I've been lurking on reddit for a month or so now, almost exclusively on the atheism subreddit. I repost a lot of things that I think are funny, or that make a point, to my facebook page. It's making me much less tolerant of Stupid Shit, and what some might call (by "some" I mean just me) belligerently atheist. I just don't have the patience to humor people anymore. And really, why should I? Along with the dumb shit that assaults my ears on a daily basis at work, there are usually three to five instances during the day where I ask "how are you today?"

And receive this response: "I'm blessed."

Blessed by whom? Why Jesus, of course!
And some of the folks who respond likewise are much more vehement: "I'm blessed by the best."
And some of you are probably thinking, "good for them. Good that their faith and beliefs give them some sort of validation or even comfort."
I have a hard time with this. I've been having a rough go with this idea for some time; I try, unsuccessfully, to approach religion and religious people with tolerance and amused indifference. But some of these folks who are "blessed" have probably never read the bible. And if they have, they clearly overlook certain inconsistencies and contradictions.They are ignorant, and, in my opinion, willfully so. Never mind the old testament stuff where god tells you not to shave or cut your hair, or that women should submit themselves to their husbands and god, or that whole bit about god telling Abraham to kill his son. Because that's how they feel about it: the old testament isn't for them. It was written when things were different; it's quite all right to ignore certain things and pick and choose what to adhere to.

But that's faulty logic, at best. If you devote yourself to the principles of an organization or document, you can't pick and choose what's relevant. If you start to decide what is still valid and what is not, the whole fucking thing falls apart and invalidates itself on that very basis.
And yes, I understand that there's a fundamental difference between the little old black lady telling me she's blessed and the politicians yammering about how Christians are persecuted, but it all feeds into the same problem: people want to believe in something so badly, they've made up their mind so certainly, they are unwilling to even accept the fact that they could be wrong. They continue to parrot mis- and un-informed arguments about gays, about misogyny, about prayer in schools. But you never hear them talk about how Jesus said to hate your family and love him above all else. You never hear them talk about giving all their belongings away to the poor. And I'm positive that Tim Tebow won't even mention Jesus if he starts losing.

So what's my point? I'm not sure I have one. I've been wanting to blog for awhile now, and everything just seems like intolerant rantings that aren't going to change anything. Mind you, I don't think that my ramblings warrant much attention (although I have to thank all seven of my followers for subscribing: thanks, kids!) or that they make a difference, but putting this out there doesn't seem to matter to ME anymore, either.

Religion in this country has absolutely gone berserk. It's been on a steady incline since they changed the nation's motto from "E. Pluribus Unum" in 1956 to "In God We Trust." And really, regardless of your beliefs, please at least think for a second and realize that, contrary to what all these fucking theocrats want you to believe and keep repeating ad naseum, America is NOT and NEVER HAS BEEN a Christian nation. The founding fathers were closeted agnostics, atheists and doubters, no doubt due to the times they lived in, where atheists and non-believers of every stripe (read: everyone but christians) were demonized and persecuted. They did their best to distance themselves from religion without openly stating that they didn't believe, probably figuring that if they came out, they'd be criticized or worse.

America is dying a slow death, and the politicians on both sides of a corrupt two-party system and the lobbyists who give them campaign money are doing everything they can to kill it even more. And how are they going about it? By appealing to the lowest common denominator. People don't educate themselves; even in this age of Google and wikipedia where just about anything you'd ever want to know about anything else is literally--literally!-- at our fingertips, people still want answers handed to them on a silver platter. They want cut-and-dry, easy explanations, and it's not a very big leap in illogic to say that religion is what gives this to them.

And you can't even discuss it with them. I don't know if some of the GOP candidates for next year's presidential election really believe some of the shit they're saying about gay marriage or evolution, but it's much more frightening to take a moment and think that someone, somewhere, listening to these morons speak, actually agrees with them. And they vote for these people!

