Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 87

Book Review: Superman Chronicles Volume 3

The Superman Chronicles, Vol. 3 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Superman #4 and #5 along with Superman stories from Action Comics #21-#25 and New York World's Fair 1940.

Overall, we're given a high quality product with some pretty decent stories.

In Action Comics #21, we're given another story with Ultra (formerly the Ultra-humanite who changed his gender by transporting his mind into a female body in a previous story). In Actions Comics #22 and #23, with the war in Europe brewing, Lois Lane and Clark Kent were dispatched to Europe where two fictional countries fighting and Luthor was the villain of piece.

Yes, this book introduces the first version of Lex Luthor (though known only by his last name in this early book) and Superman had earned his greatest rival. The two faced off in two stories in Superman #3 including one awesome story where Superman fights a Pterodactyl and also another Superman #4 which states Luthor was killed off (but we all know better). Superman battles illegal slot machines and then takes on a crooked politician who is using extortion to take over a competing paper to the Daily Planet.

All the Superman stories are fairly good for the golden age with a few milestone stories and they're worth a read. The only reason I'm not rating this five stars is this book lacks the extra special memorable stories that the first two volumes did that made those a cut above. Anyway, it's still a great collection of the greatest selling comic book hero of the time.



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Book Review: Invaders Classic, Volume 1

Invaders Classic - Volume 1 by Roy Thomas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Unlike DC, Marvel's World War 2 history wasn't marked by great team battles. DC had the Justice Society and the Seven Soldiers of Victory, Marvel had a bunch of individual battles with the occasional Submariner-Human Torch team up thrown in.

But Roy Thomas had the perfect solution for Marvel: If you don't have a great Golden Age Team history make one up.

So, the Invaders were born. This book collects Giant Invaders #1, Invaders 1-9, and Marvel Premiere 29 and 30.

The books with Giant Invaders #1 and sees Marvel's golden age big three (Captain America, Human Torch, and Sub-mariner) and their kid sidekick (Toro and Bucky) joining forces in a 32 page adventure against the Nazi super soldier replica Masterman. They're urged to join forces on a permanent basis by none other than British Prime Minister Winston Churchill with a goal of invading Hitler's Fortress Europa.

Issues 1 and 2 of the regular Invaders series has them battling Brain Drain and encountering some apparent Norse gods who aren't from Asgard. A mostly okay story.

Issues 3 and 4 of the Invaders have the Invaders up against U-man. Other than the obligatory battle of Namor v. the rest of the Invaders due to the latter's insistence on taking down U-man on his own since U-man had attack at the sea, the serial is more good but not outstanding work.

The middle section of the book is what earns it my 5 star rating including Marvel Premiere #29 and 30 and Invaders #5 and #6. In Invaders #5, all the Invaders other than Bucky are kidnapped and brainwashed by the Red Skull into attacking America's war production. Marvel Premiere #29 sees Bucky taking to the airwaves and calling for all the costumed heroes to gather to form a new team to stop the Invaders and rescue them from the Red Skull's clutches. This is a story that only Roy Thomas could have written. Each of the seven was introduced with a half page explaining their origins and histories in the Golden Age. It was a magical experience reading this, and the rest of the arch with these lesser know heroes in action was just a plain delight, and one of my favorite issues of any book I've read.

Issues 7-9 concludes with the Invaders facing Baron Blood, a vampire for the Nazis. Vampires were pretty big at Marvel in the 1970s with Morbius, so this is a case of what goes around comes around. The story featured the introduction of the Union Jack, who had been a top war commando in World War I. I was somewhat less than impressed with the imaginary World War I superteam he'd been a part of, but maybe it'll come in handy later. Despite his advanced years, he joins the the Invaders.

The one aspect of this story that bothered me was the war weariness setting in for Captain America and Torch in 1942. Mind you, there's some realism here and it may ring true for the era it was was written in the 1970s. But it doesn't ring well with the golden era replication of the rest of the story. This can get too heady too fast, but we'll see how it plays out in Volume 2. Overall, despite the moodiness of the last 3 issues, it's still a great book for those who like World War II stories and the Golden Age of Comics. The important thing to remember is that it is basically a love letter to the Golden Age from the Bronze Age, and the publication era does influence it.



