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DC Superhero Teams Summed Up

Justice Society of America: Superhero Retirement Home Serves As A School House For Youngsters

Justice League: Pillars of Society Form Superhero Team Too Big To Fail

Teen Titans: Local Teens Demand Respect, A Place To Angst, and Food

Outsiders: Batman Dragoons Nobodies To Fight Crime Due To Spite

Green Lantern Corps: Space Cops Stop Themselves From Becoming A Space Dictatorship

Secret Six: Shit People, Shit Work Effort, Shit Results, But Still A Good Family

Shadowpact: Magical Bar Flies

Justice League Dark: Kinky People Meet Up Each Friday To Fight Demons

Justice League International: Idiots Team Up To Solve International Incidents

Legion of Superheroes: Local Teens Demand Respect, A Place To Angst, and Food, IN THE FUTURE

Gotham Knights (Detective Comics Team): Leather Wearing Furries Obesse About A Hellhole

Justice League of America (Rebirth Team): Batman Dragoons A Bunch of Misfits For Reality TV Drama and To Combat International Affairs 

Suicide Squad: A Bunch Of Villains Are Held Hostage By A Psychopath That Makes Them Look Good In Comparison

Doom Patrol: Weirdos Gather To Ponder The Meaning Of The Universe

Young Justice: Pre-Teens Trade The Treehouse In Their Backward For A Cave

Earth 2 Justice Society: Hot Young People Fight Crime In The World Created By Both A Godlike Planet and A Magical Box

Infinity Inc: Local Teens Demand Respect, A Place To Angst, and Food, In A Parallel Universe

Super Sons: Two Kids Resist The Urge To Murder Each Other

New Gods: Everyone is an Asshole Except Mister Miracle, Big Barda, and Bug The Forager

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DC Superhero Teams Summed Up

Justice Society of America: Superhero Retirement Home Serves As A School House For Youngsters

Justice League: Pillars of Society Form Superhero Team Too Big To Fail

Teen Titans: Local Teens Demand Respect, A Place To Angst, and Food

Outsiders: Batman Dragoons Nobodies To Fight Crime Due To Spite

Green Lantern Corps: Space Cops Stop Themselves From Becoming A Space Dictatorship

Secret Six: Shit People, Shit Work Effort, Shit Results, But Still A Good Family

Shadowpact: Magical Bar Flies

Justice League Dark: Kinky People Meet Up Each Friday To Fight Demons

Justice League International: Idiots Team Up To Solve International Incidents

Legion of Superheroes: Local Teens Demand Respect, A Place To Angst, and Food, IN THE FUTURE

Gotham Knights (Detective Comics Team): Leather Wearing Furries Obesse About A Hellhole

Justice League of America (Rebirth Team): Batman Dragoons A Bunch of Misfits For Reality TV Drama and To Combat International Affairs 

Suicide Squad: A Bunch Of Villains Are Held Hostage By A Psychopath That Makes Them Look Good In Comparison

Doom Patrol: Weirdos Gather To Ponder The Meaning Of The Universe

Young Justice: Pre-Teens Trade The Treehouse In Their Backward For A Cave

Earth 2 Justice Society: Hot Young People Fight Crime In The World Created By Both A Godlike Planet and A Magical Box

Infinity Inc: Local Teens Demand Respect, A Place To Angst, and Food, In A Parallel Universe

Super Sons: Two Kids Resist The Urge To Murder Each Other

New Gods: Everyone is an Asshole Except Mister Miracle, Big Barda, and Bug The Forager

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I’m HOLLERING, CLARK!

“If you would be so kind as to h*cking Perish”

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The Cream of the Crap, 2017 

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An ask made me realize this still doesn’t seem to be conveniently available anywhere, so Warren Ellis on Superman and Lois Lane circa 1998 (with some pictures thrown in by me):

WHY THEY’LL NEVER LET ME WRITE SUPERMAN

Brief, Disconnected Notes On An American Mythology—Warren Ellis

I’m not a superhero fan. I had to learn the subgenre when I began writing for the States. I’ve had to learn to read them. Now, I can appreciate some of them. Not many, it has to be said…but some.