I've long abstained from the democratic process, as I feel the system is so corrupt that there's no saving it whatsoever. When congress can waste time deciding that fried potatoes should be called "freedom fries" and reiterate that "In God We Trust" is the national motto, when they can decide, all by themselves, that the military is allowed to indefinitely detain American citizens without rights or trial, the people have very little power to make a difference. And these candidates that run for office? I'll reiterate that they are funded by corporate lobbysists. Anyone you vote for is already in someone else's pocket and looking out for someone else's interests--the bottom line being that they aren't yours.

God certainly isn't looking out for any of us (mostly because he isn't there). God isn't the one fucking up the country, your lives, and the human race in general. It's men doing these things, as it has always been. People who tell me they're "blessed" are merely a symptom of a much larger disease; all the tolerance and good intentions and amused indifference in the world aren't going to make it any better. There's a great deal of people out there who might think like I do, although I'm sure that their outlook is somewhat less dystopian.

I can't bring myself to find the silver lining to any of this. I mean, sure, I'd still rather be here than anywhere else in the world. I enjoy the freedoms we used to have that are slowly being stripped away even under the reign of a democratic president. I'm not saying I want to move (at least not yet).

What I'm saying is that I have a right to be intolerant of the madness that has seized a majority of decent human beings' minds. Christians and other religions' faithful have no problem telling me I'm going to hell, so maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't feel the burden of having to humor someone or simply agree to disagree. It's time that these people were told, by those of us who don't believe, that they are WRONG, and they are doing the human race no favors by propogating an archaic and hateful system of belief. I won't be doing this at work, mind you, and I won't be picking any fights, but the next time someone starts talking to me about Jesus or how blessed they are, I'm going to tell them how ignorant they are and that they need to take that shit someplace else.

I'm not anticipating that it will go well, but for my own sanity, I need to stop humoring the morons.

Feel free to comment or hit me up on facebook; for now, smoke 'em if you got 'em and cheers.

-Swift

"If You Control Language, You Control Thought"

From Dictionary.com:

ter·ror·ist

/ˈtɛrərɪst/ Show Spelled[ter-er-ist] –noun

1.

a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.

2.

a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

3.

(formerly) a member of a political group in russia aiming at the demoralization of the government by terror.

 

ter·ror·ism

/ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ Show Spelled[ter-uh-riz-uhm]

–noun

1.

the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

2.

the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3.

a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

 

Neither one of these describes an individual or group who is a brown-skinned, Muslim, West-hating entity.

 

In the wake of this Oslo attack (whose details I am not intimitely acquianted with but agree it is indeed a sad, evil occurence), every media outlet and government official is using every possible word other than "terrorist" and "terrorism."

The fact that this evil fuck did this, regardless of his motives, makes him a fucking terrorist. He perpetrated an act of terrorism. But nobody wants to phrase it that way. They want to make sure we don't get confused and think this was Al-Qaeda (which they had no problem wanting to pin the blame on at first, of course), because those brown people from the Middle East are terrorists.

 

It sickens me that people in power continue to twist and warp our language and change its meaning to change how we think. And where do we get off trying to redefine these two words? Mull this over for a moment: before the concept of terrorism was dubbed as such, the founding fathers were fucking terrorists. But we can't be associated with that word. We're Americans! So John Adams and the like would have been ruled something as stupid as crown disloyalists or anti-monarchical fanatics with a democratic agenda. Fuuuuck. As long as they aren't terrorists, right?

 

I fucking hate the media.

 

-Swift

Why DC's 'Re-vamp' Is A Dumb Idea

A week or so ago it was announced that come Fall, all DC Comics' titles would start over with a new issue number one. Their characters would be revamped, younger, and all have horrible, hackneyed, piece of shit Jim Lee redesigns (I'll get to you later, Jim).

Reboots and Retcons and Renumbering are certainly not a thing of the past in Comicdom. Redesigns and tweaks to costumes aren't, either. But here's my problem with this idea of starting with a clean slate: it brings up too many questions, it almost never sticks, and it pisses off faithful readers like myself.

