Peter David's Blog, page 53

To be a Supergirl

Originally published January 5, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1416

The following arrived via email the other day:

I’ve always wanted to be Supergirl. I’m 12 years old, my name is Ashley. I have prayed and prayed for it to come true but nothing ever happened. So one day I went to school this boy named Justin who says he was Superman and he could fly that day I was wearing my Supergirl shirt. He looked at my shirt and laughed. No one believes in me. I don’t even believe in me. So please let me know if you can help me or if you could believe in me. It makes me sad to think about how me myself doesn’t believe in me. Please write me back.

Your Friend Always,

Ashley

We live in difficult and cynical times, Ashley. It is hard for anyone to believe in anyone else. For all I know, you’re not a 12-year-old girl at all, but an older fan who thinks it would be funny to pretend he or she is a young, confused, and frustrated girl, looking for advice.

But you know what? I’m going to proceed in the hope that you’re exactly who and what you say you are. Because, if you are, then you certainly deserve a response. And if you aren’t, well—maybe there’s another Ashley out there with dreams and aspirations of being a Supergirl. Someone who looks to the clouds and wishes she could dance among them or sees bad things happen to good people and knows only frustration because she feels helpless.

There’s something about the world that you have to understand, Ashley: It’s easier to knock things down than to build them up. It’s easier to destroy than create. Look at a sand castle, which takes hours to construct and then is dashed by a single wave. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

And it’s easier to be jealous of things that someone else does than to do great things yourself. When people look at others’ accomplishments, often they look, not at the positive aspects of it, but, instead, at all the things that they think are wrong with it. Yes, there is such thing as constructive criticism. When your teachers or your parents tell you how to improve yourself or your work, they’re doing it in order to help you do better in the future. But when other children criticize you or make fun of you, often they’re trying to build themselves up by tearing you down.

I’d like to tell you that they’ll stop doing it when they grow up. Some of them will. Many of them won’t. There will always be people around, even when you’re an adult, who will think that it’s somehow an acceptable thing to make fun of you. Many of them will call you names or say all manner of cruel things for no good reason. They do this because making you feel bad about yourself makes them feel good about themselves. Those people who can’t be big themselves try to make others feel small, so they think they look big in comparison.

But they can only do that if you let them.

Are you Supergirl, Ashley? I don’t know. I don’t know you, really. Can you be Supergirl? Absolutely.

Does that mean you can jump off a building and fly? No, definitely not. Can someone shoot a gun at you and you laugh while bullets bounce off you? Again, definitely not.

But that’s not what Supergirl is about.

When Supergirl first showed up in the comics, 40 years ago (back when your mom and dad were little, or maybe even before they were born), it wasn’t her powers that made her so special. Her powers weren’t that different from Superman’s. What made her special was her innocence. Her ready smile, her dedication to helping people, her determination to serve as a “guardian angel” to other kids, and her belief that she could make a difference in the world. That she could make it a better place. And she did.

I’m sure that other kids in your school don’t think that Supergirl exists. But when Supergirl first started out, she was Superman’s “secret.” Nobody knew she existed. That didn’t stop her from doing good deeds, from aiding people in trouble, from making things better for the children around her. It didn’t matter whether people believed in her. Because she believed in herself, and from that belief she gained strength. Not the kind of strength you use to lift cars. A more important strength: the strength that comes from knowing that you’re helping people instead of hurting them. The kind of strength that makes you so big, so sure of yourself, that not all the laughing children in the world can bring you down.

You want to do the things Supergirl can do? That’s easy. You want to be able to fly? Dream of being a pilot. Bend steel? A welder. Faster than a speeding bullet? A racecar driver. All things are possible if you’re willing to do the work to make it happen.

And as for those who laugh at the idea of a Supergirl: Do not let them bother you. For if you truly are a Supergirl, as I think you can be, then you can fly above them, and not all their words or laughter or taunts can pull you down. Rather than be angry with them, you should feel sorry for them. For they are not people of vision. They are not the type who will climb mighty mountains or do great things. They are the ones who will remain below, while you soar with the eagles, the ones who know deep down that they do not have the vision or insight or drive to do what you can do, but can only carp at the accomplishments of others. Don’t get mad at the Justins of the world; instead, try to provide an example of what they can aspire to, whether they realize what you’re doing or not. Lead by example.

Every time you rise above their taunts or laughter, you’re being a Supergirl. Every time you let their words bounce off you as if they were harmless bullets thumping against steel-hard skin, you’re being a Supergirl. Every time you watch out for a little kid crossing the street or help your folks around the house without being asked, or read just for the sake or reading and expanding your mind, you’re being a Supergirl.

Every time you smile and greet a policeman making his rounds or thank the mailman for delivering the mail—every time you volunteer to read to a blind person or help out at an old folks’ home or bundle up clothes to give to the needy or work in any and every way that you can work to make the world a better place for the people in it, that’s how you can be a Supergirl.

Supergirl lives to help people. The “S” on her chest stands for “sacrifice” and “support” and “service” and “supreme effort,” and everything that you do in that spirit brings you that much closer, not only to the Supergirl who is, but also the Supergirl you can be.

Someone laughs at you because of your beliefs? Join the club, Ashley. Join that group of inventors and far-thinkers and dreamers who had mundane people with no imagination laughing at them, convinced that they were wasting their foolish time. Join an assembly that includes Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Robert Fulton, Albert Einstein, the Wright Brothers, and others too numerous to name. None of them could take three running steps and fly or laugh off bullets. But they all shared a power that is Supergirl’s greatest strength: the power to look at the world and see it, not as it is, but as it could be. If you do that, and never stop believing in yourself, you can be as super as any of them.

Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.

 

What would Obama have to do to win Fox’s approval?

I find it somewhat amazing that no matter what Obama does–get prisoners back, leave prisoners where they are, fight wars, walk away from wars–no matter what he does, Fox finds some way to find the negative. Okay, maybe “amazing” is too predictable a word; it’s pretty much expected by now.

But I find myself wondering: what, if anything, could Obama do that Fox would NOT find the downside of? I mean, I don’t recall if they managed to find the downside of killing bin Laden, but I find myself curious. What could Obama do that Fox would applaud? I mean, if he resigned from the presidency, which is the ultimate goal, they’d denounce him as a quitter. Is there ANYTHING that he could do that Fox would approve of?

Thoughts?

PAD

Movie reviews: Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense

Originally published December 29, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1415

There is much talk of how director/writer/producer M. Night Shyamalan (wouldn’t it be fun if the “M” stood for “Moon?”) has managed, with remarkable ingenuity, to sneak a “comic book movie” into the public perception without the public being aware—until the movie has actually started—that a comic book movie is what’s being seen. Which he did. But it’s not the first time he’s done it.

