Things about the X-Men people forget

These things are not just cute little factoids but elements of the characters that ought to really be important, things that ought to influence characterization and propel stories.

Toad had access to the power and technology of the Stranger

The Toad and Magneto were captured by the powerful, superadvanced cosmic being known as the Stranger. The Toad was left behind in the Stranger’s captivity coldly by Magneto when Mags escaped. There the Toad remained, studying the Stranger’s technology. In Avengers #137, the Toad was actually able to use the Stranger’s science well enough to impersonate him and pretty much whoop on the entire Avengers, including powerhouses like Thor and Iron Man.

Consider the implications of that story. The Toad studied for long, long periods of time the science and technology of an advanced being that is either on par with the Watchers or at the very least the Overmind. The Toad was always an underrated genius with a surprising intellect for someone so underconfident and sycophantic, which is an interesting idea in and of itself...but mastery and use of the Stranger’s technology puts him in a very scary category of Marvel Universe high-level tech users. And who’s to say Toad doesn’t have a Stranger gadget or two stowed away? Even if Toad barely understood what he was working with (which Avengers 137 seemed to contradict - every indication was the Toad knew what he was doing and working with), the slightest application of the Stranger’s science can result in superweapons that can put Toad in one of the top tiers of X-Menaces...or at the absolute least, make him a believable villain.

The Angel had an adventuring career long before he joined the X-Men

To the best of my knowledge, no one has mentioned this since the J.M. de Matteis “New Defenders,” but Warren Worthington III was the only one of the X-Men that had an adventuring career and costumed identity prior to joining the original group as the Avenging Angel. We get this element of his origin in Uncanny X-Men #54, where not only did he have a career as a hero, he also fought crime on his own, acquired some moderate fame independently, and even had a classic superheroic secret identity. Back when the Angel left the X-Men and joined the Defenders, he was much more comfortable without the X-Men and in a superheroic occupation because they said he’d gone it alone before. Heck, the Avenging Angel costume is so important it became Warren’s regular outfit when the X-Men acquired real costumes as opposed to training uniforms.

The Avenging Angel period can’t help but arouse curiosity and we only saw the barest hint of it. What villains did he fight? What adventures did he have?

Rogue started off as a supervillain

I can see why writers just let this one drop. After all, doesn’t that poor kid have enough angst and problems in her life, they have to add one more source of internal drama? What with her cruel total inability to have anything like intimacy and the way her powers provoke an identity crisis, and her ultimately heartbreaking attraction to men that are all wrong for her like Magneto and Gambit.

But lest we forget, Rogue was not only a supervillain, she was the nastiest, cruelest member of Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which was the nastiest, cruelest incarnation of the Brotherhood ever. Just check out Uncanny X-Men 158.

In that story, Rogue shot to kill and was capable of murder. She delighted in mayhem. Rogue was, in short, not a crook that was just in it for the cash or because they were framed or tricked, the way Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were.

Rogue was scum that could melt acid, but redemption came when she realized she was losing her mind, going mad, and forgetting who she really was and couldn’t control her power. When she showed up at the X-Mansion wanting help, she was so pathetic and humbled that it was possible to forgive her past cruelty out of sheer pity. This is surprising, because her draining Carol Danvers’s powers and memories (to the point Carol couldn’t recognize her own father) was such a nasty crime that, like the murder of Gwen Stacy by the Green Goblin, it would be very, very easy to consider Rogue totally unredeemable afterward.

To be fair, from Avengers Annual #10 to about Uncanny #158, Rogue was scarred by the power and identity transfer with Carol Danvers and a case can be made she wasn’t 'herself' in these stories. But that doesn’t explain how conflicted Rogue was in her early appearances in X-Men and in Secret Wars, where she was totally uncomfortable being a superhero in light of her past, a person with divided loyalties that could jump ship and turn bad again if the occasion presented itself or the going just got too rough. There was even an intriguing but dark possibility she might become a villain again if it meant being on the winning side in the Secret Wars.

To the best of my knowledge, this inner conflict fell away as Rogue felt more and more like an X-Man, which is to be expected, but it's surprising how few people have brought up that Rogue started off evil. Contrast that to how Hawkeye and the Black Widow’s criminal origins have been a regular part of their characters.

Come to think of it, this whole list could actually be made up of things about Rogue writers forget. One of Ms. Marvel’s powers they just ignored and allowed to disappear was Carol Danvers’ Spider-Man like “Seventh Sense,” although there was one occasion it was stated in dialogue that Rogue lost the Seventh Sense at some point. This makes sense. Considering Rogue’s genetic instability, it would be logical if the power transfer from Danvers was far from perfect.

Alright, so they explained that one…but if Rogue has Ms. Marvel’s powers and physiology, she therefore has Carol’s Humanikree genetics. Did you get that? Rogue is part-Kree.

Eulogy for Dwayne MacDuffie

Dwayne McDuffie, a guy best known for writing for the DC Animated toons and then actually getting to write Justice League, died recently, which is an ugly shock because he was energetic, relatively young, and wasn't obese or anything. He's the kind of guy you figure can go the distance, and his death (due as I understand it, to accident) is the kind that makes you angry.

In his capacity at working at animated DC, particularly Justice League, he created some of the slickest, coolest cartoons ever made, the single best expression of DC superheroes in any medium ever. Dark, smart and old-school cool, Justice League was the first animated DC cartoon to use long-term arcs and is generally considered, along with the early seasons of Batman and Mask of the Phantasm as the high point of superhero animation.

Let me tell you the exact moment I realized Dwayne McDuffie was my kind of guy.

During the DVD of the Justice League episode 3-parter, Dwayne said he was absolutely shocked by the buzzkill, disappointing revelation that Hawkman's wings were some kind of strap on to his cosume and not actually a part of him. So, if you look closely at his Justice League show, at no point do any Thanagarians take their wings off, ever - even when by themselves...and if someone unfamiliar with DC were to, say, draw a conclusion from that...well, that wouldn't be his fault, would it? They don't say the wings are a part of them, they just heavily imply it!