I know that they want to keep their comics more modern, fresh, new, exciting. But doing away with several decades of continuity is not the way to go about it, and neither is alienating long-time fans. Didn't the folks at DC learn from Marvel's "One More Day/Brand New Day" mistake? Recently, Marvel had Spider-man make a deal with the devil (no, really. And yet it's Grant Morrison who gets all this shit for having Batman lost in time) to have reality altered so his secret identity, which was made public, be a secret again.
What this meant was that thirty-odd years of Spidey being married to Mary Jane were gone. Poof. Kaput. It pissed off a lot of people, myself included. People who had been reading for years were forced to ask, "what have I been reading for? You just told me all these stories basically didn't happen or matter because you (the editors) wanted it changed, on a whim."

Now, I know that comics are all imaginary shit and that none of it really happens. But when reading a story, watching a television show, etc., isn't it a huge cock-slap in the face to have the people in charge of whatever fantasy you follow say "that stuff, there? It didn't happen. We're pretending it was all a dream or something." It's the comic book equivalent of Patrick Duffy getting out of the shower on Dallas to discover it was all a dream. It smacks of contempt for your audience and a lack of talent from your writers: You've written yourself into a hole, so you conveniently undo all the events leading up to it to get yourself out. It's absolute horseshit.

And DC Comics is doing this with an entire universe of history, apparently. So characters new and old get discarded. Actually, looking at the solicitations for the 'new' titles, there's a few glaring (and infuriating) omissions and changes:

-Dick Grayson Is Nightwing Again.
Really? Really? I was praising DC for making Dick Batman in my second post here On the Fringe. I said many positive things, like how Dick was more fun as Bats, how he deserved it, how it was a fitting progression of the character and how it was a very bold move to keep Dick as Gotham's Batman even after Bruce returned from the past. Alas, I figured it wouldn't be permanent, but why now? Why is this a good idea when Grant Morrison hasn't even finished his Batman, Inc. epic? And why in sweet fuck is he wearing Chris O'Donnell's outfit from Batman and Robin?!

-Barbara Gordon Is Batgirl Again.
Why? The Joker shooting and crippling Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke was one of the only lasting changes ever made in comics. Her second identity as Oracle was a stroke of genius, I thought. She grew up and became a huge part of Bruce Wayne's war on crime, led the Birds of Prey, and even had a tenure on the Justice League. Why demote her? Especially when you have not only Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown as Batgirl-type characters, but Kate Kane as Batwoman? Fuuuuck!

-Superman Is the First Superhero and the Justice Society of America Is Being 'Given a Rest.'
Superman being written by Grant Morrison, okay. Superman being given a 'new' costume that looks like armor, very bad. He's invulnerable. That means "bullets bounce off him even in his birthday suit." Armor is redundant and just plain idiotic. But once you get over the 'edgy' design aesthetic, you start to wonder: where does this leave the JSA? Well, it's official now: of the fifty-two titles DC has released solicitations for, JSA is not among them in any way, shape, or form. So these characters that have been around since World War Two, that have endured massive changes all in their own right, are going to (at least temporarily) cease to exist. So characters like the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern, who have been featured prominently only recently on Smallville and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, who are now perhaps a tad familiar with people who don't read comics, i.e. the casual fans and these mythical "new readers" DC purportedly wants to draw in, don't exist? Have you fuckers thought this through at all? Was this truly just a whim on your golden boy Geoff Johns' part?

-Jim Lee Has Redesigned Many, If Not All, of the New Costumes.
Let me break this down for you. Jim Lee was a popular artist in the 90's, who, along with many other artists at the time who worked for the big two, started their own company called Image. It had creator-owned characters conceptualized and drawn by artists; some were very successful, like Todd McFarlane's Spawn, while others, like Lee's WildC.A.T.S. had their peak in the 90's and floundered ever since (going through many retcons and reboots and revamps throughout their history). Even Spawn, probably Image's most successful title, has faded from prevalence since its inception (a terrible movie adaptation probably didn't help).

