Sunday, May 29, 2011

Lost Logic

Back in the good old Silver Age, the writers of Superman had a mad-on for the initials "L. L.". At some point somebody noticed that several of Superman's supporting characters had those initials - Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor - and decided that this was somehow important.  From that point on, virtually every new character to be introduced would sport that liquid alliteration, and every single time Supes would wonder to himself what it could possibly mean. The answer, of course, was that it meant nothing, there was no reason besides somebody thought it was a cute idea. The writers never really did anything with it because what the hell kind of story do you make out of a bunch of supporting characters having the same initials?

The answer is "Superman's Day of Doom!", from Superman 157, cover dated November 1962 (as reprinted in Limited Collectors' Edition C-38, October-November 1975). It doesn't answer why all these characters have the same initials, but it gets a whole lot of mileage out of the fact that they do.


Yes, it's Superman Day in Metropolis! When millions - millions! - of people gather in the streets of Metropolis to pay homage to the omnipotent alien to whom they owe their lives. Don't be late for the Superman Day parade! If you are the millionth person there you will not see a thing.


Hey aliens! If you've been considering launching a sneak rocket attack on Earth but have been worried about being detected, Superman Day is the day for you. Just slap "Hooray for our best buddy Superman!" on the side of your ultimo-destructo-mega-missile and you're good to go!


Superman - whose private thoughts often include mocking laughter - receives a present from grateful space aliens, courtesy of an extremely trusting Naval officer.


"But Admiral, I TOLD him it was for Superman! If you can't trust a room full of journalists with a mysterious package, who can you trust?"

Lois and Lana tear into that wrapping paper like it's a stripper's Superman-branded thong. (Sorry.) Lois reads the enclosed note - it's a present from the Cybern Galaxy, because Superman once helped them repel an invasion. Yes, it's a present from an entire galaxy. It better be a pretty darn good present. (Spoiler - it's not.)


Uh oh, the Cybernians - everyone in the entire Cybern Galaxy - are mathematical geniuses! They've given Superman an advanced kind of computer which can predict the future, and which, like all advanced kinds of computer, only works three times. Clark, the Charlie Brown of the Daily Planet, tries to stop everybody's fun by threatening them with Superman's wrath, but Lois is determined. Lois Lane, world-famous journalist, has been presented with the chance to learn the answer to any question. Whatever will she do with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?


Oh, right, Silver Age Lois Lane. Pretty much a one-track mind, and that track runs one-way to Superman's super-regions.  What will the predictor machine say?


L. L.! Here are those famous initials. But L.L. could mean anyone - as Lois points out, it could mean Lana Lang, or Lois Lane. Or as Superman is thinking, it could mean Lori Lemaris, a beautiful mermaid he once dated, or Linda Lee, who is the alter-ego of Supergirl, his TEENAGE COUSIN!

There was a very disturbing trend in Silver Age Superman stories of Clark being heavy into his little cousin. I know, I know, plenty of cousins get married, even first cousins, like Superman and Supergirl. But there is a serious creep factor here - she seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen years old in the bulk of these stories, her dying parents specifically sent her to Superman so that he could raise her, and - forget what I just said - she's his first cousin! He's always going on about how beautiful she is, and if only he could find a girl like her, and what a shame it is that it's illegal by Kryptonian law for first cousins to marry (yes, he really said that).

But hey, whatever. He's just keeping his options open, and so is the predictor machine. While Supes is pondering incestuous jailbait, Jimmy jumps in to try his luck.


Good choice, Jimmy. Not a waste of a question at all - somebody give him a monkey's paw, he'll clean up. Once again, the machine answers "L L". Jimmy assumes the machine is broken, but Clark knows he's going to Las Vegas and Los Angeles - the machine must be right! Just like when John Edward asks if anyone in the audience knows someone with a J in their name - it's eerily accurate!

Meanwhile, Perry White receives a threat from "the underworld" (they've become pretty unified since Superman came to town) that they're going to bump Clark off during the Superman Day parade in retribution for a story he wrote which put some of them in jail. Perry wants to give Clark a police escort, but Clark - knowing he's going to have to duck out to attend the parade as Superman - tries to convince Perry he'll be fine on his own. He asks the predictor machine who will save him if he gets into trouble, assuming the answer will be "Superman". But of course...


