Once Upon a Geek

I bought a DC Comics Snuggie?!?!  First off, it’s not really a “Snuggie”, it’s a “Comfy Throw”.  What does that mean?  That means it’s a body-length blanket with sleeves made of fleece material; similar in design to a bathrobe that is worn backwards.  Yeah, I know.  That’s the definition of a “Snuggie”.  This is DC Comics’ off-brand version of a Snuggie.

I picked it up at F.Y.E. in Tampa for $10 (originally priced at $20).  The dimensions are 48″ x 71″.  Upon seeing the box (and after finishing rolling her eyes), my wife stated that no woman would be caught dead in that thing, and the only reason a woman is wearing one on the box is because it will help sell the product to geeks.  Y’know what, I think she’s exactly correct!

When I bought it, I never really thought I’d wear it.  However, my Comicatorium (a.k.a. Shag’s Sanctum Sanctorum) is about 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house.  So on cold winter nights this thing could actually come in handy!  In fact, I’m wearing it as I type right now.  It’s currently 32 degrees outside and freakin’ cold in the Comicatorium, but I’m all mosty-toasty in my DC Comics Snuggie.

Here is a sample of the pattern featuring: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Shazam, Justice League of America, and the Super Powers logo.

Finally, proof positive that I have no sense of shame.

Have you heard of the term “Sense Memory”?  It’s used in acting, but it also refers to the interaction of the senses and the memory, and the ways in which certain sensory stimuli can trigger memories.  Have you ever caught the scent of a former girlfriend’s perfume, or heard a particular song, and it unexpectedly brought back a wave of memories and emotions?  That’s what I’m talking about.

I have a pretty strong sense memory.  One in particular sticks out for me. Lemon-Lime flavored Slush Puppies bring back a flood of emotions and memories related to The Marvel Saga comic books.  Weird, huh?  Now we don’t have any convenience stores in my area that carry Slush Puppies anymore, but just the thought of one triggers the memory.  I can clearly taste the lemon-lime and once again feel the excitement and wonder I felt when reading The Marvel Saga.

When I was 13 years old my mother sometimes picked me up after school and took me to her office until quitting time.  The rule was that I had to be quiet and stay out of her fellow co-workers way.  So she’d give me a few dollars and I’d walk down to the local convenience store.  I’d immediately make a beeline for the Slush Puppie machine.  Now don’t be confused, there is a tremendous difference between a Slush Puppie and an Icee or Slurpee.  If you don’t know what a Slush Puppie is, then you’ve never lived.  It’s that simple.  An Icee and/or Slurpee machine simply dispenses a frozen foamy drink, whereas a Slush Puppie requires action on your part to create the heavenly concoction.

When approaching a Slush Puppie machine you are immediately confronted with the difficult decision of choosing which flavor you want (usually there are about a dozen bottles of flavoring to choose from).  Once you’ve decided on your flavoring, you grab an empty cup and dispense the flavoring from a pump bottle.  You are supposed to pump out three squirts per cup, however, I usually went for six or seven squirts.  Talk about lemon-lime tart overload!  Then you fill the remainder of the cup from the spigot.  This pumps out glorious sweet-infused icy water into the cup and mixes the entire drink.  The sweet icy water isn’t foam-based like an Icee, this has zillions of ice pellets.  Little tiny ice pellets perfect for crunching.  It’s a religious experience!

Anyway, I would mix my super-sweet/sour lemon-lime Slush Puppie and then peruse the comic book rack.  I didn’t go to my mother’s office very often, so there were always new comics to check out.  It was during a visit like this I picked up my first issue of The Marvel Saga which happened to be issue #2.  It seemed like everytime I went to my mother’s office, I bought a new issue of The Marvel Saga. If you’ve never read the series it was intended to follow Marvel’s continuity as closely as possible starting with the inception of the Marvel Universe and then continuing forward in chronological order (also incorporating retcons).  The interior was a mixture of comic panels and large text pieces (sort of like Marvel Universe or Who’s Who).  It took me hours to read an issue cover to cover.  It’s was like hitting the lottery for a kid just getting into Marvel back then.  First of all, my $1 would buy hours of entertainment, unlike other comics that could be read in 15 minutes.  Second, it provided all the background on my favorite characters at a time when I didn’t know the Marvel Universe inside-and-out.  This comic provided hours of wonder and joy as my curiosity about the history of these characters was slaked.  A copy of The Marvel Saga in one hand, a lemon-lime Slush Puppie in the other.  That’s happiness.