So what's my point, then? Jim Lee's artwork, while solid and consistent, is dated. VERY DATED. When he left Marvel to co-found Image, he was at the top of his game. He was on the forefront of the "Everybody should draw characters with a Manga/Anime flavor" movement that came in the late 90's and early 2000's. Back then, had he been redesigning costumes and put in a position of power at Marvel or DC, it might have been a very good fit. Oh wait! He was in a position of power at Marvel back then. Remember Heroes Reborn?
Marvel rebooted Captain America and Iron Man with Jim Lee and Rob Liefield. It didn't last very long. I can't say that I've read much of it, but the geek community's consensus at the time (more with Liefield's work than Lee's) was that they wanted the Cap and Stark they knew and loved back. And I think this is where we'll see DC going sooner than later.
When Lee left Marvel, he might have been at the top of his game, but forming a company with fellow creators, being in charge of his own sandbox and getting all the media attention that Image initially garnered probably made him complacent as shit. And that complacency has not let him grow as an artist one single bit. Disagree? Look at some of his work from the start of WildC.A.T.S. now look at the promo pic for the new Justice League. Yeah, there's some progression there, mostly in his proportion and anatomy. But that 'C.A.T.S drawing is at least fifteen years old, by my estimation. His style is certainly more refined, I suppose, but for a guy whose sole job is drawing comics and superheroes, don't you think it looks like the same old shit?
Plus, Jim Lee was the Korn of comic books. Remember when Korn came out and then Nu Metal followed? That half-whiny, half-hard stuff that everybody tried so hard to be while it was popular? It created so many imitators to Korn's style that the originators seemed just as watered-down as the imitators and Korn itself almost got lost in the shuffle. That's exactly what happened with Lee. He was popular, so everyone tried to draw more like him. That era has passed, thankfully, but I fear his imitators may be sharpening their pencils again (some of them, like Brett Booth, already have a job with the relaunch at DC. And Booth's Teen Titans designs are the worst of the bunch).

Conclusion
I won't be following DC's titles as closely as I have these past few years. I was already getting burnt out on giant crossovers (Blackest Night, Final Crisis) and the continuous poor treatment characters like Wally West received in favor of their Silver Age predecessors. But Dick being demoted to Nightwing, Tim Drake possibly having no connection to Batman, and now Power Girl and the Justice Society fading into creative limbo were the final straws for me. The day after these announcements were made, I finished the third volume of Batman and Robin, and as much as I enjoyed it, knowing Dick would no longer wear the cowl soon made me sad. They've successfully built up a lot of mythology that got me back into comics over the last few years, and to discard it completely, let alone cherry-picking what elements they want to keep and what they want to ignore, has soured me on whatever awaits. I've tried to keep an open mind and rationalize that these changes likely won't stick, but anger rules my reasoning. I'll vote with my dollar, DC. I just hope others are doing the same so we can get Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio and Jim Lee the fuck out of the big offices.

-Swift

Forsooth and Have At Thee! This Doth Be a THOR Review!

Verily, thine producers of Marvel Comics' Gargantuan-Screened adventures set before themselves a most lofty task. By wanting all fair heroes to co-exist, yon producer-folk have been building to an ambitious visual and auditory feast for the young, old and nerd alike. (Okay, I'm tired of trying to write this way already.)

Thor was released on May 6th, and I've already seen it twice. It fucking rocks.

With the first and second Iron Man flicks (and The Incredible Hulk, to a lesser extent), Marvel Films has laid groundwork for what would have been, probably even ten years ago, an impossible feat: The Avengers. I mean, they've bandied around a Justice League movie before and even made a horrible TV version, but to get a bunch of Big-Name superheroes in one movie, let alone have them be the same versions of the characters played by the same actors in their own eponymous movies?
Madness, I say.

But in a day and age when you can sign little kids up for eight Harry Potter films and Hollywood is more out of ideas than ever, this is actually going to happen. They've already started filming. I won't geek out (yet) about Buffy/Angel/Firefly/Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog mastermind Joss Whedon helming it. But I will say Thor is the first of the four Avenger movies to make me really, really, reaaaaallly trying not to wet my geek drawers in excitement.

