On the relative legal safety of saying "no"

"Think twice, and then say nothing"  --Ancient Sinanju proverb

I'm a big fan of Opie and Anthony, as now heard on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio channel 202.  I mentioned some months back that they had gotten permission to run their Homeless Shopping Spree, in which forgoten men are given cash, are escorted to a local upper-class mall and allowed to purchase whatever they like, all while being chronicled on-air.  The whole crux of the bit is to watch the reactions of the stores as these guys toddle in, cash in hand.  I hasten to add, in the four or five times they've done it, there has not been ONE incident; nothing has been stolen or destroyed, no violence has occurred; indeed, since the customers have cash and are usually accompanied by dozens, even hundreds of O&A fans, it's the best day of sales the stores have in a while.

The Lawyers (Or as Opie refers to them, "The babysitters"), however, wanting to make sure that nothing would happen (both litigiously and comedically) and suggested they CALL the malls ahead of time and ASK if they could bring a busload of homeless people to their establishment.  This would rather ruin the spontaneity of the bit, and it was, alas, cancelled. 

This is an example of the new standard in entertainment today, and in "shock jock" radio in specific, and in the case of O&A even more specifically.  The legal departments of stations, networks, etc work through endless Worst Case Scenarios, mentally running progressively unlikely simulations to see how many might end in "...and then we get sued and lose the house".  It's the kind of things your parents would warn you about when you were a teenager; if you do X, Y will happen and they'll come after US! (*). So the lawyers, in an attempt to nip such situations in the proverbial bud, either say said stunt, bit or parody cannot be done, or attempt to buffer it with so many disclaimers or codicils as to remove any possible comedy from the thing. 

Example: radio shows cannot do prank calls anymore.  It's one of the things that made Don Imus' name back in the day - he'd call businesses and ask for outrageous things. His first album, "1,200 Hamburgers to Go" features a number of them, featuring an attempt to rent a car to be used in the Indy 500.  It's a standard bit, been done for ages.  But nowadays, in the litigious world we live in, you can't DO that anymore;  you either have to call the company ahead of time and WARN them that they will be pranked (again, removing the potential humor entirely) or just fake the whole thing.  I'm rather surprised they haven't decided that faking a prank call is in some way misleading to the listener, who could then sue for mental cruelty or some such.  (Perhaps I should keep my damn mouth shut...)

This morning, O&A were talking about the potential return of a classic bit they've been doing since they were on terrestrial radio, without complaint, repercussion or incident; a bit called "What the hell is THAT!?!"  In it, a number of listeners would come to the studio, all having assorted growths or other Things They Should really Get Looked At, and get examined by actual doctors, live on the show.  Now the true purpose of the bit is not to help people, but to give the gang the opportunity to look at assorted growths and react/mock accordingly.  But considering at least one guy was warned that a thing in his mouth might be cancerous, there is some potential good to come of it (the event was enough to get comedian and Third Mike on the show Jim Norton to give up smoking on the spot.  And FTR, the guy got it checked and it was benign, but hey, better safe, right?) 

Again, I must stress, NEVER has an O&A bit resulted in any legal action.  Indeed, they've never resulted in anything other than outstanding ratings and a few letters from peiople who likely didn't ever hear said bit, just heard ABOUT it.  That last one, The Bit Of Which We Do Not Speak, resulted in getting them fired, but again, more as a result of the publicity than any actionable damage.

So anyway, this on-air diagnostic bit, the kind of thing they've been doing for years, and the kind of things the people like Dr. Oz and Dr. Dean Edell make a CAREER at, is being "looked at" by the lawyers from XM.  And why?  Not because it's gone wrong before, but because it might concievably go wrong in some unlikely way in the future.

Similarly, frequent guest of the program Dr. Steve (star of his own show, "Weird medicine" also on channel 202) is now being checked and double-checked for his next appearance.  The desired bit - Dr. Steve would attempt to break the world record for the most prostate exams in a four-hour period.  Again, Dr. Steve is an actual doctor.  And  bear further in mind, he ALREADY gives medical advice over the radio on that very station, without incident or issue, by adding a simple disclaimer that any advice given should be double-checked by your own doctor, yadda-yadda-blither-blather.  But when presented with this bit now, the lawyers asked, "Is Dr. Steve licensed in New York State?"  Because they feared that his sticking fingers up people hinders might be misconstrued as practicing medicine in the state without a license.  Never been an issue before, but all it takes is one guy in a suit saying "Yeah, but what if...?" and the brakes are hit hard.


