G.I. Joe Movie Review: One Fans Opinion

****SPOILER WARNING****

Long ago, in my youth, I went through a period where I was rather obsessed with war and the military, as boys will, I suppose. The second World War in particular captured my interest, and I read everything about it that I could get my hands on (much of it old DC war comics, admittedly, but also a fair amount of stuff on the history and technology). Some element of that fascination has stayed with me to this day, usually given expression though WWII shooter-type games, your Call Of Duty and the like. At times I've been fascinated with other aspects or periods of military history, such as the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic wars, or air combat. It's just one of those areas that grabs my attention for some reason, which is particularly odd because at heart I'm a pacifist. Can't stand the idea of violence in real life. Any time I've been in a fight I get so upset afterwards I get nauseous. Go figure.

Yet that periodic fascination with war and the military remains. It goes back a long way, indeed, and as I say it was World War Two that held my interest when I was, oh, about eight or nine. Until these really cool toys came out, that is--a toy line called G.I. Joe. I had been sort of vaguely aware that G.I. Joe had existed in the past, but to a bout of eight or nine, something fifteen or twenty years old may as well have predated the great flood. This new bunch of G.I. Joe toys really grabbed my interest, though, perhaps because of the level of detail and realism that went into creating it. Yeah, there were a few moderately science-fictiony elements in the first wave or two of Joe figures and vehicles--laser cannons, jet packs, and such--but the lion's share was actually quite accurate, as I came to discover. Most of the weapons and vehicles in the line were slightly souped-up versions of real military hardware--real guns, real tanks, real planes and helicopters. And the characters all had the little file cards, detailing their service history and their training and their ranks, the whole nine yards--a lot of it based on real-world stuff, too. I think I was fascinated on two counts--the obsessive military-history buff in me dug the realism, while the sci-fi geek enjoyed the little touches of futuristic stuff. 

When Marvel launched the tie-in comic series, I was there from panel one of issue one. And as much as I dug the toys, I came to love the comic even more. It was amazing to me... running through the comic-booky stories and the occasional bits of pseudo-sci-fi gadgetry and McGuffins was a sense of realism about army life, about what it meant to be a soldier. Something more substantial and serious than you'd expect. I mean, nowadays, I'd hardly call it the greatest of great literature, but for a young kid it was heavy stuff. The writer had given these characters backstories; many of them saw action in Vietnam, even. It turns out that the writer of the series was a fellow called Larry Hama, who had seen military service himself, and who drew upon his experiences to add depth to what would have otherwise been a fairly forgettable bit of marketing synergy for a toy line.

A year or two later, when word got out that a G.I. Joe animated series was coming to television, I was pretty charged up. I found myself wondering what stories from the comics they would adapt. It seemed sensible to me at the time; I mean, the comic book was, in my mind, the canonical G.I. Joe storyline. It was what happened. A friend of mine gently pointed out to me that there was no reason to expect that the show would adapt the comic stories directly, and there was a certain logic to that. But to me, the comic was so good I saw no reason not to adapt the stories.

Well, my friend, who was longer on pragmatism than he was on unabashed youthful hope, turned out to be right. There were some elements in the show that at least resembled the world I knew from the comics... but not that many of them. The military realism that had been the comics' focus went right out the window in favor of a more decided science-fiction feel. Everyone was using lasers, instead of maybe one or two specialist types. The plots centered almost entirely around mad-science super-weapon McGuffins. Characters who were supposed to be basically Army ground-pounder types (and enlisted men to boot) were flying jet fighters.

(Yeah, that's an odd nit for a nine year old to pick--but this was a bit of a precocious nine year old, you know, and one who had read a lot of military history, AND one who had decided that he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up and therefore knew that to fly planes in the military you had to go to college and become an officer, and also pretty much NOT be in the U. S. Army because the Army had neither jets nor pilots to fly them.

The dreams of becoming a pilot and an astronaut died about a year later, by the way, when the optometrist discovered that my eyesight was absolutely abysmal and issued me my first pair of glasses. Such is real life, we find.)

At any event, I was a bit disappointed in the G.I. Joe cartoon. Oh, I watched it, and was often entertained by it... but I knew it was not a patch on the comics. I know now, of course, that much of what I disliked was due to the restrictions on children's television content. Anything approaching military realism would have been stomped by the censors. I have a bit more respect for the show's writers than I did then, realizing the strict framework within which they had to work. The Comics Code, fortunately, was more forgiving.

As much as the military realism was impossible for the show to achieve, though, they could have gotten away with a little more characterization. That was another respect in which the show let me down, and one that could have been avoided. There were identifiable character traits, to be sure, but among other things the show had a huge cast to juggle, so seldom did any one character get enough screen time to develop. In the comics, Larry Hama had identified a few core characters to focus on, and left others to more of a supporting role. He gave new characters face time, to be sure, as the toy company demanded... but he never left his chosen few out of the spotlight for long.

So what's your point, you're asking now, I am certain... why all this random nattering about G.I. Joe all of a sudden?

Well, it's because my secret script source bestowed upon me today a copy of the screenplay for the upcoming G.I. Joe film.

It's credited to Stuart Beattie, with revisions by John Lee Hancock and Brian Koppelman & David Levien. Amusingly, the title page calls the script Dark Sky: First Strike, in a clear attempt to throw off them nosy internet fanboy types (like myself). Any doubts as to the script's true identity vanish pretty fast, though; the film opens with a title card of a quote attributed to General Clayton "Hawk" Abernathy. And any G.I. Joe fanboy worth his salt will of course recognize that name as belonging to the Joe team's stalwart C.O.

The title page also says "White Locked--November 3rd, 2007". Precisely what that means, I cannot say, though it sounds like a fairly late revision and I presume that it is something close to the final shooting script. I speak under correction, of course.

At any event, here's my hopefully-not-too-spoilery take on it.

First off, at least as far as this version of the script goes, a lot of what you may have heard in past months seems to be true. The G.I. JOE (or Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity) team is indeed a multinational force, and most all of the main characters seem to be of nationalities other than American. In fact, only Duke and Ripcord--who we meet early on--seem to be members of the U.S. military. Even General Hawk is described as British. That seems to have changed for the final film, though, as Dennis Quaid is cast in the role, and he's probably one of the least British people on the planet... what's more, he's clearly wearing a U.S. Army uniform in the trailer. Perhaps that may extend to some of the other characters; we'll see. I don't suppose I mind the idea of an international team too much; indeed, I'm given to understand that in the British version of the G.I. Joe toyline, Action Force, that's exactly what's depicted. So it's not as though the idea's been invented out of whole cloth here.

Many of the characters will be at least recognizable to fans of Joe's past incarnations, but they've hardly made the transition intact. Liberties have been taken. Many of them. It's a pretty free-handed reimagining of things, taking character names and traits and a few recognizable concepts and reworking them into something with little more than a coincidental similarity to what went before. There may be one or two liberties taken with certain fan-favorite characters that diverge from what's gone before, and that may or may not upset some of the hardcore Joe rooters. I was a tiny bit thrown, to be sure.