This is such a clever way around outright contradicting canon that I have to give him props for sheer sneakiness.

Also, note that Nth Metal is onl mentioned as an engineering concept totally unrelated to flight.

I thought I was the only one this drove up the wall and it's nice to know I wasn't alone. People that are totally entrenched might wonder what the big deal is, but I started off a Marvel fan, reading Marvel-only as a point of pride. Naturally I got curious about DC because I liked superheroes, and one of the first I wanted to read was Hawkman because he looked so darn cool: he had wings and fought with ancient weapons. He looked like a DC version of one of Frank Miller's Ninja heroes.

Instead, we have a character that is an alien (huh - why is that necessary?), who uses ancient weapons for no reason except an insane whim, whose motive for coming to earth and remaining there is murky at best, and worst of all, his wings aren't a part of him. This final bit removes the element of fantasy and adventure. It makes him a phony, a sham, a lie...like a pimply faced, Doritos-smelling teenager pretending to be Santa Claus at a mall. The real Hawkman is a lame character like Wonder Woman, in that he makes absolutely no sense so it's impossible to like him.

Regardless, here's another thing that Dwayne MacDuffie have in common: we're both Englehart fans.

Here's the pudding...the very first story arc after the three-part introductory movie was actually based on Englehart's dramatic splash story in JLA 140-142 featuring the origin of the Manhunters and their attempt to steal the power of the Guardians, the inciting incident of which is framing Green Lantern for murder.

What's more, the two characters that were the best developed in the entire comics run were Hawkgirl and Jon Stewart. It was Englehart's idea to bring Hawkwoman into the JLA with the impressive logic that if Hawkman was a member, why wasn't Hawkwoman, anyway? Though it should be noted that it was Gerry Conway a few years later that had Hawkwoman as a member without her husband.

Finally, it was Englehart who established the character of Jon Stewart as a leading man. When Englehart took over Green Lantern, the expectation was he was going to bring Hal Jordan back. Which he didn't do for at least an entire year, doing to the one thing nobody expects: writing Jon Stewart as such an interesting and competent guy, when he finally got around to Hal Jordan, I didn't want Hal back.

Even one of Englehart's minor stories was adapted by the animated series, including a Batman/Aquaman team up in Legends of the DC Universe.

Thus, Dwayne MacDuffie was a guy on my wavelength. I know he will be missed, and in an era when people who just don't care or know anything about comics characters except campy water cooler jokes (ahem - Brave and the Bold) he was someone that loved the characters and took them seriously. He was a rarity and his enthusiasm will be missed.

The Fifty State Quarters

The Florida 50-State Quarter is so dull that I think I dozed off when looking at it. A collage of mostly empty space with the space shuttle and what I can only guess is Ponce de Leon's galleon. What, they couldn't do like the ugly Wisconsin quarter and cram in images of our principal products? (I'd love to see a state that's praised as "First in Bauxite!")

All this becomes all the more shocking when one considers all the great imagery that could have been used for the Florida quarter, like an image of the dead rising from the grave to vote in elections. Amelia Earhart leaving Hialeah and then crashing to her doom. Perhaps images of a few of Florida's real natural treasures, humorists like Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry, or maybe one of those ultra-tacky Daytona mermaids.

The trouble with the state quarters was they were predictable. Try to guess what was on the Maine quarter. Go on...guess.

The single two best quarters were those with unexpected themes. For instance, New Jersey's quarter was dedicated to the state's military history as the site of many Revolutionary War battles. It's easy to forget that Jersey, all spray tanner jokes aside, was the site of many turning-point battles during that conflict.

When you think of New Jersey, do you think of military history and the Revolutionary War? No, but it's great to see Jersey get a shout-out.

And my all-time favorite was Alabama.

When you think of Alabama, do you think of Helen Keller? Not really, and that's why there's something genius about it. It shows there's a lot more to that state than college football and Martin Luther King.

It's worth noting that recently a dollar coin was unveiled to celebrate 200 years of the birth of Louis Braille, a coin that actually features Braille on the front!

Star Wars Comics Reviews Part 2: Tales of the Jedi

When Obi-Wan Kenobi said that the lightsaber was an elegant weapon from a more civilized time, the era of “Tales of the Jedi” was what he was talking about.

“Tales of the Jedi” is an extraordinary comic because it shows us a part of Star Wars we’ve never seen before: the era of the Old Republic, when Jedi Knights were numerous. If the time of the original Star Wars movies is comparable to the gritty and rough 1930s, these comics are set in 17th Century France; in fact, Ulic Qel Droma’s Samurai-inspired armor aside, the Jedi Knights have more the feel of the Musketeers, and it’s telling our main Jedi heroes are three young, hotshot male characters out to prove themselves.

The Krath

The principal villains of the story are the main attraction because they’re so gleefully well developed and wicked: the Krath, a society of cruel and decadent young aristocrats who dabble in the Dark Side and evil sorcery to alleviate their incredible boredom, who are not entirely aware of the evil they’ve unleashed on the universe. The Krath murder their parents and tutors in creative and sadistic ways, laughing all the way: murder and the macabre is a sport for them. They torture for the fun of it. The Krath are the super-rich equivalent of the kid in the neighborhood that used to place firecrackers up the assholes of stray cats.

There’s a definite Edgar Allen Poe vibe from these guys; Poe loved twisted young aristocrats, warped by boredom, parental inattentiveness, a society that never told them “no” or set boundaries, and their own origins as bad seeds. The narrator of the Tell-Tale Heart evilly implored them to understand his awful murder done out of insanity:

“You who are rich and whose worries are few; might come around to see my point of view.”

The Krath are so horrifyingly decadent and evil they are absolutely fascinating, and their illusion powers are so chilling, turning swords into serpents. One thing that bothered me about the Sith in the godawful Star Wars prequel trilogy was the lack of imagination in Sith abilities, based on recycling imagery from the original movies like lightning bolts and lightsabers. The Sith here don’t use lightning, and certainly don’t use lightsabers. In fact one weapon that’s distinctively theirs is the Sith Sword, a monster thing that’s curved and evil.

