Peter David's Blog, page 75

Creative Differences, part 2

Originally published June 26, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1284

I was speaking last week of my favorite gags.  These were concepts, notions, dialogue, or whatever that I came up with which, for whatever reasons, were overruled and tossed.

Favorite Lost Star Trek Subplot: I do a series called New Frontier for Pocket Books.  We launched it last summer, and Paramount let the first four books sail through with virtually no changes.  The books did very well.  Naturally, that meant that when books #5 and #6 showed up, it was time to start gutting stuff.

At one point First Officer Elizabeth Shelby—even though she’s suffering from a blow to the head—takes command of the starship Excalibur in an emergency situation while Captain Calhoun’s gone and the vessel’s under attack.  She’s barely conscious, yet she manages to defeat their attackers with ingenuity and daredevil stunts.  With the danger past, she suddenly points wide-eyed and says, “Look!”

“What?” asks the science officer.

“Bunnies!” says a gleeful Shelby, and she passes out.

This was an in-joke reference to Space Cases, actually, but Paramount didn’t realize that.  It just wouldn’t let us do it.  No reason.  It just wouldn’t.  And, since the book was on an extremely tight deadline, entire sequences were changed or cut without my input.  In this case, Shelby’s delirious comment of “Bunnies!” was changed to “Colors!”—which isn’t especially funny.

It also meant that the entire following sequence was lost.  To set it up: with things back to normal, Shelby is now released from sickbay.  She is expecting the crew to rib her a bit about the “bunnies” comment.  But when she gets to the bridge, her presence is acknowledged in a casual, but not particularly emotional, way.  She realizes that she’s actually disappointed.  Picking up on the deleted material:

And yet… she was lonely.

She hated to admit it, but there it was.  She had chosen a certain way in which she desired to be regarded, and the fact was, her return to the bridge had been the test of that.  If they’d teased her or lampooned her, it would have been roundly insulting, and she would have been well within her rights to light into anyone who treated her in such a disrespectful manner.  But instead they treated her with the esteem to which she was entitled.  It should have made her feel good about herself, but instead she couldn’t help but feel as if it just underscored her outsider status… the status that she had been boasting to Lefler of just a little earlier.

At that moment, Kebron suddenly said, “Captain… vessel approaching, 229 mark 3.”

“Identification on it?”

“No known configuration.”

“Bridge to Si Cwan,” Calhoun said promptly. “Ambassador, your presence is requested, as soon as possible if not sooner.”

“Got them on screen, sir,” Lefler reported.

“Full magnification.”

Even with the screens on full power, it was difficult to discern much.  The ship was still too far away for full details to be made out. “Mr. Kebron,” Shelby now spoke up, “put long range sensor results up on the screen as well.”

Immediately an outline of the unknown vessel appeared in the upper left hand of the screen.  It was constructed with elaborate sweeps and curves, and it had an almost organic look to it. “I may be way off base on this,” Shelby said slowly, “but it looks like some sort of creature of prey, poised to spring.”

“I was just noticing the same thing,” Calhoun said grimly. “Not exactly a positive sign when it comes to hoping for a peaceful first contact.”

The turbolift opened and Si Cwan emerged.  Immediately discerning the situation, he studied the screen.  He frowned in a way that Shelby had never seen before. “I don’t know them,” he said finally.

Shelby half turned in her chair as she looked around at him.  Calhoun did likewise. “You don’t know them?” said a surprised Shelby. “You don’t?  I thought you knew everyone in all of Thallonian space.  That is why you’re aboard this vessel, is it not?”

“I feel the barb of your devastating sting, Commander,” Si Cwan said dryly. “I simply told you that no one knows Thallonian space better than I.  That remains true.  But I never said there was nothing I do not know.  Merely that I knew more than you.”

“We can sort this out later,” said a terse Calhoun. “Kebron, energy readings off her?”

“They appear to be running with shields down.  No indication of weapons targeted, locked, or hot.”

“That’s something, at least,” observed Shelby.

“Mr. McHenry,” said Calhoun, “take us out of orbit, move to intercept.  Mr. Lefler, take us to yellow alert.  Kebron, shields up.  Do not bring weapons on line.  Let’s appear cautious but not belligerent.”

His orders were immediately carried out, and Shelby tensed in her chair.  Was this the Redeemers once more, coming back for another round after their war vessel had been destroyed?  Was it some new, unknown opponent?

“Commander, would you care to hail them?”

She turned to Calhoun. “Me?”

“I will if you don’t desire to,” he said easily. “However, this is a first contact scenario.  Thought I’d let you do the honors.  As far as I’m concerned, you did write the book on first contact protocol back in the Academy.”

“Why, thank you, Captain,” she said, appreciating his gracious offer. “Mr. Kebron, hail on all frequencies.”

“Hailing, sir… no response so far, and they are continuing approach.”

The ship was drawing closer, the details of the ship becoming more discernible to the naked eye.  It was a deep rust color, and she had been right… it did indeed look like some sort of predator ready to strike.  Shelby couldn’t help but wonder whether that was a bad sign.

“They’re slowing,” Lefler informed them.

Almost at the same time, Kebron said, “Sir… we’re getting a reply.”

Shelby rose and straightened her jacket. “Put them on screen, Lieutenant,” she said confidently.

The image of the planet Zondar vanished to be replaced by the view of the interior of the alien bridge.

Shelby’s eyes went wide.  She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

It looked remarkably like the bridge of the Excalibur, except that the bulkheads looked like dirt walls.  The floor was covered with a thick thatching of branches, dirt, and pebbles.  The individual who was facing her, and apparently the commanding officer of the vessel, was quite short… less than a meter high measuring from his toes to the tip of his little ears.  His eyes were pink, and his little snout was white and twitching in a manner that was most likely a means of greeting.  He was wearing a uniform that looked vaguely like that of Starfleet, but as she could see by other members of the alien crew moving about in the background, they were specially tailored to allow for their adorable little fuzzy tails.  And there were, indeed, a hell of a lot of them… nearly two dozen, as far as Shelby could see.