Story-wise... well, it should seem pretty familiar to fans of the animated series. Bad guys steal sci-fi superweapon McGuffin, good guys defy all odds trying to get said McGuffin back and ultimately save the day. Enough loose ends are left to open the door to potential sequels. There's some attempt at characterization here, at giving some of the characters a bit of backstory which informs their motivations and actions. Nothing too surprising or original; about what you'd expect, really, from what's mainly going to be an effects-heavy popcorn movie. Mostly it was pretty predictable, at least to me.

I had heard word going round that Larry Hama was a consultant on the film, but I don't seem to have detected much of his influence here. Alas. Much as with the cartoon all those years ago, I had hoped that the people working on this film might recognize that there was a pretty solid template to work from, and much as before I find my hopes a bit dashed. The script definitely skews more toward the cartoonish sci-fi aspects. Nanotechnology factors very heavily into things, and there are a lot of fancy energy-weapon type things being used. On the other hand, some bullets will fly, too, and some people will get killed--by no means do enemy pilots always manage to eject and parachute to safety here.

All in all, it's probably exactly what you'd expect a big-screen Hollywood version of G.I. Joe to be like. I found very few surprises here, pleasant or unpleasant. It's about what I'd expected, and a little less than what my inner nine-year-old might have hoped for. It'll probably be moderately entertaining summer brain-candy, but not much more.

As an interesting side note, I also picked up a copy of IDW's G.I. Joe Origins #1 today. It ties into IDW's current Joe relaunch, an Ultimate-style reimagining/updating of the basic G.I. Joe concept from 1982. The main book is written by Chuck Dixon, and it's not all bad. But the Origins book, we find, is written by Larry Hama. That caught my interest, as you can imagine.

What's really interesting is that Hama's story is covering a lot of the same ground as the screenplay... but doing so in a manner that I find far more appealing. Hama's Joes are all part of the U.S. military, just like back in the day, and he still has that same facility with military slang and jargon. He's keeping it up to date, here, though--we're looking at characters who are veterans of various Middle Eastern conflicts rather than Southeast Asian ones, and to my ear it seems to ring true. Obviously, dude does his homework. If you're a Joe fan, and particularly a fan of Hama's original Marvel series, I'd advise taking a look. You'll probably dig it more than you will the film.

So there we have it... we have a cartoony and rather lightweight mass-media adaptation of G.I. Joe in the pipeline on the one hand, and a somewhat more entertaining print version courtesy of Larry Hama. Familiar feeling, isn't it?

Now you know.

And knowing is half th--

Ah, the hell with it.

--g

The Beatles: The Cover Band Years

I am a huge fan of the Beatles. Have been for years. It's one of those things I've been alarmingly obsessive about at times, and even though I've since moved on to bigger and broader musical interests, the Beatles love stays in my heart. To this day, my MP3 player is about half-full of Beatles tracks, just because while I have a lot of other stuff on there that I listen to more often I still like to have some essentials on hand in case the mood strikes me.

While I have huge regard for the Beatles' later achievements, I find that I love the earlier phases of their career the best--basically, everything up through 1966, when they were still touring. Nothing against their songwriting, or against the leaps and bounds of innovation they'd make in the studio... but to me, first and foremost, they were a really great little band. They were tight. They were talented musicians and they played together like nobody's business.

So, to that end, I've come up with this little look at the Beatles interpreting other peoples' songs. These would basically be songs that they loved and respected enough to play in their live shows, for the most part, and which later were immortalized in vinyl. I thought it'd be a nice way to get around the mythology and cults of personality and just look at the boys playing songs they just plain dug. It probably serves as an interesting glimpse into my own musical tastes. So here we go:


11. "Act Naturally"
Written by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison; Recorded by Buck Owens and his Buckaroos in 1963. Buck's first Number One on the Billboard Country Singles chart. Appeared on the UK version of Help!, and as the B-side of the US single release of "Yesterday".

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9rSVenEgfk

This was a last-minute addition to the Help! album; originally the boys planned to record a song written by their engineer, Norman Smith. They decided to go with "Act Naturally" when they realized Ringo didn't have a vocal on the album. It turned out to be the last cover the Beatles would record until the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzEuhIIK6cw

It's a fun little number that showcases the Beatles' versatility and the country influences on their music, and Ringo's inimitable vocal works well here (Ringo was probably the biggest country fan of the four). It just comes together so well, an amiably ironic comment on the Beatles' acting ventures. Ringo warbling "We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely/and all I gotta do is act naturally" never fails to bring to my mind his performances in Help! and (especially) A Hard Day's Night.


10. "Honey Don't"
Written and recorded by Carl Perkins in 1955, the B-side of "Blue Suede Shoes". Appeared on the album Beatles For Sale in 1964.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ohAlZhNTek

The regard in which the Beatles--and especially George Harrison--held Carl Perkins is well-known. This tune was part of the Beatles' repertoire for years, though John usually sang lead on it. For the album version, Ringo got the nod--his usual one-track-per-album bone. Like with "Act Naturally", Ringo's voice works nicely on a country/rockabilly number, and Ringo has some fun leading into the guitar solo by crying out, "Rock on, George, one time for me!" George's solo, of course, is a note-perfect copy of his idol's original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhX4UixyX6I

9. "Please Mr. Postman"
Written by Georgia Dobbins, William Garrett, Brian Holland, Robert Bateman, and Freddie Gorman; recorded by The Marvelettes in 1961. (Fun side note--Marvin Gaye played drums on the original version.) Appeared on With The Beatles in 1963.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY9mBWuLRL4

This was another staple of the Beatles' Cavern Club show, but by the time they recorded it for their second album it had been dropped from their set. It took a little work for them to get the song back up to spec.

It's easy to overlook the obvious love the Beatles had for the Motown sound back in the day--their first two albums are riddled with Motown covers, and you can hear plenty of Motown influence in their original songs of that period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EM64qy3g6E

I've long felt that John Lennon's vocal talents get lost in the Lennon cult of personality, overshadowed by the regard in which his songwriting is held. This is one of many examples from the Beatles' early years of a great soulful shouting vocal from John, ably backed up by Paul and George. I have to confess that the backing vocals on the Marvelettes' version of the song were always a bit shrill for my tastes; Paul and George get the Motown sound down nicely here, in a way that my ear finds a little more pleasing.

8. "Anna (Go to Him)"
Written and recorded by Arthur Alexander in 1962. Appeared on Please Please Me in 1963.