Earlier I said the era of Tales of the Jedi was like the 17th Century. Just like the camaraderie of the Jedi was inspired by the Musketeers, it’s obvious the Krath were inspired by L’affaire des poisons (The Affair of the Poisons), a famous scandal where members of the aristocracy of France were found guilty of witchcraft, where in addition to crimes like convincing a lover to poison her parents, the society of aristocrats were fascinated by the Occult: fortune tellers, astrology and devil-worship.

The one downside to the Krath is the energy circle that surrounds their eyes when they use their evil sorcery. It’s so…well, X-Men, like something Psylocke would do.

(See if you can guess which is the Krath villainess and which is Psylocke.)

Exar Kun, “Our Villain”

I find it amazing that the least interesting villain in the comics is the one who keeps on getting referenced over and over in Star Wars. For instance, Exar Kun’s evil ghost was the main bad guy in the Jedi Academy trilogy. Like Lumiya and Lord Cronal (“Blackhole”), Exar Kun was one of the few expanded universe bad guys to have their origin in the comics.

It’s a shame his story is so predictable, so there’s no real drama in it. For heaven’s sake, just LOOK at the guy! He’s got scars and black hair and evil black robes and looks like Count Dracula. Doesn’t he just scream bad guy? The first time we see him he attacks his own master and is obsessed with evil knowledge. Gee, I wonder if this dick will turn to the Dark Side…

The Republic

The Republic is a little less like any governing body in Star Wars, and a lot more like the Federation from Star Trek: entrance in it is possible only for civilized worlds that have reached a certain level of development – that have “grown up,” basically. In fact, the primary plot of the first arc of Tales of the Jedi, “Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of Onderon,” feels a little like one of the many Star Trek first contact episodes. The fact the Republic was such a surprisingly benevolent society in this era is really interesting because…what’s the point of decadence and decay if there was never anything better?

Ulic Qel-Droma, “Our Hero”

Of all the heroes in Star Wars, Jedi Knight Ulic Qel-Droma is the most like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, at least on the surface, anyway, and at least at first: he’s got a clefted chin and big muscles, a throwback to the fifties when Americans liked their heroes like they liked their steaks: beefy and All-American. Like Luke Skywalker, Qel-Droma’s a youth out to prove himself, and he’s way too arrogant and cocky for his own good, bold and without fear. Come to think of it, Tales of the Jedi has tons of Flash Gordon and pulp references, though as usual they’re subdued and not gaudy, like one alien is from the planet “Vultan.”

However, when Ulic’s master is murdered by a droid, the character’s arc takes a turn for the worst. His belief in his own invincibility becomes a liability when he suggests infiltrating the Krath to avenge his master’s death. Here we actually see how someone could fall to the Dark Side: filled with the best intentions, yet an absolute certainty and cockiness that nothing can happen to him, motivated by fear and loss. The moment he leaves is the most powerful part of Tales of the Jedi by far: it has the feeling of irrevocable loss. Everyone feels they’ll never see Ulic ever again, from his brother to Nomi Sunrider, the woman Ulic loves.

Our Heroine, Nomi Sunrider

Nomi Sunrider has the distinction of having her hair change more times than any other science fiction female except maybe Dr. Crusher. Take a look at this, and bear in mind these are sequential panels:

Her hair changes color constantly. This is probably because Nomi Sunrider, in her early appearances, has the most bizarre case of female pattern baldness I’ve ever seen. I think what they wanted to do was give her an unique and distinctive “Star Wars” hairstyle, much like Princess Leia’s Mexican peasant woman buns, but while Leia looked memorable this just looked icky and weird. If I tried to go for a Star Wars equivalent of a No-Prize, the explanation for the weird on/off hair may be that Nomi Sunrider has female pattern baldness (yes, it happens – ask any dermatologist) and occasionally wears a hairpiece.

Incidentally, I had to scan a lot of these images myself because when I did a Google image search for Nomi Sunrider for images to accompany this review, almost every single image – every one - that turned up was of Nomi Sunrider holding someone and crying!

The Continuity

The most amazing thing about Tales of the Jedi is that despite the fact it’s set in an inconceivably ancient era (4,000 years before the Star Wars movies) you get the feeling we’re midway into civilization, that even this time has a lengthy past behind it. When Obi-Wan said the Jedi had been protectors of the Republic for a thousand generations (that’s 20,000 years, give or take) he wasn’t exaggerating for effect.

There are already ruins and long-dead legendary figures like the Sith Tombs of Korriban (inspired by the Valley of the Kings) and Empress Teta (an Alexander the Great-esque military leader). As this is our only window into this era, every single mention of continuity here is overdeveloped and pounced on by the few other works set in this era like the Old Republic video game. An offhand mention in one line of dialogue of “a great droid revolution” was the basis for tons of lore, for instance.

By the way, Empress Teta has a really funny name to Spanish speakers because a Teta in Spanish is a slang term for giant breasts. There hasn’t been a funnier cross-linguistic accident in Star Wars since it was discovered “Panaka” is Portuguese for “douchebag.”

With a better special effects budget, it’s ironic the Jedi somehow became less interesting and had less mystique once they became ridiculous supermen who threw giant rocks around with mind powers, able to destroy armies. Also, the Jedi in this comic actually get married and have sex, as opposed to the emotionless and creepy monks they were in the prequel movies. Jedi in this era were great swordsmen, acrobats and martial artists with often unusual abilities to counteract sorcery, but for the most part their powers were subtle and not silly. As budgets improved, the Jedi got so invulnerable that there was no suspense or danger; ironically they became boring. Not so here. Andur Sunrider was killed by a gang of criminals and even a mighty Jedi Master was killed by a droid.