A quick summary of Unbreakable: Our protagonist is a Philadelphia resident who seems to be moving through his life in something akin to a dreamlike stupor. He comes to the realization that he is not like other people; that there is something bizarre and unusual about him. A mysterious individual enters his life The mysterious individual serves as a sort of mentor to the protagonist, helping him to realize his full potential and the true destiny that this supernormal ability will guide him toward: Namely helping others. Our protagonist uses his newfound ability to uncover a murder that no one even realized had occurred (thus avoiding any messy entanglement with the police, allowing our protagonist to operate on his own) and by the film’s resolution the protagonist has some inkling of the direction that his abilities will take him in life. He is also able to reconnect emotionally with his family. Ultimately it’s revealed that the mysterious individual is not what he seems, with his true nature constituting the surprise ending of the movie (at least for anyone who wasn’t paying close attention.) Oh, and it stars Bruce Willis wearing rain gear.

This is not to be confused with The Sixth Sense, which can be summarized as follows: Our protagonist is a Philadelphia resident who seems to be moving through his life in something akin to a dreamlike stupor. He comes to the realization that he is not like other people; that there is something bizarre and unusual about him. A mysterious individual enters his life The mysterious individual serves as a sort of mentor to the protagonist, helping him to realize his full potential and the true destiny that this supernormal ability will guide him toward: Namely helping others. Our protagonist uses his newfound ability to uncover a murder that no one even realized had occurred (thus avoiding any messy entanglement with the police, allowing our protagonist to operate on his own) and by the film’s resolution the protagonist has some inkling of the direction that his abilities will take him in life. He is also able to reconnect emotionally with his family. Ultimately it’s revealed that the mysterious individual is not what he seems, with his true nature constituting the surprise ending of the movie (at least for anyone who wasn’t paying close attention.) Oh, and it stars Bruce Willis wearing rain gear.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with taking the same formula and draping a different film over it. It’s not like each James Bond film is startlingly dissimilar from the one before it. But people don’t look at one Bond film and say it’s espionage, and then look at the next one and say it’s a murder mystery. Yet people are reacting to Unbreakable as if it’s one thing and The Sixth Sense as if it’s something else when they’re pretty much, identical in tone, style, and story content.

Sixth Sense was as much a classic comic book origin story as Unbreakable. The end basically resulted in a young superhero who could be called “Kid Spectre,” a cross between the Spectre and the old Golden Age hero, Kid Eternity, who had the power to summon the shades of notable dead guys to help him dispatch criminals. (Personally, I always wanted to see Kid Eternity bring a villain to his knees by summoning the guy’s dead mother who would likely ream him out for pursuing a life of crime.) But because Sixth Sense was marketed as a horror thriller, it didn’t get any tacky comic book tag slapped upon it. Unbreakable, however, has no claim to the horror genre, and so cannot be sold that way.

So instead it’s cleverly marketed as an M. Night Shyamalan film, which apparently is its own genre. As a consequence, people are lining up to see a film which they assume is going to be just like Sixth Sense. Which it is. So in that respect, they’re getting what they paid for. But the public perceives “comic book films” as movies with guys in spandex or black leather form fitting outfits (sometimes with nipples) fighting clearly demarcated supervillains. Unbreakable doesn’t fit those conventions, which confuses the hell out of audiences. “It’s a comic book movie,” say viewers (many, according to anecdotal evidence on computer boards, say so with great disdain.) They feel they’ve been “had” somehow.

The problem is that the term “comic book movie” has come to have a certain delineated, usually pejorative meaning. If a reviewer wants to use a dismissive shorthand for certain black-and-white elements in a film, he’ll say it has a “comic book feel” to it. Any movie which has larger-than-life heroes or villains, or developments that border on the outrageous, is considered “comic booky.” The fact that comic books themselves have never been as circumscribed as those who don’t read them would perceive is almost incidental. In the old days comic books included westerns, romances, horror and true crime. Nowadays comics range from Pulitzer-winning material such as Maus to products of much of the Vertigo line, a.k.a. the BBC (Brooding Brit Comics). But the public prefers to pigeon-hole “comic book movies” as the over-the-top adventures of long-underwear superdoers in the same way that it decrees that “science fiction” of necessity must involve people in spaceships fighting aliens with laser beams. The Truman Show was unquestionably science fiction but never would have been marketed as such, and Chris Carter has taken pains to explain why the SF world of The X-Files is not SF at all.

Did I see the end of Unbreakable coming? Yeah, pretty much. Conditioned to look for the little things in a Shyamalan film, I was struck by how often and in how many ways he used both reflective surfaces and upside down visuals to tell his story. (He also used lengthy single takes of scenes which gave the film the same leisurely dream-like pace of Sixth Sense… which was fine for that surreal film, but here just made the pace drag… so much so that, by the time the pace finally picked up in the last quarter of the movie, it made some viewers think the ending felt rushed. In storytelling terms, it wasn’t. Visually, it was.)

Shyamalan throughout the film seemed to be constructing an entire visual subtext of reversal and mirror images. It made me think about reflections, about opposites. I was also puzzled by Elijah’s (Samuel L. Jackson’s) obsession with three particular disasters. With all the catastrophes that go on in the world, why was Elijah (named for a famous prophet) focused on those three? Those thoughts combined in my mind about three quarters of the way through the film and that’s when the eventual denouement hit me: He was fixated on those three disasters because he was responsible for them. If this was a “comic book” movie, there had to be a supervillain of some sort, and Elijah was the only candidate. He was in every way the opposite of David Dunn (Willis.) Brittle compared to invulnerable, insightful contrasted to obtuse (I mean, come on, who in the world reaches his mid-to-late 30s and is oblivious to the fact that he’s never been sick?)

Some fans have complained that Elijah’s character was poorly motivated. I disagree. Ultimately his character—a comic book fanatic, rather than a fan—used comic books to define his world. But it was only a definition that worked if a superhero rose to oppose him. It’s the sort of dreamlike logic that characterizes the truly insane… or the truly brilliant. Within the context of Unbreakable, that worked fine for me. Honestly—fans accepted for years that Lex Luthor’s main motivation was that Superboy made him lose his hair as a kid. This is hardly more farfetched than that. Others protested that Elijah then let himself be dragged off to an insane asylum at the end. Why shouldn’t he? He’d be secure in the knowledge that he could get out whenever he wanted. Keeping with the Luthor model, Lex in the old days was in and out of the slammer so much that his prison grays served as his costume.

Basically, Shyamalan endeavored to use comic books to comment on the real world. To say that life imitates the art. No wonder that such a view prompted some film-goers to be condescending toward the film. To hard-core comic fans, it was galling to see the one true comic book enthusiast in the film turn out to be a mass-murdering psycho. It even seemed to present a cautionary tale to parents: If you get your kid interested in comic books, they might rot his mind and turn him evil. Wertham would have loved that message.

