Tagged: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Martha Thomases: Superhero Salespeople

Girls like superheroes. I can prove it, because a major media division has done the market research for me.

You can learn a lot about what people think of you by what they try to sell you. I don’t mean this personally. It’s not like some guy you meet at a conference who sizes you up and either offers you one of his room keys or life insurance, depending on his evaluation of your sex appeal.

No, I mean this on a more macro level. I mean the multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to discovering what you like and using that data to sell you crap.

For example, when I watch the network news in the evenings, I see a lot of ads for prescription medicines for diabetes, arthritis, and erectile dysfunction. From this, I understand that the advertisers think the people who watch the news are old, infirm, or both.

This is in stark contrast to the ads on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where the ads are all new movies, new video games, beer and Doritos. This is where Millennials get their news.

If I have Maury Povich on while I do my morning chores, I see ads for payday loans, attorneys who specialize in personal injury lawsuits, and for-profit colleges that offer two-year (or less) degrees. From this, I understand that the advertisers think I am an unemployed idiot.

When we get into prime-time television on the major networks, the stakes are higher. The audiences are larger, and the advertising rates more expensive. The networks don’t compete to attract fringe audiences. They want the mainstream.

Not just mainstream, but young, unattached, 18 – 29 mainstream. People who are just starting their independent lives … and forming their brand allegiances.

And to television networks, mainstream means both men and women. Some shows may skew more male or more female, and we can tell which is which by the advertising on the program. We see beer and Doritos when the target is the bros. We see make-up and fashion when the target is female.

When I watch the current crop of shows based on superhero comics – Arrow, The Flash, Gotham, Constantine, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – I see a lot of Revlon commercials.

Doesn’t the conventional wisdom maintain that women don’t like superheroes? Why are women watching these shows?

I have theories, none of which I can prove without procuring the services of expensive market research firms. However, in the absence of evidence, here is what I think:

  • These shows feature a variety of attractive young people, many of whom are in great shape but none of whom are so over-endowed that we wonder how they can stand up. I mean that for the actors as well as the actresses. They are better-looking versions of people the audience might know in their real lives.
  • A substantial number of the writing teams include women. I don’t have the percentages, but, while I would guess it to be less than half, I think it’s more than a third. This means that there are women creating dialogue that, to them, sounds like something a woman would say if she found herself in a situation with, maybe, Valkyries.
  • The emphasis is on action, not violence. This might seem like hair-splitting (but watch long enough and there will be a commercial for a shampoo that will fix that), but there is surprisingly little gore on most of these shows. There are fights, but they aren’t bloody. Major characters rarely get killed, and not for the sole purpose of motivating the male hero. There aren’t a lot of women in refrigerators.
  • The female cast members often have their own storylines that are not dependent on the male cast members to be interesting. This is most true on S.H.I.E.L.D. and absolutely true on the spin-off mini-series, Agent Carter, least true of Constantine (at least so far), but even then it is more true than it is in the current version of the comic on which it is based.

None of these traits seems to be turning off male viewers. If it does, the advertisers have decided that the women in the audience will spend enough money to be worth the loss.

I hope that the success of these shows encourages editors to hire more women to create mainstream comics. I hope the success of these shows encourages publishers to offer comics that will appeal more to female readers.

But mostly, I want to see a Felicity Smoak / Melinda May team-up.

 

Dennis O’Neil: Superhero Family Focus

There is a bottomless pit and you have fallen into it and you plunge ever downward and you despair of ever seeing the light again…

What we’re talking about, here, is the light that issues from your television screen when you’re watching a superhero show. Well, be at peace. Things aren’t so bad. It’s true that the dying season’s two weekly shows derived from comic books are already into their summer hiatuses, but you can sustain yourself with reruns or maybe just sit in a twilit room and anticipate next season’s Flash. Orconsider what has happened to those shows that have bidden a fond and temporary farewell.

Of course you know I refer to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Arrow (and, as we did last week, we are from here on doing without the periods in the Marvel acronym, which, for those who don’t know and yet give a hoot, stands for Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate and yes, that is a mouthful and no, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, but hey, buster…you’re the one giving a hoot.)