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Book Review: mazing Spider-Girl, Vol. 2: Comes the Carnage!

Amazing Spider-Girl, Vol. 2: Comes the Carnage! by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collect Issues 7-12 of the Amazing Spider-girl, the second Spider-girl series.

The book begins with a one shot story where the crippled Lady Hawk twin calls on Spider-girl to stop her sister from avenging her injury. Spider-girl tries, it doesn't really work and the only thing we learn is that some crime bosses have ethics and May gives up being Spider-girl.

This sets up Issue 8 where one of May's classmates suddenly discovers she's a mutant. May's mother Mary Jane urges her parents to be accepting and then is forced to confront her own refusal to support May is hurting their relationship. This ends with Mary Jane giving May back the costume and at last we finally stop repeating plots from the first Spider-girl series.

Issues 9-12 are an epic story arch which begins with SHIELD having Agent Whedon's gang of former supervillains transport a specimen of the Carnage symbiote. The symbiote escapes, and ends up taking possession of her friend Moose and kidnapping her baby brother. The stakes and the emotion are high. There's a particularly powerful scene in Issue 11 with Peter Parker straining to escape from venom's web.

Admittedly, the story line is not without some problems. It feels like we had a continuity blip in Issue 12. Something pretty unpleasant happens to Baby Ben, and it does feel like Peter's role in this should have been more significant.

Still, I think it marks some new potential for the series. It's probably as dark as Spider-girl has gotten and I hope that Spider-girl doesn't become unrelentingly dark. At the end of the day, Spider-girl saves the day but there's a price that's surprisingly high. We'll get into the fall out when it comes time to look at Volume 3.



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Book Review: The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures

The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures by Dave Stevens

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This books follows the two Rocketeer stories by Dave Stephens in 144 pages told in eight installments, so yet it's pretty complete.

The Rocketeer definitely has a pseudo-golden age look and feel to it which makes it appealing. The Rocketeer is an appeal back to the more normal guy heroes that made up many comic books back in the day. The rocket is pretty cool and Clint is an interesting character. It works good as a high adventure period piece, with good art work and well-drawn characters.

The negatives in the story include the portrayal of Betty who really was portrayed one dimensionally and definitely as a sex object character. And then there was the whole serial killer over a spurned midget story that was dubious.

Still, the story itself was okay. One thing that bothered me about the book is I expect special editions to give me some context about the strip, its author, its legacy. At least an introduction. We get none of this. Instead, we get the comic strips which is okay. But the lack of context is why I gave it 3 rather than 4 stars.



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Book Review: Batgirl Year One

Batgirl: Year One by Scott Beatty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The original Batgirl was Barbara Gordon and this book like other Year One books is an origin story, revising and expanding her silver age origin to a more modern setting.

Barbara Gordon wants to be a police detective but is too short and her father James Gordon is just not a fan of her joining the force. She decides to give him a few awkward moments at a party by designing her own creative female version of the Batman costume. But she actually has to fight crime when Killer Moth shows up to kidnap Bruce Wayne.

When she decides she wants to actually continue being Batgirl. This is a problem as her father would never want her to be Batgirl and Batman's not too hot on the idea, with the feeling that she hasn't earned the right to wear her costume. Batman has Robin provide her some equipment to help but mainly to make sure she doesn't kill herself.

Really, this is just a fun book. Batgirl is spunky and determined. She goes through plenty of setbacks but is a determined fighter who won't let anyone deny her her dream. She has her moments of self-doubt but they're moments, it's not a way of life for her. She keeps coming, even though her motivation for this isn't particularly strong other than being in a cop's family and unable to use her skills on the police force where she works as a computer tech.

This type of story doesn't need a menacing big league villain like the Joker or the Penguin. A strong but not all that competent Killer Moth backed up by the more menacing but still B-list villain Firefly really help to strike the right tone with Killer Moth's plot to become the villains version of Batman even giving criminals a Moth signal which was part of a Silver Age Batman story.

This series really did quite a few homages and acknowledgements to the Silver and Bronze where Barbara Gordon's Batgirl was well-known and it all makes for a nice package.