L.L. again! How eerie! Confused as to why his buddies the Cybernians would send him a predictor machine that is so vague in its responses as to be functionally useless (he phrases it more politely than that), Superman heads out on one last patrol before the parade starts.


Uh-oh! Tembo's at it again! And the entire zoo is abandoned so that everyone can attend the mandatory Superman Day parade!


Given that in the last panel we saw Tembo crushing the cage that was designed to hold him with his trunk, I'm not sure a couple of iron rails in the dirt are going to keep him in. I think I could push those over, I doubt the giant elephant will have any trouble. But whatever, it killed two panels.


He mentally chuckles a lot, doesn't he? I guess things are slow with the entire city attending the parade, so Superman swoops down to put the equipment away. No problem's too small for Superman! 


Why, it's Bizarro! What a pleasant surprise! And he has a present for you, Superman! I'm sure there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Why would there be? It's Bizarro! He's your pal!


Yes, on Bizarro World, pain is pleasure and torment is joy - their S&M clubs would rock your little world apart. Bizarro brought green kryptonite, the only substance that can kill Superman (except for magic, and Doomsday, and anything that would kill a normal person if he's under a red sun, and Carrot Top - Superman LOVES prop comedy). Superman's helpless, and with all of Metropolis' millions of people at the parade, there's nobody around to save him. He's doomed!

As he lies in the dust in agony, Superman remembers the predictor machine, and his hopes rise. His thoughts turn one by one to the numerous people in his life with the initials L. L., convinced that one of them will save him. He starts by trying to send a message to his telepathic mermaid ex-girlfriend (we've all got one, am I right, guys?), Lori Lemaris.


Lori's in the parade, being carried along in a fishtank just barely bigger than her body, being gawped at by Joe and Jane Average and their kids. Not demeaning at all. But will she hear him?


Even if it weren't for the interference, I don't recall Lori having "immunity to electricity" as a super-power. I hope the trick was worth it, it was a one-shot deal. Maybe she was counting on a bigger tank.

Next up - Superman's fellow super-hero Lighting Lad, from the Legion of Super-Heroes! The Legion has traveled back 1000 years in time to attend the Superman Day parade! (Do you think they just do all the Superman Days in a row, in one trip, to get them out of the way?) Superman sees Lighting Lad hurling lightning bolts in his direction, and his spirits soar...


That was a pretty good shot, considering he's miles away. Surely the next one will shatter the kryptonite into thousands of smaller pieces, which is apparently a good thing for some reason!


Yes, it was mere coincidence that Lightning Lad's bolts struck so close to Superman. He was just helping out a photographer by hurling violently destructive bolts of lightning randomly across the city of Metropolis. Anything for a fan!

Next, Superman sees Lois and Lana in the world's smallest helicopter flying towards him.


Those bitches! After all you've done for them! Fire up a blast of your heat vision, Superman, see who's laughing then. Oh, wait, there's probably some suitably absurd Silver Age explanation...


Lois...you're really going to dangle on a rope from a helicopter just to untangle a parade balloon? One-handed? Without a safety harness? That's...pretty bad-ass. Of course, Lois is probably assuming that if she falls, Superman will catch her, just like he's done the previous ten thousand times she's plummeted from a great height.


"Yes, maybe my hot young cousin Linda Lee is the L.L. who will save me! I can feel her vibrating the earth below me. Let me just fine-tune my X-ray vision a little..."


What a bitter and ironic twist of fate! Supergirl was just burrowing below the earth's crust to gather enough diamonds to fuse into a statue of Superman! Nope, nothing creepy about their relationship at all.


Luma Lynai is the Superwoman of another planet. Superman fell in love with her because she looks like a grown-up version of his cousin Supergirl. Yeah.

He must be really desperate if he's looking to Lex Luthor for help. I do like how casual Luthor is about his whole predicament. The writers could have said he was in prison, but no. He's stuck on a robot world for some reason. There was no story explaining how he got there, and when we next see him there'll be no explanation for how he escaped, but he's cool, he's chilling. It's the Silver Age, sometimes you're gonna be a prisoner on a robot world, what are you gonna do?

Just as things look hopeless for the Man of Steel, an errant fly ball comes bouncing his way, followed by some random kid. He's saved!


