Friday Night Fights--Flamebird Style!!

The trouble--trouble in Kandor City--Trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for Plague!!

Tonight's Friday Night Fights takes us to Kandor, where Superman/Nightwing and Jimmy Olsen/Flamebird have been summoned to help as the bottle city is in the throes of a deadly plague:

Well, that could be a problem...because...

Oh, yeah...it's Olsen Vs. Superman!!

GYMKATA!!!

SPOILER ALERT: Jimmy saves Kandor by blowing it up!! No, really!!

Spacebooger is still shocked from seeing Kal-El get his clock cleaned by Mr. Action...

The unthinkable happens in Superman Family #173 (1975), courtesy of Cary Bates and Kurt Schaffenberger

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why?!? Because, that's why!! Now go and vote!!

Deep Thoughts Spawned By An Unlikely Street Sign

In yesterday's Detective Comics #900 #19 (sigh), Dick Grayson is leaving Gotham for his new haunts...

Now, that's kind of a ridiculous sign, as most highway signs aren't going to show you a city 800 miles away as the first and only stop on the interstate. If I trundled onto I-94, I'll see distance signs for Benton Harbor and Chicago, or Ann Arbor and Detroit, not New York City or Las Vegas.

Still, it does give us the first real chance in the nu52 to indulge my ridiculous obsession with DC Geography. (Although it is the second time we've been clued in by highway mileage signs while Dick trundlers by on a motorcycle. Is there some rule in the DC stylebook mandating this?)

Of course, we have usual fistful of caveats. A) Highway signs are only an approximation; B) It's driving miles, not as the crow flies; C) Highways, and indeed other "real" cities, may be substantially different in the DC Universe; and D) If the Busiek Hypothesis (that the DC Earth is larger in size than ours, to accommodate all those extra cities and such) then our speculation is really frakked.

Ah, but what's the point of being careful when you're a nerd? So, given that Gotham's ports mean she's on the water, probably on the East Coast (no matter how Nolan tried to trick us in The Dark Knight Rises). So, playing with Google Maps tells us...

Well, not all that much. Being approximately 800 driving miles from Chicago could place us anywhere from southern Delaware (820 miles) to most of New Jersey (Atlantic City--820 miles! Asbury Park--824 miles!!) to parts of Long Island to southwestern Connecticut (New Haven, at 864 miles, is problem as far as a reasonable interpretation of 800 miles will allow).

You could argue for parts of the Maryland coast--but Gotham sure doesn't feel Marylandish to me. Rhode Island and Massachusetts? Right out. (And no, nowhere along the Gulf coast is close to being 800ish miles to Chicago...

So along the Eastern seaboard, above the Mason-Dixon line? I guess we really didn't narrow it down very much at all, did we? Still, I'm going to go with Asbury Park, so we can get the Batman/Springsteen crossover we've all been waiting for.

Ah, well, keep your eyes opened for more clues...

These All Make More Sense Than Aliens Vs. Predators

To hell with Amalgamations, alternate worlds or other stuff...these are just straight up Marvel/DC crossovers I want to see:

**Nightwing Vs. The Circus Of Crime

**Killraven meets J'onn J'onzz

**Kid Eternity Vs. Thanos (and throw in Nekron, if you must)

**The Mandrill Vs. Wonder Woman

**Batman Vs. Arcade. I can't tell you badly I want to see this one...

Hmmm, this list is mostly DC heroes vs. Marvel villains. I'm not sure what to make of that...

**Black Bolt Vs. Sonar

**Ka-Zar vs. Grodd

If you don't want to see all of these, you are dead to me...

Better Than Netflix

How do superheroes entertain themselves?

Dick Grayson and Tim Drake are hanging out at Wayne Enterprises when the fire alarms go off, and a quick peek at the security monitors reveals:



Save a seat for me, guys.

From Batman: Gotham Knights #9 (2000).

A Vanishing Breed

Paul Dini will be writing the new Batman: Streets of Gotham ongoing that will be starting in June.

Dini said that he’s still breaking down what will be in the books, saying that Streets will take place all over Gotham City and involve a lot of people – from cops to citizens to other super heroes and villains, anyone who has a connection to Batman, but don’t know who Batman is. Their perceptions will offer a different view of the character than has been seen.