One character from this era I find amazing is the Cathay “animal Jedi” Sylvar, who at first is seen as this terrible feral cat monster that was roughly the series’s equivalent of Chewbacca, but gradually gets more and more sexed up and human looking for no reason. Lots of characters started off homely but got better looking and slimmer as time went on before anyone knew what was happening: Miss Piggy, Pepper Potts, the Wicked Witch of the West, and so on, but never to such an extreme from such bizarre and grotesque beginnings.

In the last “Tales of the Jedi” series, she’s gotten much more human and a lot better looking, inexplicably.

Finally, when she’s seen again in the 2005 video game Knights of the Old Republic, only little hints of her animal nature can be seen and she became a dead ringer for Cheetara from Thundercats, perfect masturbation fodder for nerds.

Incidentally, I have a few theories about some of the alien races from this era that vanished. The cat race of the Cathay had so much genetic diversity that eventually they speciated like Darwin’s finches, becoming the many cat-races in present day Star Wars like Atuarre’s race from “Han Solo at Star’s End.”

Also, here’s another fan theory of mine: the Noghri, Darth Vader’s personal assassins, are the last survivors of the original Sith species along with the Massassi on Yavin IV. It would explain their veneration for Darth Vader (an instinctive worship of evil fallen Jedi), and the assassin weaponry used by the Noghri is similar to the primitive weapons used by the Massassi: knives and throwing objects.

The Art and Design – or, “Why are there so many lines on the face? Why?”

“Tales of the Jedi” is one of the few comics I can think of that was a giant success despite the fact it didn’t have slick art. In fact the art is downright ugly, especially during the Nomi Sunrider arc. It’s laughably dated and borrows from Frank Miller in ways that are unintentionally funny. There's no greater contrast between the painted and photorealistic covers than the often amateurish interior art. It reminds me of Gold Key comics, who used painted covers as a selling point to make their books stand out on the shelves.

I mean, look at other big hit top sellers: “The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones” had John Byrne at the height of his fame and power, the Marvel Star Wars comics had possibly the best art of Walt Simonson’s career, Teen Titans was a superhit more due to the fact George Perez did the pencils than anything in the scripts, and I highly doubt anyone would have cared about Kingdom Come if George Tuska or Sal Buscema did the art instead of Alex Ross.

Why this comic so successful if the art was was so bad? Well, to start with, people were really hungry at this time for Star Wars: there hadn’t been any prequels yet to compromise Star Wars’s coolness and there hadn’t been any new Star Wars movies for going on 12 years.

Also, never underestimate the power of the international comics market. One of the things that strikes me about the letters pages from Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics is how the postscripts on the letters come from all over the world: Japan, Denmark, and Latin America. I love superhero comics a lot, but in many ways the popularity of superheroes are a strictly American phenomenon. Star Wars on the other hand, has more of a global audience.

The Nebulon Ranger is one of the worst designed starships I’ve ever seen; it looks like something Wreck-Gar would assemble on the Planet of Junk. In fact, nearly every starship looks like this in this era; asymmetrical, pointed, craggy junkers. The ships don’t have the personality and memorable design that the supercool Milennium Falcon did. Also…I don’t work for Lockheed-Martin or Boeing, so take my sense of the laws of avionics with a grain of salt…but wouldn’t having thrusters just on one side of the ship make it go around in circles? The only piece of technology that has any distinctiveness are the lightsabers: they almost always have this weird four-prong “castle” design. In fact, this design for lightsabers was maintained in things like the Old Republic video games.

In the end, while I liked Tales of the Jedi a lot, I got an overwhelming feeling this was produced by a writer that never worked for comics before, which is, to an extent, true: Kevin J. Anderson was principally a novelist. The stories, like wrongly-paced DC comics of the 1960s, relied on the captions for transition and to express action. Comics have a rhythm to them and a language used to express ideas; sometimes some things can be expressed in art; for instance, you can't have the captions say "everyone's heart was heavy when they were forced to abandon Ulic Qel-Droma," and then have the panels just be everyone sitting and talking with normal expressions.

Star Wars Comics Reviews Part 1: Russ Manning's Star Wars Daily Strip

Back in the Old Days, if you were an artist that worked in comics, you didn’t want to do a comic book: you wanted the high profile, prestige and visibility of a daily newspaper strip as opposed to the toiling obscurity of comic books. One of my favorite details in “Kavalier and Clay” is that doing comic books was a step above being a pornographer…but only barely! Strips were the ticket to the big time.

So color me surprised to discover the Star Wars daily comic strip in the late 1970s was plotted and drawn by old-school comic book guy and Korean war vet Russ Manning, creator of Magnus: Robot Fighter. Apparenty he was going to retire but instead went back to comics simply because he loved the movie Star Wars that much. Now that’s passion!

And what can I say? It’s gorgeous alright, classy and old-school cool, Russ Manning brought his A-Game. He’s the only comics artist I can think of that draws Darth Vader in a way that feels “right” to me, that draws Storm Troopers in a frightening way. He’s a master of monsters and machines. As for his Luke Skywalker and Leia, his drawings look like Luke and Leia, though they look nothing like Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher! If that makes sense.


However, I can’t help but shake the feeling that Manning should have worked with a plotter on this, someone that understands Star Wars, like Archie Goodwin. For one thing, Star Wars is so lively because of the characters. I can’t think of one line of dialogue that Han Solo would say, with his distinct swagger and smarminess. Luke was a hero and audience identification figure, but he was also reckless, “fast and bumpy,” and was always spoiling for action. I can't think of one time in the daily those characteristics were on display.


I guess that’s my overall verdict: Russ Manning was a godlike artist at the top of his game who may have been the most beautiful Star Wars comics artist except for maybe Walt Simonson or Duursema, but in terms of plotting and character he was past his prime, developing as a writer in an era that didn’t value characterization or unpredictability. In that sense he reminds me of Otto Binder and yes, even Jack Kirby and Chris Claremont these days anyway: once-great creators who stopped being relevant when comics changed and they didn’t. Though to his credit, Manning always kept his dignity and didn’t descend into Otto Binder foolishness; Manning’s plots were predictable but clean and correct.