Comedian Rich Vos got it exactly right when he said, referring to the people who make these decisions, "No one will ever get fired for saying 'no' to something."  We live in a CYA world now where it's safer to say no to something risky.  Regardless of the upside of saying yes, it's easier to play safe and go with what's been done before.  It's why we rarely see something new on television, and as soon as we do, it's immediately copied to death, as it is now a safe and proven idea.

In today's world, Mr. Carlson would never have been allowed to bring those turkeys anywhere NEAR that helicopter.

Lawyers have successfully created a new market for themselves, that of coming up with scenarios where a company MIGHT get sued, and then warning them about it.  And because there have been so many outlandish suits in the recent past (Your honor, the floor wax label did not actually SAY it could not be used to wash dishes...), the companies do not just laugh the nightmare scenarios out of the room.  Because, of course, once they've been warned such a scenario MIGHT happen and then move forward anyway, they are even MORE liable should it occur.  Back to the earlier comparison, it's like when your mother (or god help you, spouse) says "Make sure you don't XYZ" which all but puts the curse on it, making SURE it will happen if you choose to go ahead anyway.

But here's the really annoying bit.  Who put us in the situation where lawyers can point to the crazy lawsuits that have cost companies millions of dollars?  OTHER LAWYERS.  Whenever a person has an accident that was clearly his fault and could have been avoided with a modicum of common sense, there will be a lawyer who can spin a situation that makes it the fault of the place and company at which it happened.  And it's been proven that juries tend to side with the plaintiff in such cases, not because they think the company was actually liable, but because they think the person "deserves" the money, and because they hope that one day THEY will be lucky enough to get to sue a company and don't want to mess up their karma by saying this guy shouldn't get his bit'a sumthin-sumthin'.

Now here's the happy ending.  No, none of the bits have gotten approved (yet), but O&A took the incident to the air, went on about it, and turned it into about an hour of RIVETING radio.  They've had years of practice, but O&A can make some tasty lemonade.


(*)This bit copyright Kevin "That's Not Right" Meany, who is likely still using it in his act.

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On the challenges of bringing home the bacon when your nemesis is a giant radioactive porcine alien

In a column on Newsarama, Jill Pantozzi, AKA The Nerdy Bird posited the summer of the Teen Titans.  In it, she posits the kind of jobs that the team might take over the summer, and how they gang aglay.

But in such frippery, she sheds light on an equally fripperous and intriguing question...how DOES the average superhero support hirself?

The Big Three sort of don't count - Batman is calamitously wealthy, and Superman doesn't need to eat; he has a job largely just to keep in touch with Humanity.  Wonder Woman, at least before the recent (presumed temporary, but what do I know) revamp was royalty of an independent nation, and as such fairly set should something arise which requires a sudden application of funds.  Even Aquaman's financial needs are largely moot - if he sees something on QVC he wants, he just needs to go for a swim and pull up a chest of booty or two.  He probably gets them appraised by Carter Hall to save time.

But that leaves a fairly large number of heroes at varied alphabetical plateaus who have lairs to support, jobs to hold down, and in the case of the younger adventurers, research papers to finish.  Rather a burden to bear.

We already know that Bruce Wayne is not new to helping out a friend - He owns several apartment houses in the fashionable end of Metropolis, and has arranged it so that a newspaper reporter and his wife got to the top of the waiting list forone of the better locations on Clinton Street.  We also know that Ollie Queen was secretly funding The Outsiders, which was of course started by Batman several incarnations ago.  With these two facts in place, it's fairly easy to extrapolate a fairly diverse support network for the crimefighters of the DCU.

Once a hero establishes themselves (and has their first crossover), it can be assumed that certain doors open to them.  Jobs with subsidiaries of Waynetech or Queen Industries are likely available in most metropolitan areas, positions with hours in varied shifts, with managers who are very understanding of the need for unexplained absences.  For the younger vigilante, scholarship materials to local colleges will start to arrive in their mailbox, possibly with applications already filled out. 

Paul Gambi doesn't take too many new clients, but once in a while he'll get a name left on his counter and calls are made offering his services.  Equipment manufacturers are a secretive, circumspect lot, but when you get a note with a drawing of a bat at the bottom, you get a new catalog printed up and mailed out toot sweet.