On the other hand, the non-comic fans can react with disdain. How dare a mere “comic book movie” pretend to have depth, or philosophy, or aspire to exist above its station by endeavoring to relate to the real world, rather than the artificially constructed environment of a Marvel or DC universe. Don’t comic book movies know their place? How can Shyamalan claim that life imitates art when everyone “knows” that comic books aren’t art, but merely garish four-color escapist crap?

Word is that Unbreakable is the first of a trilogy. With all respect to the movie maker, I’d say it’s the second of a trilogy, with Sixth Sense being the first. What I want to see now is Cole from Sixth Sense teaming up with David Dunn (an alliterative name; how comic book can you get?) of Unbreakable to fight crime. What a team. Cole will keep staring at him saying, “You look just like a dead guy I knew” and David will be saying, “Kid, stop whispering, will ya, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” Cole talks to murder victims and gets leads, and David does the leg work. Call it Cole’s Law.

What do you think? Too comic booky?

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

Quesada vs. McFarlane

Originally published December 22, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1414

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

In Wizard magazine’s end-of-the-year letters column, the following missive appeared from Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada:

The first weeks as Marvel’s E-I-C have been pretty interesting. But through the never-ending waves of groupies and hangers-on pounding at my door, I still ponder one question: Whatever happened to Todd McFarlane? What happened to the golden boy who reveled in his badassness and made his fortune on the backs of fans, retailers, and collectors only to disappear in our industry’s greatest time of need? Does he no longer care? Or is he just afraid to come back?

Where is the Todd and his big yapping mouth? I’ll tell you where, home, wrapped in his MTV music awards and Spawn movie posters, saying, “Please, Wanda, don’t make me come back to comics! Everyone will see I really had no clothes!”

Back in the good ol’ days, Todd never had trouble calling anyone out to the mat. So if he can dish it out, I’m going to assume he can take it. I’m prepared to offer Todd McFarlane $1,000 to come back to the comics industry and draw! That’s right $1,000 cash…

I’ll go head to head with you, pencil to pencil. You do an issue, I’ll do an issue, and we’ll let the fans, retailers, and collectors you abandoned decide which book is better. Come on, Toddler, whaddaya say? Wait! Does anyone hear that? BUC-BUC-BUC-BUCKAW! Sounds like Big Mac is in the house!

This was evocative, of course, of two things. The first is the immortal bit on Saturday Night Live more than two decades ago, when producer Lorne Michaels endeavored to coax The Beatles into reuniting on SNL. That, at least, had a comedic context. The Fab Four were being offered millions upon millions at the time by various promoters trying to coax them to get together for one more concert. Michaels, by contrast, dangled the princely sum of $3,000: “That’s seven hundred and fifty for each of you,” intoned Michaels gravely, adding as an afterthought, “…or a little less for Ringo, if you prefer.” Legend has it that John and Paul actually happened to be watching that night and toyed with the idea of showing up on the air.

Obviously, McFarlane needs a grand as much as The Beatles needed three grand. But Joe’s “challenge” doesn’t have an outside context; it’s pretty much just out of the blue.

The second thing this painfully reminds me of is the entire debate debacle in Philadelphia some years back, in which it was Todd who was throwing down the gauntlet and insisting that I defend comments about Image I’d made in this column. And I, like a chowderhead, went along with it, convinced that people would be asking me forever after why I’d chickened out. Except Americans have the attention span of fruit flies; if I’d waited it out, taken the high road, it would have gone away. Instead, foolishly believing that Todd was interested in “the truth” (as he claimed), I walked right into the middle of Todd’s carefully orchestrated scheme. Todd is a “means to an end” type of guy. He wasn’t interested in the truth except as a means to an end, the end being publicity.

At that time, a number of people speculated that McFarlane and I had cooked up the whole thing between us, WWF style. I hear much the same speculation being floated now about Joe and Todd. I have no idea if it’s valid now; the only thing I can tell you with authority is that it sure wasn’t then.

Back in those days, all the replies were filtered through CBG, since weekly discourse was the most that anyone could hope for. But this is the computer age, and Todd was able to fire back almost immediately on his website. It read, in part:

I believe that Joe does think that I could help contribute to the sinking comics market. As a matter of fact, he and I had a conversation recently that allowed us to both give some of our opinions on the current state of the industry.

My biggest disagreement is that any book from my hand would have any real impact on the way the industry is sliding right now. The argument from his side is that we need to start some place and continue to build upon it. I can hardly argue with the theory of that statement but the implementation is the harder of the two.

…the truth is that we are all doing what we can to keep this business flourishing. All the way from Paul Levitz to the guys that color ad pages. No individual effort will matter in the long run. And that is what is far more important. Because it is the shortsightedness of many of us that have led to this situation. And Marvel being that king of the industry had, perhaps, done more to hurt this community than anyone else. Their bankruptcy, attempted self-distribution, and many managerial changes have had a detrimental effect on all of us, albeit in an indirect way. So hears hoping that Joe is given the chance to bring some of his ideas to light. Good or bad, time must be given to those in charge.

On a closing note, let me say that Mr. Q. is a tad bit confused as to what makes me tick at times. One of the bigger reasons for leaving Marvel in 1991 was to have the freedom to do the thing that I wanted to do. I long ago stopped worrying about what some Marvel employee wanted me to do with my day. And so Joe’s challenge is going to fall on deaf ears just like every other thing that a competitor would like to see me do different. I’ll do what I deem important after talking it over with my company and fans.

You have absolutely no idea the sort of chill that runs down my spine when I find myself thinking, in regards to something that Todd McFarlane wrote, “Wish I’d said that” (albeit without the misspellings and poor grammar). Because, when it was McFarlane seeking to exploit me for publicity, I let my ego drag me into it, rather than say, “If you have a problem with the way I cover Image, do what everyone else does: Write a letter to the editor. The words in my column speak for themselves and don’t need me to waste my time buttressing them face-to-face.”

McFarlane’s also correct in stating that Quesada doesn’t know what makes him tick. Todd doesn’t have any motive to engage in a machismo-fueled duel of art, because, remember, Todd’s a means-to-an-end guy. I believe his art was simply that, as well, the “ends” being becoming a millionaire. Since he’s accomplished that multi-million goal, he’s got zero need to prove anything regarding his art. Drawing served its purpose, and so he’s moved on.

In any event, Joe’s response was as follows:

I’ve got to say, I’m a huge McFarlane fan. Even more than Todd’s art, what I use to love was his bravado. He never had second thought about calling people out or busting their chops. Anybody remember the Peter David/McFarlane debate? How about all the hoopla that preceded it in the letters pages of Spawn? How about Todd’s unflattering, yes possibly cruel, portrait of Peter?

“Possibly?” Try “definitely.” But it was something he was able to do, because I played right into his plans. Joe went on to say:

Love him or hate him, the guy had stones! Now listen to what he’s become, listen to what he’s saying. He sounds like my dad for crying out loud!

