I bothered to find out who he was.  This run changed all of that.  It is called The Barry Allen Saga, and without ruining it for anyone who's never read it, it changed the way I viewed The Flash, and more specifically Wally West.

It didn't stop there either.  What Wade, Augustyn and eventually Geoff Johns did on the rest of that run, and into the next one, was make The Flash one of the greatest comic books of the nineties and into the new millennium. If you're on the outside, looking in and wondering why all the Flash love in comicdom, read that series.  The Flash, Volume 2.  The Barry Allen Saga. It's terrific.  And in it we meet all manner of speedsters from across the DC Universe.  For me, this is when the book starts to become about the legacy of speed, and not just about Jay, or Barry, or Wally or Bart.

It's good stuff.

A couple of questions before I go.

Wonder Woman's getting up there in age.  Shouldn't she be going into her nesting phase any time now? Her mother prayed and reached out and sought a boon from the gods in order to create Diana.  Isn't it time for her to give mom a grandchild?

I always liked the idea that Arthur would be her husband one day, but apparently that's not going to happen after all he's been through.

Why does the X-Universe always have to be such a colossal cluster?  I miss being able to care about mutants and what was going on in their world.  When did it become too much of a nuissance?

Why isn't Transmetropolitan a movie yet? Spider Jerusalem is a personality that belongs on a bigger screen.

I'm out.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

First off, Women's wrestling rules. Check out SHIMMER. It'll blow your socks off...

Why should Wonder Woman worry about children? She's a hero and out battling evil and saving the world and whatnot - she doesn't have time to be a mommy. Also, maybe she just isn't ready...or she's into chicks. Either way, her Mom can just wiggle a snake and burn some incense to get some grandkids or something.

The character isn't one of my super favorites, but I don't know how I'd react to her settling down. I don't see it working from a storyline standpoint either. Even if the relationship could last through a few arcs, eventually some villian will attack Wonder Fam to get to her, but that could be an awesome storyline...

As for Spider, I don't EVER see him on the silver screen. Don't think anyone could do it justice. Even if Ellis himself wrote the script and was involved, I don't know of an actor who could pull it off and make me believe he was Spider.

But I'd say this about most of Internet Jesus's work.

That said, Russell Crowe would make a killer Elijah Snow. His acting might be crap, but the look...yeah.

The 4th Man said...

First off, wrestling is barely tolerable at the best of times, but letting women do it is like asking me to watch the WNBA. Shame on you.

Nobody said she should worry about children. I said she's long overdue to answer her biological clock. Nesting isn't just some cute term to be thrown around, psychological studies have proven that it is genetically inherent in women. I'm just observing that it seems to be an aspect of her biology that that no writer is interested in exploring.

And she's not into chicks, so male adult fantasies can now crawl out into the backyard and die. Wonder Woman is a well established heterosexual, despite the abstinence that is inherent in the character. I do like that the topic always seems to bring up that suggestion though. It only gained credibility when her mother admitted to an outsider that after 3000 years, some Amazons had found ways to deal with their natural desires.

But I digress.

The argument that you can't see her settling down is fine. My argument is that writers have their heads buried in the sand by not addressing it as an issue she has to deal with, and which I think would play heavily on her mind. Children are precious, obviously, to Amazonians and Wonder Woman is the only one in a position to provide any.

While she's heroing to the patriarch's world, you might even argue she's failing the Amazons. She could be their baby-mama.

I'm not sure I've picked an actor in my mind for Spider, but I think it could be done. I doubt it would be any more difficult than Sin City. I'm sure there's an actor who could do it.

Crowe as Snow? Blasphemous.

And the only version of an Ellis work I've seen on any screen is Global Frequency, and while the actors wouldn't be my first choice, I thought it was a solid pilot for what should have been an epic tv series.

Chance said...

I would just like to say SHIMMER is A LOT better then the Product that WWE or TNA put out over the last few years. That is all I have to add to this

Unknown said...

Oh, poo on you...lol

Wrestling, here anyway, is more or less camp with action, but you can find pockets of greatness. SHIMMER is one of those, I believe. Honestly, it's worth checking out, but I'm not here to convert you...

I agree, if done properly, the storyline would rule. Don't see any of the usual cats going after that arc though. Honestly, if it were me, I'd go the route of an accidental pregnancy. I think it'd be interesting...

Even more so if the daddy was someone she'd hit it off with, built up over several issues, only to find out he's a real bastard. Course it'd have to be a super villain, and that'd possibly nudge it off into stupidville, but what do I know...

And we've already had a lesbian Wonder Woman - her name was Xena...

:P

Joey Pants for Spider. I think he'd rock in the role. And I only mentioned Crowe for Elijah due to the look - I think he could LOOK like a good Elijah.

Acting-wise, he'd blow...I weep for the residents of Sherwood Forest.

Rude39 said...

A short answer to your mutants question: There are too god damn many of them, and most of the ones Marvel focuses on are either pop appeal mutants we've seen to death(Wolverine), or irrelevant mutants no one cares about.

Unknown said...

Agree /w Jordan - toooo many mutants. Honestly, I can't keep track of them all...

My current fav Mutants are Rachel Summers and X-23, but that's only from the X-Men franchise. Namor kicks all their butts...

Unknown said...

So they write off 96% of the mutant population and it's still too much? Yeah, by limiting the mutant population, they've expanded the scope of characters whose stories they tell...weird choice.

My main problem with the X-Universe is they let Matt Fraction take the lead with Uncanny as the main driver for the X-verse. Unfortunate because the best X-writers atm are Chris Yost and Larry David who are greatly outshining him with X-Force and X-Factor respectively(as long as they're left alone). The satellite X-books are being creatively constrained by Uncanny, whose crossovers kill momentum, and it's resulting in a dance of toe-stepping and perfectly capable storytellers having their balls squeezed. Spewing out crap like the second wave of Messiah complex. We'll see if they learned their lesson. Democraticly constructed stories aren't the best.

The 90's went so well for the X-books because each one consolidated its focus and went its own direction, only diverging on at moments. I, at least, think their writers shine at moments better than back then.

Now they're trying to re-write the X-Ecutioner's Song every other month, and hand-cuffing their talent in the meantime.

Unknown said...

So they write off 96% of the mutant population and it's still too much? Yeah, by limiting the mutant population, they've expanded the scope of characters whose stories they tell...weird choice.

My main problem with the X-Universe is they let Matt Fraction take the lead with Uncanny as the main driver for the X-verse. Unfortunate because the best X-writers atm are Chris Yost and Larry David who are greatly outshining him with X-Force and X-Factor respectively(as long as they're left alone). The satellite X-books are being creatively constrained by Uncanny, whose crossovers kill momentum, and it's resulting in a dance of toe-stepping and perfectly capable storytellers having their balls squeezed. Spewing out crap like the second wave of Messiah complex. We'll see if they learned their lesson. Democraticly constructed stories aren't the best.

The 90's went so well for the X-books because each one consolidated its focus and went its own direction, only diverging on at moments. I, at least, think their writers shine at moments better than back then.

Now they're trying to re-write the X-Ecutioner's Song every other month, and hand-cuffing their talent in the meantime.