Sense memory is a funny thing.  Nowadays if I taste something with a really tart lemon-lime flavor, I’m immediately overwhelmed with an inexplicable sense of wonder and curiosity.  That’s what comes first.  It’s later that the memory materializes of Slush Puppies and The Marvel Saga.  Now if I could just find a Slush Puppie machine in my area and a copy of the Essential Marvel Saga…

Hey gang! More of an administrative post today.  I was hoping to get some feedback from you readers about a change I’ve recently made to the blog.

If you look in the right-hand sidebar I’ve added two Twitter feeds, one for comic books and one for Doctor Who (both popular topics here).  I thought this might be a nice geek-news aggregation resource for readers while on my site.  What I’m looking to find out is if this is useful to you.  If not, are there any ways to make it useful to you (i.e. list 10 tweets instead of 5, create a feed for Star Wars, only show tweets from news sources, etc).  Also, is there anything I can do to make the blog more interesting or relevant for you?

Typically when I ask for feedback like this I get a couple responses.  That’s depressing considering hundreds of people read this site everyday.  I can prove you’re not alone.  Scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar.  Towards the bottom, there is a section labeled “Users Currently Online”.  That’s the number of people on ONCE UPON A GEEK at that moment.  See, you’re not alone.  Now c’mon folks, help me out here.  Suggestions you provide will only make your experience better here.  Y’all are a great audience, so I’d appreciate any feedback you’ve got to share.  Please feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail at shag@onceuponageek.com.  Thanks!

Mattel’s DC Universe Classics line has a new Blue Devil action figure coming our way this spring!  Check it out below.

This figure is part of DC Universe Classics wave 13 and will be available this spring or summer at Wal-Mart.

If you’re a long time reader of ONCE UPON A GEEK, then you know I’m a big Blue Devil fan.  Part of me is really excited about this figure, part of me is disappointed.  I’m excited because Blue Devil deserves the recognition and anything that puts him in the limelight helps to speed his return to monthly comics.  I’m disappointed because this figure just doesn’t look quite right to me.  It seems that toy manufactures have a hard time capturing Paris Cullins’ Blue Devil likeness.  Click here to see previous Blue Devil action figures.  Below you’ll find Paris Cullins’ Blue Devil.  Maybe it’s just me, but new figure’s face, horns, and muscle bulk doesn’t seem to match.  What do you think?

Pic and release information from Comic Book Resources.

I am SO ready for the new Doctor Who season to start.  Doctor Who season 5 opens with “The Eleventh Hour” by Steven Moffat and is set to premiere on BBC One in the UK and BBC America on April 5th.  BBC has released a brilliant new teaser trailer for season 5 featuring Matt Smith as the Doctor and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond.  Check it out!

This video will be running in 3-D in the UK before the new Alice in Wonderland film. I can’t confirm it, but I get the sense this video was created specifically as a trailer, rather than as footage from upcoming episodes.  I hope that is the case as I appreciate the efforts from the BBC to create a real buzz for new Who Matt Smith.  I love everything about this trailer, from the music, to the swirling stars, to the action, to the Doctor and Amy’s interaction.  This trailer has really provided me with a lot of confidence in the new season. I just can’t wait!

Hold on tight.  Geronimo!

For those of you following DC Comics and Blackest Night, you may be aware that our first glimpse of a Red Lantern was in 2007.  But did you know it could have been a lot sooner?  A lot sooner as in … 1940?  Given slightly different circumstances, Alan Scott the original Green Lantern may have been named the Red Lantern.

An excerpt from Alter-Ego #5 (published in Summer 2000), an interview with Martin Nodell on his creation of Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern.

MARTY NODELL: I was going home to Brooklyn, and I tried working out some ideas as I got to the station. I was writing down everything I could possibly think of. I thought, “Gee, I’ve got to do this real quick, because if I think of something, other people will, too. It might have some meaning to them, too.”

As I entered the subway, there were a number of people standing around, and there was a train man in the subway station, in the trough of the tracks, and he was waving a red lantern, which meant, “Hold the train, don’t come in.” When he checked the tracks, he waved a green lantern. The green lantern meant, “Come in.” As the train would come in, he would get out of the way, get behind a pole and stay there, and that was the end of his part in “Green Lantern.”