Shelby tried to make words come out but she couldn’t manage it.  She looked to Calhoun, who was resolutely staring at the screen as if there were nothing unusual there.  Everyone else was keeping an admirable deadpan as well, except for Lefler who was clearly fighting desperately to maintain a straight face.

It was a bridge full of bunnies.  Uniform-clad, multi-colored, space-going bunnies.  She now realized that the ship was, in fact, crafted to look like a rabbit poised and ready to strike fear into the hearts of its enemies.

“I bring you greetings,” said the rabbit-in-command, “I am Captain Binky from the U.S.S. Hutch, a ship representing the UFP… United Furry Persons.”

“What the hell?” whispered Shelby, but she knew even as she asked.

“We seek Commander Shelby,” continued Captain Binky. “Would you be her?”

She put her fingers to her temples, shaking her head, unable to believe it.  Very quickly, Calhoun said, “This is her, yes.”

“We have sought you out, Commander, for word of you has reached all the way to the outermost reaches of the United Furry Persons, and the Hutch was dispensed with the purpose of contacting you and paying you homage.” His ears were standing at full attention, and the other members of his crew were assembling behind him. “It is our understanding that you acted above and beyond the call of duty, Commander.  That you were sick, injured, operating at far below your normal capacity.  By rights, you should have remained in sickbay.  However, so dedicated an officer are you, that at a time of crisis you put aside your discomfort and injury and, instead, forced yourself up to the bridge and took command through sheer effort of will.  Once there, you devised a strategy that saved your crew and ship, thereby proving that you—functioning at less-than-your-best—are still more formidable and competent an officer than most officers who are operating at full capacity.  In short, you are a superior officer in every sense of the word, displaying valor, dedication, and outstanding ingenuity.  And so I, Captain Binky, and the valiant crew of the Hutch, have journeyed here this day to present you with the greatest gesture of honor that our people are capable of bestowing, namely… a 21 Bun’ Salute!”

“Oh, God, no,” moaned Shelby.

Whereupon all 20 members of Captain Binky’s crew, plus the captain himself, drew themselves up stiffly and snapped off a perfect military salute.

Shelby, of course, had long since realized that what she was looking at was a computer-generated animation—what would have been termed in the old days a “cartoon.” She closed her eyes and wondered what in the world she had done to deserve this.

And then she heard something: the sound of slow, steady hands slamming together.  She opened her eyes and turned to see Calhoun, standing, slowly applauding, and nodding his head in approval.

Then McHenry joined in, as did Lefler.  When Kebron tried slamming his hands together, it created an almost deafening explosion of air, so he did it more gently.  But ultimately, within seconds, everyone on the bridge was applauding Shelby and cheering.  She looked at the screen and the bunnies were not only applauding, but they were stamping their feet, rapidly creating a concerted thumping noise.

And Shelby, to her astonishment, started to laugh.

She couldn’t help it.  Not only had they gone to a tremendous amount of work to set the entire thing up, but she knew it wasn’t being done for the purpose of lampoon or derision.  Calhoun had orchestrated it, of that she was positive.  He’d wanted to single her out for praise and commendation but, being the maverick and relatively bizarre person that he was, he couldn’t find it within himself to do it in anything vaguely approaching a normal manner.  And so he’d pulled this… this craziness.

She continued to laugh, louder and with greater delight, because she felt genuinely touched and amused and even liked: an entire barrage of emotions, one tumbling over the next, and finally she took a deep bow as the bunnies chanted “Shel-by, Shel-by!” over and over again.  Calhoun patted her on the back and she turned to him and said, “You’re insane, do you know that?”

“That’s what my first officer keeps telling me,” he replied sanguinely.

“Hey!  Commander!” called Captain Binky.  All the rabbits had lined up and were now marching backward away from the screen. “Guess what we are!”

She knew they weren’t really talking to “her.” The animation wasn’t interactive; it was all preset. Nonetheless, she said on cue, “What?”

“A receding hare line!”

Shelby didn’t know whether to laugh or moan and wound up choking as she waffled between the two.  And as groaning mixed with guffaws on the bridge of the Excalibur, the U.S.S. Hutch broke off communication and—its job done—hurtled off in search of new missions.

Ironically, a passing reference to Captain Binky did wind up in the book. But readers had no idea what it was in reference to.

I also introduced an all-powerful, super-intelligent race called The Prometheans. I had a definite concept in mind for them. At the last moment, Paramount refused to allow it through. When one of the Prometheans first shows up on the Excalibur, the printed description is that he looks like a Southern sheriff or something. Uh uh. This was the original description of the all-powerful super race:

“Hi. How y’all doing. Glad to be here. Really am.”

The Promethean was nearly two meters tall and looked completely human, a man in his late 30s, early 40s at most.  He was dressed in a fairly tight suit of purest white, and it was covered with shimmering stones that seemed to catch the light in a thousand different ways, giving him almost the effect of a living prism. A short cape hung off his right shoulder.  His stomach was taut and flat, his jaw was squared off, and he had a thick head of black hair with a curl that hung down impishly on his forehead.

He sported thick sideburns that ran halfway down his jaw, and when he spoke his voice was deep with a faint twang to it.

He took a step down from where he was standing, smiled at Lefler, and touched her cheek. “Hi, little darlin’. You doin’ OK?”

“I’m… fine, thank you,” a stunned Lefler said. For no reason that she could discern, she felt an almost primal urge to scream in ecstasy and faint.

You figure it out.