The JSA has been offering training to new heroes for some time now, which again, is likely financed by the heroes themselves.  Alan Scott was quite the media magnate in his day - odds are he sold off his holdings for a tidy sum, if indeed he sold them at all.  He likely owns a nice piece of Galaxy Communications.  Ted Knight may live like a pug, but he owns that gym outright, and likely most of the surrounding block.  Tyler chemicals was quite the powerhouse in its day as well.  It's safe to say the JSA are solvent enough to handle some Extreme Makeover: Headquarters Editions on their own. 

Then there's the question of licensing.  While there will ever be people who claim that it's perfectly legal to slap a hero's face or logo on a shirt as a public figure, there are always lawyers who show up and quietly explain that there's a holding company that can be worked with to create approved products, and in doing so help various charitable endeavors. 

Nobody's gonna get rich as a superhero (not without getting a stern talking to a la Booster Gold) but it's fair to assume that with sufficient proof of dedication, the job can be made at least a little bit easier.

And by the way, the aforementioned Mam'zelle Pantozzi has been appearing on the annual MDA telethon for years, first as one of "Jerry's Kids" living with muscular dystrophy; she's now old and successful (and pretty) enough to help host the New York City local event.  Making a donation to fight this spectrum of disorders, even after the end of the Lewisian baccanal, is a good thing to do with your money.  Donate at mda.org, or text "MDA" TO 20222 and a donation of $10 will be placed on your next phone bill.

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On the ability to believe a man can perambulate

There's a recurring question that pops up among comics readers to the effect of "With all the alien tech that falls to Earth in one form or another, how is the Earth of DC or Marvel not decades or centuries ahead of us technologically?" And believe me, we can go on for HOURS coming up with explanations - the government grabs it all, there are advances but they're minor and in the background, etc.

But in simple fact, the reason is far more logical. If the world of the DC Universe were as advanced as it should logically be based on the number of alien devices and superintelligent inventors, it would become a world of the science-fictiony future. And that’s a world a lot of readers wouldn’t be able to identify with, and it’d turn them off. A superhero comic and a science-fiction comic aren’t the same thing, so the general standing is to keep the street-level world as similar to ours as possible. Unless they’re collateral damage, people on the street only see the superheroes when they look up.

In Superman, JMS has brought Superman down to street-level in his “Grounded” arc. Superman is taking a Forrest Gump-like (I am SO sure he’s sick of that comparison) walk across America, partly to help restore their faith in him after the New Krypton mishegas, partly for him to re-connect to the “normal” people of the country, and partly to get a cheap pop in sales and publicity as he walks through each city. This month in Superman #702, he walks through Detroit, a city with no small number of real-life problems. He talks to a number of city-dwellers, but spends more time talking to a group of alien scientists who are hiding from their oppressive home planet in human garb. They make it clear that they mean Earth no harm, just want to live their lives in paranoid solitude, etc. Superman believes them, but feels they shouldn’t just hide out; like all immigrants, it’s almost their responsibility to contribute to the country, either culturally, or in their case technologically.

The aliens do a good job of calling him out on this, pointing out that he’s an alien as well, resulting in a nice “That’s different” moment. And considering that Superman and his family isn’t exactly peppering the planet with Kryptonian technology, or forcing the Amazons to send plans for the Purple Ray to the countries of the world, etc, his request isn’t exactly fair.

Long story short, he convinces them that sharing their technology could result in an astounding amount of benefit to the world, as well as to the city of Detroit. In the span of two panels (and what HAD to have been a period of weeks if not more), the aliens have cut a back-room deal with the government to allow them to buy up a bunch of disused auto factories and start manufacturing products extrapolated from their alien tech. So in the proverbial swell foop he both makes the aliens more safe on Earth and helps provide jobs for many thousands of Detroit workers, very possibly bringing about a total revitalization of the city.

I’m curious how the people are Detroit are gonna feel about that ending when they read the book. I fully expect some profiteering headline-whore to chastise it, saying it in some way diminishes the plight of the city or some such crap.

But it’s an example of what I’m talking about – with all the aliens and such in the DCU, this kind of thing should be happening left and right. I know Luthor wasn’t able to grow wheat in Africa back in Heroes for Hunger, but that was DECADES ago – I’ll lay odds that with sufficient impetus, he could grow turkeys in Astroturf.