But when that green lantern meant something to me, I just wrote it down: “The Green Lantern.”

ROY THOMAS: Since “green lantern” meant “okay, everything’s all clear,” but “red lantern” meant “danger,” which of course one would associate with adventure stories, I wonder how come we got a Green Lantern instead of a Red Lantern.

NODELL: Well, just simply that the green lantern appeared to me as being important.

RT: Well, it obviously worked, right? Sixty years later, people still know that name. It’s oddly popular. For instance, on the old Route 66 in Missouri, there was a Green Lantern restaurant in the early 1960s. There was also a bookstore called The Green Lantern in the early-’40s movie serial The Secret Code. But both are long after your character. I always wondered, “What’s with this fascination with green lanterns?” [Laughs]

NODELL: To me, it was just a matter of how I put everything together. The possibilities, to me, were a characterization, or pictures, of a meteor falling into a small Chinese town, and that became the method wherein a green lantern was built in.

RT: Do you think the kind of lantern that train man used in the subway station was pretty close to the kind you drew on your hero?

NODELL: Quite close. That was the only important lantern to me, and I didn’t think of any other kind of lantern at all. And then, thinking of Greek mythology, I designed a costume, and that costume seemed to me to be very important to the eye.

Just imagine, Marty Nodell could have easily decided instead to name Alan Scott the Red Lantern!  So what would that have meant for readers if he’d been the Red Lantern, instead of the Green Lantern?  Not much really.  He probably would have had the same powers, just with a different color.  In fact, Alan’s costume already has nearly as much red as it does green.  Just change the color of the lantern in his chest emblem.

If he’d been the Red Lantern, I imagine some writer would have eventually tied-in his powers with fire somehow.  If you look at the early Green Lantern stories, his energy often looks like green flames.  If the color had been red, I think it would have been an easy extrapolation to connect his power with fire somehow.  Perhaps something like a Fire Elemental connection.  I can envision a recon like this taking place in the mid-80s around the time Swamp Thing and Red Tornado were retconned as the Plant and Air Elementals.

Just for interest sake, below you’ll find images of a couple red train lanterns I came across in an antique shop in Savannah, Georgia.  Having heard Marty’s story previously, these train lanterns attracted my attention.

……………………………..

Here is an original drawing of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, by his creator Martin Nodell.  Marty created the Green Lantern in 1940 for All-American Comics #16.  I was fortunate enough to meet Marty in 1994 at Cosmic Cat Comics & Games when he came to do a signing.  I was managing the store at the time and we had Marty there in conjunction with Green Lantern #50 (not to be confused with Green Lantern #50 that just came out in 2010 – though both featured Parallax).   He and his wife Carrie were super-sweet people and a real treat to chat with.  Marty would sign any Green Lantern item you’d like. We had him sign some of the Green Lantern #50 posters as well as the neat giveaway rings available at the time.  I saw Marty and his wife at a few conventions around Florida after that, but sadly Carrie passed away in 2004 and Marty in 2006.

Looking closely at this drawing you can see the light hint of pencils underneath the fine black inks.  The coloring on the shirt and pants looks good on the actual drawing, but the camera flash washed them out some on the image above.  It appears the colors were done with something like markers.  Marty had done the drawing prior to the signing.  That way he could sell the original drawings on-site, rather than make people wait for sketches.  He did inscribe the drawing to me in green pen, “To Shag – With best special regards – as signed at the Cosmic Cat – Mart Nodell ‘94″.

He was a neat gentleman and his creation has inspired 70 years of amazing stories.  Thanks Marty!

Check back here tomorrow for more on the creation of the original Green Lantern in 1940 … and the surprising connection to the Red Lanterns.

The multiverse is one of my favorite aspects of DC Comics, but it’s also one of my least favorite.  I found myself thinking about this after yesterday’s post on Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

My first exposure to the multiverse was in the 1979 issue Justice League of America #171, “The Murderer Among Us: Crisis above Earth-One!”  The comic was a gift from my older sister and I must have read it a million times.  It was one of the first superhero comic books I ever owned.  Remember being seven years old and reading the same comic over and over until it literally fell apart?  I watch my kids do that nowadays and it brings a smile to my face.