Now Todd may feel that no individual effort will help in the long run and he may be partially right, heck, I’ve been quoted myself as saying that there is no comic book messiah, but you can’t tell me that Frank Miller’s return to Dark Knight won’t give our industry a much-needed shot in the arm! Not only will comics shops be filled with long-time readers who gave up on us, the mainstream ink alone is worth three times what they’re paying Frank. There are very few people in this industry that can get that kind of press and Todd is one of them.

…I now understand what this is all about, he’s playing hard to get. All right, all right Toddster, I’ll tell you what, I’ll make it $1,100! You called my bluff, Chief! Come on, Toddy boy, don’t go spineless on me now. The fans are calling you out, go ahead ask them, everyone wants to see you with pencil in hand. You know it’s killin’ ya, if it weren’t I wouldn’t be here writing a rebuttal! See ya in the funny books.

PS: Did they back bits of Todd’s nads inside of every Spawn toy? If not, where did they go?

Just as Lorne Michaels increased his initial offer to the Beatles by a nominal amount, so, too, does Quesada. Between the condescending diminutives of McFarlane’s name and the locker-room bombast, Joe winds up sounding like McFarlane from years gone by. The thing is, it was said that Image wanted to be Marvel in the worst way—and also succeeded. But who the hell aspires to be Todd McFarlane in the worst way?

Yes, yes, I say again: It could be something they’re in collusion over. Except McFarlane is a control freak; I have trouble buying the notion that he’d agree to a chest-thumping exchange where he’s the one put on the defensive.

For McFarlane to claim that “no individual effort will matter in the long run” is silly. What else is history but individual efforts mattering in the long run? Hell, if it weren’t for the individual efforts of Ron Perelman, the industry wouldn’t be in its present fix. Would some sort of McFarlane-Quesada face-off help? In best Jewish thinking: It couldn’t hoit. Will Todd be as dumb as I was and rise to a challenge concocted to generate publicity? Only if there’s something in it for him, which means probably not; even though Fandom.com—milking this for all it’s worth—ran a poll which presently has 49% of the respondents stating that McFarlane “owes” it to the industry to take Quesada up on his challenge.

I tend to think that McFarlane feels the only person he owes anything to is McFarlane. Will he be as dumb as I was? Probably not. Todd’s always had a better sense of what’s self-serving than I did.

And hey, Joe:

Listen to your dad more.

Peter David, writer of stuff, offers the following means of amusement: Drive around to local theaters and see how many have 102 Dalmatians misspelled as 102 Dalmations.

 

The Escape Artist

So when I was flying back on British Air from the London convention in February, I watched the first half of an incredibly gripping drama called “The Escape Artist” starring David Tennant as a defense lawyer who has never lost a case. But his life and family fly apart when he defends a psycho who, once freed on a technicality, turns his attention to Tennant.

The first half was marvelous, and then I discovered that British Air didn’t have the second half on their entertainment system. So when I came home, I tried to find it on DVD. No luck. I looked on line. No luck.

Four frustrating months later, it suddenly turned up on public television. Even better, it’s on DVD.

Go get your hands on it. It’s fantastic.

PAD

Bush vs. Gore vs. Nader: The Musical

Originally published December 15, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1413

I fell asleep watching CNN and its continuous coverage of the presidential mess—and I had a dream. In my dream, Bush, Gore, and Nader were each reading newspapers while “Fugue for Tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls was playing. Bush’s headline read, “Bush Wins!” Gore’s read, “Gore’s Got More!” Nader’s read, “Nader The Spoiler!” Then there was a trumpet fanfare, they lowered their papers, and each sang in succession…

Bush (to Gore)

I got the votes right here.

The people made it clear

They want me, ’cause my face

Is real sincere.

Concede!

Concede!

My dad says you should concede,

And my brother Jeb agreed:

Concede!

Concede!

Concede!

Concede!

My dad says you should concede,

And my brother Jeb agreed:

Concede!

Concede!

 

C’mon and give up, Gore!

You’re being such a bore!

Why should the country

Take this any more?

Give up!

Give up!

 

You know you should just

Give up!

It’s time for you to

Give up!

Give up!

 

My cabinet’s all set,

So no reprieve you’ll get!

I’ll execute the people’s

Will, you bet!

Concede!

Concede!

 

For God’s sake, will you concede?

I’m gonna go smoke some weed.

 

Concede!

Concede!

 

Give it up!

I got the votes

Right

Here!

 

Gore

But look: The ballot’s bad.

More votes are to be had,

If I could just get rid of this

Hanging chad.

Recount!

Recount!

We need to have hand recount.

 

Till we get the right amount,

Recount!

Recount!

 

As I already said,

My hopes are still not dead,

You snippy frat-boy, drives-

Drunk coke-snort head!

Got more!

Got more!

 

The truth is that Gore got more!

Who cares if I’m such a bore?

I still

Got more!

 

Joe Lieberman has got

At attitude that’s hot

We’ll count up votes until

Next Tu ’Bishvat.

 

Take back,

Take back,

We’re taking

The whole think back.

 

Took it back!

I got the votes

Right

Here!

 

Nader

I got just three percent

But I still made a dent,

And thanks to me

Al Gore is not president.

Gore sucks!

Gore sucks!

And George Bush—

He also sucks!

 

But I got no

matching bucks

That sucks!

That sucks!

 

Although my party Green

Was not a lean machine,

We made enough noise to be

heard, not seen

Kicked ass!

Kicked ass!

I wish we had kicked

some ass.

Instead, we gave Bush

a pass

He’s such

An ass.

 

I’m crying in my beers,

But don’t you worry, dears,

’Cause I’ll be back again

In just four years.

 

You both suck!

I got the votes

Right

Here!

 

Bush vs. Gore, part 2

Originally published December 8, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1412

Well, well… who says that there are no third acts in life?

First act: The Presidential campaign. Second act: Election Day. Third act: The Aftermath, during which time the usually State-rights-oriented GOP is suddenly all for stopping Floridians from exercising their voting rights, and Dubbya backs hand counts as governor but not as a presidential candidate. Meantime the Democrats risk looking like little girly-man whiners, playing a high-stakes game that could backfire all the way into 2004 if the votes don’t turn around, while waiting to see if Gore’s appointing the Jewish Lieberman as his running mate pays off in a huge number of votes from Israeli-situated Floridians. At least, that’s how matters stand in this snapshot moment in time (naturally the situation will have shifted again by the time this column sees print.)