Favorite Babylon 5 gag: I worked on a script which never got made for a variety of reasons—a script written with Bill Mumy for the fifth season of B5.  Consequently, the following exchange will never get on the air. If I have to explain it to you, it simply won’t be funny, so read it. If you’re a B5 fan, you’ll get it, and if you’re not, you won’t.

Interior corridor—Londo, Garibaldi: A somewhat puzzled Londo is being briskly paced by Garibaldi.

Londo: But I don’t understand? Why do you want me to say it?

Garibaldi: I just… I want to hear it, Londo. Just once.

Londo: Just once.

Garibaldi: I’ll die happy, I swear.

Londo: Very well. (Sighs, doesn’t understand) Moose and squirrel. All right? Moose and squirrel. Are you satisfied, Mr. Garibaldi?

Garibaldi: You’ve made my day.

Garibaldi walks off, chuckling. Londo shakes his head.

Londo: Humans.

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

 

Creative Differences, part 1

Originally published June 19, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1283

“Creative differences” happen all the time.

The term has become something of a catchphrase to encompass a wide variety of reasons why someone leaves a particular project. It’s nice, it’s non-inflammatory. It doesn’t assign blame; it simply says that two (or more) parties were unable to see eye-to-eye on a situation, something had to give, and one of the parties simply threw up their hands and walked away.

The thing is, since the term is associated with break-ups, it implies that everything goes smooth as silk while the parties are working together.

Far from it. The creative process is oftentimes a brutal and harsh one. There is constant head-banging as creative individuals slug it out over a variety of topics—some of which might seem incredibly trivial to anyone on the outside—and more often than not, a compromise is reached. It is only when there is no compromise possible, and someone can’t continue to function in the atmosphere that exists, that departure occurs. In those instances, it might be that the tidy “creative differences” doesn’t apply. It might be more appropriate to refer to them as irreconcilable differences.”

But “creative differences?” I’ve had those all the time. Dialogue that I’ll come up with, story points that get shot down. And every time it happens, I have to decide how strongly I feel about it. Most of the time, I let it go, but I’ll always have a regret that it didn’t fly the way I wanted it to.

Herewith, some of my favorite disagreements. I should emphasize that at the time my reactions to the changes and/or being overruled ranged from amusement to outright fury. But with the distance of time, now I just kind of shrug and say, “That’s show biz.”

Favorite Unused Superhero Line of Dialogue: In an issue of Spectacular Spider-Man, I had Spidey discover a healthy baby abandoned in an alleyway. He brings the baby to a hospital quick as he can, and hands the child to a nurse. In the original script, the nurse asks, “Wait a minute… Spider-Man… are you this baby’s father?” To which Spider-Man replied, “Gee… I dunno. Let’s throw him against a wall and see if he sticks.”

The printed version was changed to Spider-Man sputtering a denial of parentage.

Favorite Gutted Mutant Storyline: (tie) (1) My X-Factor abortion story. Originally, I developed a story in which a scientist developed a fool-proof test that would enable couples to determine—along with the currently existing tests for actual genetic-based diseases–whether or not a mother’s unborn fetus was going to be a mutant. “You will give birth to something that many people will term a freak,” the doctor intoned. Parents had to decide whether or not to abort their child. Among other things, there were several intense discussions among the team members about a woman’s right to choose, with the pro-choice Polaris being particularly at odds with the right-to-life Rahne Sinclair.

The editors were gung-ho on the story, and it was drawn and scripted as intended… until a ton of backlash hit Marvel over Northstar’s being gay in Alpha Flight. And I mean backlash: For starters, representatives of a major retail chain told Marvel they didn’t want to carry any mutant-related toys, including the entire X-Men line, because the mutant line had been “tainted.” It was nuts. And no, I don’t blame John Byrne for it, so don’t even go there. But the upshot was that the Powers That Be ordered that nothing of any controversial nature was to see print in any Marvel book… especially a mutant book.

So key scenes were rescripted, mooting the question of abortion by having the doctor develop a procedure that would simply remove (somehow, amazingly, mystically) the mutant gene from the fetus. Yes, that’s right: He could rewrite DNA while in utero. Don’t look at me, I just work here.

(2) Rahne Insane. When I took on X-Factor, Rahne Sinclair’s status was as follows: She had been made Havok’s more or less willing slave through mental tinkering at Genosha, and she was spending all her time; in her wolf form, because in her human form she was a totally subservient airhead, one step up from a zombie.

And I thought about this and came up with a fairly demented storyline. Over the next issues of X-Factor, I had the previously sedate Rahne become not only more and more enamored of Havok, but progressively more erotically charged in her increasing lust for him. It was screamingly out of character for her, and then, in issue #89, I had her realize why: She was in heat. From spending so much time in her animal form, she had picked up traits she wasn’t expecting, and that was one of them. This was revealed in a scene wherein she was talking down the street with Moira, trying to figure out just why she was so sexually obsessive about Alex… and dogs start barking at her. Barking big time. And she basically says, “Oh my God!” as she understands what her biology has done to her.

But when I departed X-Factor due to a variety of—well—factors… the entire reveal on that storyline was dumped and the scene rescripted by other hands into pointlessness. But you can still see the barking dogs and Rahne’s shocked expression in the printed issue.

Favorite Storyline I salvaged: In issue #344 of Incredible Hulk, Betty Banner revealed she was pregnant. A dozen or so issues later, she lost the child to miscarriage in a story not written by me… one of only two issues during my run on the series that I didn’t write.

The reason I refused to do it was because Betty was really losing her child to editorial fiat. It was decided by the powers that be that Betty and Bruce were not to become parents because that would make the characters seem “too old” to the younger readers. My run on the book almost ended with that issue; I nearly walked over it. But there were so many stories I still wanted to tell that ultimately I stayed with it, even though I fumed about it for quite a while.