This issue was one of those classic JLA/JSA annual crossovers by Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin.  Having watched numerous episodes of the Super Friends, I was already familiar with most of the JLA.  However, these strange doppelgangers called the Justice Society of America were confusing to me.  I didn’t understand why there were two guys both named Hawkman.  They looked similar and had the same powers, but were different folks.  Hmmm… now what about these Green Lanterns and Flashes?  They didn’t look similar at all and yet they shared the same name and powers.  Weird.  So I went back and re-read the first page several times until I began to grasp that two parallel Earths existed at different vibrational frequencies.  Once I got it, I thought that was pretty cool!

In this issue, Golden Age hero Mr. Terrific was murdered!  After an investigation it was determined that the murder was committed by a member of the JLA or JSA!  But who?!?!  I was kept in suspense for nearly 15 years.  It took that long before I managed to get my hands on a copy of issue #172.  Sorry, I can’t tell you who the murderer was.  I don’t want to spoil it for you.

So there I was, officially indoctrinated into the philosophy of the multiverse.  In particular, I was fascinated by Doctor Fate and the Alan Scott Green Lantern.  Sadly it would be another six years until I encountered a multiverse crossover again.  It was 1985 and I was buying some comics for a long road trip.  I was already a Marvel zombie by this point, having read Secret Wars, Uncanny X-Men, Power Pack, and many more.  The only DC comics I was buying at the time were The Fury of Firestorm and Blue Devil.  While looking for road trip reading material I spied Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 on the shelf of the local drug store.  It featured both Firestorm and Blue Devil on the cover so I decided to give it a try.  Little did I realize at the time that I was opening a door into a whole new level of comic geekdom.

I was instantly hooked.  As we made our way across the country, I searched for other issues of Crisis at every stop.  I began making lists of all the characters, categorizing them by the Earth they came from.  While Secret Wars vol I #2 may have started me on the path of collecting comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 started me on the path of comic book fanaticism. It was my gateway drug into the DC pantheon of characters.  Then I started picking up Who’s Who, devouring each issue and learning more about obscure characters and further worlds in the multiverse.  There was no turning back after that.

Crisis on Infinite Earths brought the multiverse to a close in 1986.  Around that time I began buying back issues featuring old cross-world adventures.  In particular the All-Star Squadron and the annual JLA/JSA crossovers were some of my favorites.  The story “Crisis on Earth-Prime” which ran through both Justice League of America and the All-Star Squadron is still one of my all-time favorite multiverse stories.  Curiosity drove my interest in these old adventures.  I was starting to appreciate the legacy of the Golden Age to the Silver Age, so I was intensely curious about the JSA.  Also, it was fun to read some of those kooky Silver and Bronze Age tales.  A fair number of the multiverse stories were just plain far-fetched and the resolutions were sometimes hilariously out of left field.

Since I started with DC hardcore in 1985, I was pretty much a post-Crisis reader (or a Tween-Crisis reader if you like).  Any story I read featuring the multiverse was a back issue and was read with the benefit of hindsight. I grew comfortable with the idea that the multiverse was a thing of the past.  When DC started publishing Elseworlds in the late 1980s, I was fine with it.  After all, these were basically DC’s answer to Marvel’s What If.  By the mid-90s I was reading the majority of DC’s superhero line.  I felt invested in the DCU as it existed at that time.  Many of my favorite titles used formerly-multiverse aspects incorporated into the singular continuity like the JSA, the Shazam family, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Huntress, Power Girl, and more.

After thirteen years in the grave, Mark Waid resurrected the multiverse in the 1999 mini-series The Kingdom.  This time around they called it “hypertime” instead of the “multiverse”.  I was ticked!  How dare they bring back the multiverse after all this time?!?!  Were they simply throwing away the past 13 years of continuity and resetting everything to the Pre-Crisis status quo?  It quickly became obvious that wasn’t the case.  Hypertime was introduced simply to provide some freedom to the writers to tell different stories.  While hypertime was used occasionally (i.e. Superboy in “Hypertension” and the graphic novel JLA: Earth-2), it quietly faded into the background.  I eventually accepted the seldom-used hypertime and became comfortable once again in my Post-Crisis dominion over the DC Universe.

