Firefighting

Grandpa rubbed his rough hands together near the fire; he knew what we wanted, just like the end of every long day. We crowded around him and began chanting before we even sat down.

"Firestorm, Firestorm!"

"Oh, haven't you heard that a hundred times?"

We grunted our disapproval at his feigned reluctance as we sat down onto our crossed legs, and he waved his hands in a fine-fine motion before speaking in the faraway voice he used to tell his stories...

"There was once a hard-working boy named Jason Rusch whose father--"

"Jason who!?" one of us interrupted.

"We want Ronnie Raymond!" chirped another.

"Yeah, and Professor Stein!"

"C'mon, Grampa! Firestorm!"

But the old man wouldn't budge. Most of us threatened to go to bed, but only a few actually did. The ones who stayed grumbled the whole time. It wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't the Firestorm Grandpa used to tell us about.

Dug-up Comics: Spawn/WildCATs 1-4 (1996)

Writer: Alan Moore
Pencils: Scott Clark
Inks: Sal Regla

If you were to ask me why I have the "Spawn/WildCATs" mini-series in my collection I'd probably laugh and say, "What? I've got what? Haha, no, seriously, what?" I'm given to occasions, however, where I sort my comics like a maniac, and will sometimes spot a series or two I forget I have. Or even bought. I cannot tell you what possessed me to buy this way back in January of 1996. Was it Alan Moore? I don't think I knew too well who he was back then. Spawn, I gave up on about a year in, and I can't recall reading any more than the first few issues of WildCATs, so this is an unsolved mystery.

I might be reading too much into this whole series -- after all, it is just Spawn/WildCATs, but it's also Alan Moore, which leads most folks to believe, well, hell, he probably had a lot more in mind than a dopey crossover with time travel and etc. There is, of course, the typical fight-and-then-team-up with the title characters, and this is my first "Something more is going on here" moment: I'm pretty sure Alan Moore hates Spawn. Ol' Al Simmons breaks into the Halo building, gunning for Grifter and Zealot, screaming like a lunatic, and Spawn's dialogue, even after he calms down, is just so over-blown and hilarious that I can't help but think Moore harbors a bit of disdain for the character. Could be wrong, but could you blame him?

That's skipping the entire opening of the first issue, however, where a bunch of mysterious figures -- think Living Tribunal, Eternity, etc. -- are bored and looking to have a good time. They decide to drop a medallion of some sort into "our" reality, just to fuck around. Capricious creators causing calamity sans compunction?

Yeah, that never happens in comics.

It turns out the Grifter and Zealot who gave Al a beatdown were from the future, here to stop Spawn before he turns into the evil Ipsissimus, and so we're treated, for the remainder of the series, to another staple of superhero stories: preventing the dystopian future! This one has it all, kids: a present-day hero gone badguy, a title passed on to a younger hero, a gruffer older version of an already gruff character, imprisoned heroes, turncoats, a hero fucked up beyond recognition, and New York City turned into a killing field. All fairly typical, but it's handled well, and perhaps with a bit of a wink and a "giving people what they expect."

So, we get Spawn going to fight himself in the future, the WildCATS seeing just how far they've gotten fucked over, and the team members' future counterparts trying not to let the ones who've who died (or worse) in the interim find out. It's readable, it moves quickly, and you're not asked to think too terribly much; if you do, well, you end up writing something like this, I guess. It's not really necessary to know much about the characters, but honestly, was there much to know about them, even five years into their runs, as we find them here? Not really. Spawn's a guy with the power of hell and the WildCATs are the X-Men. Get reading.

And the art's okay. I mean, it's Image, but it's 1996, and it's Alan Moore, so the story gets told. A couple of nitpicks: The dialogue states that the Chrysler Building of the future is a horror unlike anything ever seen, leading me to expect, you know, babies sewn together and stretched over a framework of bones or something... except it's pretty much just the Chrysler Building with a big Spawn symbol on it. And when they find future-Emp he's been crucified, except he looks pretty much like a shirtless, buff guy with a couple scratches, and not the beaten-to-a-pulp guy the characters describe. The botched art really undercuts the dialogue in a screamingly obvious way. Despite that, it's safe to say the art surpasses low expectations.

The best part is figuring out just how Spawn goes bad and how the beings seen at the opening of the series fit into it; you'll probably grasp it somewhere before the end. If it's in a quarter bin somewhere it's well worth a buck and a few minutes of your time to see Alan Moore screw around with some characters without much in the way of consequences.

A Winner Is Me

I totally won Rick Gearling's "Review Hamster Vice Even If You Ain't Read It" contest. Tremble in fear, 'n' shit. Congrabulations to Larry Young and Will... something... for totally losing to me. Thanks guys! Here's my entry, 'cause it cracks me up:

Hamster Vice, Hamster Vice
Just as good at twice the price

THESE ARE NOT YOUR FATHER'S ANTHROPOMORPHIC HAMSTERS SHOOTING EACH OTHER!

Shanda the Panda?

Omaha the Cat-Dancer?

POSEURS!

FAKES!

CHARLATANS!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

DON'T MAKE ME FUCKING HURT YOU.

This is not graphic literature for FURRIES and PERVERTS. THIS IS TWO-FISTED HAMSTER ACTION THE WAY YOU DEMAND IT, EFFENDI!

Pathos? YES.

Action? YES.

Romantic entanglements? YOU BET.

Stuffing food into their cheeks and making you go "Awwww"? PROBABLY NOT SO MUCH.

How is it we live in a world with so little hamster-related media, so few hamster comics and television shows?

HAMSTER VICE IS THE ANSWER.

Hamtaro?