However, some years later I wound up making the story the lynchpin of What Savage Beast, the novel that I wrote for Byron Preiss. Betty got preggers again and I did the storyline pretty much as I had always wanted to do it… and probably better, because certain story elements (such as the Maestro) had already been introduced into the Hulk mythos and consequently the story flowed more smoothly than it originally would have.

As an interesting coda, I wanted to introduce, Brett, the grown son of Bruce and Betty from What Savage Beast directly into the Hulk comic around issue #451. But I was overruled, so I changed the character in the storyline from Brett into a future version of the Hulk himself, which I frankly didn’t like as much.

Favorite Names I Couldn’t Use: (Tie) Interestingly, they’re both from Young Justice, which hasn’t even come out yet. And I should emphasize that, even though time hasn’t passed, I’m really not upset about either of the following because I’m having so much fun with the title that I just can’t get worked up with glitches along the way.

In issue #1, I wanted to introduce two somewhat demented, over-the-top government agents who would be recurring irritants for the team. We first meet them at an emergency scene where they have taken charge and are trying to keep a crowd back. They identify themselves to the crowd as Special Agent Donald Futz, and his partner, Special Agent Ishido Nukk. When a TV cameraman gets on Nukk’s nerves, he shoots the camera right off the guy’s shoulder. Moments later Robin, Impulse and Superboy show up. Robin spots an FBI guy and asks if he’s in charge. “No, replies the agent, “I’m not running this investigation. Those two are. And believe me, you want to steer clear of them.”

“How come?” asks Robin.

And the agent replies, “Because they’re Nukk n Futz, that’s why.”

I put it into the plot and hoped for the best. To my astonishment, the story got penciled, lettered and inked with the names intact, and then someone caught it and said, “Uhhh… no.” So I changed their names to Donald Fite and Ishido Maad so they could be Fite ’n Maad. S’okay. I never really thought I’d get away with it.

In issue #2, I wanted to do an Arab Sheik named Ali Ben Styn, modeled on Ben Stein, who first made a real splash as the deathly dull teacher in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off and now stars in Win Ben Stein’s Money on Comedy Central. A typical sample of the Sheik’s dialogue: “I ask you, has anyone ever seen such beautiful jewels? Anyone? Anyone?” However—and I can’t blame them, considering recent dust-ups—the DC legal department got antsy. So I offered my alternative to the editor, which I actually liked better. We would have the Sheik sitting there, surrounded by his harem of gorgeous women, thinking, “Odd… all these beautiful women for wives… and yet, for some reason,

I’m not happy. I wonder why.” His name, of course, was Sheik Ali Ben Gay.

We went back to Ali Ben Styn.

So that was kind of a win/win proposition for me (especially after Stein actually gave the okay via his agent to do it, so that quelled legal fears).

Gee, and I didn’t have room this week for my favorite unused Star Trek novel scenes, and Babylon 5 scenes. Well… next week, then.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. If any other writers out there have scenarios or dialogue that got shot down, we’d love to hear them.)

 

Dear NRA:

At what point will it be appropriate to talk about gun control? About raising the rules? About making it an actually difficult thing for lunatics to acquire guns that destroy rooms full of children?

How many have to die, and how long do we have to wait after those deaths, before it’s addressed?

Just curious.

PAD

Cat Update

The biopsy came back on the mass that the doctor removed from his hindquarters.

Cancer.

The upside to that pronouncement is that the doctor was able to remove all of it in the surgery. And it’s a type of cancer that such a 100% removal can serve as a curative. So basically we have to keep an eye on Treat from here on to make sure there’s no recurrence.

PAD

Movie review: Godzilla

Originally published June 12, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1282

In considering Godzilla, I’ve decided that–rather than depend upon my own opinions–I’m going to fall back on the experts. See what they have to say.

First: professional movie reviewer Mark McEwen.

In a full-page ad for Godzilla, McEwen of CBS This Morning is quoted. It’s an opinion that the marketing folks were so proud of that it leads off the ad without sense of irony. McEwen’s pull-quoted description of the movie was:

“The A-Ticket Ride of the Summer!”

Now…

Let’s think about this.

Once upon a time, decades ago I believe, when you went to Disneyland and/or Disneyworld, the park was studded with little booths from which you could purchase ride tickets. These tickets ranged, in lettering, from A to E. You could purchase them singly or as books.

E tickets were the most expensive, the top-drawer rides such as “Space Mountain.” To this day, the term “That’s an E-ticket attraction” refers to something that is top-of-the-line, even though letter tickets have long since been replaced by all-inclusive passes.

Now A-tickets, on the other hand… they were the ones that most people had in the largest quantity. There were the most of them in a book because they were the cheapest, the least interesting rides. The stuff that no adult had any real hankering to see.

(Granted, it’s possible to make even the most feeble ride seem interesting. Paul Dini and I once went on “Snow White’s Scary Adventure” when there was no one else around, and amused ourselves by screaming in blood-curdling terror at everything we encountered, no matter what it was. Little singing birds, the Dwarfs, everything elicited deafening howls of fear. We got very strange looks from the attendants upon emerging. But I digress…)

In short, A-ticket rides were for the most part the kiddie rides, the stuff that parents took the little ones on while the teenagers went on the cooler stuff.

McEwen may not have meant it as such, but he pretty much nailed it. It’s a film that adults can bring their children to, content in the knowledge that the kids will find it interesting and there’s some modicum of visual stimulation to engage the adult’s interest. However, much like the Disneyland Carousel, it goes around and around with no particular purpose to it.

Whom to talk to next?

Well, I spoke to my kids. Ariel, age 6, and Gwen, age 13, accompanied me to the showing.

