No, Willie's inability to decide between Tessie and Millie was not a comment upon his sexuality.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Friday, April 26, 2024
THE WEIRDIE FILES
DC jumped feet first into the supernatural/Gothic thing after having generally avoided that type of story for over 20 years, and it seems likely that Carmine Infantino was the biggest influence, as he himself claims in a JOURNAL interview:
I was trying to prepare for the inevitable. In my mind, “What if these things die? What if we’re back in the old days and suddenly superheroes drop off?” The reason I threw out a mess of different titles was, I wanted to sneak in The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets without people much realizing what was going on. Which I did. And also we had a chain of them out there, if you remember, and they were all successful before anyone at Marvel realized what was going on. So we had those going for us, and the superheroes going for us. Meanwhile I kept experimenting with different things.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
RAR #75: THE SHAMAN (1947)
In BLACKHAWK #17. The Blackhawks and their comrade Miss Fear take on The Shaman, who uses illicit atomic science to impress his native followers with his "magic." The location might be Canada, given that the only city mentioned is a made-up place called "North City." There's one line of dialogue where the White governor admits that the natives have some justice on their side, but that he doesn't like The Shaman's fear-mongering. Once he's out of the way, of course, everything becomes hunky-dory.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
THE WEIRDIE FILES
Though Alan Moore wasn't the first writer to convoke weirdies, he was one of the guys who made the trope popular.
In SWAMP THING ANNUAL #2. for instance, the titular muck monster has to journey to Hell to save the spirit of Abby Arcane, and he gets the assistance of a former ally, The Demon, in so doing. Moore manages to work in Deadman, The Spectre and the Phantom Stranger, even though none of them are necessary to the plot.
In contrast, Moore's almost-final SWAMP THING story guest-stars all of the above weirdies, plus Doctor Fate and many others, and they are all necessary to the plot, so maybe he used the Annual to re-familiarize his readers with DC's resident weirdies just so they wouldn't seem yanked in out of nowhere.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
THE WEIRDIE FILES
Here's a prominent example of a convocation of weirdies with no monster content, the so-called "Trenchcoat Brigade" from THE BOOKS OF MAGIC.
Monday, April 15, 2024
THE WEIRDIE FILES
Technically the story "Brothers" crosses over Brother Power with a couple of Swamp Thing's support characters, but it counts.
A cool cover to a boring story in SPECTRE #11, featuring stature-characters Spectre, Doctor Fate, Phantom Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, and The Enchantress, and one charisma-character, The Gentleman Ghost.
THE WEIRDIE FILES
In keeping with my new determination of "weirdies" as a subcategory of crossovers, THE WEIRDIE FILES are dedicated to this literary phenomenon.
I'll start with the most recent iteration of JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK.
The superordinate ensemble is made up of Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Swamp Thing, Man-Bat, and Detective Chimp.
The subordinate ensemble consists of The Demon, John Constantine, Blue Devil, and the late great Zatara.
Subordinate guest stars with stature include Zauriel, Deadman, Phantom Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Andrew Bennett, and five Justice Leaguers. A few such characters show up for one panel and have no lines.
Subordinate guest stars possessed of only charisma are Traci Thirteen, Klarion the Witch Boy, Morgaine LeFey. Felix Faust, Nabu the Wise, Mordru, and the demonic trio Ghast, Rath, and Abnegazar. Traci, daughter of the ghost-buster Doctor Thirteen, attained a little stature in the backup series ARCHITECTS AND MORTALITY but I'm not sure it's consequential enough to designate her a stature-type.
Sunday, April 7, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
Woody Woodpecker started out as a proto-crossover, popping up in the Andy Panda cartoon KNOCK KNOCK in 1940, and quickly eclipsing all the other characters in the Walter Lantz studio.
For years to come Lantz would continue having his characters cross over in comics and cartoons. FOUR COLOR COMICS #21 is devoted to Oswald Rabbit and his friends, and Woody appears just for about three or four pages, just because.
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
Since the historical character of Rasputin has IMO acquired what I deem a "legendary" status, I consider that both the 2004 HELLBOY and the graphic novel on which it's based to be charisma-crossovers.
The situation is a little different with characters that are based on myths but who are given some sort of gimmick that doesn't have anything to do with their original stories. For that reason, I don't consider the film's seqjuel GOLDEN ARMY to be a crossover of any kind. However, the 2019 reboot, which mixes at least two figures from disparate mythologies-- Nimue from Arthurian tales, and Baba Yaga from Russian folklore-- does count as a charisma-crossover.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
Monday, March 11, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
BETTY BOOP AND THE LITTLE KING is a curiosity with nothing much to recommend it but whatever story might lie behind the mundane details of how it came to exist.