But by doing so, it potentially minimizes the severity of the issue in question. It’s why Babs Gordon remains wheelchair bound. It’s why there’s no World Trade Center in comics anymore. In the Marvel U, Damage control could and should have rebuilt the Twin Towers almost immediately. Yet they remain down.

YES, Superman and his new alien friends could cure cancer. Superman brings them a ex-autoworker obviously dying of some massive lung complaint and says to them, “fix him or I’ll blow the whistle on you”. But by doing so, it changes the rules in which that world plays.

Watchmen is one of the only comics that really looked at the effect of a godlike being would have on the world. The Cold War ended instantly. He was able to generate the materials to build low-size high-capacity batteries, so electric cars became plentiful and cheap. But interestingly, the street-level world didn’t change all that much. There were poor people, there were newsstands; it wasn’t THAT different. So maybe all that technology wouldn’t make that much a difference after all.

Will these aliens ever be mentioned again? Or the sudden renaissance of Detroit they will likely cause? I’ll bet no. Unless it’s a seed for a plot he’s working on later, they’ll likely fall into the disused plot pile, along with all the other things that you’d think would change the world, but never seemed to get used for anything more complicated than robbing banks.

I’m liking JMS’ Superman issues, don’t get me wrong. The stories are working. But placing this godlike creature among mortal men just drives home the point of how hard it is to have them both in the same story. You need a hell of a big lens to keep them both in focus. It’s easier to write a story where he’s towing Saturn back into orbit than one where he helps build a house. Because some smart-ass is gonna ask “Why don’t YOU just build it?”

He’s doing it well, but I’m not sure how long it’ll stay interesting. Eventually I’m going to want to see Superman face Superman-level threats. Till then, I’ll be happy to read this 21st century superpowered remake of Route 66.

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On the reward for a year of patient silence

I'm quivering. I'm giggling like a schoolgirl, and don't know what to do with my hands.

There's not a facet of the news about the rebirth of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents that doesn't make me happy.

First off, they're sidestepping the whole origin retcon problem perfectly - it all happened. The entire Tower run is now solidly part of DC Continuity, in its entirety, unchanged. This also means they took place as much as 50 years ago, if they choose to place them in the 60's. This is AMAZINGLY cool. It puts the Agents in the same area as the Challs - the sole defense the world had against outlandish threats, from the era between the JSA and the modern heroes.

Yes, that means that aside from Dr. Dunn, we'll get all new agents. But that really works for me. As I've said before, it's entirely possible to give a new guy the suit and retain the feel of the original. And I'll be very curious to see what folks they choose.

They kept the "core", to revisit the concept I've touched on recently - their powers are slowly killing them. The Thunderbelt puts strain on Dynamo's nervous system, Lightning's suit ages him every time he gives it the gas, and Menthor...well, I'm quite keen to see what the side effects of the helmet are now. Now yes, the idea has been used in comics before, one favorite was in Strikeforce: Morituri. But it's a concept that's got LOTS of possibilities.

I'm assuming the fellow in the business suit is the new Menthor. It's a neat idea, and considering the original Menthor suit bore a passing resemblance to The Atom's togs, they'd only have had to think up new ones anyway.

Only NoMan will remain as an active member from the original team. Which means that Dr. Dunn has been living in a series of android bodies for a couple DECADES. There is a LOT of potential there. People start hallucinating after a couple of hours in those sensory deprivation tanks. He's functionally been in one for years. And the idea of being able to swap out of your body right before you die. You ever have a dream where you're dying and you wake up at the last second? Odds are that's what it feels like. What's the effect on a mind after that happens a couple hundred times, but you're not dreaming?

So SO many questions. Exactly how long ago did the original series happen? Will we see a new version of the THUNDER Squad? Or the Undersea Agent? What of the 80's revival will be considered canon? How will the team interact with the rest of the DCU, and organizations like Checkmate?

It is going to be a VERY long time till November. Luckily there will be several conventions between now and then at which to wheedle information from them.

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On yet another costume intended to attract attention and generate debate

If you haven't seen it yet, Entertainment Weekly has Ryan Reynolds in his Green Lantern outfit on the cover of their special Comic-Con preview issue.  And predictably, it's generated some comment.