If there's one detriment, it was the constant foreshadowing. In the post-Crisis DC Universe, Barbara Gordon was crippled by the Joker in Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke and from her wheelchair, she served as Oracle who masterminded the Birds of Prey group. One or two references to this would have been okay and expected but they did it a lot and that diminished the story.

It's as if the authors are saying, "You know everyone whose afraid our plucky heroine is going to get herself seriously injured. Well, they're right." It's a dark cloud that they make way too big in this type of story.

Still, they don't ruin it and compared to the other Year One Titles I've read, this is actually pretty good.



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Book Review: Essential Daredevil Volume 6

Essential Daredevil, Vol. 6 by Marv Wolfman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This volume contains most of Marv Wolfman's run on Daredevil and then begins into Jim Shooter's run on the book. This book collects Daredevil Issues 126-146, Annual #4, Ghost Rider #20, and Iron Man #88 and #89.

This particular volume begins off kind of weakly with a two parter in Daredevil #126 and #127. We meet Matt Murdoch's new love interest in Heather Glenn and in a very weak story telling device she just happens to stumble into Matt's apartment by mistake. Meanwhile Daredevil stumbles into someone named the Torpedo who dies fighting Daredevil. Nearby, a washed up football player disgruntled with life is nearby when the Torpedo dies, he asks the football player to take his armor so that he can complete his mission which involves protecting the guys family and stopping an iron curtain country. The new Torpedo tries to explain this to Daredevil but instead they end up fighting and they end up crashing into a lower middle class family's home and wreck it and chewed out by the homeowners. Torpedo quits without completing his mission and Daredevil does the typical Marvel thing and throws away his costume. This just kind of seemed dumb.

What followed in #128-130 were a series of one-shot stories with a larger story going on in the background. #128 featured Deathstalker, #129 had the return of Man-Bull, and #130 had Daredevil taking on a phony voodoo ring (Yep, it was the 1970s).

Issues #131 and #132 featured the introduction of Bulls Eye. He wasn't Frank Miller's Bulls Eye at this point, but he was a crazy maniac and one of Daredevil's best foes yest. Issue #133 featured a team up with Uri Geller, yes a real life person inserted into a superhero comic. Together they teamed up to take on Mind Wave.

Issues #134-137 are the high point of the book. Since Daredevil #124, false news stories have been hitting the airwaves, testing public gullibility and increasing public cynicism about the reliability of anyone in the wake of Watergate with stories about the Vietnam War not happening and JFK and RFK being alive. It's actually a pretty cleverly written storyline that played on the feelings of the time but is also relevant today. I also have to appreciate how Wolfman built up to this through his first 10 issues as writer of the series beginning with false images of Foggy Nelson appearing in deceptive campaign ads against Foggy's re-election. It was just well-done.

At the end of Daredevil #137, we find out Matt's old flame Karen Page is in trouble in and there'll be a crossover with Ghost Rider. But the next thing we read is Iron Man #88 and #89. Daredevil does feature in Issue #89 in Iron Man's Battle against the blood brothers but it didn't tie into Daredevil's story but was just a random crossover, I'm dubious as to why it was included. Plus Iron Man #88 was concerned with wrapping up a previous storyline as well as several ongoing storylines that readers of Essential Daredevil alone would know nothing about. It felt like padding to make the book a more reasonable length.

Daredevil #138/Ghost Rider #20 tell the story of Daredevil and Ghost Rider's attempt to rescue Karen Page. We once again have it affirmed they won't work out. Overall, as a crossover story meant to bolster both titles, it wasn't all that good.

Daredevil Annual #4 is included and the story promises an epic "three way fight to the finish with Black Panther and Namor." The story is fine but the panel is somewhat inaccurate. Daredevil interacts with Naomor and Black Panther, but the two are only in the story at the same time for a couple pages and never fight. Other than that and the Submariner leaving the story 2/3 of the way through, it's a pretty fun double length story though it doesn't have a supervillain until the last few pages.

Daredevil #139 is a pretty good one shot story taking Daredevil to a more street level place after all the recent team ups. He has to find a missing woman who holds the key to stopping a mad bomber. In the meantime, there's a little lost boy who's a hemophiliac. The story is a bit more gritty than Daredevil usually was (and the book is still a couple years away from Frank Miller taking Daredevil's direction entirely that route) and this book still has a solid ending.