Before the film started, Ariel asked me her usual question: “Is this a true story?” It’s the reason (well, one of many reasons) that I haven’t let her see Titanic despite her pleadings (her sisters saw it, and that’s usually enough incentive.) Ariel’s a pretty movie-savvy kid, more interested in the technical aspects of film production than anything else, although she is able to zero in on story holes fairly quickly. Titanic is about real events, real deaths and a real tragedy. Having a child see a film in which children die is problematic enough; when it’s based on a true story, it’s too much. But Godzilla, well, I didn’t anticipate any real difficulties.

Ariel wanted to see the film just by hearing about it second hand. When I asked her what she thought it was going to be about, she said, “A big gorilla.” I explained, no, that was King Kong. This was about a giant dinosaur. “Oh, like Reptar,” she said, referring to the dinosaur character worshipped by Nickelodeon’s Rugrats; a character who is, visually, based on Godzilla. “Yeah, just like,” I said, without bothering to explain which came first.

About three quarters of the way through Godzilla, Ariel dozed off. This was, as they say, not a good sign. She came to about fifteen minutes later, apparently none the worse for wear and oblivious to the fact that she had missed any of what was nominally the plot. She jumped several times, covering not her eyes but her ears since she found Godzilla’s roar to be nothing short of deafening.

Gwen sat and watched with polite interest. Later I spoke to them to find out what they thought of the entertainment.

“It was scary,” opined Ariel. Scarier than Jurassic Park? “Yes. But not scarier than Jurassic Park II,” she quickly added. She found a sequence involving scads of several hundred hungry baby Godzillas to be far more daunting to her than anything focusing on Godzilla himself.

Gwen was more acerbic. “No one died,” she said. When I pointed out that a brace of soldiers and assorted Japanese sailors bit the big one, she amended, “No one interesting died.”

“Was there, in fact, anyone interesting?” I asked. “Did you care whether any of the characters lived or died?”

“Not especially, no.”

“So you weren’t worried about them.”

She shrugged. “A bunch of people being chased by computer thingies. Who cares?”

That might be the most incisive comment since “The A-ticket ride of the summer.”

However, while seeing the film with my daughters, I noticed someone in the back of the theater, sitting quietly and watching without comment. I couldn’t believe my luck. Who would have thought that, in a theater in Long Island, one of the foremost experts on Godzilla was viewing the film while huddling unnoticed in the rear of the theater. Before the lights came up, I hurried to the back and sat down in the seat next to him. He glanced at me suspiciously but didn’t say anything.

“Forgive me for bothering you,” I whispered, “but… aren’t you Godzooky?”

He didn’t answer at first, just pulled his trenchcoat more tightly around himself. But when he realized I wasn’t going away, he nodded.

The years had not been kind to Godzooky. He had aged, but he hadn’t grown, kind of like a reptilian Gary Coleman. His skin was darker green, and there seemed to be resentment burning in his eyes. “Can I talk to you about your feelings on the movie?”

He hesitated a moment, then nodded again. After bringing the girls home, I circled back and we rendezvoused at a sushi place.

I had thought it might be difficult to get Godzooky to open up. I could not have been more wrong. Two beers and I couldn’t shut him up.

Godzooky had not been getting much work since his heyday in the Godzilla animated series. He’d done a few gigs here and there, it turned out, and was in a few crowd scenes in Jurassic Park. Mostly, he seemed bitter.

“Barney was supposed to be my show,” he complained. “I did early development work on that. It was my idea, except it was a vehicle for me. Then, at the last minute, we couldn’t come to terms on residuals. My agent recommended I walk as a negotiating ploy. I walked, they cast some guy in a costume, rest is history. That was the end of my agent, of course.”

“You fired him?” I asked.

He looked at me with dark, pitiless eyes. “Oookay,” he said simply.

Quickly, we moved on to the main topic at hand. “I knew Godzilla,” Godzooky said, slurring his words slightly. “I worked with Godzilla. That,” and he raised a winged arm, his voice getting louder, “was not Godzilla.” Despite his volume, no one seemed to pay him much attention. Apparently they knew him there. “That was their big mistake, you know. When they were promoting Independence Day, they showed all the main visuals. With Godzilla, they kept everything secret. So audiences who knew what Godzilla looked like–and that’s pretty much everybody–had no time to adjust. They looked at that… CGI thing… and immediately said, That’s not right.’”

“What did you think of the story?”

“Typical plot holes you could drive a 200 foot dino through. Like when the heat-seeking missiles couldn’t lock onto Godzilla because he was too cold. Too cold? Five minutes earlier, he was breathing fire, for cryin’ out loud. How cold could he be?”

“Well, it’s possible that it was a chemical fire, caused by Godzilla’s breath interacting with another gas causing the…”

He didn’t appear to have heard me. “And they’ve got Godzilla dodging missiles. Why would he dodge them? He’d never seen them before. Why wouldn’t he swat at them, or try to eat them? See, that’s the original Godzilla, my Godzilla. He could take whatever was thrown at him. This one has to get out of everything’s way. And what was the deal with the size? He’s supposed to be gigantic, people are like insects next to his feet…and then he hides in a subway tunnel? I mean, c’mon! He wanted an island to nest on? What’s wrong with Australia?”

“Well, that’s a continent…”

“Who cares?! It’s a damned sight bigger than Manhattan! And if you’re going to have it in New York City, at least get your geography right! Since when is the Brooklyn Bridge the closest suspension bridge to the Park Avenue underpass? The Queensboro’s only 20 blocks away! They couldn’t crack a map? And the mayor and his aide looking and talking like Siskel and Ebert… what the hell was up with that?”