To most people, this version of the song is probably much more familiar than Arthur Alexander's original, and that's unfortunate because Alexander was pretty damned awesome in his own right. He was one of the forgotten early soul pioneers. I've been getting into his music a bit lately, and kicking myself for not doing so much sooner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihsfVEFvrxA

John certainly held him in great regard, and this song does a fine job of paying tribute. It's another fine specimen of early John Lennon soul singing. Famed critic Dave Marsh once wrote that this was where John learned to sing stuff like "In My Life". I love the second time through the song's bridge, where John sings "All of my life/I've been searchin' for a girl/to love me like I love you" and then belts out, "But let me tell you now!". Gives me a chill every time. John really brings out a sense of suffering and heartache in this one, perhaps moreso than Alexander's original vocal. It may have been helped by the infamous cold from which John was suffering throughout the Please Please Me sessions, which gave an interesting quality to those vocals (about which I will speak more later on).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVJwwLcV3KY

The original version of the song was immortalized in a classic Married With Children episode, as the song Al heard a snippet of on the oldies station but then couldn't remember anything more about. He spent the episode desperately trying to find out the title of the song, only able to remember the 'go to him' part as "hmm hmmm HIM". Poor Al ends up in a used record shop, begging for help, which is not forthcoming. He ends up on his knees, pleading with God to let him have just this one tiny victory... at which point the jukebox starts up and plays Arthur Alexander's recording of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI3oySI4aeU&feature=related

7. "Matchbox"
Written and recorded by Carl Perkins in 1956. Appeared on the UK EP Long Tall Sally in 1964.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tASiMVVTU1k

Another Carl Perkins cover and another Ringo vocal. The original was inspired by Carl Perkins' father Buck, who suggested that Carl cut Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Match Box Blues". But Carl had never heard the song, and Buck knew only a few lines. In the studio, Carl sang the lines Buck had given him to Jerry Lee Lewis, who launched into a piano boogie; Carl jumped in on guitar and improvised the lyrics on the spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULtfOgB89U

The Beatles obviously had a good time recording this version, and it comes through in the song. It's an unqualified rave-up, with George trotting out his Carl Perkins playing once again and Ringo warbling away. I never fail to crack a smile at, "If you don't want Ringo's peaches honey/please don't mess around my tree."

Bonus: Carl, and Ringo, and Clapton do it live in 1985...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE03gfToaD0

6. "Words of Love"
Written and recorded by Buddy Holly in 1957. Appeared on Beatles For Sale in 1964.

The Beatles pay tribute to one of their biggest idols, the late great Charles Hardin Holley. On Buddy's original recording, he harmonized with himself through overdubs; here John and Paul team up to recreate the effect. The entire recording is an exercise in recreating Buddy's version as closely as possible, and they succeed.

(Unfortunately, I couldn't find the actual original recording on YouTube, so here's a demo version by Buddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wirwx-KVaU

Almost totally irrelevant anecdote: once, long ago, I was cruising around in my car with a buddy of mine whose love for the Beatles was not as great as my own. This track came on and the line "tell me love is real" came up; he blinked, looked at me, and said, "Did they just sing 'tummy rub is real'? What the hell are we listening to?" This was the legendary Frisco Davis, a good bloke and a hell of a guitar player... but I could never forgive his lack of knowledge of both the Beatles and Buddy Holly. Ah well; nobody's perfect, I guess.

5. "You Really Got a Hold on Me"
Written by Smokey Robinson and recorded by the Miracles in 1962. Appeared on With The Beatles in 1963.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf4QcOzTT24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wLdnVxEHpk

(Here's the Live At The BBC version, with a fun intro...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8669PqduNEo

Back to the Motown well with this one, a classic by the great Smokey himself. The boys do fine work here, getting the Motown groove down pat. John gives his usual searing soul shout, with George providing close harmony. This was the first track recorded for With The Beatles.

(Much as I love the Beatles' version, though--I have to confess it's not a patch on the Miracles. John does his best, but he cannot touch Smokey.)

4. "Money (That's What I Want)"
Written by Janie Bradford and Berry Gordy, recorded by Barrett Strong in 1959. Appeared on With The Beatles in 1963.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNrreaCeDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cFJTauCdCE

This was the first hit on the Motown label, and George Harrison said the Beatles first found the record in Brian Epstein's NEMS record store. It was another staple of their live set, and the Beatles recorded a version for their ill-fated Decca records audition. It's another great John shouter, of course. The album version is one of those high-powered ass-kickers, and you can well imagine that it all but brought down the house when they'd close their set at the Cavern with it.

3. "Long Tall Sally"
Written by Enotris Johnson, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, and Richard Penniman; recorded by Little Richard in 1956. Appeared on the Long Tall Sally EP in 1964.

Not enough can be said about Little Richard and his version of the song, of course; it's part of the canon, and that's all that need be said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9ZMMECkdlQ

The Beatles' version, though... well. Many's the time I've wished that Paul McCartney would have stayed away from the music-hall schmaltz and the poppy bazillion-sellers and stuck to what he was really good at: screaming out some straight-up rock and roll, Little Richard style. He does the song justice, to say the least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj0THqkPSHs

And the others keep up, too; John maybe kind of almost gets lost in the mix, but Paul's bassline, George's lead guitar, and Ringo's mad thrashing at the drums all shore up Paul's raucous vocals and make this one a blistering rock and roll rocketship.

Also: the song was co-written by a dude named 'Enotris'. That is an awesome, awesome name.

'Enotris.'


2. "Roll Over Beethoven"
Written and recorded by Chuck Berry in 1956. Appeared on With The Beatles in 1963.

The original version of this song is my favorite rock and roll song ever. Period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDjYkCvjz6U

The Beatles' version comes pretty close, too, though. John, Paul, and George all loved it, even before they were the Beatles, and it remained a part of their set all the way through their 1964 North American tour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb6Ui9-GfaA

George Harrison was a prodigy when it came to aping other guitarists' styles, and this is a prime example. He gets Chuck down note-for-note here. George sang this one, too, of course, and does a serviceable job.

The Beatles' love for the song comes through in the performance, which I've long thought is one of the best rock and roll recordings ever made (right up there with Chuck's version).

Fun trivia and/or obligatory fanboyish content: Richard Lester directed the Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help! (which I love). Richard Lester also directed Superman II (sort of, anyhow) and Superman III. In the latter film, when Clark Kent goes to his high school reunion, we hear the Beatles' version of this song in the background.

1. "Twist and Shout"
Written by Phil Medley and Burt Russell. Recorded by the Top Notes in 1961; covered by the Isley Brothers in 1962. Appeared on Please Please Me in 1963.

Well, you learn something new every day. I had always been under the impression that the Isleys' version was the original; in researching the proper attribution here, I have learned that this is not so. It seems the Top Notes were an up-and-coming vocal group, and they cut this track under the guidance of an up-and-coming producer called Phil Spector. Obviously Phil upped-and-came a bit higher than the Top Notes, of whom I have never heard before today. Alas, Phil had not yet perfected his 'wall of sound' technique at this early date, so the single didn't do terribly well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsDpc-8iR8g

(I have no idea whether or not Phil had perfected his 'get out of his fucking skull on booze and drugs and brandish a firearm at people, and also probably murder someone' technique at that point.)