(In fact, I always thought of Jack Kirby after Marvel as very similar to George Lucas: he receives more than his fair share of credit for something that was a collaborative effort and when he works on his own and calls the shots, he delivers something weird and ugly. In fact, the Fourth World was Kirby’s Episode I: highly anticipated like nothing else. There was even talk the Fourth World was going to be a “Marvel-Killer.” Ultimately, it was a giant Episode I-esque creative disappointment. Episode I words like “disappointment” and “shock” can describe practically everything Kirby did during and after the 1970s. His much-touted return to Captain America without Simon or Lee featured weird and ugly stuff like the doughboy and the madbomb.)

Russ Manning also broke the one great unspoken no-no of Star Wars when he made some insufferable little kid a part of the story, for which I want to choke the life out of him with my bare hands. The greatest thing about Star Wars was there were no little kids running around. Little kids are unfortunately common in adventure comics prior to 1950, and they’re all terrible. Not some of them…all of them. It’s unfortunate Manning had to export the bad habit of little kids to a comic like Star Wars where it doesn’t belong. I’ve never understood the reasoning behind making a kid a part of something aimed at kids. Imaginations don’t work that way. Kids dream about and pretend to be heroes like Batman or Han Solo, or bad guys of a grand and terrible type like Darth Vader or the Joker, precisely because they’re not kids. I have no idea what went into the decision to make kids the main characters of Star Wars phenomena like the forgettable Jedi Prince books and the various Ewok TV specials.

Star Wars was something kids loved, but precisely because it was never childish. People were killed in Star Wars, something the movies never covered up. This, by the way, is why people were so offended by “Greedo shot first.” So it blows my mind to see Manning’s strip actually do Comics Code stuff like have the bad guy get “accidentally killed by a ricochet.” What, he couldn’t have “tripped and fallen into his own deathtrap,” the preferred ironic means of death for Doc Savage villains? Bad guys have to die because of poetic justice for the awful things they’ve done, but the “fall into your own deathtrap” accident leaves the good guys’ hands lily-white. Somehow, I don’t think Han Solo would either a) have any qualms about blasting a lowlife Imperial officer Nazi type, or b) miss.

The Bad Guys

The Star Wars strips were responsible for giving us a bad guy that became a big figure in the expanded universe: Blackhole, a creepy, memorable villain that moved like a shadow. There were some other bad guys too. One of the more surprising was an Imperial Officer who was a sort of snake-alien. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the only Imperial Officer other than Thrawn to be a non-human. A big part of Star Wars lore is that the Empire was racist and classist, and officers were from the aristocratic classes and were never derived from the rabble of the enlisted men. This was probably due to the fact that as the Star Wars movies were all filmed in England, most of the non-principal cast brought from the States were English actors. Anyway, it’s an old Hollywood habit to hire Brits to play Nazis in war movies, which Star Wars kept, since it was all basically World War II in space.

I always thought this was one of the more unusual things about Star Wars: the bad guys were white and upper-class, as opposed to villains that are malevolent because they’re vaguely ethnic. Offhand I can’t think of any other science fiction group were this was done. Even the Klingons in the otherwise progressive Star Trek were swarthy types, typically played by Greek, Jewish or Italian actors (and black actors in the Next Generation on).

Russ Manning’s Cheesecake

The Star Wars expanded universe operates under the hilarious conceit that Luke Skywalker would get more female action than the cooler Han Solo or Lando Calrissian, and the Manning comics are no exception to that unbelievable rule. All of the girls teamed up with Luke and “liked him.”

Science fiction comics have always been sold under the va-va-voom factor, and pay no attention to Calvinist hypocrites that say otherwise. Heck, to anyone that tries to argue that comics fandom has gotten hornier and dumber over the years, I’d offer as my rebuttal pretty much any given lettercol for the original Planet Comics: all the letters pages talked about was who the hottest space babe in the book. I’m not kidding, read them for yourself. They’re as unpredictable as a stable-hand’s hidden passions.


In fact, Russ Manning even used a G-rated version of one of Star Wars’s favorite plots: the Star Wars “It Girl,” Princess Leia, becomes a slave girl. They did this in a much more famous way with the slave bikini in “Return of the Jedi,” which got a cover in Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, and was also a plot point in Alan Dean Foster’s novel “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.”

3-D movies are not a gimmick or fad, and they're here to stay...

By this time last year, James Cameron’s “Avatar” became the highest-grossing movie in history, and it hasn’t really been analyzed just why that is.

People went to see that movie over and over, not just because of the novelty of 3-D, but because of the effect that 3-D accomplished: as a result of the 3-D, you felt more like you were “there” on a totally different planet. In short, 3-D was used to immerse the audience into a different world, just like the elaborate and exhaustively researched ecology and biology of Pandora made the world feel more real. There was a point to that movie being in 3-D: the world of the film felt more real and magical, as opposed to just because James Cameron had the technology to do it; 3-D accomplished something that improved the movie.

A similar phenomenon can be seen in the movie “Tron Legacy.” If 3-D was just a gimmick like its cynical critics say, the entire movie would be in 3-D…but it isn’t. The scenes in the “real world” are in two dimensions, while the scenes inside the computer world of Tron are in 3-D. It reminds me a little of how the Wizard of Oz used technicolor: there was a point to that film being partly in color other than just because they could. Color was used to show the audience they weren’t in Kansas anymore; the drab, black and white Kansas contrasted against the colorful, fantastic and otherworldly land of Oz. Color made you feel differently about Oz than you did about Kansas.

In short, my point is this: 3-D is not a gimmick or fad. It is a new technology that adds to the tools used in movies to affect the audience, just like color, sound, a soundtrack, cinematography.

Sure, 3-D is something you can get in the theater that you can’t get at home (at least right now, for most people). In that sense, these movies are virtually pirate-proof. And there are many directors and movies that make 3-D films that don’t utilize this technology properly, where the 3-D is incidental or pointless, but there are also many movies that misuse special effects or have a terrible soundtrack, too. But all this is incidental. That doesn’t mean that soundtracks and special effects by themselves are.

