Category: Comic Books

In the Belly of the Daily Beast

“It’s a real fucking mess over there. I think his money will be gone in a few weeks… Stan and [his daughter] JC are literally being picked apart by vultures.”

This upsetting update on Stan Lee in the Daily Beast isn’t something I want to be reading on a Sunday morning that’s one hour shorter than it was last week.

Stan Lee and DOuG pRATt

Extra: Mark Evanier’s thoughts on Stan’s condition and situation are at this link.

The Failure of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism

https://youtu.be/ACkiKVtF3nU

I have watched this installment of “Frontline” three, or maybe even four, times since it first aired in 2009. If anything I think it goes easy on Bill Clinton, by not pointing out that at the end of his administration he agreed to ending the Glass-Steagall Act.

Mr. A by Ditko

Steve Ditko’s take on Ayn Rand’s philosophy deals with good vs. evil in terms of violent criminal activity, as you would expect from a comic book creator. As covered in the Frontline documentary, former SEC chairman Alan Greenspan adopted the extreme free market aspect of Rand’s Objectivism, as you would expect from an economist.

I like to think the fictional Mr. A would agree with me that what the Wall Street banks did by taking advantage of deregulation to commit legal fraud, in both its intent and the outcome of ten years ago, was corrupt and evil. Therein is what I see as the inherent irony of Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

13 Hours of Punishment

https://youtu.be/OMW_dPtm7Bo

For myself, the Silver Age of comic books ended when I graduated from high school. At this moment I can’t think of a comic book title that was introduced during what is, for me, the Bronze Age of comic books, that interests me all that much. Which means that I’m not much of a fan of Wolverine or the Punisher, hugely popular Marvel Comics characters that were introduced in 1974, while I was in college. Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” series for DC in the 80’s is an exception, but those characters were all based on Charlton comics from decades earlier. Speaking of Charlton, I really enjoy E-Man, and he makes the cut because he was introduced before I started college.

Vigilante justice has always been present in comic books, although Superman dropped that approach very quickly, and even The Batman let go of his angst after becoming just Batman and picking up a sidekick. What came about in the 70’s, when vigilantism was reintroduced, were extra helpings of violence to go along with the justice.

In “The Punisher”, now streaming on Netflix, I see more than a little borrowing of elements from the TV series “Person of Interest”, which wrapped up a year-and-a-half ago. There was plenty of obligatory shooting of bad guys, but being a network TV series it never reached the level of ultra-extreme violence that is seen in “The Punisher”. I can’t say that I actually enjoyed all the blood and gore, but one thing for sure is that Jon Bernthal is perfect in the role. He says he wanted the challenge of putting across a sympathetic character that isn’t likeable, and Bernthal pulls it off, as long as you can stand watching him when the Punisher is in “killing machine mode.”

There is one truly great line in the Punisher script — “Pissed off beats scared, every time.” I agree.