I do have some problems with the outfit, but likely not the ones most have.  The mask looks a bit odd.  It's too low in the middle, which makes the sides look almost pointy.  The lines of (I presume) energy look like they're supposed to mimic the sinews of muscle.  It's interesting, but makes the suit look too busy.  I'm hoping that's more of a "climactic" effect, to give the look of his body bursting with energy, perhaps after drawing a charge directly from the central battery. 

But here's the thing.  The pic is billed as a "first look", and that's exactly what it is.  With almost a full year until the premiere, I'll lay odds this design will change.  It's one of the mixed blessings of CGI effects - you can tweak it until quite close to the release date. 

In fact, I'm betting this isn't even actual CGI output.  It looks much more like Photoshop.  Take a look at the hi-res copy of the pic at Newsarama.  The mask looks rather flat, much more like it's just painted on his face, as opposed to the more solid look that you'd assume a mask would have, even one generated by the ring, as this one allegedly is.  The colors of the suit are flat, with not too much texture.  I'm betting this is only a pale shadow of what the final product will be.

My copy will likely be waiting for me at home today or tomorrow, and if there are more pictures inside, I'll be able to make a more educated decision.  But right now, my decision is that I can't MAKE a decision.  You can't make a decision on the film based on one picture.

At least, not any more.  I remember when that picture of Michael Keaton in his Bat-gear showed up in, of all things, TIME magazine.  The photo was intended to calm the fans down, to make sure we understood that this was to be a serious take on the character, not a comedy, regardless of the choice of star.  And it worked - there wasn't a comic shop in the country that didn't have a copy of that pic posted.  You could hear the sigh of relief, followed by the first of many held breaths over the next decades as our anticipation built.

But that suit was a physical thing. They were almost finished filming by the time that photo hit.  If fandom cried foul, they had no way to change it.  With the GL costume being CGI, if there's a hue and cry about it, they can change it with relative ease.

If there's any fully-rendered effects yet, they exist solely to show at Comic-Con next week.  And even they may change in 12 months.

There will be PLENTY of leaked footage, in-progress effects shots and photographs taken from 3 miles away using  L.B. Jeffries' telephoto lens from Rear Window for you to make your mind up about the film before it opens.  Don't hang all your outrage on a last-minute slapped together piece to get a shot on the EW cover.  Save it, parcel it out over time.  If you declare the film crap now, you run the risk of being ignored for the next year.  And if there's one thing the children of the internet fear, it's being ignored.

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On a successful destruction of another part of my childhood

I've told these stories before, but I told them long enough ago I think I can get away with telling them again. I've always had a sort of emotional attachment to The Atom, DC's Silver-age version of the Mighty Mite. One of my few memories of my father is of him reading me the origin of the Atom. And from way back then, I remembered Ray Palmer's little mnemonic for the difference between stalactites and stalagmites -

Stalactite has a 'C' in it! Let that stand for Ceiling! Stalagmite has a 'G' in it! Let that stand for ground!

Over a decade and change later, in high school Earth Science class, our teacher had just finished this really horrible story that was supposed to help us remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. As soon as he finished, I raised my hand, and quoted Professor Palmer's mnemonic perfectly. My teacher looked at me, and to paraphrase Robin Harris, he hung up cause he knew I was right.

So suffice to say, I know the origin of the Atom pretty well. Ray Palmer finds a piece of dwarf star matter and uses it to perfect his shrink ray. By passing sunlight through a lens he created (now with a dwarf star coating) he can shrink things, but they promptly explode due to instability. During a spelunking expedition (from which came the aforementioned mnemonic) there's a cave-in, trapping the class. He happens to have the lens with him, so he decides to sacrifice himself by using it on himself. He sets the lens between two outcroppings and aims a beam of sunlight through it. He succeeds and makes a small hole large enough to let everyone escape. With seconds to go before he expects to explode, he passes through the beam again, and is surprised and relieved to find out he is restored to normal. Apparently some water dripped onto the lens, water that passed through the walls of the cave and picked up trace minerals that somehow stabilized the shrinking process. He retrieves the lens and helps everyone escape through the opening he created. And by his next appearance he perfected the process, made himself a costume and joined the DC pantheon of heroes.