The Isley Brothers recorded their more famous version a year later, as a b-side to a Burt Bacharach song. They didn't expect much success with it, not having had a big hit since they made their name with "Shout" a few years earlier. They were, to say the least, pleasantly surprised when the song went on to be their first Top 40 hit on both the pop and R&B charts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDwSfO3WmQ

The song was widely covered in the early 60s, and the Beatles had adopted it as part of their live set. When the time came to record their first album, producer George Martin got them in the studio and essentially had them run through their usual stage repertoire, trying to capture the feel of their Cavern Club gigs. As the legend goes, they laid down ten songs in ten hours (the other four of the album's fourteen tracks having previously been recorded and released as singles). John, as I mentioned above, was suffering from a particularly nasty cold, which was not doing his voice any favors at all. Or, at least, not doing him any favors as far as making the session easy on him; I've come to believe that the effect it had on his voice only added to the album's charms. Knowing how John was suffering, George held 'Twist And Shout" off for last, because he suspected that John's voice wouldn't survive beyond that song. That turned out to be the case--they did try a second take of the song, but John's voice had left the building after the first go round.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66BmGh8P2UA

And that's okay. Because for my money, John's vocal on that first take--the one that made the album--is the stuff of straight-up legend. It's one of those happy studio accidents, like Elvis and Scotty and Bill goofing around with an old Arthur Crudup song and htting upon exactly the sound Sam Phillips was looking for. John's voice makes sounds that human throats should not be able to make (and indeed, usually can't, without some help from a serendipitous rhinovirus). He sounds like a madman screaming himself hoarse, like he's possessed by something. He sounds like he's going to go all Phil Spector (ha ha--callback humor) on someone if his Baby doesn't Shake It Up Now and Let Him Know That She's His. His voice makes it pure tear-it-up-right-now the-kids-are-going-berzerk civilization-is-doomed rock and roll.

The other three guys are no slouches, either. This song is, to me, a perfect illustration of the early Beatles, maybe even more so than "She Loves You" or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". I am constitutionally incapable of hearing it without the four of them appearing on a stage in my mind's eye, the clearest of clear pictures, the highest of high definition, playing away... Ringo's head bobbing along as he knocks hell out of his drums, John leaning into the mic for each syllable and then pulling away as if it might bite him, Paul and George flanking the other mic and waggling their mop-tops like wet dogs drying off on the "Whooooooo"s. Pure magic of music right there--it conjures them up as surely as if forty-six years hadn't gone by.

Later in 1963, the Beatles would close their performance on Sunday Night At The London Palladium with "Twist And Shout", and that moment is now pointed to by historians of such things as the moment that Beatlemania was born. The next month, they would likewise finish with the song on The Royal Variety Show. That leads into one of my favorite Beatles anecdotes.

Brian Epstein, the boys' ever-image-conscious manager, who had gotten them out of black leather Gene Vincent outfits and into nice respectable suits, turning them into a wholesome, saleable commodity, was of course probably having fits over the thought of the Beatles playing for the Queen Mother and praying that they didn't do anything to offend. He mentioned this concern to John, who loved little better than to wind people up; under the circumstances perhaps not the best fount of comfort. John suggested that he intended to "tell them to rattle their fookin' jewelry".

One can only imagine Brian's reaction; he probably suspected that John was messing with him, and not in earnest, but it being John Lennon, how could he be certain? Especially when they got to that last song.and he heard John introduce it:

"For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands... and the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewelry..."

You'd think Brian would have dropped dead on the spot.

It's a great performance, too, that one--it rivals the album version, and--perhaps because of that immortal introduction--I might even like it better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiB66wRtKG8

So--there we have it--Scoob's Top Eleven Covers by the Beatles. Maybe I'll have to follow it up one of these days with Scoob's Top Eleven Covers Of The Beatles.

Cheers for now.
--g

Fandom After 11/12ths of a Pabst Twelve Pack

It's getting near to four in the ante-meridian, and I should hit the sack. This is backed up by the idea that I have drank something like 11/12ths of a 12 pack of Pabst, and I have to be at work at the ungodly hour of three in the afternoon tomorrow.

I am aware that this entry is too late and too short by a huge goddamn margin, but I write now anyways.

I told Wayne some weeks ago that I would have a Batman-centric column to him in a couple days. That seems not to have happened.

The Batman column was fueled by the idea that Batman had died.

Which, we find, is not the case.

Batman is in a prehistoric cave somewhere and somewhen, though we don't know for sure where or when that is, exactly.

My column on Batman is similarly mislaid, at least metaphorically, and will probably see the light of day sooner than the man himself will.

I apologize to my nonexistent regular readers for this fact. My writing goes like that. I get insanely prolific for a bit and then I can't string two words together to save my life. It comes, it goes.

Various learned sources suggest this may be some form of bipolar disorder, and while I am personally disinclined to take that diagnosis at face value, I cannot deny that it might have some substance, after a fashion.

So it goes, as the man once said.

Meanwhile: Wil Wheaton tells us that We Have Nothing To Worry About regarding the imminent release of Watchmen, and I am inclined to believe him. I have great regard for Wil, for many reasons, some of which speak to my great love of Stand By Me and some of which stem from the fact that he and I have remarkably similiar fannish outlooks. In many ways, the key difference between me and Wil would be the fact that he was in Star Trek and I was not.

I left him a comment to this effect.

Anygate, there will be more from me in the near future. Including, quite possibly, a Batman-related column. Also, possibly, one about Matter-Eater Lad.

Because you cannot possibly say too much about Matter-Eater Lad.

Up next, though, in all probability, will be a column concerning the Beatles and the best covers they recorded, because that was what popped into my head earlier today and because that is what I am too drunk to write about right now.

'Til next time, Excelsior or Face Front, True Believers, or something appropriately Stannish.

--g
How I learned to Quite Worrying and Love the Legion

I am drunk and in a foul mood and up past my bedtime, which seems like a good excuse/frame of mind for writing.
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Last time out, I went on at nigh-unendurable length about my lifelong love for Superman and how that makes me feel aout the Big Blue Boy Scout today.

Tonight's topic: the Legion of Super-Heroes.

I spent a very large part of my comics-reading career almost toatlly ingnorant of the Legion and its importance in the Superman Family mythos, as well as the DC Universe as a whole.

My earliest exposure of note: sometime around the release of Superman II, I stumbled across a particular comic book. It was a big tabloid-sized monster, which I found on the newsstand at Maurer's Drug Store in beautiful midtown Wooster, Ohio. My research tells me that this book was called DC Special Series # 26 Superman and His Incredible Fortress of Solitude. The book did pretty much what it said on the tin (or, well, you know, on the cover). The basic plot: Superman combats some menace or another in space, which somehow grants him a vision (from one hour in the future) of the Earth being destroyed. From Supes' perspective, it appears very strongly that whatsoever force has torn the Earth asunder originated from his Fortress Of Solitude. Superman therefore proceeds to the Fortress at once, intent on inspecting it for any agency that might bring about our planet's end. He does so at super-speed, so as not to squander precious femtoseconds on what is, after all, a guided tour of Fort Superman for us the readers (occasioned by the all-too-convenient plot device of Earth's impending doom).

I don't remember much more, except that Superman obviously saved the Earth from whatever threat to which the Fortress may have played home. Otherwise I wouldn't be around to write about this twenty-seven years down the road, would I? I mean, I picked up a lot of cool inside info on the Fortress. And said info has long since been stuck in my brain, you know, bolstered by readings of many many back issues in which those tidbits were first doled out.

The onet hing that I recall was that the Fortress' computer analyzed Superman's mood and physiological state and therefore mixed him a cup of liquid that was almost, but not entirely, unlike tea.