"(A)nyone who has a connection to Batman, but don’t know who Batman is?" What, that's maybe 12 people in all of Gotham by now?

Seriously, between everybody involved in Batman R.I.P. knowing, and approximately 1,007 of Ra's Al Ghul's ninjas knowing, and Dick Grayson blurting it out to every villain with a stupid trick, and every member of the Justice League and their spouses knowing, and 75% of Bruce's ex-love interests knowing, and...I'm just sayin' there's not much secret left in that secret identity...

Manic Monday--Creepy, Creepy Butler

Uhhhhh......

Alfred's totally hitting on Dick here, isn't he?

While the Bat's away...

Frederic Wertham would have a field day with Detective Comics #851, by and Denny O'Neil and Guillem March.

I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy

Something familiar about this news story...

Good question, Batman.

Now, this is pretty transparently a gimmick set-up for a relaunch of some type. Last week, Dan DiDio was going on about how the "Battle for the Cowl" is going to be a huge thing for the Bat titles, how it's all about "generations and legacy," "sidekicks and other characters that inhabit Batman's world."

Even under normal circumstances, the likelihood that these 3 Bat-related comics, whose sales are pretty much mid-range, would be canceled simultaneously is win-the-lottery unlikely. But given that these guys are all going to be involved in the Battle for the Cowl, it seems clear to me that this is a stunt, and March or April will see relaunches (perhaps preceded by some one-shots/mini-series, as happened with the Outsiders relaunch).

But hey we're all talking about it, so as a publicity stunt it worked, right?

Coming Soon From the CW

Everybody's favorite quasi-network, the CW (the same boneheads who canceled Veronica Mars) has something special planned for us.

Just as we have Smallville, focusing ad infinitum on a young Clark Kent who was never Superboy and pouted around like he was part of the cast of Roswell, now the CW is "readying" another can't miss series: The Graysons, which will "follow the world of Dick "DJ" Grayson before he takes on the iconic Robin identity and aligns himself with Batman." Man, I can smell the circus already!!

Since I just know this will be great (please, please please make young Harvey Dent his best friend/rival while constantly giving us ponderous hints to a future you'll never have the balls to show us!!), I'm thinking, why should the CW stop there?? Here's some more ideas:

Rogers: The depressing adventures of skinny Steve Rogers in depression era NY, long before he became Captain America!! His best bud: wacky immigrant trouble maker "Red" Skullinski.

Poor Little Rich Boy: The adventures of Garfield Logan before he became Beast Boy. Surprise: even back then, his favorite color was green!!

Oh, That Savage: The heartwarming adventures of the Neanderthal teenager, before he became immortal and outlived his entire species. Think of it as a caveman 7th Heaven!!

The Osterman Files: The life and times of John Osterman, apprentice watchmaker and nuclear physicist, before he becomes Doctor Manhattan. Bonus: Alan Moore can whine about it and put curses on it, all the while cashing the royalty checks from the increased graphic novel sales the project generates!!

Give me a call, CW...I've got a million of them...

Friday Night Fights--Titan Style!!

Sometimes the best fights aren't with the villains, but with the members of your own super-team.

The sitch: Dick Grayson has left the Titans, all mopey because Starfire went and got married. (SPOILER ALERT: it didn't take). Donna Troy has been leading the Titans in his absence. She's come to visit Scruffy Dick, to convince him to come back.

Dick doesn't take too well to this, and starts to rip into Donna's leadership skills...

...and he keeps it up...

...and he won't lay off...

...and man oh man he pushes it too far...

...until she freakin' snaps!!

And through the bloody wall!!

Hey, wait a minute!! Dick looks in pretty good condition for just getting bitch-slapped by one of the strongest women in the universe:

Barely ruffled!! Is he Kryptonian? Nothing personal, Eduardo Barreto, but let's bring in the old pro to show us what the aftermath SHOULD have looked like:

Thank you, George Perez. Thank you.

He may have taken a week off, but Bahlactus till brings the pain!!

Intramural squabbling from New Teen Titans #19, 1986

Worst Comic of the Week

OK, it's clearly not THE worst, but it is pretty damn bad, and it's bearing the brunt of my disdain for the annoyingly terrible and inept "Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" arc.