WHINY LITTLE FAGGOTS.

If you want...

ADVENTURE!

INTRIGUE!

POWERFUL FIREARMS!

And FOR SOME REASON I CAN'T UNDERSTAND FEMALE HAMSTERS WITH TITS LIKE HUMAN WOMEN...

YOU MUST READ HAMSTER VICE!

Hamster Vice: It's like something crawled up your ass and died... AND YOU LIKE IT!

"NINJA'S!"

Got a hefty stack of comics today from my pusherman, Steven. Along with several fine instances of picto-periodicals and novels of the graphical persuasion, I got the new(ish) Marvel Previews. I have five words for you:

SPIDER-MAN VERSUS TWO SNAKE EYESES!

To quote Bumblebee Man: "¡Ay ay ay, Hombre De La Araña contra dos Ojos De Las Serpientes! ¡No es bueno!"

Essential Super-Villain Team-Up, though..? Fuck Yeah.

Where I been at?

Boy, I've been lazy about this thing, huh? Let's see, what've I been up to...

Planning a trip to Miami to see my woman.

Reading comics, including:

— The Crew: Awesome Priest-ly comic, over way too quickly. I hope Joe Bennet's art looks this good on Captain America and The Falcon, and that Priest gets a chance to revisit some of these characters, particularly Josiah X, who I think would easily fit into Cap & Falc.

— Spawn/WildCATS: Decent Alan Moore goofball mid-1990s Image crossover stuff; more on this later.

— Forever Maelstrom: Why, Howard Chaykin, why? I could only read four issues of this crap. You'd think all those years it took to get this out would lead to something better than a retarded Bill & Ted knock-off. And I remember seeing the ad for this waaaaaaaay back during Malibu's Bravura line and thinking how cool the guy with his wolf looked. Sigh.

Freaking out over THE AMAZING RACE. Steven Grant is right: This is good tv. Even though sometimes it's more like THE AMAZING CAB RIDE... But there's a midget, which is one of those things that makes good tv into great tv. Unless it's on Fox.

Laughing my ass off at What's Happening!! and Diff'rent Strokes. They're a great antidote to the "Oh, goodness! Negroes!" comedy of Method & Red on the aforementioned Fox Network. I very much enjoyed seeing Dabny Coleman and Gary Coleman together on a special two-part Diff'rent Strokes. Also, Dabny. Dabny Dabny.

Wondering if I could possibly care any less about the general output at Marvel Comics these days.

Enjoying the new They Might Be Giants video "Experimental Film" by those Chapman chaps at Homestar Runner.

Sorting comics. I think it's some kind of therapy. I've been pretty down lately and figure this must be some sort of sublimation, because my comics have never been this organized in my life. It's a fairly good feeling, but not as good as the weekend I threw out about fifty early-to-mid-1990s Wolverine comics. That was sweet.

And that about covers it.

Son of Comics I Shouldn't Own:

Sleepwalker #1: "To Sleep, Perchance to SCREAM!"

(no, seriously.)

Sleepwalker? More like "Streetwalker," am I right, folks? 'cause... look at the street, and... ah, fuck you, Sleepwalker.

You don't like Rick Sheridan; he's handsome (for a Marvel comics character in 1991), athletic, brilliant, and has a beautiful girlfriend (Ibid). You probably went to school with a guy like this, and maybe you liked him, but the odds of that are slim.

Okay, fine. I don't like Rick Sheridan.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you every Marvel Super-Hero has to be a put-upon nebbish like Peter Parker, or part of a bickering family like the Fantastic Four. I'm not even going to say something about how characters should be "relatable" or "likeable," because I think that's bullshit and, besides which, I was fairly well-liked in high school. You know why? Because I have something resembling a personality. Rick Sheridan has, in addition to the qualities listed above, no real personality to speak of, but, uhm... there's a guy in a leotard protecting his lady-friend and the city when he goes to sleep. And that's about all we get in this comic. Rick wakes up to see on the news that some alien guy has been saving people with no idea he's connected to it. Why? Like I give a fuck. Rick leaves his apartment to talk to his girlfriend Alyssa, who is no doubt a dancer planning to study architecture in college, but some thugs attack her in a convenience store and Rick passes out. RICK SHERIDAN PASSES OUT SO SLEEPWALKER CAN SAVE HIS GIRLFRIEND. This has got to be the worst superpower since ever. A comedy goldmine, perhaps, if played for laughs ("Man, what a sloppy vagina Rick is, passing out when something exciting happens"), but I get the feeling from this issue that the whole thing is played straight. For a few dozen issues.

I don't want to find out where this "Sleepwalker" guy is from, why he shows up when Rick sleeps, or how many more times Rick's girlfriend finds herself in a scrape causing Rick to get the vapors so Hoodie McLegwarmers can save her. Also, I don't know what the hell Robert "Battle Pope" Kirkman did with Sleepwalker in the short-lived Epic Anthology, and I don't want to know. I thought it was pretty bad that I wanted to revive Hypno-Hustler for a blaxploitation graphic novel, but bringing back Sleepwaker seems somehow less-than-admirable.

Sleepwalker's not so much bad as boring, really. Well, no, it's bad. The concept, which internet rumor has the writer calling "Sandman done right," is, as stated, retarded, the characters are dull as dry dogshit on a copy of The Scarlet Letter, and the dialogue makes a vague attempt at being witty patter, and maybe for Marvel in 1991, it was. Scary stuff to be avoided at all costs.

FUN FACT: Sleepwalker didn't last as long as its fellow early-90s-Marvel-Glut series Darkhawk, but it did have a Holiday Special. I don't even wanna know, man...