Superman assumes that his boy savior must have the initials L.L. like the predictor machine predicted, but no...it's Steven Snapinn, which is a real name apparently. But the machine couldn't be wrong, could it?


And this is why Superman should never go to a psychic. If the kid wasn't a little leaguer Superman would have come up with some other justification - "He's a Lively Lad!" "He Looks Lost!" "He Loves Licorice!" "He's Like Lois, but smarter!" "He's in the Last stage of Leukemia!" This is how they get you, people! They let you fill in your own blanks!

And no, Superman imagining a "fitting reward" has nothing to do with the fact that the boy is bending over in front of him. You're thinking of Batman.


"Hurray!" say the ruffians in the bleachers. The rich folks in the front offer polite applause. Three cheers for Steven Snapinn, whose entire life from here on would be wasted in futile attempts to recapture the glory of this one moment! Hurray!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Falcon Comes to Harlem

Can you dig it? From Captain America and the Falcon 144, cover dated December 1971 (as recently reprinted in the Captain America and the Falcon one-shot, May 2011), here's a look at "The Falcon Fights Alone!"

Captain America, aka Steve Rogers, is having a fitful night's sleep - he's recently had a falling out with his partner, The Falcon, aka Sam Wilson, who's been getting all googly-eyed over a dumb ol' girl.


I know what you're thinking - Hah! Gay! - but that's not it at all. Let's let Cap himself explain.


See? Nothing homoerotic here. He's just torturing himself, wondering what's wrong with him and why he can't keep a man, while he spies on his ex getting busy with his new lover.

But this story isn't about Cap, it's about the Falcon. His lady friend (who's so important her name is never once mentioned in the entire story) has been giving him a hard time about teaming-up with Cap, whom she views as the "Man" and the "Establishment" and a "Honkey" and a "Jive-Ass Turkey" and a "Creepy White Guy Who Gets Off On Watching Black People Make-Out". By extension, she sees Falcon as a sell-out for partnering with him, accusing him of neglecting his own people.


"But by then, your library card might have expired, Papa...and you'll have to get that card renewed...so bring some ID, dig? Maybe my book will have gone to a second printing...but it's a best-seller, you read me? So you may have to get on the waiting list...or ask if a different branch has a copy...maybe then you can check my book out...but don't return it late or you'll get a fine, you hear?"

So Our Lady of the Magnificent Fro (her name is Leila, if anybody cares) storms out, and Cap busts in through the window, acting like he just showed up. Falcon treats this as completely normal, and since this is the Marvel Universe I guess it is.


"And I do mean anything." Cap apologizes to Falcon for something he said last issue - yeah, I don't know what it was, sorry, but it seems to have been some kind of liberal feel-good white-privilege "I feel your pain" kind of thing. This understandably pisses Falcon off, and Cap tries to apologize again.


For some reason, Cap's blanket apology on behalf of all white people doesn't help.


Aaaannnd...right about here is where Cap stops listening.


And I would say sometime between when Falcon started throwing his clothes at Cap and when Cap tried to awkwardly hide his rising flagstaff behind his shield is the point when Cap realized why he'd been dreaming of Falcon so much recently.

Unfortunately, Falcon was just changing into a new costume, not getting ready to salute Old Glory.


Cap covers admirably, don't you think? Little weird that Falcon keeps his bird in the bathroom, but whatever. Anyway, just as Cap's about to ask if he can take a cold shower, a local kid burst in, looking for the Falcon's alter-ego, social worker Sam Wilson.


This kid - who is rocking that polka-dot cravat - does not recognize the African-American man standing in Sam Wilson's office as Sam Wilson, but does recognize him as the Falcon, despite him wearing a costume the Falcon has never worn before. But then, it's 1971 - he sees a black super-hero who isn't the Black Panther, there's really only one other option.

Cap jumps right in and offers to help, but Falcon is all, "Sorry, Cap, I know a kid's life is on the line but we're still broken up." Cap, of course, apologizes.


Captain America is so astonishingly, overwhelmingly white that it wasn't until I read the next panel that I realized he was asking the Falcon to slip him some skin. I figured he was asking for bus fare or checking if it was raining or something. Falcon's cool, though, he doesn't leave him hanging.


Cap is hearing everything Falcon is saying as if he's talking about gay porn.