Daredevil #140 is a one shot story guest written by Bill Manlo and has DD facing off against the Beetle and the Gladiator with the Gladiator being far more violent than previously displayed.

Issue #141 has Daredevil facing off against Bulls Eye who actually wins and the issue finishes with him trying to finish him in the most over the top silver age way possible, by shooting him into a brick wall tied to a gigangic arrow.

Issues #142 and #143 close out and have Daredevil batting a team of the Cobra and Mr. Hyde. The nicest part of this one is a wealthy man who lives in the city whose created his own jungle complete with wild animals on the 80th floor and dresses like Tarzan.

That ends the Wolfman and begins the Jim Shooter era (with Gerry Conway providing plots for the first story arch.) Issues #144 and #145 begins with the escape of Man-bull from prison but actually centers upon long-term Daredevil foe, The Owl who has been crippled by the formula that gave him the ability to fly and trying to kidnap a doctor to cure him. This is an okay introduction to Shooter.

Much better is the concluding story of the book in Daredevil #146 in which Daredevil once again battles Bullseye though this time with his radar sense acting up. The story ends with a bombshell that could disrupt he overall harmonious relations between Matt and Heather Glenn.

In addition to the Iron Man story (which served only as padding), book had some silly moments and odd things such as Daredevil not knowing he was destroying a house or Uri Geller as a guest star,and even one spot where Daredevil subtly argues he's better than Batman. However, this was actually a pretty enjoyable collection. Wolfman had some imaginative ideas and the best of them was probably Bullseye.

After all the Drama in Matt's previous two relationships, it was nice to have a series of stories where being in relationship was actually making Matt happier (at least for a while) rather than constant drama.

Overall, Wolfman's run was far more fun than either Gerry Conway's or Steve Gerber's. Gone is the overbearing narration, in are some very creative story ideas that are just very nicely done.



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Book Review: All Star Comics Archives, Volume 2

All Star Comics Archives, Vol. 2 by Gardner F. Fox

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book begins with a rousing introduction from Jerry Bails, which really sets the stage for the book.

The Justice Society were the original large-scale Superhero team. This second volume collects All Star Comics Issues 7-10 with 4 adventures from the Justice Society. The society featured a team plus several honorary members. At the start of this book, the honorary members are Batman, Superman, and the Golden Age Flash.

Issue 7 was the first and only issue during the Green Lantern era as Chairman of the Society. The society sets out raise $1 million for humanitarian war relief. Usually, they don't accept rewards, but they've got the spirit of World War 2 and set out to help others in a fun and moving adventure. Grade: A-

Issue 8 begins the Hawkman era as Chairman as the Golden Age Green Lantern joins the honorary member list. The plot centers around several criminals going insane. With Green Lantern inactive and Hourman taking a leave of absence, that opens spots for Starman and Dr. Midnite who are introduced in this issue. Overall, this was an okay story with unsatisfactory ending. However, it's made better because All Star Comics #8 throws in the first Wonder Woman story at no additional cost. Grade: B+

Issue 9 features the JSA going after fifth columnists spread throughout Central America. and J. Edgar Hoover being made an honorary JSA member. I'm usually all in for World War 2 propaganda efforts, this one suffered. There was really no unified meeting or big goals the team was going for leading to an average series of solo stories. Grade: C

Issue 10 has the Justice Society Teaming up with scientists who are working on a system of bombing defense. No one has the exact way to do it, but one of them has invented a time machine and the JSA proposed to go forward in time to get the components. Yes, it's a time paradox, but I have to love the optimism about the future even in the midst of war. A hopeful and fun story. Grade: A-

The big plus in this issue besides Wonder Woman is Captain Midnite who could have been a basis for Daredevil. While the Golden Age Atom is a weak character, my least favorite character here is Johnny Thunder who remains the, "One of these things is not like the other" member of the JSA as his magic thunderbolt genie is the only ace he has. It's a good ace but functions as a deus ex machina for the clueless JSA member.

But even with Johnny Thunder, the book was still pretty fun reading.



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Powerhouse Returns to Ipad and Nook

When I first published Tales of the Dim Knight as an ebook in late 2010, it was published on Smashwords and distributed to Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Apple, and Sony.