Meantime, I got the following missive from Michael B., who said:

I just read your But I Digress regarding the presidential debates and I agreed with most of it, especially Bush as Plastic Man. You went on to mention that you thought Ralph Nader was Elongated Man (and the mental image of Nader’s noise twitching did cause those around me to cast strange looks at seeing a chunky guy like myself giggling in the middle of Barnes and Noble). But it got me thinking. If Bush is Plas and Gore is Reed Richards (though I do think that’s a little more credit than he deserves, but that’s just me) and if Nader is Elongated Man, then who are Pat Buchanan and Harry Browne?

After a bit of thought, I came to the conclusion that Pat is John Walker, US Agent. If you look at John’s early appearances and the time in which he was Captain America and not a complete, raving psycho, their rhetoric really matches. Taking America back to what it “should” be. Getting rid of immigrants. God, country and mom’s apple pie. Of course, like John Walker, Pat is not to be trusted. Mr. Buchanan’s radio ads gave me a serious case of the willies. But if Pat was to be a comic books character, I think he would be US Agent.

As far as Harry Browne, I can’t really come up with a good character to compare him to. Since the Libertarian party is for a smaller role of government, it would have to be someone who was not a team player and something of a smaller tier character. So I’m wondering what your thoughts on this were. What character do you think would best represent Harry Browne?

That’s an interesting question. There are several aspects to be considered.

I would argue as to whether the Libertarian candidate would genuinely be a “smaller tier” character. In terms of pure numbers, the Libertarians (at least according to their claims) fielded more candidates and raised more money than most of the other third parties, including the Green Party. And besides, although they’ve been featured in high profile team books, I don’t know that I’d call either Plas or Elongated Man (which, let’s face it, has got to be one of the clunkiest names in comics, second only to Matter-Eater Lad) “first-tier” characters. Arguing for government having a smaller role in life indicates simply that the party is arguing for the rights of the people and the importance of the little guy. And let’s face it: What candidate is going to say that the rights and interests of the people aren’t of paramount importance? Unless, y’know, it’s the rights of 19,000 people in Florida mystified by a voting ballot. It’s like the entire nation is stuck in line behind someone who can’t fathom why shoving their Mobil gas card into an ATM won’t get them cash.

So what we’re looking for is someone who considers himself a champion of the little guy. Someone for whom government-supported aids—such as the police—simply aren’t enough. Someone who has visible means of support, but isn’t—as Mr. Bailey says—a team player.

After giving it some thought—and with no intent to comment on the political leanings of one of Marvel’s flagship characters—I tend to think Harry Browne would be Spider-Man.

What sent me in that direction? Well, for a while I was considering the Creeper (too scary) and then I was thinking Ambush Bug (not scary enough). But ultimately, here’s what sent me crawling toward Spidey. First, Browne is a staunch advocate of allowing people to own guns. That ostensibly gun ownership by private citizens cuts down on crime, and gun controls only keeps guns out of the hands of law abiding folks while the bad guys get them and use them whenever they feel like it.

I offer you the following Libertarian thinking: If Uncle Ben had had a gun, he might be alive today. But no… Uncle Ben was so busy spending money buying microscopes (original version) or computers (Chapter One version) or just hanging around issue after issue and not frickin’ dying (Ultimate version) that he didn’t have the money left for valuable home defense measures. For that matter, such wimpish add-ons as safety locks (because they had a teenager in the house) would have thwarted Ben from using the gun in a timely manner when faced with the burglar who obviously wasn’t bothering with safety locks. For that matter, if the people at the box office in the Coliseum where Spidey was performing had been armed, or if the security guard had been armed, Spidey wouldn’t have been faced with the prospect of standing there and letting the burglar get away. The burglar would have been wounded or dead before he got anywhere near our hero.

But as long as lame pinko wimps fight for gun control, trying to prevent the citizenry from arming itself as is its right, Spider-Man is going to have to fill in the gap.

And there’s one further resemblance: The name. It seems simple, but gets misspelled. A lot. Spider-Man gets written as Spiderman all the time. Likewise Harry Browne has to worry about the “e” being dropped from his name. Indeed, even Michael Bailey spelled it “Brown” in his letter. So that’s my thought: Harry Browne is the Amazing Spider-Man.

Of course, it’s all moot for this year… unless (and I figure it’s unlikely) some part of the election gets rerun. Still, I’m amused by people who are claiming that we’re in the midst of some sort of crisis. That the current snafu is somehow a threat to democracy. Nonsense. This country has survived: A civil war; presidents who won without the popular vote; two impeached presidents; assassinated presidents; a president who resigned in disgrace and was succeeded by a president who had no mandate because he hadn’t been elected to the office. With all of that, I think we can survive Palm Beach, Florida.

And as two would-be leaders fight for the honor of being elected into the cursed twenty-year-slot—which every president in the past century and a half has failed to survive with the exception of Ronald Reagan, and even then it was a near thing—I would humbly suggest that this entire business is not only not harmful to the USA, but is instead the single best thing that could have happened. Half the damned population still didn’t vote, and one of the most oft-cited reasons is the feeling that one person’s vote doesn’t matter. At this moment in time, Bush leads Gore in Florida by a princely three hundred votes. This whole thing is a massive civics lesson. Go into any coffee shop and hear spirited debate as to whether the Electoral College should be abolished, being held by people who—two weeks ago—barely remembered the details of the EC from their high school social studies class. The fact that there are established means and rules of seeking redress of grievances in the courts doesn’t weaken our democracy; it’s what makes it great. The current problems should have no long-lasting affect on the presidency at all. But I’m hoping that it shakes the complacency of voters and non-voters alike so that henceforth elections will be what they always should have been: Meaningful representations of the voice of the people.

In the meantime, if we’re looking for an acting president… how about Martin Sheen? He’s already an acting president, so it wouldn’t be much of a chore.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

Book review: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Originally published December 1, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1411

Toward the end of the 1930s, two young men teamed up to produce a comic book hero. They then sold all the rights to the character to a publisher for what seemed, to the young men, like a huge sum. The character then went on to make the publishers millions and millions of dollars, of which the character’s creators saw precious little. Meantime the character himself spent some time fighting Nazis, branched out to star in radio and in movie serials, and then, post war, had his adventures degenerate into silliness, while his original creators struggled to find themselves.

I am of course referring to Josef (Joe) Kavalier and Sam Clay (born Clayman), contemporaries of such luminaries as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, and Stan Lee. Kavalier and Clay, creators of the famed hero of the Golden Age, the Escapist. What’s that, you say? Never heard of the Escapist? Perhaps Luna Moth, then, a.k.a. the kinky “Mistress of the Night” whose collected adventures (The Weird Worlds of Luna Moth) became a head-shop bestseller when published by Nostalgia Press in 1970?

Don’t be too distressed if this famed creative duo, these titans of the industry, somehow managed to slip past you. Because, sadly enough, they exist only between the covers of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a recently published novel by Michael Chabon (Random House, $26.95.) For any reader, it is a richly textured slice of history. For a comic fan, it has depths and parallels that any long-time reader or follower of the industry will appreciate. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that any adult fancier of comics who does not have this book on his shelf is doing himself a great disservice.