The Falcon and his trusty companion Redwing take to the skies to track down this innocent junkie, who is the victim of a rather generic plot from a couple of disco drug-dealers - they're going to shoot him because he snitched to the cops about them. He's also going through withdrawal, which I believe is represented fairly accurately because it looks just like when Albert got addicted to drugs on Little House on the Prairie


The Falcon arrives, and pauses to conquer his inner demons. It's hard, what with all the distracting screaming.


That is one poorly designed tenement. I thought he was on the ground-floor because of the trash can, but there's that weird window that seems to continue into the floor below. Also, Redwing seems to be soaring through a clear blue sky far in the distance, not a common view through an East Harlem window. Falcon's got a lot of problems to clean up in this hood, many of them architectural.


Hurry, Falcon, Mister Bentley from The Jeffersons is going to kill the kid!


His confidence high, Falcon bursts into the room so hard the door is reduced to pulp and the framed Polaroid of a snowstorm is knocked askew.


Let's pause here to talk about the Falcon as a super-hero. He's not just a generic tights-wearing strong-man type; he does in fact have one super-power: he can communicate with his pet falcon, Redwing. In later years, this power would expand to include controlling all birds and he'd gain the ability to fly, but at this stage in his career, Redwing was it. Maybe not the greatest power when you're fighting Doctor Doom or Loki, but against two low-level pushers? Fucking bad-ass.


About here is where I really lost track of the plot. Earlier it seemed like the kid was going through withdrawal, and the pushers were going to shoot him. Mr. Bentley said something about giving him a fix he'd never come back from, but he said it while loading his gun so I assumed he was being metaphorical. Seems like a poor business decision to give your product to someone you're planning on killing anyway. So I was wondering what the Falcon was talking about here when he said the goons would go away for life if the kid died - I mean, attempted murder, sure, but if someone dies from withdrawal I don't think they can charge you for not giving him drugs.


But then he tells the cops that they were trying to O.D. the kid, and I don't know that much about a heroin overdose but I thought it made you kind of slip away, not writhe and scream in agony. I could be wrong. I'm still wondering why they were also going to shoot him, but I guess they just really, really hate black teenagers or something. Anyway, let's talk about that kid on the street who's so impressed with the Falcon. His gee-whillikers enthusiasm at seeing a black superhero may sound a little silly now, but the Falcon was the first mainstream African-American superhero - the Black Panther came before him, but he was African-African, and also he was named "The Black Panther" and the Falcon was thankfully not named "The Black Falcon". So I may mock the homoerotic subtext and poorly drawn characters and inconsistent plotting and naive take on race relations that this story presents us with, but I'm not so cynical about the Falcon himself. He really is a pretty cool character, and good for that kid on the street for being inspired by him.


But at the end of the day, it's still a Captain America t-shirt that the kid's wearing.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Companions: Dodo Chaplet


Dodo Chaplet
(Jackie Lane)

Dorothea "Dodo" Chaplet came aboard the TARDIS during a particularly bleak time, after Steven and the Doctor fled from the massacre of the Huguenots in sixteenth-century France.  She saw a little boy get hit by a car, and wandered into the ship looking for a policeman (this was back when people actually knew what a police box was).  Steven came running back into the TARDIS warning the Doctor that policemen were approaching; fearing they would try and break in, the Doctor took off with Dodo still aboard.


Dodo was perfectly happy to be told that she was now on a possibly never-ending journey through time and space - she lived with her aunt, whom she said wouldn't miss her. Watching Dodo you get the feeling she also would have been perfectly happy to turn right around and go home and watch TV. Or get dumped on an alien planet and left there. Or have a burlap sack put over her head and asked to sit quietly on the floor. She wasn't very bright, is what I'm saying. But she was cheery and guileless and brought a much-needed touch of innocence to the TARDIS after the darkness of The Daleks' Master Plan and The Massacre.

And she maintained that cheery innocence even as she almost caused the extinction of the entire human race in her first full story, The Ark.


Here she is in a publicity shot from that story, in a non-existent scene in which she's happily carried away by a Monoid, one of the baddies of the piece.  The TARDIS landed millions of years in the future on a great spaceship carrying the last of humanity to their new home as they fled from the destruction of Earth.  This far in the future the common cold had died out, and humanity had lost all resistance to it.  Sadly, Dodo had a killer case of the sniffles, and humanity's last hope started dropping like flies (along with future-boy Steven, who also had no resistance).  The Doctor came up with a cure, but not soon enough - humanity was weakened, and when the TARDIS reappeared on the Ark seven hundred years later, humanity's former servants, the aforementioned Monoids, have enslaved the human race. Oh, that Dodo! You start to get mad at her for causing death on a massive scale and being responsible for the enslavement of humanity, but then you see that smile and you have to forgive her!