No, wait, that was the Nutri-Matic Drinks Dispenser on the Heart OI Gold. The Fortress made Superman a proverbial Frosty Chocolate Milkshake.

Really.

(I feel, although, that a very strong argument could be made that a chocolate shake is indeed almost, but not entirely, unlike tea. I mean, it's liquid, sure, and sort of brownish, and that's as close as the two beverages come. But that's beside the point.)

A more pedantic personage than myself could make a whole column about how quickly a Kryptonian computer system could analyze Superman's physiological needs, deduce that a chocolate milkshake was the tonic he required, and proceed to whip up the said confection... and then how fast the pre-Crisis Earth-One Superman could imbibe such a concoction at super-speed... and then determine whether or not that was an unwarranted self-indulgence on the part of the Last Son Of Krypton (you listening, Mylar?) but I will for the moment refrain, on account of I am geting hell of far off my intended rhetorical path here.

The point is this: in the course of his self-guided self-tour of the Fortress, Superman naturally wandered by the Phantom Zone Viewer. And in so doing, he saw the ghostly image of Mon-El on the screen.

For the uninitiated, 'Mon-El' was a youth by the name of Lar Gand, indigenous to the planet Daxam, who set out to explore the stars in a one-man spacecraft. Due (one presumes) to the less-than-impressive velocities attainable by his craft's propulsion system, Lar had to make the journey in suspended animation. One day, Lar happened across the planet Krypton... unhappily, an alarmingly short time before its destruction. The esteemed scientist Jor-El suggested to Lar that he bugger off for safer envirions straight away...though not before giving Lar a map (helpfully labled 'This Is the Path My Son Will Take To Earth') to the planet to which Jor-El had just sent his infant son Kal-El, Earth. He also gave Lar a medallion inscribed with (for some reason, presumably related to the plot) .his and Lara's undying love.

So Lar did as he was told, and eventually arrived on Earth. Unfortunately, owing to a combination of suspended animation and crash-landing, Lar's memory got a little fuzzy. He was found by Superboy, who--in a fit of deductive reasoning sure to impress even his future friend the Goddamn Batman--concluded that a dark-haired, blue-eyed, cape-favoring Caucasian youth of indestructible physique and bearing maps and medallions signed by Jor-El must necessarily be his older brother. Lar, with no memory of even his own name, let alone his origins, was in no position to argue this conclusion with Superboy. Superboy, cleverly combining the family name of El with the fact that he found the stranger on a Monday, saddled the kid with the imaginiative moniker of 'Mon-El'.

Things progress. In what may be an insight into the later Superdickery that the Silver-Age Superman would perfect, we see that Ma and Pa Kent are kind of dicks, too, because the 'secret identity' that they help Clark devise for Mon-El can only be explained as an attempt to screw with the hapless, naive alien immigrant Mon-El. They tell him he's going to be a traveling brush salesman named 'Bob Cobb', and saddle him with a ridiculous outfit that includes a plaid jacket and a pork-pie hat (apparently anticipating ska fashions of later decades).

Further Superdickery ensues when Clark notices that the belt buckle of Mon's costume is made of a metal not native to Krypton. He concludes that Mon-El is lying to him and trying to pose as his older brother for nefarious purposes, which is interesting since it was Clark who actually decided Mon was from Krypton in the first place. Clark then proceeds to arrange an elaborate sting operation to catch the scalawag out: he paints a bunch of lead cannonballs green and launches them to a predetermined point in space. Then he arranges to have Mon-El meet him there, hoping that the fake Kryptonite meteor storm he's just created will trick Mon-El into acting like he's dying, thus exposing him as a fraud.

It all goes down as planned, and Clark smugly wallows in triumph... until he realizes that Mon-El's not faking the Kryptonite death-scene. Turns out that Mon-El is actually fatally allergic to lead, because he's not from Krypton at all but from the planet Daxam. All Daxamites share this fatal vulnerability to lead. Mon-El regains his memory and explains the whole thing. Clark gets rid of the lead, but it's no good; the lead poisoning is irreversible. The only thing left is for Clark to toss Mon-El into the Phantom Zone, where time will not pass and Mon-El can survive until Clark can devise a cure (which Clark swears blind he's going to do).

And that brings us back to the Fortress story. Mon-El's in the Zone still, and Superman once again reflects, "Man... I really gotta find a cure for lead poisoning so I can let the poor bastard out of there!" Then he goes on with his tour of the Fortress.

The details of the rest of the story escape me, but the substance is that Superman continues his tour, eventually figures out what's going to destroy the Earth, and makes that not happen. It's not important to this diatribe. What is important is that I had one of my first significant exposures to the Legion of Super-Heroes, even though I didn't know it at the time.

Now this was about 1981 or so. Time marched on. I would read the occasional Batman or Superman comic, usually acquired through the same beg-my-mom-to buy-it-off-the-drugstore-newsstand method, but I didn't really read any DC comics on a regular basis at that time. Around that point in my life, I kind of became fascinated with war and the military, mainly World War II, and so my comics reading became dominated by old DC war books. I tended to get these out of the quarter box at a used bookstore/comic store called Brad's, in Delaware, Ohio (where my dad lived). I'd go there with my older stepbrothers, who were starting into their own period of major comic geekery. I'd get my Haunted Tanks and Gravediggers and Unknown Soldiers out of the quarter box; they'd get into more superheroic fare. My stepbrother Mike became an X-Men obsessive around this time, and tried to share his enthusiasm with me. I was game, since it was comics to read that I didn't have to squander allowance on--I'd still get my stack of quarter-box war books, and then I'd have X-Men to look at too. Mike soon began to amass a run of back issues, and I enjoyed them; this was the heyday of Claremont, along with Byrne, Cockrum, and Paul Smith.

Then there came the X-Men/Teen Titans crossover.

This caused Mike to start getting into the Titans, which caused me to start getting into the Titans. It was the Wolfman/Perez golden age, of course, and so it was pretty cool stuff.

I took notice of the Legion again in this time period, when DC introduced the Baxter books and the infamous 'hardcover/softcover' experiment. Titans was one of the two books to get the treatment. Legion was the other.

I was supremely disinterested in the Legion, by the way. Didn't have a clue who they were or what they were about. I wondered what was so special about that book that it rated the same treatment as something as cool as Titans.

Then came Crisis On Infinite Earths. Because it was a big megacrossover that impacted the Titans, and because it was Wolfman and Perez creating the book, Mike bought it and I read it. Ditto Who's Who, which served as a nice companion piece--I mean, who the hell were all these people, anyway?

I recognized a lot of the characters in the early issues of Crisis--Earth-Two Superman was familiar to me from old Superman Family stuff; I knew King Solovar from appearances on Super Friends. I was a little disappointed that the Green Lantern I was seeing was this black dude and not Hal Jordan, but he was a Green Lantern anyway, and Green Lanterns were cool. And then there was the Indian chick with the wings. Who the hell was she? Oh, another one of those Legion types. Jesus, who cares about them?