Someone savvier than me might enumerate the ways in which the comics versions of these entertainments varies from their television adaptations, but let’s focus on just one. In comics, years – nay, decades– would pass with no significant changes in the premise or the main characters of the series. That was then. Now: SHIELD killed off a main character and, within a month, changed from being a story about a secret spy outfit with a lot of swell toys to a story about a bunch of good guys on the run to, as it inches toward a new season in the fall, a story about the resurrection of the aforementioned super spy outfit. Granted, the slain character was a villain, but he was the villain, one played by a major actor.

Arrow sustained similar alterations when the hero’s mother died – arguably a more important than the demise of SHIELD’s heavy because well, she was his mom and she was central to a lot of the past season’s plots. Another central character left the scene, presumably to return to a life as an international assassin though, of course, she could always abandon that trade and return. And the main stalwart, our own Oliver Queen, the very Arrow himself, has undergone some adjustment. He has stopped killing people and has voiced regret at ever having done so – relic from an earlier age that I am, I’m glad – and he is no longer rich. No invite to the Koch brothers’s next soiree for him!

Despite these alterations, both SHIELD and Arrow continue adhering to what seems to be series fiction’s Prime Directive: it must be about family. Not always biological family, but family structure: a parental figure, siblings, often a cute younger brother or sister, all of whom, despite occasional spats, are loyal and care deeply about each other. All the cop shows, all the spy shows, all the sitcoms – all familial.

Wonder what kind of family next season’s Flash will find himself in.

 

Dennis O’Neil: SHIELD, Arrow, and Superstuff

Both prime time comic-book based television series had their season finales this week, a day or two after I write this, and so any commentary on them might be premature. I mean, maybe some humungous game changer is in the offing, some gobsmacking surprise that will leave us gasping for breath, numbed and awed by the storytelling splendor we have just witnessed.

Or maybe not.

The shows I refer to are, of course, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Arrow, and although they are, as noted above, comics-derived, they aren’t two heads of the same critter. I think that Arrow is the more… well – I’m lacking precise terminology here, so let’s call Arrow the more “comicbooky” of the two. It is all about superheroes, comics’ prime export: one such hero in particular the Arrow of the show’s title, who wears a costume and has a double identity and has tricks up his sleeve – his quiver? – that might make an Olympic archer seek another sport. And over the months he’s acquired some friends who might qualify as superheroes and some enemies that might qualify as supervillains. SHIELD, on the other hand, is a hybrid, a series that occurs in a world where superheroes exist, but which is not about superheroes per se. (And yes, o astute reader, I did exile a bunch of periods from the show’s name. Sue me.) The SHIELDers aren’t super themselves, but they’ve got some supers in their Rolodexes.

I mentioned game changers a couple of paragraphs ago. Both Arrow and SHIELD have already changed the game a bit. SHIELD, as part of a nifty crossover with a movie, has gone from being a CIA/NSA-type spook organization to being a bunch of noble folk running from the authority figures, outlawed by the baddies’s takeover of whatever agency controls SHIELD. (I confess that I’ve never quite understood who signs SHIELD paychecks. A U.S. government honcho? Somebody as the United Nations? A scientologist?)

Some of you may want to read political commentary into SHIELD’s status change. Be my guest.

Arrow’s game has also changed, on a smaller scale than SHIELD’s, but kind of drastically nonetheless. The storyline replicated some comic book stuff from years – nay, decades – back. To wit: bow-twanging hero Oliver Queen loses his fortune. He’s no longer a member of the one percent. No more rich kid. I don’t know why the television guys made the change and, after all these years, I’m not sure why we comic bookers did, either. Maybe so our archer would be less like Batman/Bruce Wayne. Maybe to give him some (fictitious) street cred. Or maybe we just weren’t all that fond of mansion dwellers. Or… all of the above?

To end on a what-the-hell-difference-does-that-make note: In the comics, the Arrow was the Green Arrow, as many of you know. I approve of the renaming. I mean, why green?

 

Dennis O’Neil: Synergy

To the best of my knowledge, it was only done once before, and that was in 1912, when audiences were treated to a simultaneous telling of one story in two media, film and print.  What Happened to Mary (a statement, not a question) was a serialized movie, the kind that was shown in sections, or chapters, stretched over many weeks, the better to lure customers back to find out what happened next. While what was happening to Mary was appearing on local screens, the a prose version of the same story was running, serialized, in McClure’s Magazine.

Voila!  Synergy, 102 years ago!