“Probably it was Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich taking a pot shot at–”

“You know the big difference between this thing and Independence Day? In ID4, there was nothing interesting or original going on, but there was so much uninteresting and unoriginal stuff going on that it distracted you from it. And all the plot and visual elements that they ripped off were from old films that the average teenager didn’t have any recent memory of, like War of the Worlds and even Star Wars. But all that stuff in Godzilla smacked of Jurassic Park, so there wasn’t anything new and novel visually to grab you. And while ID4 was a tangle of plot lines and various cardboard characters, this only had a handful of cardboard characters. It was a smaller story. The problem is when something is smaller it makes you look closer, and once you look closely at Godzilla, you realize that there’s nothin’ there. So I guess size really does matter… or at least quantity,” and he snorted.

He was silent for a moment.

Then he looked up at me and I saw there were cold tears of anger trickling down his face. “I met with them.”

“Who?”

“Emmerich and Devlin. I took a meeting with them, a year or so ago. It was humiliating. They laughed at me… and then they swiped my suggestions! I was the one who suggested that they work the Gojira/Godzilla mistranslation thing in. Do you know what their original script had a newscaster say? “God, that’s a big ’zilla!” That’s where his name came from!

“And the whole thing with the baby Godzillas? My idea! I even heard people in the audience today, when the babies show up, saying, ‘Look! Godzooky!’ It tore my heart out. Okay, I admit it, I came up with the idea as a way of getting myself in the film. Can you blame me? I could be doing Shakespeare in the park, but I’m typecast as a small winged dinosaur! No one believes I have any range! This was going to be my big comeback film!

“And not only did they give me the bum’s rush and steal my concept without so much as a lousy screen credit, but then they taunt me by sticking a Barney’ cameo in the background, because they know how sensitive I am about it!” He leaned over and shouted into my tape recorder, “Roland! Dean! Your pasty-white butts are mine, buddy boys! Mine!”

And then, in a burst of rage, Godzooky tore out of the restaurant, went down to a local mall, and stampeded through a model Lego City, as Japanese tourists pointed and laughed.

It was pretty sad. Definitely an A-ticket attraction.

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

 

Adventures in Cat-sitting

A few days ago, Kath and I noticed that Treat, the large cat who lives down in my office,was bleeding on stuff. We discovered he had some kind of lump on his posterior that he’d presumably been licking so much that he had ripped open the top.

So Saturday morning it was off to the vet. Dr. Adams said that it was definitely a growth and he could not determine the nature of it unless he lopped it off and sent it out for biopsy. So that’s what he did yesterday. He removed it and it’s been sent out for testing, and he’s currently back in my office, looking tired and relieved to be bereft of the growth. I’ll let you guys know what the test results are.

PAD

“Seinfeld, P.I.”

Originally published June 5, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1281

And now, the pilot of Jerry Seinfeld’s next series…

seinfeld, p.i.

“I got us a client, Jerry.”

I looked up from my Superman comic book, as my partner, George, walked into our impeccably neat office. The door had the words “Seinfeld and Costanza, Private Investigators” stenciled on the glass. George clapped his hands together briskly, swinging the door shut behind them. “Her name’s Elaine Benes. Says her husband’s cheating on her. We got a client!” His excitement seemed to convulse his entire stubby body.

“That’s nice,” I said calmly. Never helped to get too worked up about whatever it was George was going on about on any given day. Last time he said he had a client, it turned out to be an old woman wanting us to investigate the theft of a roll of marble loaf.

“If we’re going to investigate anything,” I added, holding up the comic book, “let’s investigate who came up with the crossover stuff. Used to be ‘continued next issue’ meant next issue of the comic book. Now it’s next issue of a comic book I never even heard of. And if I buy that comic book, it’s continued from the issue before, which I have to get, which is continued from another comic book I never read.”

“What about newspapers?” he asked. “You can read one newspaper or another, and there’s stories continued that you might not have read from the day before. You buy newspapers, right?”

“Yeah. But I only read the comics.”

“I rest my case,” he said triumphantly, plopping down in the seat opposite me, the chair creaking like the coffin hinges of buried secrets. Then he glanced around and squinted through his glasses. “Why’s it so dark in here? We forget to pay the electric bill?”

“We’re noir,” I said.

“We’re nwaaarr?” he repeated, dragging it out in that thick New York accent. “What’s nwaaarrrr?”

“It’s French. Like film noir.”

He shook his head contemptuously. “It’s always like that with the French. They always have to call everything something else.”

“Well, it does come with speaking another language.”

“Like they invented this film nwaaarr.”

“Well, they invented the term. It was how French critics described ‘black films’ made between the 1940s and ’60s that were downbeat crime stories. Instead of the cheerful, happy endings of most films of the time, they were depressing and sometimes the good guys didn’t win.”

“They invented the word. Big deal. That’s not inventing anything. That’s like coming up with gas and saying you invented Mexican food. Figures. It figures. We invent something, they name it, they act like the invented it. The French, they invented guillotines and eating snails. That’s the French mentality right there.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Can you imagine being the first French guy to look at a snail and say, ‘Wow—I think I’ll suck the inside outta that, baby.’ ”

“It’s sick,” George said, his rage rising. “Sick, Jerry! Sick. It’s… it’s…”

“Food noir?” I suggested.

“Exactly. The French, they take our films, they take Jerry Lewis, and they think they invented it. They have EuroDisney, probably think they invented Disney, too.”

“Two thousand French Disney employees trying to be polite to tourists wearing Goofy hats. Talk about Fantasy Land,” I said.

The door exploded inward. We both went for our gats, hitting the floor and sucking in the clean, Lysol-tinged aroma, a floor as freshly and purely waxed as a virgin’s gams.

It was Kramer, the next-door detective. He didn’t seem to notice we were on the ground with our guns drawn. “A British science fiction musical, Jerry.”

“What?” We holstered our pieces.

“A British science fiction musical.” He ticked off the elements on his fingers. “British because that gives it class. Science fiction ’cause you can do the effects. And musical to have a good soundtrack. It’s going to start the next wave in filmmaking, and I’m going to write, produce, and direct the first one.”