Then in 2005 Infinite Crisis came along.  Here we were again, 19 years after saying goodbye to the multiverse it was being dragged back into existence and to a place of prominence in the DC Universe… oh wait, I guess I gotta say DC Multiverse.  Once again I was ticked.  I felt like the writers were coping-out by resetting everything to the way it was when they started reading in the 70s and early 80s.  They were bringing back the elements from an era they felt comfortable with.  Didn’t they understand, this wasn’t about their comfort zone, it was about mine!

Admittedly my outrage was over the top.  While my emotions were strong, I had my reasons.  First, I felt betrayed.  I felt the past 19 years I invested in reading DC Comics was wasted.  The universe I’d come to know in-and-out was being chucked in favor of a multiverse that existed back when Loni Anderson was a sex symbol and disco was cool.  Second, while I love the old multiverse stories, many of them really don’t hold up under a critical eye.  My love for these multiverse adventures comes from a sense of nostalgia rather than from the quality of the writing.  Often the old multi-Earth plots were outlandish and more for fun than serious storytelling.   Third, I was concerned about the quality of new stories that would be written using the multiverse concept.  If the old ones were often weak, what guarantee existed that new ones would be any better?

Okay, so the last 19 years of DC continuity didn’t get chucked.  However, given the quality of Countdown and Final Crisis stories and tie-ins, I feel my concern about modern multiverse adventures was merited.  Countdown was an abysmal train wreck of a series.  An overall direction for the series was non-existent, the individual stories were weak, and it was far too dependent upon multiverse-hopping.  Like any series, there were certain moments in Countdown that were good, but those moments were few and far between.  In all fairness, not all modern-day multiverse stories have been bad.  Geoff Johns has written some really good Justice Society of America multiverse adventures, like the one featuring the Justice Society Infinity.  However, those good stories are the exception and are heavily outweighed by the bad ones (who isn’t sick of Superboy-Prime?).

So far, the modern-day multiverse stories have been a let down.  Would the DC Uni-/Multi-verse have been better without the reintroduction?  Has the return of the multiverse really brought anything fantastic?  Sure I’m glad to see Earth-2 Superman up and around again, but have they actually told any really good stories with him since bringing him back?  I don’t think so.

Call me a stick in the mud, but I’m really disappointed with the return of the multiverse.  However, the old school multiverse stories will always have a place in my heart, even if it’s as ridiculous as the Super-Sons of Superman and Batman.

I can’t wait!  Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths comes out next Tuesday, February 23, on Blu-Ray and DVD!  This has the potential to be one of the best DC animated movies yet.  Here is the description from the official movie web site:

In a parallel universe, the lone survivor of Earth’s Justice League-Lex Luther-travels through other-world dimensions to join forces with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and J’onn J’onzz in a desperate attempt to save his world and its people.  But the villainous Crime Syndicate controlled by Ultraman, Owlman and Superwoman will stop at nothing to maintain their domination.  It will take wits, might and a sacrifice to defeat these unforgiving enemies in this spectacular DC Universe Animated Original Movie with a stellar voice cast headed by Mark Harmon, James Woods, Chris North, Gina Torres, William Baldwin, Bruce Davison and more.  Two Earths, two Leagues and one epic battle collide for a thrilling experience that will leave you breathless!

This story written by Dwayne McDuffie is loosely based upon Justice League of America #29-30 written by Gardner Fox in 1964, as well as the 1999 Grant Morrison JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel.  While Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths isn’t a direct adaptation of either source material, certain elements originated in those stories (i.e. The Crime Syndicate, the good Lex Luthor seeking help from the Justice League, etc).

Here is the trailer for the film:

There is also the Spectre animated short to look forward to:

DC Showcase – The Spectre: The first animated short in the all-new DC Showcase series focuses on a detective story with an ethereal twist, featuring the otherworldly character originally introduced by DC Comics in 1940. The short is written by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), and the voice cast includes Gary Cole (Entourage) and Alyssa Milano (Charmed).

Finally, Firestorm and the Justice League Detroit folks make cameos in the film.  Next Tuesday can’t get here soon enough!

I received this Batman: The Brave and the Bold Valentine from my good friend E. Peterman over at the Girls-Gone-Geek blog.

The printed Valentine itself is cool (it comes with a sticker!), however, it’s E’s own special additions which make it hilarious! I love me some Aquaman, but I still find this outrageously funny. I can even hear Diedrich Bader (the voice of Batman) say that line in my head!  Thanks E!