My Mary information is sketchy at best, and so I don’t know if the stunt did whatever its perpetrators wanted it to do.  Was it successful?  (A question, not a statement.) I can’t say, but I’d guess not, if only because it doesn’t seem to have been repeated, anywhere, any time.

Until now, that is.  The increasingly vast, Disney-nurtured entertainment enterprise that is Marvel, has given us both Captain America: The Winter Soldier,  which has earned $476 million so far, and it is a long way from the finish line, and an episode in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that tells another part of the same story.  They did it right: you can see either the movie or the video alone, without even knowing of the existence of the other, and get full value.  But see them both and you experience a much fuller version of the story.

The job must have required some thought and effort and the professional yarn spinner in me would like to know exactly what the procedure was.  Outlines?  Flow charts? Computer programs?  What?  Or, oh my gosh, did the writers keep it all in their heads?  Or did the glitches get edited out post-production?

Some mixture of all the above?

The only complaint I have applies only to the movie and its a complaint I’ve offered before.  Hey, guys, ever hear that less is more?  There are so many explosions and other noisy events, and the climactic battles goes on for so long, that sitting there in the dark theater I grew a little weary.  Bang bang and more bang, beyond whatever narrative use could be gotten from all that flash and clash

I wonder: do the creators of superhero movies feel that the explosions are what the audience expects in an era where the ka-blooies of video games may be helping to shape our sensibilities? Do they think that the folk in the seats expect rackety pyrotechnics in massive doses? Or even demand them?  And if so, are they right?  I hope not.

The noise level on the S.H.I.E.L.D. episode was quite reasonable, possibly because television drama has a more modest gunpowder budget than motion pictures.  Score one for the tube.

So, was the experiment a success?  For me, it was, and I’d be happy too see something like it again.  Only maybe a little more quiet?

Dennis O’Neil: S.H.I.E.L.D and the Long Game

oneil-art-140130-150x94-2439867So there it was, that kind of news item. We might once have seen something like it – a second cousin? – in the comics fanzines hobbyists published now. I find stuff like it virtually every day in Yahoo’s news section. This particular item speculated that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is, as you must know if you access this particular website, a television series broadcast on Tuesday night on ABC stations, is playing a long game. (Where do I collect my tortured syntax award?)

It is maybe also common knowledge among you aficionados that the program is a disappointment in the ratings. Not doing too well, there on Tuesday night. We can speculate, as some already have, that viewers may feel that they have been prey to the old bait-and-switch gaff, promised one thing and presented with another. The TV honchos make a big deal of the show’s comic book origins, even including the word “Marvel” in the title, and prefacing every episode with the same montage of comic book images that precedes Marvel’s movies. So it’s reasonable to expect the kind of entertainment Marvel is most associated with, superhero stories. (If you’re a Marvel fan who cherishes the memory of Millie the Model, well… bless you!) But instead of superheroes, what do they give us?  An action show. No flying, no awesome feats of strength, no grotesque superfoes, not even the odd cape or mask, Just, you know, fights and guns and car chases and stuff.

Not a bad action show, actually. Decent acting and dialogue, and stunts that seems to me to be a bit better than what’s usually found on the tube. And the plots are often flavored with science fiction, which could partially justify the superhero connection.

But, at the end of the hour… no superheroes. Wonder what’s on the Comedy Channel?

So they’re playing the long game? I interpret “long game” to mean that they’ll take their time, and ours, introducing characters and plot elements that will justify membership in the superhero club.

Comics got there first.

Twice, in my years behind editorial desks, the long game question arose, though we didn’t call it that. In one instance, a previous editor had promised the writer a five-year story. Awkward. I didn’t want to disappoint the writer, a good guy, and I may have been reluctant to make my predecessor a liar. But I doubted that any comic continuity of that era could be stretched so far. That’s the kind of decision editors are paid to make and sometimes the job can be a bitch.

We struck a deal. The long storyline could continue as long as sales remained above a certain number. Lagging circulation got the title cancelled and I was off the hook, and I hope the writer bears no ill memories of the incident.

The second long game was not being played on my turf, exactly, but because I was a big honkin’ group editor I had to notice it. If memory serves (and won’t that be the day?) the scripter planned to reveal certain crucial story elements several years into the run. The book didn’t last that long. Not even close.

The lesson we can take away from all this is that the long game won’t work unless you build an audience. Give ‘em solid reasons to keep coming back, episode after episode. Promising something, even implicitly, and then putting it on indefinite hold is not a good strategy.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Tweeks!