Although the characters share billing, it is Joe Kavalier (no relation, so far as I know, to DC editor Joey Cavalieri… although I suppose you can never be too sure of such things) who is the mover and shaker of the novel. The catalyst, the one who drives the plot, setting things into motion when he manages to smuggle himself out of an increasingly Nazi-controlled Poland by hiding within—get this—a coffin-like box containing the Golem, the mythic constructed creature created to be the defender of the ghetto. The existence of the Golem is the one true flight of fancy in the book, and at first its presence is something of an oddity in a novel grounded not only in reality, but in real people and places.

Joe is a trained escape artist, you see, and manages to hie himself all the way to the United States, where he seeks to find a way (i.e., earn enough money) to bring the rest of his family over from an environment that is becoming more and more anti-Jew. Hooking up with his cousin, Sammy Clayman (who has shortened his name to Clay) Kavalier displays a talent for art that suggests possibilities to Sammy: He and his cousin Joe will cash in on the superhero comic craze that was sparked by the advent of Superman.

Just as the omnipotent (for that time, at any rate) Superman was a wish-fulfillment for any teenage boy who ever, at any time in his life, felt powerless (which would, of course, be all of them), the Escapist becomes the incarnation of what Kavalier and Clay both desire the most. For Kavalier, he is a symbol of why he’s doing comics in the first place: To help his family escape from Hitler’s clutches. But Clay likewise desires to escape: From the oppressive home life inhabited by his endlessly nagging mother and increasingly senile grandmother, from the dead end job he inhabits, and from the crushing loneliness that pervades his life.

When the lovely and enticing artist and aspiring Bohemian, Rosa Saks, enters their life, she winds up being pulled inexorably into their world—first figuratively, as she becomes the basis for the ultra sexy Luna Moth, and then literally as the two men war for her affections, but in very different ways and for very different purposes.

Kavalier not only occupies the majority of the story’s action, but it is also in him that author Chabon invests much of the research that he did in preparing the book. Kavalier is literally a one-man band of comic book artists. He is trained as a magician and escape artist… a nod not only to the superhero roots of pulps (in which it is said that magician Walter Gibson fictionalized his good friend Harry Houdini as the Shadow) but to escape aficionado Jim Steranko who purportedly served as the basis for Jack Kirby’s creation, Mister Miracle. And it is indeed Kirby who serves as the spiritual godfather for Kavalier (Chabon in his author’s note acknowledges “the deep debt I owe in this and everything else I’ve written to the work of the late Jack Kirby, the King of Comics.”) Kavalier’s art style starts out as “a little static and overly pretty,” but in short order develops a reputation for fight scenes, in particular, that are “wild, frenetic, violent, extreme.” In short, pure Kirby. Yet Kavalier then goes on to encompass the good girl (or, if you will, bad girl) art of the period when he designs Luna Moth, who is ostensibly described by Jules Feiffer as “the first sex object created expressly for consumption by little boys.”

But that’s not enough. After seeing Citizen Kane, Kavalier is inspired to reinvent himself as an artist, “chopping up the elements of narrative, mixing and isolating odd points of view,” and crafting visuals with “the integration of narrative and picture by means of artfully disarranged dislocated panels that stretched, shrank, opened into circles, spread across two full pages, marched diagonally toward one corner of a page, unreeled themselves like the frames of a film.” He incorporates the name of his lead character, a la the Spirit, into the splash page of the story, transforming the letters variously “into a row of houses, now into a stairway, into… marionettes, …spidery bloodstains… the long shadows of haunted and devastating women.” Basically, Kavalier becomes Will Eisner.

Kavalier helps us bridge the entirety of the Golden Age of comics, taking us through to the germination of the notions which will result in Marvel Comics (and Stan Lee himself, among others, has a cameo.) Every major beat of the Golden Age is there, from National Periodicals threatening legal action against the Escapist for alleged copyright infringement, to the even greater threat of Frederic Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent.

As for Clay, he’s the idea man, the driving creative force in terms of stories, concepts, characterizations. Again aptly named, Clay molds and shapes the stories, not only for himself, but for other creators in the book as well. There is a nice, deft commentary on the cluelessness of executives at one point, as Clay presents an assortment of heroes to his publishers as potential characters in their stable… and the suits select as their favorite the one hero whom Clay did not have an opportunity to work on: Radio Wave, who transmits himself through air waves and emerges from the grill of a Philco to nail the bad guys (and whom Clay correctly realizes would be thwarted by the simple expedient of the bad guys shutting off their radios.)

Adventures reminds us of what superheroes were at the beginning: Four-color icons who wanted to fight for the public good, to make the world a better place and rid it of evil (usually incarnated as Hitler). This as opposed to nowadays, when costumed adventurers are all too often self-centered, self-obsessed, and too darkly cynical to be thought of as “heroes” of any kind, much less super ones.

But Adventures goes beyond that. For Kavalier’s association with the Golem is no more coincidental than is his partner bearing the last name of “Clay.” Adventures, set against the backdrop of comics, serves also as a metaphor for Jews struggling to maintain their own identity in a society that disdains them, and for which many Jews feel that they must either hide their own true nature(behind disguises and fake names) or reform themselves, like clay, taking the risk that they will change beyond recognition. Over the course of the book, Clay literally remolds himself, tries to make himself something that he’s not, in every way possible. Kavalier likewise loses himself, loses his focus, as his passion and pure fury for the plight of the Jews slowly dissipates while a comfortable American lifestyle threatens to strip him of his identity. Even superheroes themselves are held up as metaphors for Judaism, as Clay contends, “…they’re all Jewish, superheroes. Superman, you don’t think he’s Jewish? Coming over from the old country, changing his name like that. Clark Kent, only a Jew would pick a name like that for himself.” Jewishness as Secret Identity. What a concept.

As a further amusement to comic book fans, the book is filled with footnotes, providing “information” ranging from how much one of Kavalier and Clay’s comics fetched at a Sotheby’s auction to an anecdote about Roy Lichtenstein. It’s done just straight-facedly enough to add an air of reality to the aptly named “amazing” proceedings.

Ultimately Chabon’s work is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit, and of the lengths to which people will go in order to act on behalf of others. It’s a marvelous novel.

And it left me wishing I could read the adventures of the Escapist. Or even better, Luna Moth.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

Store appearances & more McFarlane vs. Twist

Originally published November 24, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1410

Assorted stuff:

* * *

I have more or less sworn off appearances at comic book stores. There have been a few fun times here and there, but most of them have been… how shall I put this… less than rewarding.

There was a store in Long Island, for instance, which had me come out for a signing. The weather was crappy. So when no one turned out, I was assured by the store owners that it was because of the foul skies. “No one wanted to come and stand out in the rain,” they told me. “We’d love to have you back another time and hopefully the weather will cooperate.”