“Will it be nwaaarrr?” asked George.

“No.”

“Then I’m there.”

“What’s it going to be about?” I asked.

Kramer’s hands trembled as he sketched vague pictures in the air to illustrate his vision. “Okay. The Spice Girls—they’re rocket scientists…”

“That’s science fiction, all right,” I agreed.

“They’re testing out an experimental rocket ship—and one of the girls accidentally sets it off. They hurtle out of the solar system and seconds later, boom, they’re in an uncharted area of the galaxy with no idea how to get back home.”

“You have a name for this masterpiece?” asked George.

Kramer nodded eagerly. “Lost in Spice.”

“Lost… in Spice…”

“Isn’t it perfect,” said Kramer. It wasn’t a question. “Lost in Spice. You can’t even say it out loud without sounding like you’re British.”

“Lost in Spice,” I said experimentally. “Cor blimey, gov’nuh, we’re Lost in Spice. You know, you’re right.”

The door opened once more. No one ever knocked.

A broad was standing there, with a face that looked like it had been flattened by a frying pan, a massive head of hair, and radiating enough attitude for a hundred Frenchmen. “I’m Elaine Benes,” she said. “My husband’s cheating on me.”

“My condolences,” I said.

“My lawyer says I need proof,” she said.

“How about pictures of him with his mistress?”

“Great idea,” she said.

“Do you have any?” I asked.

“No.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s certainly going to make it tougher,” I said.

“Can you… get some?” she asked slowly.

“You mean take them ourselves?” George asked her. She nodded. George scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose we could. Do you think they’d be willing to come by our studio?”

“What?” She looked stunned. “I figured you’d follow them! Take pictures from hiding! You’re supposed to be private dicks!”

“I hate that term,” I said. “We’re not dicks.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” George said quickly.

“No, of course not, being a dick is a perfectly acceptable alternative term. But we don’t like to call ourselves private dicks.”

“It’s better than being public dicks,” Kramer pointed out. “There’s less of a stigma attached.”

Then we heard slow footsteps, the floorboards outside the door creaking. Slowly it opened.

He was standing there. Our arch enemy—

The Fat Man.

“Hello, Newman,” I said in thinly veiled disgust.

His glance encompassed the office and then he grunted. “One warning, Seinfeld: Stay off the Benes case.” And with that, he turned and waddled away.

George and I looked at each other. “Well, I guess that’s that,” said George.

“Yup. Sorry, Elaine,” I shrugged.

“You mean—that’s it?” She looked at us incredulously. “A guy comes in, tells you to stay off the case, and you stay off it?”

“He seemed rather insistent,” George pointed out.

“That was certainly my read on it,” Kramer said.

Elaine threw up her hands in disgust. “I can’t believe it! You guys just sit around here—and you accomplish nothing! No good is ever served! No people get helped! You just talk! It’s completely pointless!” And she turned and stormed out.

We watched her go.

“Now that,” I said, “was noir. Who’s for lunch?”

“Me, definitely,” said Kramer. “For some reason, I’m suddenly in the mood for snails…”

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

 

 

A Super Story

Originally published May 29, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1280

A couple of things…

* * *

Current reports are that the Superman movie, starring Nicholas Cage, has been put on hold. Apparently no one could agree on a script that satisfied everyone.

What I thought was amusing was all the sweepingly negative fan response to the initial reports that Cage would be playing the role, and that he would not be appearing in the famous red and blue outfit. That instead what Burton was looking for was an incarnation of the character that had a more humanistic approach, rather than the “standard” superhero fare. How could anyone make any sort of affecting or interesting movie with Cage as the out of costume, Superman-esque hero?

Easy.

Basically, you do a remake of Superman II (in which Superman gave up his powers in order to live out a mortal life with Lois) but rethink the entire concept of Superman. Here’s the pitch: On the planet earth, there is a secret race of super-powered beings called Kryptonians. Unbeknownst to us, they help and protect us. They save lives. They can move faster than speeding bullets, faster than thought itself. Great coats, like capes, swirl around them. They are invulnerable, incapable of being hurt but, as a result, incapable of feeling anything either. They are among us, but not of us. They are an unseen super race, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Their personal god is the sun. It is from there that they derive their power, and every evening at sunset they gather to worship the setting sun. They each wear a pendant around their neck with the letter “S” for sun.

One of them, however, is named Kal-El, and although he has the same incredible gifts as the other Kryptonians, something happens to disrupt his immortal life. He encounters a woman, Lois Lane. Lois is a good reporter, one of the best. She has a source whom she is urging to aid her with a story. The source is reluctant to do so. He feels that he will be at risk, that he will be endangering his life. But he agrees to help Lois. Lois believes in the rightness of her cause. Lois believes, almost naively, that good will triumph. The source is on his way to give Lois evidence she needs for the story, but is shot before he can get it to her. He is rushed to the hospital and Lois stands in the observation area of the operating theater, watching, praying. He can’t die, he can’t.

Kal is standing right next to her, and murmurs, “He’s not going to make it.” And to his surprise, Lois looks right at him. “Yes, he will,” she says tightly. But Kal, of course, is right, and the patient dies. Lois is devastated. She feels responsible. Because of her digging and her desire to do her job, the man is now dead, his wife and children now bereft of their husband and father.

When Lois returns to the Daily Planet, she discovers her story has been spiked for lack of evidence. She is ready to resign, to pack it in. Kal appears to her, tells her that none of it was her fault. That the source had free will, that the decision was his, and that she’s not responsible. She finds this strange, soulful man odd but, for some reason, she finds herself slowly trusting him. More… she finds that she’s falling in love with him. And Kal, for his part, is falling in love with Lois.