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY MORNING: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Weekend Window Closing Wrap Up: December 22, 2013

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Closing them on my desktop so you can open them on yours. Here we go:

What else? Consider this an open thread.

Dennis O’Neil: Superhero Haute Couture

oneil-art-131212-150x109-3085474We’re not always aces when it comes to accurate prophecy, we comic book pundits, though we shouldn’t hang our collective head too far down because prophecy doesn’t seem to be anybody’s strong point.

Anyway, almost eight years ago, in a precursor of this weekly blather, when I was younger and less evolved – I still had fur on top – I wondered if the meme of the costumed superhero was passé. Quoth I: “…what we’re asking now is, are costumed heroes an idea whose time has gone? Has the genre become too sophisticated for this part of its yesterday? Apparently, those who labor in television think so. None of video’s superfolk wear stuff that couldn’t be gotten at an upscale mall…”

That was then and this is now and the fortune telling implicit in what’s quoted above was as accurate as your newspaper’s daily horoscope. That is, not very. But it might be accurate in a year or seven; technology has hugely accelerated pop culture and the times are always a’changin. But that may be then and this is now and now superhero costumes are in no danger of extinction.

Look no further than the nearest movie screen. Superman, Iron Man, Batman, Thor, Green Lantern, The X Men. Spider-Man, Catwoman and, waiting in the wings, truth-inducing lariat at the ready, Wonder Woman. None of these people buy their business wardrobe at Marshall’s. Can’t get to the movies? (Yeah, well, ten bucks a ticket is kind of stiff, especially if you’re a fast food worker or a Walmart employee.) Go to the television set. There are currently two comic book-derived prime time shows on the tube, not counting cartoons, and one of them, Arrow, puts characters in costumes – maybe not costumes as blatant as the comics incarnations of those characters sport, but not what you’d wear to Sunday services, either. And more costume-wearers are in Arrow’s future, among them The Bronze Tiger and The Question. (I’ll plead that The Question’s mask is a costume as Will Eisner apparently thought The Spirit’s mask and gloves qualified as a costume.)

The Flash, who currently appears in Arrow in his alternate identity, will have his own show soon and, boy, The Flash – now there’s a costume-wearer! (Minor trivia note: The Flash was the hero of an earlier television program that ran in 1990-1991 and was largely written by comics’ own stalwart Howard Chaykin.)

The other comic book show is Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and there is no spectacular apparel on view in it, but maybe there ought to be. We find the program, well…okay. If we want an action show with a twist of heroic fantasy, S.H.I.E.L.D. does the job. But if we yearn for a superhero fix, the show doesn’t deliver. Mentally bracket it with Covert Affairs, globe-trotting adventure stuff that has a slightly different vibe than the fantasy-melodrama that’s the realm of the super folk.

Next week, a different topic, but I can’t foresee what it will be.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: The Tweaks!

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

 

Dennis O’Neil: The Mighty Marvel Movie

originalHey there, true believer, when you book to the multiplex to see the new Thor flick, you won’t be seeing just a movie, or even just a superhero movie – you’ll be seeing a Marvel movie! And you’ll know it almost from the moment the feature begins to unreel. How? Easy! The word MARVEL will be splashed across the big screen, white letters against a red field – no point in being subtle, here. There may be references to other Marvel movies as the drama unfolds and, count on this, after the end credits – and you are going to stay for them, aren’t you? – there will be a brief final scene that hooks you into another Marvel movie! Or two, maybe.

Almost like it was all planned from the beginning, this creation of the Marvel brand, and in a way, it was. And by “beginning” I don’t mean…oh, say 2002, when Tobey McGuire put on the Spidey suit and began slinging webs. No, we’re referring to the 1960s when Stan Lee was busy revolutionizing the comic book biz. He once told me that he wanted everything Marvel to support everything else Marvel, and he made that happen, insofar as it could happen back in the dark ages. (No Internet? No smart phones? iPads? Google? Facebook? Not even – you gotta be kidding me! – fax machines?)