The one I always wanted to like was Superman.

Superman is a uniquely American icon, and the first true myth of the electronic age. One special facet to it is that it began as a myth told to children by children. Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster were youths when they created Superman, a far cry from today’s handful of twentysomethings and carloads of middle-aged men who give today’s children their superheroes.

(Perhaps this is why, to me, a strong adult story told with Superman would seem curiously inappropriate – and, conversely, the 20th Century social nightmare given inky form that is The Batman seems to me strangely inappropriate as figure of children’s tales.)

Superman, then, is the agent of modern fable – the most compelling fable the 20th Century gave us. Soap opera is unworthy of him, and, as has been proved many times, is not big enough to contain him and the central concepts of his story. At the heart of myth and legend is Romance. That is not the same as the weak, whiny demands of soap opera that begin with “characterization” and crap on with demands for ever more levels of “conflict”, “jeopardy”, “ensemble writing”, “tight continuity” and all the rest of that bollocks. These things are unimportant. Many of them just completely get in the way of the job at hand.

SUPERMAN requires only the sweep and invention and vision that myth demands, and the artistry and directness and clean hands that Romance requires.

SUPERMAN is about someone trying their best to save the world, one day at a time; and it’s about that person’s love for that one whose intellect and emotion and sheer bloody humanity completes him. It’s about Superman, and it’s about Lois and Clark. And that’s all there is. That’s the spine. That must be protected to the death, not lost in a cannonade succession of continuing stories.

That’s what, in the continuing rush to top the last plotline, I see getting lost.

I understand, accept and even to an extent agree with what’s going on; The SUPERMAN creators are trying to keep the books vital, keep them moving, keep those sales spikes coming. But they seem to me to be getting away from the sheer wonder of the Superman myth.

(The single title that does seem to be hewing to the line I’ve just scratched in the sand is Mark Millar’s charming and energetic SUPERMAN ADVENTURES.)

What SUPERMAN must avoid is genericism. It must live up to its billing. The comics must crackle with invention and mythic power.  They must always resolutely be of Now, be utterly modern – if not utterly of Tomorrow. They must thrill and frighten and inspire and give us furiously to think.

Crucially, they must not simply offer us a parade of costumes and odd single name/titles. There must be stories where something important is at stake. Something worth saving, be it the life of a human, the soul of a city, the fate of a world, or the future of a child.

Mike Carlin always characterizes the ongoing thrust of the Superman titles as the “Never-Ending Battle”. Those battles must have stakes beyond those of smacking about this month’s new costume with an odd name.

(Superman tackles natural disaster and human crime. It’s his belief that nothing else falls within his purview. War and the politics of famine, he feels, are part of human government, and so not his place. He will not interfere in the growth of the human race, as much as it sometimes breaks his heart.

He merely, obliviously, shows the human race, by example, how to be great.)

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i would die for you yoshi

You Will.

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2.07 / 3.07

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I’m so embarrassed. I’m not a real person yet.

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The JLA by Alex Ross

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6/13/17

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paris was my home

paris was, paris is.

I can’t be bothered with comprehensible, organized, analytical thoughts. Every week presents a tragic event. At first met by sadness, later met by sorrow, but now it just meets anger. 

There aren’t any solutions, or we’d have them. This wouldn’t happen. I see the news and feel every capable part of my body experience frustration. I’m tired of it all. This stagnation of a cataclysm off now to be never-ending.  

i’m just angry.

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fuck, sorry.. i took a nap, but it’s playing on apple radio rn.

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Father-Son Starbucks Run

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Harmontown (2014/Neil Berkeley)

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How the Hokey Pokey would sound if it was written today.