But Kryptonians have superhuman abilities. Mating with a human is impossible.

But Kal discovers that there is an alternative, albeit a very surprising one. He is present at a bank robbery where he miraculously saves the life of a beefy, balding cop by stopping the bullets shot by a panicked bank robber. After the emergency has passed, the cop suddenly speaks to thin air and says, “You’re here. I know you are. I can’t see you… but you’re here.” Kal makes himself visible to the cop, whose name is Turpin.

Turpin, it turns out, was once a Kryptonian as well. But he fell in love with a human woman, and wanted to be with her. Wanted it more than he wanted his immortal life as a Kryptonian. And he gave up his superpowers, became mortal. But even as a mortal, he felt the need to be a guardian, and so he became a cop, to continue to serve and protect.

“How do you become mortal?” asks Kal.

“It’s called gold Kryptonite,” says Turpin. “Takes away your powers forever. You become one of them… but you can never go back.”

Kal carries this knowledge with him, but is still not sure what to do. His relationship with Lois develops, and finally he confronts her with knowledge of his secret identity. She sees proof of his invulnerability. She freaks and sends him away.

And Kal knows that he is at a decision point in his life. Does he continue his career as a superman? Or does he give himself over to gold kryptonite, lose his powers, gain mortality, get Lois, be able to touch, feel and experience… and, in doing so, give up eternity?

As I said, it’s a remake of Superman II. It’s a totally new version of Superman, but—like Burton’s new take on Batman—refreshing, adult, and thought-provoking. I could definitely see that as a Superman film.

And if that doesn’t work, then change Kryptonians to celestial beings, change Kal-El to Seth, change Lois to Maggie, make her a heart surgeon instead of a reporter, change Turpin to Messenger (although you can still cast a cop in the role), eliminate gold kryptonite and come up with another way for the newly named Seth to give up his powers, set it in Los Angeles instead of Metropolis, and call it City of Angels.

Might make a few dollars.

* * *

Just got the latest Marvel comics solicitation information. Always feel nostalgic for that, considering I wrote it for five years. Couldn’t help but notice the following sales point for Incredible Hulk #468… “New characters, a new mystery–the title known for change turns a corner as–for the first time in nearly 12 years–a new writer infuses some new blood into the one and only Green Goliath!”

Speaking as the writer who made a lot of those changes, and who was forced to leave the title because he wouldn’t take the character in a direction that had been done to death–may I say how all warm and squishy it makes me feel to be considered, after more than decade worth of work, nothing more than “old blood.”

Although according to a piece earlier on in the same publication, snarkily entitled “Image Isn’t Everything,” Marvel proudly describes its line-up of writers including ” Top Ten’ types like Kurt Busiek, Scott Lobdell, Joe Kelly, Steven Seagle, Peter David and Mark Waid.” Not actually me, you understand, since I’m not writing any titles for Marvel, but writers “like” me.

How nice.

At least the new Hulk writer is Joe Casey. That’s the real reason Erik Larsen didn’t get the book and Todd DeZago didn’t stay around: Only guys with two first names get to write the title from now on. Which means, I guess, that if/when Joe Casey leaves, Roy Thomas should be next up. Or maybe Tony Isabella.

Oh, and please ignore fan reports that state my final issue of Hulk consists of me showing up in the book and telling the Hulk everything that’s going to happen in the next ten years. Yes, there is an off-panel freelancer named Peter, but he states that he works for the Daily Bugle. You figure it out.

I’m not a big fan of the writer showing up as the writer in a book and interacting with his characters. It just always comes across as self-indulgent to me. I didn’t like it in She-Hulk, hated it in Animal Man, and wish that Dave Sim would knock it the hell off in Cerebus. Sure, I know, I did appear in cameo as the priest who married Rick and Marlo, but I classify that more as a Hitchcockian walk-on than anything. Besides, I’m Jewish; how “not me” can you get than to portray me as a priest.

Still haven’t shown my parents that issue. Always afraid they’d take it wrong…

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

 

Up in Canada

Just here for two days and will be back in time for Caroline’s birthday. Working with a video company up here (can’t tell you which one) to produce a new video game (can’t tell you which one.) Once I’m free to tell you more info, I’ll be here to provide it.

Meanwhile it seems DC is getting closer to moving to Burbank. I’ve been hearing about this for years but now it seems matters are coming to a head.

PAD

Xena: The Filksong

Originally published May 22, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1279

And now, with the artistic assist of Mr. Richard Howell, and the lyrical aid of Kathleen O’Shea—and in the spirit of this issue’s CBG theme—BID presents a musical interlude that will be of great amusement to Xena fans and utterly incomprehensible to anyone who doesn’t watch the series. The tune to which the following is set should be immediately obvious (Hint: No, it’s not “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”)

Dahok, Dahok!

Dahok come and we wanna go home

Day,

Mr. Day, Mr. Day, Mr. Day

Mr. Dayhok—

Dayhok come and we wanna go home.

 

Work all night for an evil god

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

He wants Gabrielle for her bod’

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

 

He’ll take her and we don’t mean maybe

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

As a a vessel for his baby

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

 

Day,

Mr. Dayhok—

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

Day

Mr. Dayhok—

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

 

It’s pray and chant and spill some blood

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

Make the biggest splash since the flood

 

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

Gabrielle place her trust in Xena

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

Dayhok win cause he so much meaner

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

 

Day,

Mr. Dayhok—

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

Day

Mr. Dayhok—

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

 

Ares warned her but she ain’t listenin’

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

—So he won’t come to the christenin’

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

Dayhok’s plan soon will be unfurled

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

This day, Xena, tomorrow the world

Dayhok come and we wanna go home

 

Day,

Mister Day Mister Day Mister Dayhok—

Dayhok come and we wanna go home