So Smilin’ Stan Lee created the Marvel Universe, a mirror image of our universe, but a universe not quite so beholden to life’s drearier realities – one in which superheroes could and did exist. Characters from one title popped up in another title and all the costume wearers seemed to know, or at least know of, each other. It was a cohesive fictional construct, this Marvel Universe, and it was given to us almost whimsically; footnotes and text pages and even cover copy emphasized fun and hinted that we didn’t have to take anything in a Marvel book too seriously. Y’know, just hunker down and enjoy. Oh, and you didn’t have much doubt that you were reading, not just a comic book, but a Marvel comic book.

The movie and television folk seem to have learned from the smilin’ one. They’ve taken Stan Lee’s paradigm, adapted it to their media, and achieved marketing success and, recently, a fair degree of artistic respectability. What Stan might call “the Marvel manner” has survived metamorphosis from cheap pulp magazine filler to the stuff of hugely elaborate and technologically sophisticated cinema.

Those cheap pulp magazines? Well, they’re not pulpy anymore and, let’s face it, not so darn cheap, either. But they’re still comic books – Marvel comic books. Somehow, the publishing arm of the Marvel empire has preserved some of its identity though decades of varying ownership and turnover of personnel in both the marketing and the editorial offices. And a lot of artists and writers, including your humble correspondent, have worked for and/or at both Marvel and its rival DC, and still at least a ghost of Stan Lee’s vision persists.

I haven’t mentioned Marvel’s television show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, the lead character has mentioned his appearance in Marvel’s big screen Avengers and the word on the street is that S.H.I.E.L.D. will have some connection to the next Captain America flick. ‘Nuff said?

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: The Tweaks!

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

Mike Gold’s Big Fanboy Geek Out

Gold Art 130904Sometimes writing this type of column requires the skills of an experienced curmudgeon – which, lucky for me, is how I got the job. But only a child with a weak bladder pisses over everything he likes, and I am not a child. I am an adult. With a weak bladder, but hey, I’m staring Medicare in the face.

Unlike some of my ilk, I still read comic books – not exclusively, but I read a lot of ‘em. I read a few out of curiosity and a few others just to see what my friends are up to. But I focus on the comics I actually enjoy (hence my annual “Top Nine” list). With comics characters and adaptations proliferating all across the media, the same is true with comics-based movies and teevee shows. And what’s making my little fanboy heart go pitter-patter? Spoiler Alert: look at the artwork up by the headline.

I have enjoyed Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since its debut in Strange Tales #135. This comic book came out in the early summer of 1965. An endless sea of masterful writers and artists succeeded Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (for the record, Kirby plotted those early stories) and the most significant, the most interesting, the most awe-inspiring, was from a relative newcomer named Jim Steranko. He imbued the property with so much raw energy and skill that the property is still running off of the momentum he provided some almost a half century ago.

I love the way S.H.I.E.L.D’s been handled in the movies. It’s so… Marvelesque. It’s been handled by people who get it. So it should come as no surprise that my fanboy anticipation is entirely invested in the new teevee series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Of course I can be disappointed. This sort of thing has happened before. The right people get it wrong. But given how S.H.I.E.L.D. has been handled by Marvel’s movie division and the fact that Joss Whedon is the show’s overseer and Clark Gregg unsplatters himself from the movie storyline to reappear as Agent Coulson in this new series, I have every right to expect a solidly entertaining experience.

On Tuesday, September 24, nearly three weeks from today, I’ll find out.

And then I can move on to Doctor Who’s anniversary.

After all these years, it’s still fun to be a fanboy. I’ll grow up to be that old geezer at the assisted living center, completely not acting his age.

I’m looking forward to it.

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Martin Pasko

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Top 5 Reasons Batman Beats Captain America

fishman-130720-7904906OK, honest confession time. The geek blogger extraordinaire for Chicago’s newspaper Red Eye, Elliot Serrano, posted on his Facebook page that there were three things he knew to be facts:

  1. Schroedinger’s cat was dead. There’s no air-holes in the box.
  2. Superman never kills. For any reason. The End.
  3. Batman would lose in a fight to Captain America.

Now, upon seeing this – perhaps because I was in a crabby mood – I was immediately consumed with anger. I swore vengeance on Elliot. Luckily he’s of the sporting kind, and told me I was allowed to disagree with just one of those aforementioned facts. Well Mr. FancyHam? Let’s tackle this issue of one Mr. Rogers and Mr. Wayne. Submitted here for you, Elliot and my intrepid Fishmongers…. the top five reasons Batman mops the floor with Mickey’s super soldier.