As the Crisis wore on, we saw more Legionnaires get in on the action. I was starting to get a sense of who they were--young heroes like the Titans, except in the future. Okay, fair enough. Who's Who helped me get a better handle on them (Brainiac 5? A descendant of Brainiac except he's a good guy? Huh.) And then--hey--that's Mon-El I remember him! What's he doing in the future? That's weird...

So now there was a bit of a hook for me there. There was a connection. I was only mildly curious, not even enough so to go out of my way to learn more, but enough to keep an eye out for the Legion when they popped up from time to time. Eventually Who's Who got to 'M', and I was amazed to learn the story behind Mon-El's fate: Superman never did cure him! The kid stayed in the Phantom Zone for a thousand goddamn years! Then he came out and joined the Legion! Crazy!

Still: I didn't go out of my way to read any Legion books. However, Crisis was the start of a slippery slope for Mike's comic buying (and therefore my comic reading). He had had a slight stumble or two onto this path with the X-Men-Titans connection and then the Titans-Crisis connection. But now it was starting to get crazy... in part because of the logical follow-on from Crisis, and in part because of the involvement of John Byrne (for whom Mike had developed an appreciation in X-Men), Mike started buying The Man Of Steel and Legends. This led to other things--he started buying Flash and Justice League after Legends, and the regular Superman books after Man Of Steel ended. I read 'em all. I was starting to seriously immerse myself in the new post-Crisis DC Universe.

Not too long down the road, the Legion showed up in Superman, and there was some weirdness about Superboy and Pocket Universes. The four Legionnaires who took part in the Superman crossover seemed oddly familiar to me--Brainiac 5, Sun Boy, Invisible Kid, and Blok. A mega-genius, someone with fire/heat powers, someone invisible, someone super-strong made of rock--hey, wait a minute! The goddamned Fantastic Four! (I may have neglected to mention that my other stepbrother Jason had delved into the Marvel stuff a bit more in his own comics reading, including Byrne's FF run--which I also quite dug.) I never understood all of what was happening there, because Mike somehow neglected to get the two issues of Legion that tied in with the Superman parts of the story (too bad--he could have snowballed into a Legion fan, and I would have followed him, thus becoming a Legion fanboy long before I ultimately would). Still, I grasped that it had to do with the fact that Superman had now never been Superboy, what with John Byrne's tinkering. It was an odd thing--I read and enjoyed Byrne's Superman but I grasped that it was not the Superman I'd known from earliest childhood. I was a little sad about that.

A few more years would pass, and by my high school years I had met Wayniac 5 himself. Our association actually grew not out of comics but out of my then-alarming obsession with Star Trek; I had been trying to start up a Star Trek fan club, in short, and Wayne--who had just taken over sole proprietorship of Wooster's one and only comic shop--got wind of this. He played a big part in getting the said club off the ground, and had offered the shop as a place to meet. Such was the proverbial Beginning Of A Beautiful Friendship.

As a geek and general social outcast/outsider, I had tolerably little to do after school, and so the comic shop--the Collection Connection--became my place of choice for general loitering. This had the side-effect of helping my nascent comics fandom reach full flower; I bought books when I could actually scrape cash together to do so, and I read through Wayne's backstock when I couldn't (God bless the man and his forbearance; how many other comic shop owners could supress the knee-jerk this-ain't-a-library reaction?).

And it turns out: Wayne was the king-hell Legion fanboy of all time. And he encouraged my own budding love for the Legion. By this time, the Paul Levitz run had come to an end and the Giffen/Bierbaum days had begun, and I started into that series. It captured my interest; it seemed to have little enough to do with what I had previously known about the Legion, and was instead more of a dystopian sci-fi thing, as far as I could tell, with enough shades of Star Trek to catch my interest. Imagine Star Trek's Federation, except that instead of a Starfleet to defend them they had a veritable army of young super-heroes. Now imagine that those super-heroes have given up and gone their seperate ways, and that the Federation is crumbling as a result.

And that was enough to captivate me. I was buying the book on a regular basis, and Wayne started loaning me his Legion Archives so I could see how it all began. Over time the gaps in my knowledge were filled in, and I could see how the dystopian future connected to the little off-hand references in the beloved Superman comics of my childhood. Perhaps what fascinated me most of all, though, was the very thing that has caused the Legion the most problems over the last twenty-odd years.

See, when John Byrne revamped Superman such that he had never been Superboy, that pulled the biggest, most important stone out of the Legion's foundation. Tons of Legion stories suddenly didn't work any more. I finally read the other half of that Superman/Legion crossover from all those years ago, and understood how they'd fixed it--that's where the Pocket Universe and this other Superboy came in. The Superboy who was a Legionnaire died as a kid, and never became Superman.

Well, in the early days of the Giffen/Bierbaum Legion, it seems that DC Editorial--in particular Mike Carlin, who had eventually inherited the 800-pound-gorilla-Superman-editor role established by Mort Weisinger decades earlier--declared that this other Superboy and all this Pocket Universe hooha had to go. The Legion was not allowed to have any connection with Superman at all.

So: Mon-El, that familiar figure, stepped in. He killed the Time Trapper, and everything fell apart--all the Pocket Universe stuff, which had been the Trapper's doing, ceased to be. And the Legion's history was rewritten. Mon-El suddenly wasn't Mon-El any more (in part, of course, because any name that ended in -El was part of Mike Carlin's fiefdom and not available to also-rans on books like Legion). Now he was Valor, who was basically Mon-El and Superboy rolled together into one. He was basically the Superman of the thirtieth century. He was the future's greatest hero, in essence, and the Legion was now built around his legend and not Superman's.

Some part of me remembered that first glimpse of Mon-El all those years ago, and was duly pleased to see this seemingly insignificant character had made good.

And I've never looked back. I'm a huge Legion fanboy to this day. I've thrilled at appearances of the Legion in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. I've been elated at the revelation that the Legion would actually star in their own animated series (and a little disappointed when it didn't turn out to be quite as awesome as one might have hoped; don't get me wrong, though, any Legion is good Legion, and that cartoon had its fun moments).

Now? The Legion is fifty years young. And big things are happening. Even though the Legion has gone through two or three total revamps, things have started to look up over the last couple years. While the most current version of the Legion was starring in its own book (soon to come to an end, we find), Geoff Johns suddenly brought back the original Legion (or if not the original, an Incredible Simulation, as the saying goes). And to top it all off, we find that what Byrne has wrought has been undone. Superman, the current official real DC Superman, is now known to have been a member of the Legion in his youth. For all intents and purposes, all those Silver Age Legion stories--the ones I devoured in Archive after Archive--are fully back in continuity.

(Though you should probably pretend you don't see Supergirl, when she shows up in those old stories.)

The three main incarnations of the Legion are meeting up in a cataclysmic crossover by Johns and George Perez, Legion Of Three Worlds. Rumors abound that this could lead to a completely new ongoing series, possibly written by Johns, after the current series ends. One rumor that I particularly like has the Legion returning to its original home, as the main feature in a relaunced Adventure Comics.

The Legion is even gonna be turning up on Smallville, in their first live-action appearance ever--written by Geoff Johns himself.

Good times, good times.

What can I say? Long Live the Legion!

SNEAK PEEK AT THE GREEN LANTERN MOVIE

So: a little gem falls into my lap. Only a little one--it's something that has made the rounds already. But it's something cool nonetheless.