Now that's pretty much a textbook silver-age origin. A series of wild coincidences, some pseudo science and heaping helping of OH, COME ON. But it works. It's a jumping off point, it's a story that doesn't need to be addressed all that often and serves to get the hero into the costume. It's not changed one iota (which would have been a great name for the character as well) since it was written. Through Crisis and revamp, Ray's simple tale has remained unassailed. The only nod to reality it got was the space rock was now merely infused with Dwarf Star Matter, as opposed to being a solid chunk. I believe that tweak came some time back, as some clever arse noticed that a solid piece of dwarf star matter A) wouldn't exist since stars are made of incendescent gas, and B) would weigh something like 14 godzillion pounds (or 6.350293178 godzillion kilograms). But other than that, nothing.

Until yesterday, when Jeff (Sweet Tooth) Lemire all but entirely rewrote it in the Brightest Day Atom Special.

Now here's where you expect the old fart comics fan to rail and moan about change for the sake of change, and how it was perfectly acceptable before and why did it have to ruin it, yakkity schmakkity blither blather.

But here's the thing. He NAILED it. He makes several major changes, but none are negative, and none make Ray any less Ray.

Let me explain. There's a sort of paradoxical concept from literature know as the Ship of Theseus. They all center around the idea that a beloved object, over time, gets fixed, parts replaced, and eventually, there's not a bit of the original object left, but it's still that object. Terry Pratchett used the "my Grandfather's Axe" version of the story twice, once in Strata and more recently in The Fifth Elephant. The point is, you can swap out all the bits of something, but if you're careful, never lose the intrinsic…thingness of the thing.

Sometimes some comic revamps are so radical they DO lose "the thing and the whole of the thing". The threatened Fantastic Four moving to the suburbs, for example. And in most cases, the really embarrassing missteps go away, either via another revamp or just a sort of embarrassed shuffling of the feet and everyone kind of agreeing to never mention that again. But here, the changes are not outlandish, and even when they contradict previous stories, they do so in ways that interest me, and not outrage me.

Case in point - In the new origin, he perfects the shrinking process himself, as opposed to a freak accident involving dripping water. It's not as exciting and dramatic, but it actually makes Ray a BETTER scientist. He solved his own problem, as opposed to a lucky accident.

In the new origin, he already had the costume ready. Well, so what? Come on, he says it himself, you don't build a shrink ray without at least thinking of using it on yourself. And he explains that the suit is to house the shrinking apparatus and not just to save people and get babes. It's similar to the idea they tried in the Flash TV series, that the suit was originally designed to monitor his vitals and keep from overheating (tho how wearing foam rubber from head to toe keeps you from overheating is beyond me). Having his first appearance still be connected to a cave-in is a nice tip of the hat to the original story.

Jeff's also added a whole family for Ray to have sad memories about. Now to be fair, that's becoming somewhat de rigueur nowadays, as in Geoff Johns' revamps of both Green Lantern and Flash. And it seems pretty obvious to me that Ray's mysterious uncle is either...

A) His real father
B) Himself, or possibly one of his enemies (most likely Chronos or someone with access to the Time Pool) trying to make sure his eventual adulthood and shrink-ray creation goes smoothly.
C) Some mad combination of the two.

Don't get me wrong, these are pretty major changes. But like so many DC characters, The Atom went through more than a few radical changes in vector. He became a teeny-weeny John Carter Of The Front Lawn, got de-aged to a teenager, and had more shit piled onto his fragile psyche by his ex-wife than any one man deserves. Roger Stern gave him a family background in the Power of the Atom series - supposedly he's an only child. But AFAIC, since that was added DECADES after the character first appeared, it's not quite the same level of cement-solid canon as other details.

Now I won't lie to you, I REALLY liked Ryan Choi. Or perhaps more correctly, I liked Gail Simone's writing on All New Atom, and the absolutely wacky concepts she introduced. Of them all, the idea that Ivy Town, as a result of all the quantum compression, time travel and dimensional experimentation it's hosted over the years, is now parked halfway into the Outer Limits. I LOVED that. It was an easy setup for a ridiculous amount of story ideas. It's something I'd sorely love to see again.

But by re-telling Ray's origin, Jeff gives a whole new audience a chance to jump on with the character, and pretty much takes him back closer to his original concept than he's been at for quite a long time. He's more sure of himself, no more of that "size=self-esteem" crap. He's back at Ivy U, with Professor Hyatt. And he's a hero again.  These are good things.

In short, Jeff ends up with a story that is still the story my father told me.

Tell you what, Jeff...have him use the Stalactite/Stalagmite story in a future episode, and it'll be perfect.