To be sure, at least Betty is central to the action of this 1936 short, in contrast to her being a glorified guest-star in POPEYE THE SAILOR WITH BETTY BOOP in 1933. Ostensibly the animators made a cartoon sex film in which the sailor-man and the Boopadoop girl got it on, which if extant would probably constitute their most interesting crossover.
Monday, February 26, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
I've now reviewed the three Famous Studios cartoons that led to the ascension of Herman the Mouse to his small degree of stardom. None of these are crossovers, but because they give Herman stature, he's a star when he's teamed up with his most famous adversary. He gets teamed up (in the sense of repeating enemies) with a cat who bears some resemblance to Katnip in 1947's NAUGHTY BUT MICE. Proto-Katnip made two more appearances before being given his official form, and the re-use of his template suggests enough identity for me to label his presence in NAUGHTY a "proto-crossover," since he does take on a starring role alongside Herman for several cartoons thereafter. However, though none of the partnerships of the mouse and the cat following NAUGHTY are any sort of crossovers, because Katnip hadn't established enough solo stature. This stands in contrast to my argument that all Daffy Duck/Porky Pig teamups are crossovers, because both members of the team had stature when they first teamed up.
Herman also made a couple of cameo appearances, notably in the 1946 banned POPEYE short THE ISLAND FLING.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
The Grant Morrison run on ACTION COMICS, reviewed here, contains various crossovers of heroes and villains with the main hero, but the oddest revival is that of super-obscure Super-villain Ferlin Nyxly.
Monday, February 19, 2024
MONSTER MASHUPS #104
DC's hoary BOB HOPE tried to appeal to monster-loving kids by injecting famous fiends into the stories. Not sure if it started in #95. but this issue also shows a faculty of fiends meeting a goofy teen named "Super-Hip." This dopey character, who could change into any form, was created by writer Arnold Drake, who one year later would become the scripter on DC's first version of PLASTIC MAN. Not sure if the monsters helped, but the HOPE title managed to soldier on until 1968.
Monday, February 12, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
And the award for the worst-drawn "retcon crossover" goes to whatever Quality Comics editor took a plain old teen humor tale from JONESY #5 (1954)...
...and turned it into a WOOZY story in PLASTIC MAN #62 (1956), with what must be comics' most badly done replacement of one cartoon head with another.
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
My verdict on JETSONS MEET THE FLINTSTONES...
"may qualify as one of the most underwhelming crossovers in pop culture."
Friday, February 2, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
Friday, January 26, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
I watched two of the four PRETENDER/PROFILER crossivers, but both were just superficial teases, in which the respective "guest stars" on each show barely had any impact on the exploits of the main character or characters. Since the first couple were so dull, I'm not sure if I will even bother with the other crossovers if I can find them.
Thursday, January 18, 2024
THE 100 GREATEST CROSSOVERS OF ALL TIME #61
Here's my review of TEN YEARS BEYOND BAKER STREET, the superlative intermingling of the continuities of Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
RAR #74: LOANGA
In one of heroic Samson's last adventures in FANTASTIC COMICS, he contended with a zombie-maker named Loanga in some unspecified "Caribbean" locale. "Loanga" sounds like "loa," a term from a deity from Haitian voodoo, but neither Loanga nor any other native is drawn to look Black. The strange orange skin-color doesn't look like the standard hue attributed to Real Americans, but it's at least possible Loanga and his fellows are supposed to be Carib Indians.
Monday, January 15, 2024
RAR #73: ECHO
Here's my analysis of the first arc devoted to that cheery deaf Choctaw ECHO. Not a lot of Real American tropes except for this panel.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
CROSSOVER MADNESS
Review for GOTHAM SEASON THREE here.
This time both long arcs are full crossovers. The crossover-mojo of the first long arc, "Mad City," is mostly due to the three subordinate ensemble villains and the one villain-group crossing over with a new killer in town, The Mad Hatter. "Mad City" also plays host to a short arc of three episodes, in which the Joker-doppelganger re-appears. Being the only person mapping out this territory, I assign this short arc by the most interesting episode-title, "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" (named for a song-title). In Season 2, the first long arc also played host to a three-episode Joker arc, which I term "The Last Laugh." Apparently the showrunners wanted to hold back on Joker-appearances in the first three seasons.
The second long arc of the second season focused on the monstrous creations of Hugo Strange, and the second long arc of Season Three, "Heroes Rise," once again offers some of the previous Bat-villains, like Mr. Freeze, Firefly and Strange himself. First-time additions include Ra's Al Ghul and his League of Assassins (renamed "League of Shadows') and what may be the first live-action depiction of his League-rival The Sensei. This version of the Sensei is loyal and bonded to his leader Ra's, and is never actually given that proper name, though Hugo Strange calls the character a "sensei."