A Gorilla-Themed Palate-Cleanser

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I was going to write about Flashpoint No. 5, but I just don't feel like being super negative today. Suffice to say that I exclaimed "That's stupid" more than once, and that my dog was saddened by the tone of my voice. I had to calm him down with a belly rub.

Instead, here's an excerpt from a comic I read and genuinely enjoyed this week:

 

Namely, Detective Comics No 232, in which Batman is consulting on the set of a Batman movie. On this specific page, a couple of writers try to get a handle on the character and are delightful.

They might actually be the only characters to get a chuckle out of me with the old "accidentally discover Batman's secret identity and then laugh it off" gag, possibly because of the joyful little faces pictured above.

 

Even more likely, though, is that it's just reflected hilarity from this couple of panels. These guys should have been folded into Batman's supporting cast.

 

Bonus! That wasn't just a throwaway gag page, it was set-up! It was an example of Chekhov's Gorilla Suit, and that might be the most satisfying thing I've ever written.

Of course, there were plenty of good comics out this week. Skullkickers, The Sixth Gun, Invincible, the excellent Infinite Kung Fu TPB (came out last week but who's counting). The moral of the story, I guess, is that I should never read event comics ever again. Also, watch out for guys in gorilla costumes.

The Unfunnies: Homer and the Terrors of the Deep

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This one is pretty terrible.

That's right Homer: pave the ocean so you don't have to deal with the inconvenience of irregular topography! Dynamite the reefs to save you the indignity of potentially cutting yourself on a coral protrusion! Drug the fish, for they might someday bite you! You jerk.

Homer, by the way, is one of DC's "everyman" characters - along with Ollie, Lucky and Stan - who skipped from job to job as the thematic gag strips demanded it, and since they were the chumps who usually showed up in Aquaman's comics, they all got to be skin divers. Horrible, lazy skin divers.

- this one's from Aquaman No. 34

Flashpoint Ramblings

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So I've been reading Flashpoint, and I while I've been enjoying some of the alternate timeline ideas, I haven't really been able to get into it as being consequential. This might be due to the upcoming reboot, or my disdain for Reverse Flash as a boilerplate EEEEVIL TORTURE VILLAIN, but the fact remains that I just can't bring myself to care all that much about the outcome of the whole thing.
Ironically, this has led me to think about it a lot. Specifically, I've been trying to work out what the theme of this alternate world is - every good alternate timeline story has a compelling theme, after all, like Red Son being all "what if Superman was a Commie?" or Justice Riders posing the compelling question "what if everybody was cowboys?". 

I know that the impetus of the whole thing was Reverse Flash evil torturing Barry Allen by messing with the past, but that's no kind of theme. Based on the differences that I've been able to glean so far, I reckon that the theme of this world might just be "what if The Nail was about the entire JLA instead of just Superman?" Consider:

[BIG SPOILERS IF YOU CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING]

Superman - Kal-El's baby-rocket impacted in Metropolis instead of Kansas, leading to him spending his entire life in government custody. Also, his DNA was used to create a Super Sayan.

Batman - Lil' Bruce Wayne was shot while his parents survived. Thomas Wayne became a meaner version of the Batman as a result, while Martha Wayne became the Joker.

Green Lantern - Abin Sur never travelled to Earth and consequently never died. Hal Jordan still a test pilot.

Martian Manhunter - Captured by super-villain the Outsider, tortured, experimented on and then sold to the Russians. Became evil as a result of these torments.

Aquaman - Taken away from his human father at a young age and thus never given a gentler moral upbringing. Sinks Western Europe as a part of his war with the Amazons.

Wonder Woman - We'll come back to Wonder Woman.

So: DCU big guns removed = the world becoming a hellhole. But wait, now something else is bothering me: Reverse Flash went to great trouble to either kill (Batman) depower (Green Lantern, Flash) or scramble the morality of (Superman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman) all of the A-list super-heroes, but what about Wonder Woman? As far as I can tell, Evil Time-Travelling Apparently Space-Capable Possibly-Magic Reverse Flash didn't mess with her past at all.

Therefore, baseline Wonder Woman is capable of being manipulated into a devastating war, the invasion of a sovereign noncombatant nation and the subjugation of its people. She can be fooled into not noticing her people deploying death squads to other countries and starting concentration camps in her own. She's foolish enough to try negotiating with Aquaman while wearing the helmet that she took from his wife's severed head. Flashpoint Wonder Woman is, evidently, a moron.

Whether this means something big or cosmic or misogynistic or pants-phobic (Moron Wonder Woman does, after all, wear those very controversial garments) I cannot say. All that matters is that it is on the Internet and thus will no longer be rattling around in my head.