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On the result of showing a powerful man exactly how weak he is, relatively speaking

Look, there are spoilers.  Get Over It.

Simply stated, Marvel don’t know what they lost.  They canceled Paul Cornell’s thought-provoking Captain Britain book, and then it starts winning awards.  Paul jumped ship to DC, bagging an exclusive contract, and got handed Action Comics.  That’s what I call a positive career vector.


One catch: you can’t use Superman.  JMS is sending him on a little spirit quest for a year, so you’ll be writing about Metropolis without a Superman.  Now that’s the same offer made to a certain other well-known Superman-loving writer (whose name shall remain unsaid), and said writer dropped the offer like a hot rock.  But Paul saw opportunity in the scenario, and chose to talk about Metropolis’ biggest brain, Lex Luthor.

As a result of the end of the New Krypton plotline, Lex Luthor has a presidential pardon, has been re-instated as the head of Lexcorp, and odds are, with the help of a gracious media, been able to restore his reputation to the point that he’s top dog in the Big Apricot again, especially with Superman off on Walkabout. 


This is a textbook example of a first issue.  Give people a solid snapshot of the character, get a couple plot threads going, and end the issue with a SOLID cliffhanger.  Hits all the bases. 

As opposed to the last year of Superman books (which, I hasten to add, I enjoyed) where you were asked to invest in brand new characters (or in Mon-El's case, a new look at a character) this is a character everyone knows, so there's no hesitance to get over.  And still Paul shows new sides to him.

The Lois-bot just speaks VOLUMES about his fixations.  She's The One Who Got Away, and if he can't have her, he'll just build one.  He couches it in "I need a devil's advocate" but it's such an obvious bit of petulance.  LOVED it. 

I may be digging a bit deep, but I took “Spalding” as a Marx Bros reference – Geoffrey T. Spaulding had a personal assistant named Jamison in Animal Crackers. I’ve already asked Paul if his other name is indeed Jamison. Which would be awesome.  The relationship between him and Lex seems to be similar to Lord Vetinari and Drumknott in the Discworld books.  I love it.

If you want to make a comparison to Paul’s work on Doctor Who, it seems he’s playing Luthor as The Master.  He’s utterly in control in any situation, playing three games ahead, never mind three moves, and always out for himself.  He’s not been played this well in years.  Even in recent years he was leaning back to the “mad scientist” mold and away from the corporate wolf that Byrne, et al, re-molded him in.  I’m pleased that didn’t complete – I really like the idea of Luthor being a captain of industry.  It should be very difficult for Superman or anyone to touch him, as he’s the head of a company that’s “too big to fail”.

Let’s look at all the plot threads Cornell  set up in one issue, shall we?

Lex’s Quest For Fire:  He got one taste of true power, and it’s bent his brain.  Just like Virgil Samms taking one hit of Thionite while undercover and having to spend the rest of his days aching for another, Lex has fallen hard for the power that he can barely contemplate.  He’s well aware that’s it’s affecting his actions and perceptions, but he’s equally positive that he can maintain control.  Classic junkie-speak.
It’s got to be KILLING him that something could make him so off of his game.  So much so that he decides he needs a Jiminy Cricket, someone to walk (three steps) behind him and whisper “Remember, thou art mortal”.  And that brings us to…

Lois-bot built with Kryptonian tech that they don’t quite understand:  That’s just got “Lois bot out of control” painted all over it, don’t it?  Or even better, making the jump to sentience and either allowing Lex to take the relationship to another level, or the old reliable “trying to take over real-Lois’ life” story.  Either way, Robot Lois is a great swerve, since it was the one thing in the previews and Paul’s interviews that had everyone partaking in what we call in our house “The ethnic loss of all shit”.  Positively brill.

“If I got more support from your people”:  That line likely got glossed over by most folks.  Who are Spalding’s “people” exactly?  I’m thinking he’s not just referring to Lexcorp employees, or metrosexuals.  Spalding got a lot of camera time – I’m betting there’s a reason for that. 

Mr. Mind:  Come on, that was awesome.  Virtually unseen since 52, the Venusian earworm has all the makings of a major villain.  More subtle than Starro, access to alien tech, and he’s a friggin’ worm.  You started the issue not knowing who the weirdos dressed in lots from a Morrison Doom Patrol costume auction were, and you ended not know what their boss has planned.  And all along, Lex is just playing them like pan flutes.

What a lovely start. 

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