However, over time, I found that while readers were buying off the Kindle, my sales off other sites were stagnant. So when Kindle Select came along offering more options if writers agreed to Amazon only distribution, I distributed Tales of the Dim Knight as well the new Adventures of Powerhouse series exclusively for Kindle.

The ebook world is always changing, though, and the benefits of Kindle Select aren't what they once were, plus I've had some good sales success with my non-fiction book All I Needed to Know I Learned From Columbo, and I'm very excited about Smashwords new partnership with ebook subscription services Oyster and Scribd and want to see how that goes, so I'm going to go off Kindle Select for a while if we can attract some new readers.

So, I've released the following titles over to Smashwords (for all ereaders):

Tales of the Dim Knight


Powerhouse Flies Again


Powerhouse Hard Pressed.

Still not yet available is Rise of the Robolawyers (which is still exclusive through Amazon on 2/8) and Fly Another Day (which collects Powerhouse Flies Again and Rise of the Robolawyers) but they'll be up next month Lord willing.

So I hope this helps my book reach more readers and we'll see how this goes.

Book Review: Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 1

Showcase Presents: World's Finest, Vol. 1 by Edmond Hamilton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Superman and Batman together. What could be better? They were the original Super Friends. In an era when team ups were rare, Batman and Superman began to team up on average six times a year. This book collects Superman/Batman stories from the 1950s through 1960.

It all begins in Superman #76 in 1952 when nine years after it happened on radio, Superman and Batman teamed up on the page. Two years later, the first Superman-Batman team up story appeared in World's Finest #71 and from there on out, Superman and Batman would team up in the bimonthly publication for decades to come.

This book collects 41 12-13 page Superman/Batman stories and they are a treat for the young and young at heart. Superman and Batman and Robin team up in a variety of cases. They have three great battles against Lex Luthor and one of those also includes the Joker and there are a couple of appearances by the early Batwoman. They also fight aliens, monsters, and in an era with few real supervillains they come up with quite a few foes who are capable of giving the World's Finest team a run for their money. My favorite was the Duplicating Man.

The length of the stories was a blessing and a curse. The stories couldn't be too complex, but they also couldn't get bogged down or drawn out. Mostly writers like Edward Hamilton and Bill Finger succeeded in coming up with fun yarns.

Of course, there's some repetition with Batman getting superpowers temporarily a few times and both heroes scrambling to save their secret identities. But as the stories were originally written for kids and written over six years, that's to be expected. Yes, there were plot inconsistencies and some events stretched credulity (such as Bruce Wayne going to work as a newspaper reporter.)

However, when it's all said and done, these are some of the most fun stories I've ever read, and they capture the fun and excitement of the Silver age of comics very nicely.



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Spongebob Squarepants v. McGee and Me

There's a post over at Christ and Pop Culture that's being discussed at Speculative Faith today that's criticizing a single episode of McGee and Me, the Christian TV Cartoon series that was quite traumatic. I saw it and survived, even though the episode was a downbeat.

Before getting into the substance of this discussion, I have to say that posts like this are probably why a good deal Christian creators throw up their hands and say, "To heck" with writing for a Christian market.

Both Speculative Faith and Christ and Pop Culture spend a great deal of time taking secular programs that often seem to have many problems and finding what is good and redeeming about them. And there's nothing wrong with that in itself. I think it can actually be quite helpful. There's some good writing that goes on there and it can help us get a proper perspective on things.

But on the other hand, when we take take one half hour episode of one TV series (and yes, it's a series with multiple episodes) and shred the creators for blowing (in their opinion) one episode, I think that's ultimately counterproductive.

If you're a Christian who produces secular material, you have to include some positive thought provoking elements and have negative elements that stop short of blasphemy and you have praise. While if you propose to produce Christian art, your work can be totally dismissed and discounted if it doesn't have just the right combination of material and in one particular episode.

And what are parents to do? Throw out those McGee and Me shows and let the kids watch Ren and Stimpy instead? Okay, that's over the top. But maybe Sponge Bob Squarepants is the way for parents to go to avoid the theological errors and various imperfection of Christian producers of children's television. I'm sure they'll be no negative values communicated by going that route.

That said, let's take a look at the criticism of this particular episode.