I'll try to stay away from the plot-summarizing. The cast, mostly unknowns (Renee Russo and Anthony Hopkins and a completely unrecognizeable Ray Stevenson turn up) take something that could easily come off as cheesy or being out of a kid's show and make it into geek Shakespeare. The production values show from the costumes to the FX, and the plot is not what I expected yet somehow predictable... but not in a way that feels like they're beating you over the head with 'plot twists' like most blockbuster films these days. It's almost like a fairy tale where a third of it happens to take place in the same universe that Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark, Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson and Samuel L. Jackson's Muthafuckin Nick Fury live in.

It's an enjoyable and satisfying ride. We're just starting to see the payoff of two Iron Man movies and Hulk; they're slowly but neatly pulling all these characters together, name-dropping and throwing in little easter eggs (some that work better than others; I won't say that a cameo halfway through the film was 'forced' as others have, but it wasn't necessary), and by the time the credits rolled, even before I sat through a terrible new Foo Fighters song for the 'secret' end scene, I couldn't wait for Captain America or The First Avenger or whatever the fuck they're calling it. All I know is that I'm more excited than I ever thought I'd be to see a guy wearing the American Flag as a costume in a movie.

Kirk's dad from the new Star Trek is Thor, and he's damn good. I would say this movie is probably gonna make this dude's career like Superman made Chris Reeves'. And Loki? Loki is where I really get excited for The Avengers. Yeah, Sam Jackson and Downey speaking Whedon is a pretty exciting prospect, but have you ever watched Buffy or Angel or read his run on the X-men comics? Joss writes great dialogue overall, but he loves him some villain monologuing and posturing. This guy as Loki is going to chew up scenery on a level not seen since Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.

And speaking of Sir Hopkins, his restrained performance as Odin is note-perfect. Calm, fatherly and reserved at turns, but loud and bellowing when he needs to be. Natalie Portman turns in a great performance as Jane, Thor's love interest, dialing up all her girl-next-door charm to the point that you really believe she's a pretty nerd girl who's awestruck by the chivalrous Thor kissing her hand. The Warriors Three are cool, the chick playing Sif was good as well (although I must question how sensible her shoes are for fighting. Heels? Even the new Wonder Woman wears flights, guys.), and the human characters in the cast hit all the right notes.

And by "right notes" I should say, did we really need Kat Dennings as the comic relief? I get it. She's the almost-fugly I'm-so-snarky-I'm-cute broad in movies these days, and I want to like her, but at the same time I wanted Natalie Portman to stove her face in. It's a very minor complaint, but once the newness of the film wears off, I'm willing to bet that her dialogue is going to have many of us dorks rolling our eyes.

And that's about the only complaint I can come up with without ruining any details (and even those are minor). This has my hopes set very high for Cap's movie. And on a DC fan note, I really hope Green Lantern can stack up to this. I know they'll probably be very different films outside of being Comic movies, but if GL isn't up to par, DC and WB need to get their poop in a group real fuckin' quick. It was seriously that good. Even the girlfriend, who had not even a cursory knowledge of Thor or his character, enjoyed it quite a bit.

So fly thine ass like Mighty Thor wielding Mjolnir in a missile-like trajectory to thy nearest multiplex! 'Tis a fine moving picture, and leaveth this dork wanting more of the Thunder God's adventures!

Random Ramblings

Been awhile since I've had anything to talk about. I've been busy enjoying life with my girlfriend (and her trip of a 5-year-old) as well as drawin' shit. I've gone back to drawing superheroes a lot, for some reason, using mostly ball point pens.

Why pens? Why superheroes? No idea, really. To answer the pen question, I think it has something to do with how permanent pen is; I might start a drawing that has anatomy, proportion or perspective mistakes, but I have to live with it in pen and learn from my mistakes, in a way. Pen is also easier to layer and make darker without getting it all over your hand and the rest of the piece like you do with pencil.

Anyways... part of the drawing thing is that I want to do something incredibly geeky leading up to a certain Emerald Superhero's movie release, a countdown to be posted here. So there's that. The other part is that I have a weird divide in my talents: if I'm in drawing mode, I'm not in writing mode. I've tried; I had two unfinished articles from the past couple months that just didn't click. It's a bitch. But I should be checking in over the weekend with a Thor review, so look for that.