I got of a copy of the Green Lantern script.

We won't discuss how I got it, but the obvious idea came to me, needing stuff to write about. So I ran it by Wayne, who was all for a script review--albeit a spoiler-free one.

I've never written a script review before, let alone one that avoids spoilers. But I'll give it a whirl. The odd spoilery thing might slip in here, so be warned... but I'll try and work around 'em.

The script, a first draft credited to Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, is pretty decent. We get a good, solid telling of the story of Hal Jordan and how he became Green Lantern. All of the characters you'd expect are there--Hal, Tom Kalmaku, Carol Ferris, Sinestro, Tomar-Re, Kilowog, the Guardians, Hector Hammond. All the characters are what you'd expect, stepping from comic page to screenplay page pretty well intact. Hal is very much the Hal we know and love, the archetypal 50's jet-age Right Stuff test pilot. It's interesting to see that character placed firmly in the modern day. Tom, though, is pleasantly updated from Hal's Eskimo grease-monkey to a modern-day tech-head geek--he knows Hal's secret, just as in the comics, and here his geekiness serves him well. He might be more excited than Hal is about the ring and the possibility of alien life (but he's almost as excited by reaching a new personal-best in Halo). Sinestro is a dedicated warrior, occasionally evoking Gerard Butler as King Leonidas in 300... but he's also the Sinestro we know, a bit arrogant, willing to disagree with the Guardians, and perhaps more than a touch power-hungry.

The overall mythos are well-represented, too. The script is filled with Easter eggs (mentions of Gotham, St. Roch, Fawcett and Star Cities, for instance). And there are no major changes in the mythos--a few things that might be chalked up to valid artistic interpretation of the facts as we know 'em, but nothing big. Certainly nothing even on the level of organic web-shooters.


And for the record, I'm not someone who balked at organic web-shooters in Raimi's Spider-Man. As it happens, it was a nice piece of story-telling economy--it helped move the film along, and maybe reduced the strain on credulity a bit; if a guy develops all these other spider-powers, why not the power to make webs? Easier and neater than taking the time and effort to show Peter inventing web-shooters. But I'm not here to talk about Spidey today!

Overall, the script owes a big debt to both Emerald Dawn and Geoff Johns' more recent Secret Origin. Both stories provide fodder for the screenwriters here, though I'd have to say Johns' version informs the script slightly more heavily. In the end, its a nice blend of both stories. It nicely balances between Hal and his experiences as a new Green Lantern on Earth with the more epic, cosmic stuff of the Green Lantern Corps. There's plenty of action, too, and with that we have many, many oppurtunities for blowout eye-candy visual effects. The script describes the action well enough, and I have to think that in the hands of a solid director the script's framework will provide a good foundation for a visual effects smorgasbord.

I enjoyed the script quite a bit. At times, I have to admit, it seemed a bit derivative of other comic-based films; whether that's a lack of imagination or more a case of stealing from the best/standing on the shoulders of giants remains to be seen. At times in the reading, I got a definite Iron Man vibe; at others, something more like Donner's Superman (and there were some hints of Spider-Man as well). Given that those are all three very solid and successful comics adaptations, you can't fault the screenwriters for following those models. It's different enough from those films--particularly when we get into the more cosmic areas with Oa and the Guardians and the Corps--that it could stand on its own. I certainly got a sense that the writers did their research. Not only do they have a good handle on the comic mythos, they handle the aviation references (of which there are many, of course--Hal's being a pilot and his history with Ferris loom large in the film) pretty well. Hell, the biggest nit I can think of to pick--in the whole script--is that they suggest at one point that a split-S is the same thing as an Immelmann turn. Which--though I speak under correction--I don't think they are. They're very similar, but not the same. Or so my increasingly-dim memories of my youthful obsession with combat flight sim-type games tells me. But the point is--they screwed up on the real-world stuff worse than on the comic book stuff. And they didn't screw up too big on the real-world stuff.

Given that this is a first draft, some of the little rough edges can probably be expected to be sanded down before cameras roll. But overall, this a good foundation to build on, I think, and as long as it doesn't get mishandled (fingers crossed) it ought to turn into an entertaining film. My biggest worry would be the word that's been going round, since Dark Knight, that DC/Warner want to take all the film properties they have in the works in a darker direction. There's not a lot of darkness in this script, really--a touch here and there, mainly with the villain of the piece--but overall it's a fun, feel-good super-hero action script. As long as the corporate suits recognize that and don't bog it down with the darkness obsession, GL fans should be in good shape.

One Life Furnished in Early Superman

Right. So ol' Wayniac 5 dropped me a line and invited me to do some writing for this here site. I told him I was completely down with the idea, since I'd had a notion to do some writing of this stripe (comics/general pop culture), and I was pretty pleased to suddenly find a venue in which to do so.

His suggestions included a "Hero History" type thing, or a continuity cop sort of deal, or maybe some general reviews. All good ideas, and all ideas I mean to take into consideration. In the larger sense, I don't know if I'll tie myself down to one specific choice out of the aforementioned smorgasbord. But if I keep at this (which I hope to do--I really could stand to flex the my writing muscles), I'll probably do a bit of each.

Who am I, then? Just this guy, you know. A general wise-ass, an aging geek, a borderline poseur who vacillates between sort of general punk-rock rebel and Gonzo cultural commentator. I frittered away most of my high school days in Wayne's comic store, reading through his back stock, listening to The Clash and Social Distortion, and talking comics and pop culture with Wayne and the shop's usual gang of idiots. I spent a good 15 years of my life being disturbingly Star Trek obsessed. In addition to that, I spent a lot of time nursing slightly lower-grade obsessions with old rock and roll, Star Wars, Doctor Who, and comics (especially DC, mainly of the Silver and Bronze Age variety). I like to think of myself as "in recovery" regarding most of that stuff any more, though rock and roll and comics still occupy an alarming percentage of my brain's run time.

So, where to begin? Well, lemme think. Right. It's the tail end of 2008 just now. From a comics perspective, this year has seen two anniversaries of some moderate significance. Superman has turned 70, and his on-again, off-again then on-again childhood buddies, the Legion Of Super-Heroes, have in turn reached the big five-oh.

Superman has always loomed large in my comics-reading life. He and Batman were the two comics characters with whom I have the longest-standing acquaintance. Both were familiar to me from the Super Friends in their various incarnations, of course; I was born in 1973, as were the Friends themselves, so they were Saturday morning companions throughout my childhood. Batman also reached me through the Adam West incarnations--not only the live-action series of the '60s, but also the late-'70s Filmation cartoon for which West and Burt Ward supplied voices.

Superman, though--well, I'm not for sure what version of Superman, exactly, first got my attention. I strongly suspect that it was the short animated segments from Sesame Street, though. These were done by the Filmation people for Sesame Street's earliest seasons, and featured the original voice of Superman, Clayton "Bud" Collyer. Collyer, of course, originated the role of Superman, first in the classic radio serial and then in the immortal Fleischer theatrical cartoons. He went on to reprise the role in Filmation's Superman animated series of the late '60s. As a first-generation child of Sesame Street, though, I am certain that my earliest exposure to Superman must have been through those segments.