Among the...ahem...finer points of this story line, we have:

• Batman donning a ridiculous new outfit, which serves no apparent purpose (other than to justify a new line of action figures/busts)


• Absolutely no communication between the writers/artists, as situations we are shown in one issue do not sync up with what we are shown the next. Another fine example of DC editing in action


• Artwork that makes it difficult to know who is who and is doing what to whom (not helped by several misplaced dialogue balloons). I'm looking at you, Ryan Benjamin...


• Fatuous mischaracterizations of people, especially Robin


• Insipidly inconsistent use of technology, especially for "globe-trotting" Batman. In chapter 2 (Nightwing #138) Dick is able to use an emergency override on the JLA teleporter to travel from a random Chinatown alley in NYC to Wayne Manor. But they have to fly to Tibet? And fly back, and even have a wounded Dick piloting the plane?


• The remarkably unsatisfying and laughable plot device used to end the story line: God intervenes. Seriously. (OK, Rama Kushna, but still). I wish I were making that up. I had thought that DC was no longer in the 1970's "having God save the day" mode--but I guess I was wrong.


• Absolutely no story resolution whatsoever. SPOILER ALERT. At the end of the day, Talia is still off somewhere unknown with Damien, who is still a brat. Robin is apparently never going to even mention again his temptation to work with Ra's or his throw down fight with Nightwing. Dick's not going to mention it, either. Nothing much has changed for Bruce. We did find out that pretty much every male character who has appeared in a Ra's Al Ghul storyline ever is (surprise!) a relative of his, and he's now got a new body. Wow. That was real important stuff there, DC. Really justifies the 7-part crossover.

So, was this the price we had to pay for not having Batman involved in Countdown or Sinestro Wars? Sigh....

BONUS PANEL:

I know you can't tell from artwork (sigh) but the dude up front flying the plane is Dick Grayson. I know Don Kramer is incapable of drawing normal human emotions on faces, but c'mon, now--did Alfred slip Dick some Joker venom or what?

Cover and panel from the regrettable Detective Comics #839. In which absolutely zero detecting is done. I'm just saying...

A Butler Without Discretion??

We all are in agreement, I think, that everyone in the DC Universe is far, far too casual with their secret identities these days.

It occurs to me that, in part, this is somewhat a natural blowback against the Silver and Bronze Ages at DC, when fully 78.9% of all stories revolved around someone trying to discover the hero's identity, or the extraordinary lengths the hero would go to in order to protect that identity. Note this example, for instance, which was typical of the era. So today's crop of creators, who grew up reading that type of story, and no doubt ridiculing it, are loathe to go in that direction.

But they've gone too far in the opposite direction. Oracle actually has, on a networked computer, a file with the names and addresses of every superhero in the world (Tony Stark ought to hire her!!)! Every hero seems to know every other hero's street identity, and yet somehow, the villains never think to hire a telepath to surreptitiously rip that information out of some Teen Titan's head while they're distracted. And under current DC management, we've seen a distressing trend of heroes identifying each other by civilian name, while in costume and patrolling their cities, or at bachelor parties or whatever. Again, bad idea, because all we need is some mook with a telescopic microphone, and everyones name is all over the internet tomorrow.

But we can always depend on Alfred Pennysworth, the very model of discretion and service, not to make such an error, right?

Sigh...

All right, it was probably fair for Alfred to assume that all those ninjas came from either Talia or Ra's Al Ghul, both of whom already know the Bat identites. BUT there were others on the grounds, whose agenda and knowledge weren't clear. AND it's always possible that the ninjas were sent by someone else, as they were pursuing Damien, not going after Robin or Batman. So blurting out "Master Dick" while in public, while he's in costume, is a pretty big faux pas.

But, Alfred was undoubtedly in a state of shock, having just been thrown out a window by a thousand ninjas and all. We'll chalk it up to a momentary flub, and we're sure it will never happen again.

Oh, Alfred!!!

Alfred's attempt to get Nightwing's identity broadcast all over YouTube by noon tomorrow occurred in Nightwing #138. But, hey, it's a Ra's Al Ghul story, so 90% of it will get tossed out of continuity 5 seconds after Morrison leaves the title, so what the hey, right?