After putting this situation to rights the TARDIS trio moved on, and next encountered The Celestial Toymaker.  This story was fun and frilly with very little substance - perfect for Dodo.  Sadly, only the final episode remains, the others having been long-since destroyed by the short-sighted BBC. But here's the cast in that story - don't they look like they're having fun?


At the end of the story the trio are in fine spirits after having defeated the Toymaker, and Dodo offers the Doctor a piece of candy - which promptly cracks his tooth open. Oh, Dodo, is there anything you can't ruin? The TARDIS delivers its crew to Arizona in the old west in the next serial, The Gunfighters, so the Doctor can get some dental care from Doc Holliday. Steven and Dodo, meanwhile, dress up like Donny and Marie putting on an old-timey saloon sketch.


The Gunfighters is, quite frankly, a terrible story, but Dodo makes the most of it - the Doctor even acknowledges that she quickly lives up to "every cliché-ridden convention in the American west".  She sings and dances in the saloon, she gets taken hostage...


...and she even gets to pack a six-shooter herself.


Granted, she looks like she has absolutely no idea what to do with the thing, but that's ok, this is Dodo.  She's deadly without even trying.

Dodo says goodbye to Steven in her next serial, The Savages, and she and the Doctor travel on alone.  They land on present-day (well, 1960s) Earth in The War Machines, and things are looking rosy.  The Doctor is fond of Dodo - she reminds him of his granddaughter Susan, he once said - and she seems inordinately fond of him in return.


Unfortunately, fate - and the Doctor Who writers - aren't kind to poor Dodo. She's quickly mind-controlled by WOTAN, an evil super-computer, and brainwashed into trying to kill the Doctor.


Here she is being all evil or something.  Halfway through the story WOTAN's hold on her is broken and she's whisked off to the country to recover, never to be seen again.  At the end of the story we're told she's given her TARDIS key to her soon-to-be-replacement Polly, along with a message to the Doctor that she's decided to stay behind.  And that's the last we hear of Dodo Chaplet.

Dodo gets a lot of grief from Doctor Who fans - she's a fairly generic, unmemorable companion as they go, with neither a proper introductory story nor even an on-screen departure.  Nevertheless, I have a bit of a soft spot for her - yes, she's fairly lacking in characterization, and I still think either Katarina or Sara Kingdom would have made more interesting companions. But it's sort of charming how Dodo is relentlessly, almost aggressively cheery; she tends to wander blithely into the most dangerous of situations without a hint of concern or awareness.  She sort of like the big dumb dog of the TARDIS crew - she makes a lot of messes but she's too lovable to stay mad at.

Unless, of course, you are a writer of officially licensed Doctor Who tie-in media, in which case you probably hate Dodo Chaplet with the intensity of a supernova.  Yes, like all companions, Dodo makes a few appearances beyond what we see on the TV.  Considering how innocuous her on-screen travels were, Dodo's spin-off adventures are comparatively...brutal.

In the novel The Man in the Velvet Mask Dodo falls in love with a Frenchman from an alternate timeline, sleeps with him, and contracts a disease in the doing - actually, microscopic engineered cyborg maggots. Yay. A cure is found, but she decides to keep the maggots as a souvenir of her first time. Yes, that's right, this was her first time. (Here's a quote from the TARDIS Data Bank, a sort of Wikipedia for Doctor Who - "She was also one of the few companions known to have lost her virginity whilst an active TARDIS traveller." Fun fact, kids!)

In Who Killed Kennedy?, we learn that WOTAN's mind-control triggered a psychotic break, and Dodo spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals, convinced that her travels in the TARDIS were hallucinations. She wound up homeless, but found hope when she fell in love with a reporter. She became pregnant just in time to be murdered as part of a plot by the Master.

Oh, also, she once killed a guy who tried to rape her.


And the moral is, if you ever travel with the Doctor, do not grant licensing rights to novelists.  They will take your innocence and piss all over it.