(A little further research suggests that the Sesame Street segments were actually voiced by Lennie Weinrib, as Mr. Collyer had passed away prior to recording. Weinrib was a staple of cartoon voice acting, having done a number of incidental voices in Filmation's DC adaptations as well as appearing in almost any cartoon of the '70s and '80s you care to name. He was, most infamously, the original voice of Scrappy Doo.)

This is not to say that I never read any Superman comics in my earliest youth. I know that my paternal grandfather was a sort of closeted comic collector--not in the sense of like, bagging and boarding and hiding and hoarding. Nor in the sense of having, I dunno, a pristine copy of Action Comics # 1 squirreled away somewhere. No, he just had a big pile of comics he kept in a cupboard in the spare bedroom. An awful lot of 'em were more in the humor vein than anything superhero- or action-oriented; a lot of Archies, a lot of Richie Riches, that kind of thing. But interspersed throughout the pile were at least a few more exciting things. There were a fair number of DC war comics in there (and that is probably a column for another day; Thank God--one less idea to come up with!) and there were a few Superman Family dollar comics, too.

Whatever the source of my early love for the Man of Steel, it is a certain fact that Big Blue was a big part of my life from the get-go. Somewhere in my mother's house, I am certain, amongst a huge box of old family photos, there is a snapshot of a tow-headed youth dating from the mid-'70s. It is that child's birthday, probably his second, and he is blowing out the candles on his cake. And he's wearing a white long-sleeved t-shirt, featuring a very familiar red-and-yellow S-shield, through the center of which is bursting the Last Son Of Krypton himself. The said figure was drawn, by the way, by the late great Curt Swan--I remember that clearly. I didn't know that then, of course, but that image of Superman was burned indelibly on the skin of my brain. That was What Superman Looked Like. Other interpretations have come and gone over the years, many of them very good indeed. But Curt Swan's Superman is it, the end-all be-all, the definitive Superman.

(If there was in those days a runner up in the What Superman Looks Like To Me contest, it was the more contemporary image by Neal Adams of Superman breaking loose from some big ol' chains. I once owned a Superman sleeping bag which bore that Adams artwork, originally from the cover of Superman #233, as its featured imagery; the background was a series of random panels from older comics, which I think were probably vintage Joe Shuster. I think so, anyhow. It's been a long time since I laid eyes on that sleeping bag; it probably got so badly worn out over the years that it just got tossed in the trash one day.)
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So random Bronze Age comics were my first exposure to Superman in print. I absorbed a fair number of those, and they form the bedrock of my vision of Superman in comics. They are the standard by which any comics version of Superman is to be judged. Over the years, I read a lot of the older Silver Age stuff, too, and fell in love with that as well. My favorite aspect of the Silver Age is, without a doubt, the vast and consistent mythology built up around Superman. What Mort Weisinger wrought there was amazing to me. But I like the Bronze Age stuff all the more--because it took the mythology and used it as a backdrop to really write some cool stories about Superman as a character and who he was and what he represented. Elliot S! Maggin was the best of the lot, to my mind. Those comics really worked their way into my comics-reading DNA.

The Big One, though, as far as Superman goes, was The Movie. In those days, Star Wars was still the Alpha and the Omega to me. But there was a definite period there, in those days between A New Hope and Empire, where the Man Of Tomorrow became for me the Hero Of Today. I could go on at length about that film, and almost certainly will at some point in the future (hey--that was thirty years ago! Another anniversary!). That film matched, at the very least, those Bronze Age comics for influence on my malleable young brain--for basically defining Superman for me.

There is a point to all this reminiscing, now, and that point is this: I am digging what's going on in the comics these days with Superman. Over the last couple years, since the end of Infinite Crisis, the Superman mythos and continuity was softly rebooted. Various hands have worked this reimagining, but Geoff Johns has been one of the biggest players. His run on Action Comics has been hugely enjoyable to me. Why?

Because he has written a Superman that is almost exactly what my fanboy-inner-child recognizes as Superman. He's created a Superman that largely consists of equal parts Silver Age mythology and Chris Reeve/Richard Donner cinematic wonder. And I'm digging it.

Interesting thing, too--fifty years ago, in 1958 (hey--ANOTHER anniversary!) Mort Weisinger kind of did one of these soft-reboot things on Superman. He pretty much declared that all previous Superman stories were to be swept quietly under the rug and not really referred to; from that day on, though, continuity would be adhered to tightly, and that is where the aforementioned mythology-building began in earnest. The Fortress Of Solitude, Brainiac, Bizarro, Supergirl--all these things in their now-familiar forms started popping up from 1958 on (they may have made their debut previously, but the ones in this era were now kind of etched in stone as being THE canonical versions). It's worth noting that this point is the one DC chose as the starting point for their recent series of Showcase collections of Silver Age Superman.

Interesting why? Because that's what the current creators seem to be doing. They've been taking fresh looks at familiar faces, and kind of putting a flag on 'em saying, "Forget what you know... this is the real deal here." Though with a twist... they're not exactly telling us that Everything We Know Is Wrong. Not in the sense of It Never Happened, anyhow, not the way your hard reboots will often do. They're telling us that we didn't know the Rest Of The Story, as Paul Harvey would put it. They're saying, yeah, those stories happened... but now we're giving you the full scoop, and tying all that stuff together.

Case in point: the recent "Brainiac" story arc in Action. The main conceit there is that all the disparate versions of Brainiac we've seen over the years are in fact merely avatars of the genuine article, probes sent out to do the real Brainiac's bidding. Superman has never actually met the real Brainiac. Until now, of course. The 'real' Brainiac turns out to be a nice amalgamation of all the different Brainiacs over the years, including a decent dose of the Bruce Timm animated version in terms of M.O. (recording a civilization's knowlede, then destroying that civilization so that no one else may have the precious, precious data).

This all leads into the current arc, "New Krypton", which is appearing not only in Action but in Superman and Supergirl as well. They're back to the serialized continuity we saw through the 90s, 'triangle numbers' and all. "Brainiac" ended with Superman rescuing the Bottle City of Kandor from Brainiac's ship... only to discover that, away from the Coluan technology that contained the city, it has suddenly become significantly less bottled. It is, in fact, restored to full size and former glory right next door to the Fortress of Solitude. That, of course, means that some 150, 000 Kryptonian survivors now live on Earth and have become as Super as the Man Himself. Hilarity, of course, ensues.

Oh, boy. I could go on at great, great length on this topic, and I probably will in the future. Superman is the primal super-hero, of course, and there's an awful lot to write about when it comes to him. For now, though, I'm gonna cut myself short. Summing up... I love Superman, always have. And I really, really like what's been going on with Superman lately, because the current Superman books speak directly to what I first fell in love with about the character and his mythology. I recommend them heartily.

Right then, kids. I'll shut up for now. If any of you are still reading, thanks for the forebearance. If any of you liked it well enough to read more, stay tuned. I'll be back. Next time I man to babble about the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Until then: Buenos Nachos, and remember... I'm proud of you all.

--El Scoob