Here’s a prediction: 3-D is not only not a fad, it’s here to stay. I am not saying that 3-D will alchemically and magically change bad movies into good ones, or that every movie with 3-D will be good or use 3-D properly. I am saying that 3-D will be used in increasingly intriguing ways by men of vision that understand this new tool’s potential.

Now, don’t get me wrong, 3-D can be used as a cheesy gimmick, which is why many movies made in 3-D have the usual “tomato flying at the screen” shot. But consider this. While I was watching “Tron Legacy” with a friend, there was a 3-D trailer for “Pirates of the Caribbean 4.” In one shot of the trailer, Johnny Depp is leaning against a wall when suddenly a sword bursts from the very wall he’s resting against. This shot would have been boring and pedestrian in 2-D, but in 3-D, as the sword was coming out right at us, it made everybody in the theater practically jump out of their seats. Because of 3-D, we felt exactly what Johnny Depp must have felt in the scene: shocked and startled. The essence of good filmmaking is to make the audience feel what the characters feel, so mission accomplished.

3-D is like color or sound or special visual effects, just another new technology that can improve the artistic value of a movie, another way to make the audience feel something, or express an idea, or create a mood. Yes, I am explicitly comparing 3-D movies to the arrival of sound and color.

The Example of Sound

There’s plenty of historical precedence for something starting off as a gimmick but then becoming a legitimate part of the movie-maker’s toolbox. Did you know that the early sound films were pretty much musicals? They called attention to the newness of the talkie. There was Ziegfield’s Follies' 1929 "Glorifying the American Girl," a cute movie featuring a kitchy, sexy stage revue – no plot, story or characters, just dancing girls and music. After seeing a movie like Ziegfield’s Follies, from the perspective of people in 1929 it’s easy to come to the conclusion that sound is just a gimmick that calls attention to itself or a fad. In fact, many people in the film business said exactly that: sound would never replace the silent film.

Since then, sound and soundtracks are a part of film-making. Creepy noises and the sound of footsteps are used to heighten fright and suspense. The most extraordinary thing about Mae West is her sexy, distinctive voice. Like Jack Nicholson or Shatner, you imitate her, everyone knows instantly who you’re goofing on. It’s no coincidence she became a star right when talkie films replaced silent films.

The Example of Cinemascope or “Widescreen”

Prior to 1950, most movies were made in a “square” aspect ratio. When the technology was made to film in a wide screen (“Cinemascope”), at first it was just a gimmick meant to provide a wide-screen experience that televisions couldn’t provide, until movie makers saw the potential of the wide-screen. Nowadays every movie is “wide screen” as is every single movie theater screen.

Ask any baby-boomer you like about what they remember about “This is Cinerama” and they’ll probably tell you “The Roller Coaster Ride.” Imagine watching the movie screen double in size and then getting a first person view as a roller coaster streaked over the screen on a track. This wider screen really wowed audiences, but “This is Cinerama” was a plotless movie where the entertainment value was in the gimmick of a big screen. I can’t help but think about what cynical critics said about “Avatar,” in that instead of a movie it was more like a theme park ride.

It took other movies to realize the creative potential of the larger movie screen aspect ratio. Huge scale, epic movies of the fifties and sixties like “Ben-Hur” and “How The West Was Won” used widescreen to show off the incredible scale and size of the events. In fact it’s hard to imagine now that “Gone With the Wind,” made before widescreen, was a “square” film.

Finally, when widescreen was normalized, film-makers used the wider screen in composition. Take “The Graduate.” In one scene, Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson is at one end of the screen, and Dustin Hoffman is at the other end. The older Mrs. Robinson is trying to seduce the young college graduate. The giant space between the two emphasizes the awkwardness the main character must be feeling.

This seems to be a trend among how new technologies are used in film, a series of stages. First they’re just used to call attention to themselves, as in “hey, everybody! This movie has sound!” Then they’re used for spectacle. Finally, they are a normalized part of film-making that film makers use for creative effect. There is no reason that 3-D will not follow this pattern.

The Example of Color

I already mentioned how “The Wizard of Oz” wowed audiences not just by using color but by using it to project people into a totally different world. The land of Oz feels more magical and interesting, a totally different world, because of how colorful it is. Again I think of “Avatar” and "Tron Legacy," in that it used 3-D to great effect the same way “Wizard of Oz” used color, to show you’re not in Kansas anymore.

Here’s another example of how color is a technology that can be used to creative effect. Ingmar Bergman was slow to accept color and made most of his films in black and white even after color became so normal it was an expectation, and his use of black and white became an idiosyncratic affectation that really stood out. The first film he ever made in color USED color. “Fanny and Alexander” was about a kid that goes to live with a cold, puritanical Lutheran stepfather. Scenes at the kid’s loving grandmother’s place feature warm, passionate colors, while scenes with his evil father’s have drab grey and brown, Spartan colors that instinctively make the audience feel how cold and austere his puritanical and abusive stepfather is.

HAL 9000 had a bright red, malevolent eye so you immediately know he’s a bad guy. I’m actually surprised Kubrick didn’t give that evil computer a British accent to add to his villiany.

At the end of the day, the real world is in three dimensions but the cinema, until recently, was flat. That’s why “Avatar” was so successful in transporting people to another world.

There are all sorts of ways that 3-D can be used creatively, not as a gimmick but as a normalized part of film. 3-D can make great heights seem even more dizzying and vertigo-inducing, for instance, and add to the tension, danger and drama of scenes set in high places for suspense and action movies. In short, there’s a point to showing and making movies in 3-D other than just a “theme park ride” or an excuse to jack up the ticket price. In 20 years, opponents and critics of 3-D movies will look as ridiculous as critics of “talkie” movies did in the 1930s.

But here’s my message to Hollywood and film-makers: as always, the future is counting on you. If you think 3-D is just a faddish gimmick, that’s all it will ever be. Realize the potential of this extraordinary technology. This is a once in a generation opportunity to innovate and do something no one in movies has ever done before, to leave your mark on the language of film. You’re in the right place at the right time. Bring movies into the third dimension!