In "The Big Lie", Nick, the hero of McGee and Me, told a gossiping lie that led to a kindly Native American man have his house trashed by bullies. Nick feels remorse over this. And how this is handled is the source of Dr. Noble's criticism as well as a cartoon short featuring McGee:

Rather than confide in his dad, Nick asks a hypothetical question: what if you said something wrong about someone and it could hurt them? His father offers ominous and prescient counsel, warning that the lie will hurt the person lied about and the liar, because, ”Not only will the truth eventually find him out, but the very fact that lying is a sin, well, that sin starts to cut off his relationship, his friendship, with God.” Even worse, ”If we lie and hurt another person, we hurt Jesus.” Nick’s dread only grows, and so he asks, “What do I do?” To which his father replies, “What do you think?”


The “biblical” lesson is that no matter how trivial a lie might be, once spoken, it begins a web of destruction and evil, consuming innocent people, cutting us off from God, and making an already-crucified Christ cry. Oh, wretched man that Nick is! Who or what will rescue him from this body of death? What can he do?


The only answer given: “What do you think?” That’s the most chilling part of this exchange. Nick is overwhelmed with guilt and fear, and his father’s response is to further explain the incomprehensible evil which he has committed, and then to tell him to just go figure it out.

So as I read this again, what occurred to me is that Dr. Noble's criticism seemed to be that Nick's father didn't spoonfeed him the solution to the problem.

Doing so would have been debatable parenting, but pretty lousy writing and drama. I would say it would be debatable parenting because the actor who played Nick was 12 years old and at some point, a child does need to take what has been taught and learn how to apply what they were taught to do.

Asking, "What do you think?" is actually better from a writing perspective. In doing this, the children watching and Nick were invited to think about what they should do rather than being told what they should do. It was an opportunity for discussion of how we respond to this. It's unfortunate that this opportunity wasn't used by Dr. Noble and his family but I can't fault the producers for that.

And Nick showed what he did by trying to prevent the attack (albeit too late) and making restitution and seeking forgiveness for what he had done. The question to his dad wasn't out of ignorance of what the right thing to do was.He just needed to find the courage to do it.

So in essence, the criticism of this episode is that it wasn't preachy enough. It didn't diagram all the answers into a nice neat package. But then again, those Christian film productions that do that also end up criticized for being poorly written because...they are.

As for the cartoon short that preceded Nick's talk with his dad, I'll admit that was dark, over the top dark as Noble explains about the story involving McGee (Nick's animated buddy);

McGee breaks a window unintentionally because some city planner thought it was a good idea to put a baseball diamond across the street from a glass shop. The authorities swoop down with swift and absurdly disproportionate justice to drag a small boy off to prison. Since the story ends so abruptly there’s no trial and no chance for McGee to admit to his lie, so in the world of the parable McGee must spend eternity with the guilt of his crime. The injustice is suspended indefinitely with no hope for redemption.

The one thing I'll say in defense of this is that it's set in the middle of the story when Nick in the previous scene had been feeling guilty about his lie. Since Nick is an artist and McGee is his character, it functions a lot like Doug Funny's fantasy sequences in Doug reflecting his mood at the moment rather than an ultimate answer to the question.

Again, the writers could have written a happier ending cartoon to go into the middle of the show that did not reflect Nick's mood, and to be fair, in later episodes, they did just that. However, there's something to be said to this approach for conveying the character's mood.

The later McGee cartoons are often more driven towards the kids at home or just being funny rather than worrying about accurately reflecting something a pre-teen boy's imagination might have actually produced. And who knows this may have been in response to criticism like that of Dr. Noble. Whether the series was better for the shift is a matter of debate.

In the end, "The Big Lie" was an episode that was about lying, but really the boastful lie added fuel to gossip already around the school about the old man who ends up the victim of this. And truth be told, gossip is something Christians don't take seriously enough. Pastors will tell you that gossip remains a huge issue in their church. McGee and Me addressed this in a way that was memorable and brought the point home.

Did they do it perfectly? Probably not. But, there are worse things kids could watch and I have to commend the producer's effort.

Of course, there's a bigger question of where grace was and how explicit it needs to be. Is there value to a program focusing on morality without bringing in the Gospel. I'll take a look at that another time.