Well, I returned six months later, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, temperature in the 70’s/80’s, birds singing. And naturally—you guessed it—no one showed up. Whereupon the owners said, “Well, the weather was so gorgeous, people didn’t want to stand around in line in a comic store; they wanted to go to the beach.”

Then there was the store where exactly eight people showed up, and one of them stayed for the full excruciating three hours telling me every story idea for every character he’d ever had in the Atlas line from decades ago. Then there was the time that a guy came up to me, told me he hated everything I’d ever written, and then stood there challenging every person who came up to me with something to sign, saying, “Why do you like his work? It’s all crap.” He kept it up for half an hour, the store owner doing nothing, until I ran him out of the place myself. And then there are those wonderful, feel-good questions, such as, “Who are you supposed to be?” and “I thought comics were drawn. What does writing have to do with comics?” and “Do you have a bathroom here?” and, my personal favorite, “Why do your stories suck so bad?”

There have been some pleasant experiences here and there, but by and large they’ve been… somewhat lacking. The worst is when I do out-of-town appearances, because this is the usual pattern: A retailer is enamored of my work. He thinks it would be stupendous to have me in his store, because he’s convinced that all his customers share his viewpoint. He goes to some expense to have me out there (I don’t charge appearance fees, but there’s airfare, and hotel if it’s an overnight stay—some retailers want me to bunk on their pullout couch in their living room, which ain’t gonna happen, guys—plus the money involved in placing ads in local newspapers, printing fliers, that sort of thing.)

And more often than not, these efforts draw little-to-no customers, because comics come out on Wednesday, and that’s when fans go to the comic book store. But I’m there on a weekend, and if I were a hot artist or Neil Gaiman, people would make the extra effort and turn out by the carload. But I’m not, I’m just me. Retailers see people lining up for my autograph at conventions and think that will translate to in-store appearances, but it doesn’t. This used to give me a serious kick in the old ego, but I’ve gotten so used to it that my ego is pretty much shatter-proof by this time. What does get me, though, is the look of frustration and disappointment and embarrassment in the face of the retailer, who has spent time and money in an event that didn’t have the turn-out he’d hoped it would. Being Jewish, naturally I wear my guilt on my sleeve, so I wind up feeling like I’ve let the retailer down. That I wasn’t sufficiently popular to pull people into the store. And the retailer will invariably tell me all the things he did to try and get people to show up, unaware that presenting this litany of futility isn’t helping matters and—in fact—is only making me feel worse. It’s psychodrama that I simply don’t need, which is why I’d sworn off appearances in any store beyond easy driving range, and turn down all such invitations. If it’s a store nearby, fine, because at least the retailer hasn’t had to cover any of my expenses, so the inevitable guilt I feel when I walk into a store and there’s crickets chirping isn’t so palpable.

So when the folks at Dark Horse called and told me that Stephen Jahner, a retailer in Lansing, Michigan , was ready, willing and able to crawl across cut glass in order to have me come out to his store, it took a month to convince me. “He’s a big supporter of Dark Horse,” they told me, “He’s a big fan of Spyboy,” they told me. If Spyboy doesn’t succeed, I sure won’t be able to say it wasn’t promoted: Dark Horse has done more to push that book than all the efforts of Marvel and DC for all my titles combined in all the years I’ve been working for them. So I felt as if I owed Dark Horse something for all that support. And Jahner was absolutely insistent, completely convinced that people would be turning out in droves and I wouldn’t have to sit there in a big pool of guilt because I’d let down yet another retailer. Plus another freelancer whose work I respect vouched for him.

So this is it: My last shot at an out-of-state store appearance. Saturday, November 18th, I will be at Capital City Comics and Books in Lansing, Michigan from 3-7. Sunday, November 19th, I will be at Apparitions Comics in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from 1-4. If this thing tanks, the only way you get me out to a store again is in a body bag.

* * *

So Todd McFarlane seems to have dodged another bullet when the judge set aside the Tony Twist verdict… not disputing that Todd had cost Twist money with his venomous portrayal of Twist as a mobster, but instead saying that it was okay because Todd hadn’t meant to. “The question is whether the defendants intended to cause such injury by using plaintiff’s name,” said the judge. The jury punished Todd for being oblivious of the damage he could and did do, and a higher court judge turned around and rewarded him for it. John Byrne commented that, while not claiming to be psychic, he could practically hear the judge thinking, “It’s just @*%#* comics!” He may very well be right.

The question now is whether McFarlane is going to realize that he had a close call and watch his step… or whether he’s going to feel so empowered that he’s immediately going to reintroduce mobster Tony Twist and have him start suing the police for harassment

In the meantime, we’re left at least with the ironic notion that Todd McFarlane basically pleaded ignorance… and was convincing enough to win doing so.

* * *

When we were down in Florida, my elder daughters, Shana and Gwen, went on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Such a drop usually prompts people to either put their hands over their head in best roller-coaster style, or else grip onto the handrails in front of them for dear life. My children, of course, disdain such clichéd reactions. See if you can pick them out in the photograph that snapped them during mid-drop.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, yadda yadda, so forth, Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

Bush vs. Gore, part 1

Originally published November 17, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1409

So the debates are over, and now we careen toward the November 7th election with Al Gore and George Bush running neck and neck, if one can believe the polls (trust me, this will have something to do with comics. I know it doesn’t sound promising, but it will.)

Understand, the so-called debates were, in fact, nothing of the sort. A debate is something very specific: A proposition is put forward, debaters argue pros and cons of the issue, and an assessment is made as to who has put forward his or her case more convincingly. What the candidates engaged in weren’t debates. They were press conferences with time constraints, holding nominally to the rules so that the candidates would not have to address each other over the issues. Instead they addressed the moderator (Jim Lehrer with surprisingly dead eyes) and, on one occasion, audience members directly.

That was the greatest mistake in the concept. I don’t need to see how a prospective president is going to talk to the masses. It’s irrelevant. Over the next four years, whoever’s president will be operating purely off a carefully crafted speech whenever he addresses the people anyway. Press conferences likewise can be carefully rehearsed, “no comment” is always an option, and if the president doesn’t want to speak with the press, he doesn’t have to.

The situations that are make-or-break is how the president will handle himself in face-to-face situations with other politicians, be they congressmen whose votes he’s courting, or heads of state with whom he’s trying to be tough or even forestall a war. The one major cross talk that I recall was when Gore turned to Bush and tried to pin him down on the question of affirmative action and quotas. Bush looked flummoxed and then complained that Gore was acting against the rules. That, to me, was telling, because in the real world, there are no carefully constructed rules for a president to follow (well, okay, the Constitution, but other than that…) A president has to know how and when to roll with the punches, and Bush comes across as addled whenever he gets a shot in the face.