Peter Cushing is Hammer Horror's Baron Frankenstein

Of all the characters at Hammer Horror studios, by far the most complex and interesting was Baron Frankenstein, played by Peter Cushing.

The Baron was the central character of all the Hammer Frankenstein movies, and his creature, the famous Frankenstein Monster, was practically an afterthought and didn't even appear in some of the Frankenstein movies. Hammer realized, correctly, that the man that

made the monster was more interesting than the monster himself. Peter Cushing's reptilian performance as a cold, cruel, ambitious man was the most chilling part, and he was brilliantly cast; by all accounts Peter Cushing was a really great guy in real life, but at least in the movies he always had a look in his eye that showed that he was a scary creep with a hard edge.

The most fascinating thing about the Peter Cushing Baron Frankenstein was, he could be a hero or a villain depending on the movie, yet the character never really changed. Depending on the movie, he could be a sympathetic genius visionary hounded, misunderstood and persecuted by superstitious, dimwitted and prejudiced little men and angry mobs who destroy anything they don't understand as he was in Evil of Frankenstein...or, he could be a coldblooded, ruthless and reptilian fiend that destroys anyone's lives and even commits murder to get what he wants, heartless and inhumane, the way he was in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.

There's something kind of likable, despite all his bad qualities, in an arrogant and sharp-tongued character like Baron Frankenstein that doesn't suffer fools or the superstitious gladly. He runs into all kinds of problems because he isn't charming or tolerant.

One of my favorite scenes features Baron Frankenstein overhearing a guy talking about how the former Baron Frankenstein was guilty of "ungodly experiments." His response?

"Pardon me, sir, but are you a doctor?"

"Ah, no sir."

"Ah...my apologies. I thought you knew what you were talking about."

Likewise, Frankenstein, over and over, was legitimately wronged and his misfortunes, caused by prejudiced people that never leave him alone, have been exploited. In one scene, Baron Frankenstein returned to his villiage in Switzerland and was outraged to see the burgomaster of his former town (who rose to his current status for kicking Frankenstein out) wore a ring that originally belonged to him! And it got worse. When following the guy home, he discovered the burgomaster's entire house was filled with the Baron's furniture!

John Maddox Roberts

John Maddox Roberts may be one of my favorite historical novelists. When he wrote about Rome in his SPQR series, I always had the feeling that, of all the versions of Rome we've seen or experienced, that JMR's was the closest to how it really was: noir before its time, bustling with criminal cartels, prostitutes that knife-fight each other over turf, where even a Senator's life was cheap if he went into the wrong part of town at night, a place of pug-nosed gladiators, where the line between being a gangster/mob boss and being a politician was so thin, the two jobs were practically interchangeable. John Maddox Roberts's Rome was not a nice place to live, but it was cool.

And best of all, JMR always had sense of humor about things. This was in great contrast to many other stories about antiquity that take themselves way, way too seriously. In general, Sword & Sandal and Roman epics are dead serious, with dead being the operative phrase.

JMR also wrote some speculative (what-if) history with his book "King of the Wood," and it's a real relief to read an alternate history that somehow doesn't involve the Nazis. In "King of the Wood," the Vikings reached America, but this time they came to stay. The northern kingdom, from Canada and so on, was Treeland, whereas the southern kingdom was Thorsheim, founded by pagans fleeing religious persecution.

It doesn't surprise me that John Maddox Roberts wrote Conan novels, because the main hero of "King of the Wood" was basically a Conan-type hero that did Conan-type things. A noble from Treeland, he was cast out from his country for the crime of kin-slaying, becoming a "Wolf's Head." The hero is pretty boring, although there is one sequence where he trips balls-out on hallucinogenic drugs that is all the more entertaining because I can imagine it happening to Conan.

Along the way, he encounters the inhabitants of the Americas, including the Aztecs, who are presented, as usual, as a profoundly sick society fascinated by imagery of stillborn babies and human sacrifices in retch-inducing industrial quantities. From what I understand of history this is not that far off the mark.

The book is overall entertaining and chock full of alternate historical goodies in a world that Roberts obviously thought through, but if it is guilty of anything, it's guilty of taking a bit to get to the point. The Mongols are the heavies of the book, and they don't show up until two-thirds of it are done. To JMR's credit, the Mongols are scarier here than anywhere else: imperious, commanding, tactical geniuses in hordes of tremendous size that dwarf lesser armies, with advanced technology for the age and brute toughness...it's great to see the Mongols as history's most frightening villains, a real world hyperpower, as opposed to the goonish cartoon barbarians seen elsewhere.

Steve Englehart writer profile in 1973 issue of "Vampirella"

Now this was an interesting find: in Vampirella Magazine #22, there's a writer profile on arguably comics's greatest genius, "Stainless" Steve Englehart, in 1973, the very height of his early career.

As an Englehart-aficionado, this hagiography doesn't tell me anything I don't already know (except for the fact that Englehart, along with Marvel-horror guys like Don Glut and Marv Wolfman worked on the Warren Publications Vampirella mag), but other people may find the story surprising: Stainless started off in comics while in the army, after meeting Neal Adams and becoming an inker for him, and then becoming an assistant editor and then scripter.

Warren Publications always had the brassiest comics reporting; they were always pull no punches and raw, and tell a counter-story to the 'official events.' They always, always published letters with strong and dissenting points of view, even ones that make the company look bad. They published letters that said that Vampirella and her sexpot ways was pretty much for male chauvanists; they published letters arguing that Vampirella was lame because of her science fiction elements. In short, Vampirella letters pages were the liveliest and argumentative I have ever seen ever published, and they have never entirely been replaced.

The New Shadow, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Sequel

For those that love "Lord of the Rings," I was fascinated and intrigued to hear about Tolkien writing...and abandoning...a sequel to his most famous work, set in a time when only Men live on Middle Earth during the era of the Unified Kingdom ruled by Aragorn's descendants.