  1. Gadgets. Unlike Cap, who chooses to limit his preparedness to a shield and a few MRE’s stashed in an errant thigh-pouch, Batman’s utility belt is 36” of versatility built for battle. Beyond a plethora of Batarangs and smoke pellets, Cap will also have to deal with freeze grenades, plasma torches, electrical tazers, and lord knows what else is tucked away. Sure, most of these will end up being a distraction at best when it comes to a full-on fight for nerd-supremacy, but that’s exactly what they are there for in this case. Batman unloads his belt busters to throw Cappy off his game. And then? Bat-boot to the face.
  2. Combat Training. Captain America is easily considered on the top fighters in the Marvel Universe. Obviously he went through boot camp basics after becoming a super soldier. After he thawed out, he continued to train on the battlefield. He is the ultimate soldier. His combat is built to stop an opponent quickly, so that he can move on. Batman, in contrast, is a student of the world. He took years – years – to hone his craft. He learned martial arts from several masters. He learned the art of escape from top escape artists. He learned to use fear and his environment to his advantage. And then? Then he learned on the field. Cap fans will be quick to point out that Rogers has been fighting since WWII. What they tend to forget that in cannon he was frozen for a solid 40 or so years. In my mind, he’s technically the same age as Batman in this mock fight. With that in mind, Batman has had more training, from better trainers. Beyond that? Batman has fought super soldiers before. And they didn’t win either.
  3. Friends. Captain America has the Avengers at his disposal. That’s quite a lofty roster. He also could claim a few X-Men, and his former sidekick The Falcon. Batman has the Justice League. He also has large parts of the Justice Society (I’m so not counting the New 52, suck it.). And when it comes to sidekicks? Bats has a small army there too. If they stood across from one another on the field of battle? Sorry Mousecateers. You’re outgunned, outnumbered, and out-Batmaned.
  4. Stategic Thinking. Sorry kiddos, this is gonna be a mean point to make. Face facts: When Captain America wants to win the day? He punches things and makes speeches until Reed Richards or Tony Stark figure out what to do. And when Tony disagreed with Cap? Well, we all know how great things turned out after Civil War, right? In contrast Batman’s so good, his backup plans were good enough to detain the Justice League. His A.I. almost broke reality down because it could. And when he needs to save the day? He can do it from his wrist-top computer while he’s crotch-punching the Riddler.
  5. Vehicles. Look, no good fight can be with just bare knuckles alone. Captain America has had a few cool rides every now and again. Batman has the Batmobile. Now, if I were to be so kind and give Cap the Triskellion to borrow for this little fracas, he just might have an edge. But if I were to be that nice? Well I’d have Batman borrow his Justice League space-station. And the heli-carrier can’t go into space. What about SWORD you ask? Sorry… it’s dealing with some problem with asteroid-M. At the end of the day, we know the Batmobile has way more tricks than any S.H.E.I.L.D. Hum-Vee. Plus chicks dig it. That alone tips the hat towards Batman.

I see it like this: Captain America is very skilled. In a bare-knuckle brawl against Bruce Wayne, in a ring, with no prep time, and nothing to fall back on? He’ll get in more than a few good licks. But a comic-book fight is not so cut and dry. If it were, it’d be boring. In this dream-fight, Cap and Bats would hurl everything they had at each other. After Superman and Wonder Woman drag Thor and the Hulk to the other side of the world… After Nightwing and Bucky are sucking down pity beers in a local pub over how short their run with the big-boy pants on was… After the Batmobile and Cap-Cycle are in ruin… after every last gimmick and gadget has torn Cap’s uniform into rags… After Batman resets a dislocated shoulder from one to many hits from a shield…. It comes down to two men ready to end the fight. Batman is better trained, and smarter. Captain America, even with enhanced speed and strength, is no different in Batman’s eye than any of the cadre of folks he’s bested in combat.

With a final firing of a Bat-Flare to the face (he was hiding it in his glove), dazed and confused… Batman sidesteps Cap’s haymaker, dodges the feinting jab Cap tried to sneak in, and jumps over Cap’s now clumsily executed leg sweep. After that? It’s just five quick thrusts to pressure points Stevie didn’t even know existed, and then a long nap. Broken, but not beaten… the Bat limps away in victory. And Elliot, if you’ll look under your chair, you’ll see this fight was decided before if even began. When the dust settles down, Batman is Batman. Captain America is just a patriotic drug-user.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

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