And Bush, frankly, creeped me out. That death’s head smile/grimace as he talked about executing three people convicted of a hate crime… brrrrrr. When a questioner called him on it, he claimed that the questioner had misread him. Bull. His voice, his words, his face, his demeanor could not have been more clear. Yes, Gore is also pro death penalty, which I’m not thrilled about, but I’ve no indication that he pursues it with the same missionary zeal and glee that Bush does.

Then again, Gore was driving me nuts. Here’s a tip for any future presidential candidates reading CBG (of which, I’m sure, there are hundreds): There’s nothing more frustrating to a viewer than when you give an answer that has nothing whatsoever to do with the question being asked. Yes, I understand that they spent hundreds of hours preparing. In essence, they rehearsed. But any actor will tell you that the entire purpose of rehearsal is so that—when the curtain rises and the audience is watching you—you’re able to act as if it’s not rehearsed. We all know it’s scripted, but the apparent spontaneity of what we’re seeing is what gives it its charm, is what sells it. What viewers are searching for in the “debates” is a sense of the man, not a sense of the preparation or the rote answers.

Certainly the expectations for the debate were unequal, shaped primarily by sound bites and comedians who have painted Gore as the stiff one and Bush as the dumb one. Since people are reluctant to embrace Gore due to his perceived distance, they were tuning in to see if Bush was really as incoherent and stupid as painted. The answer, of course, is that he wasn’t. Nobody could be that stupid unless he was toting a shotgun and whispering that he was hunting wabbits. So although Gore was “favored,” it was actually Bush who had the advantage because all he had to do was fulfill the most fundamental requirements of acting: Remember his lines and not bump into the furniture. Pro-Gore people came away Pro-Gore, Pro-Bush folks likewise were Pro-Bush. That leaves an estimated 11% of this electorate undecided. My guess is that they were tuning in, not to see if they could or should vote for Gore, but instead to decide whether they could live with Bush. So he “aw-shucksed” his way through, and delivered the obviously scripted bon mots like “mangling a syl-LAH-ble,” and folks who didn’t care about stuff like, y’know, a woman’s right to choose, or the environment, came away saying, “Well, y’know, he’s not so bad.”

Which is why it won’t surprise me if Bush wins, even though I think he’s dead wrong for the job. Bush’s election could, and would, be the logical outcome of the lowering of this country’s expectations. “Why Can’t Johnny Read?” has been replaced by “Why Should Johnny Read When There’s, Like, So Much Cooler Stuff to Do?” or, even better, “Why Is Johnny Reading Harry Potter, It’ll Turn Him Into a Tool of Satan.”

And yet, in the hope that there are some comics fans out there who are still undecided, and are still having trouble finding some way to personally identify with either candidate, I’ve decided to offer this helpful notion.

Yes, there are differences between the candidates, but there are also similarities. Bush’s camp, for instance, is big on talking about how Gore stretches the truth. Yet while computer experts state that Gore really does deserve some credit for the internet in its current form, and that credit shouldn’t be dismissed simply because of a poor choice of words on Gore’s part, no one denies that Bush—while gleefully claiming that all three prisoners convicted of dragging a man to death were being executed—was, in fact, wrong, and that one of the three is instead serving a life sentence. Also, Bush has been said to exaggerate the accomplishments of his career as an aviator.

And I mean… come on, folks. Running for the presidency is, in the final analysis, a year-long job interview. That’s all it is, really. And which of you hasn’t sat in front of a potential boss or someone in personnel and embellished your accomplishments in hopes of getting a gig? I not only expect both candidates to exaggerate because it’s human nature, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t.

What did strike me, though, was how over three debates the candidates molded themselves based upon focus groups and expectations. Gore was ultra-aggressive, openly expressing his annoyance with Bush, and Bush was cranky and on the attack… until the next week when suddenly it was a virtual lovefest… until the following week wherein their pendulum swung the other way because America’s collective teeth had rotted on the sugar-sweetness of the second debate. Basically they twisted themselves, folded and made malleable their forms in order to suit the situation. Both of them had Ivy League educations and fathers who were politicos. Still, Gore seems so much more intelligent, but Bush has the charm.

And that’s when it hit me.

Al Gore is Reed Richards. Mr. Fantastic. The brainy one, the smart guy, the intellectual, the one who you sit and listen to for five minutes, and then your eyes start to glaze over because he can just lose you completely when he delves into all manner of technical stuff. The one who not only is smarter than you, but knows he’s smarter than you, and you know he’s smarter than you, and he knows you know it, and his major problem is acting as if you matter to him because, really, you’re not in his league. Oh, and both Reed and Gore had gruff, rough-and-ready college roommates who wound up with unfortunate skin and you wouldn’t want to piss ’em off (Ben Grimm and Tommy Lee Jones, respectively.)

As for George W. Bush? That’s easy. He’s Plastic Man. The goofy one, the silly one, the fun one, the one who you can sit and knock back beers with and not be worried that he’ll look at you patronizingly if you get totally hammered. People tend to refer to them by a nickname (“Plas” versus “Dubbya.”) Both of them have a somewhat shady background: Plas started out as criminal Eel O’Brian, while Bush’s youth was marked by a checkered, wastrel career, not to mention… well… just what was up with Bush and cocaine, anyway? Although you think that maybe they’re both capable of getting the job done, neither of them inspires any real confidence. Both of them have been known to get a little woozy: Bush when trying to explain his own tax plan, and Plastic Man when seeking out a sidekick (Woozy Winks). Granted, Bush can’t transform himself into, oh, a lamp… but on the other hand, I can easily picture him getting wasted at a party and putting a lampshade on his head, so that’s close enough. And finally, both of them have a brother who a lot of people like better: For George W. Bush, it’s Jeb Bush, and for Eel O’Brian, it’s (and this is a little known fact) late night host Conan O’Brien (who was so mortified by the connection that he changed the spelling of his name.)

I admit, I don’t quite have analogs for the vice presidential candidates yet. Although, to my horror, I actually found Dick Cheney easier to take than Joe Lieberman. I freely admit it had nothing to do with the issues; it’s just that Lieberman sounds like every Hebrew school teacher I ever had, rolled into one. I feel terrible: He’s a fellow Jew and a fellow Democrat. On those reasons alone I should be four-square behind him. But five minutes into the vice-presidential debate, I’d stopped listening to anything he was saying, because I was too busy being wracked with guilt over my not having gone to synagogue since last Simchas Torah.

In any event, there you have it. I mean, yeah, sure, you can vote for Nader if you’re into Elongated Man (they’re both really smart and they’re both named Ralph.) But ultimately, it’s going to come down to the big two: Mr. Fantastic versus Plastic Man. Vote early. Vote often. And don’t just stand by and watch without participating, because when it comes to the battle of the malleable candidates… nobody likes a rubbernecker.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)