Because there was very little wonder left, the work, "The New Shadow," was crushingly dreary and dark, but in a fascinating way like a good chiller book. The story fragment, set in a time when Goblins and Orcs are legends, features a fighting man in Gondor that discovers remnants of a Satan worshipping cult, of humans that behave like Orcs and cut down trees for no reason (which in Tolkien's world, is quite possibly the most dickish deed possible).

The thing that strikes me the most as interesting about the New Shadow is how similar it is to Conan the Barbarian. Bear with me here. The main character is a solid, regular fighting man whose primary virtues are his simple honesty, traditionalism, and fighting prowess. He lives in a complacent era, with rulers that are merely competent administrators. Most impressively of all, the main villains are frightening Satanic cults dedicated to the worship of scary pre-human societies.

All in all, I'm sorry Tolkien abandoned his Lord of the Rings sequel after 16 pages. It would have been a great insight into an era of Middle Earth that was phenomenally underdeveloped and been a great middle ground between the mythic pessimism and tragedy of the Silmarillion, and the realism and grit of the Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien's reasons for abandoning the New Shadow strike me as incredibly harebrained. According to Tolkien, the reason he gave up was because he felt the sense of wonder that existed in Middle Earth no longer existed come the Age of Men, and because without Sauron there wasn't a single source of evil in the world that transcended the possibility for human evil. For the first point, the very curiosity that many people have about events after Lord of the Rings ends shows there's obviously some creative potential there even without Elves and Wizards.

The second point is enormously wrongheaded. The worst part of Lord of the Rings was a central villain who was inaccessible, remote and entirely in the background with inhuman "Evil with a Capital E" motives. How much stronger that book series would have been with an ever-present "Doctor Doom" type villain with an actual personality and comprehensible human motives.

Also, the idea that all evil has to have a single source and that evil is a unified force is one of the greatest errors in conservative and Christian thinking. One of my all-time favorite examples of this phenomena is the Tea Party's current unification of high-level bankers with socialism, and the inability to tell the difference between fascism and communism. How a banker can be a socialist defies my understanding, but there it is. It reminds me also of the evangelical protestant view that pornography, radical feminism and the coarsening of our culture are ultimately the doing of a conspiracy headed by Satan himself. Again, the idea that feminists and pornographers both do the bidding of a single Master requires mental gymnastics I'm not capable of.

The Chabad Lubavich and Creationism

As a college undergrad, I was a part of the FIU Chabad Lubavich chapter, and on a couple of weeks when my Mother was out of town, I even celebrated Passover with them. I've spent dozens of free Chabad dinners there at the Rabbi's house. I have nothing but good and pleasant memories about my association with that organization, and the friendships I made through the Chabad.

Though I currently have no religious beliefs, being Jewish is a part of who I am whether I like it or not and is something I can either fight and rebel against (unproductively) or embrace as a part of my identity. Besides, God must love us secular Jews. After all, He made so many.

As someone with a science and education background, however, it deeply troubles me that Chabad is the only remaining Hasidic group, indeed, the only remaining group of Judaism that still rejects evolutionary origin for life, and continues to endorse some really crackpot Young Earth theories (6,000 year old creationism).

I always found this ironic, because Judaism (including hard-assed, traditionalist Orthodox and Conservative Judaism!) have never had any compatibility problems between science and religious beliefs.

And what's more, the Jewish tradition has always endorsed an old earth anyway, and that time, to God, meant something totally different than it would to humans. In the 11th Century, Rabbi Moishe bin Asher used Kabbalah to divine that the earth was billions and billions of years old, and many midrashim have argued there were previous successive creations that were destroyed by God as unsuitable and incomplete. There have been other Medieval that claim that Adam was the last of a thousand prior generations, but he was significant in that he was the first to have the breath of God, a soul within him.

The primary voice for this rejection was one of the major figures in the history in the history of Judaism, the Rebbe Lubavich, who had enormous influence over the Chabad as its spiritual founder. Many believed the Rebbe was in fact, the Messiah (Moshiach), a view that is downright bizarre for the primary reason that he died! Well, I guess that answers that question! Along with Bar Kochba, Jacob Frank, Shabbetai Tzevi, and a certain Rabbi from the 1st century that shall remain nameless (wink, wink) the Rebbe died without fulfilling any of the Messianic prophecies.

This seems like an unfair non-sequitur since most Chabadniks didn't believe the Rebbe was Moshiach even when he was alive, but it is nonetheless relevant because the Rebbe was not a superman and he could be wrong and at times he said various misinformed things about the process of science and evolution. He once claimed that "evolution has not the slightest shred of evidence behind it," which even honest creationists must admit is untrue.

More importantly, I would not go to the Rebbe for advice on science. The divine nature of Torah is totally unfalsifiable and therefore outside any possible means of scientific investigation. The origins of human beings, however, are within the boundaries of the material world: things within the material world require materialist explanations.

The Rebbe believed that biological evolution eliminated the meaning and purpose of existence, if we were just an "accident," then who cares about moral responsibility? As a Chabad rabbi stated in this article:

"We have to be aware of the effects of our beliefs. If we believe that humans came about by accident, then life has no meaning. There can be no meaning to something that happens by chance. A random explosion or mutation cannot give us purpose. My life, your life and all human history has no real significance whatsoever. Whether I live a good life or one full of evil makes no difference. It is all a big accident anyway.

We only have purpose if we were created on purpose. Our lives only have meaning if we were created by a meaningful being. If we teach our children that they were created on purpose with a purpose, then they will know that more is expected from them than from an animal."

Whether something gives us meaning or purpose is irrelevant as to whether it is true or not. Whether something makes children behave themselves is irrelevant as to whether it is true or not (and there are many disobedient children from religious families and obedient children from non-religious families).

But more importantly, if human creation is what gives us purpose, why can't evolution give us a purpose? The fact is we're human, the first creature on earth able to make moral choices, and that ability alone implies duties and personal responsibilities. There does not need to be a contradiction between belief in a God and belief in what is revealed to us by science.