Until then, smoke 'em if ya got 'em and Enjoy the Ride.

-Swift

RAAAAAGE!!!

I realized this weekend that I can post pictures now that I have access to my amazing gal's digicam. This is a piece I did last year of DC Comics' Red Lantern leader, Atrocitus. The RLs puking up their napalm blood is such a visually interesting idea, isn't it?
Much, much, more to come in the following weeks and months from the left half of my noggin. Enjoy!

"Purity Of The Sport?" Don't Make Me Laugh

With an NFL lockout and shenanigans regarding collective bargaining in Wisconsin and Ohio, it got me thinking about how fucked up it is that we pay people millions of dollars to play a game (and yet they still want MORE) while our public workers have to fight tooth and nail to keep what little they have.

I won't go into the injustice of it all, but I will mock sports in general for having all these issues with how much to pay their players and the frequent steroid scandals that come up while they preach on and on about upholding the purity of the game.

Purity of the sport, purity of the game, keeping thinks on an even keel-- that all went out the window a long time ago when sports teams began getting players according to the highest bidder. It's laughable that they always talk about this fair play nonsense when it comes to steroids and performance enhancement when we all know the teams that have the most are going to pay the best players the most money. How is that fair?

I find sports inane in general. I don't care to watch glorified frat boys get paid to play a fucking game, the result of which has absolutely no bearing on my life. If you're into sports, good for you. But you have to admit how silly it all is, when you boil it down: grown men, whose sole occupation is to play a fucking game.

These people get paid obscene amounts of money to entertain us, and yet they keep them from 'enhancing' their performance through steroid bans and pussify their own sports with rule changes that protect their investments (read: players). Really? The only thing that holds my interest during an NFL game is the possibility that some big cocksucker might lay out a running back and fold him up like a goddamn accordion! Fuck these people!

Let quarterbacks get drilled right after they call hike. Let 'em take a fuckin' chance and actually earn their money! Let these guys take steroids and shrivel their balls into raisins. I don't fucking care about any of these assholes who skated through their education just because they could throw a ball, and neither should you.

I'd be into sports if they focused more on the violent, physically-debilitating injuries that can result from engaging in their all-important game. If I was guaranteed that at least once a season I'd get to see some douche have his leg broken in two or three places because he couldn't get away from Mongo fast enough, I'd be a sports fan for sure. I'd tune in as much as possible and watch Sportscenter just to see the instant replay again and again.

I'll take it a step further in advocating steroid use and just about any other substances they wanna pump themselves full of: I want more enhancements allowed. I want some of that crazy prosthetic technology put to the test and ramped up to almost lethal levels: I'm talking about a pitcher throwing a 200 MPH ball with his newly-minted cybernetic arm and the giant batter with his spine and arms replaced hitting back so hard it breaks the sound barrier!

You wanna talk about protecting your investment? Let these corporate criminal pricks who own all the teams and players find a way to write off these unnecessary surgical procedures like you would new floors on your house. Sounds silly, doesn't it? But the reality is that our society right now is not far from this type of thinking. It's kind of sad to think about how the team owners already consider human beings as assets to their business.

So let these idiots enhance away, I say. Fair play in the real world is on short supply, so why not in sport? Just stop kidding yourselves, team owners. We know you're dishonest and lacking in morals; we won't think less of you for admitting it publicly, I promise. Just get back to me on my proposal, wouldja? You'd be in on the ground floor of all that Ghost In the Shell and Blade Runner science and at the same time gain a sports fan the first time somebody shatters their collarbone because they went for the low tackle on a player whose legs were replaced with titanium hyperspeed appendages.

All right, enough for now. Hope to update with some stuff (and pictures!) of the trip to Pittsburgh. Later, kids!

-Swift

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1-6 Review, or This Is Why I Don't Buy Comics Every Month Anymore

After the events of Blackest Night, they announced a third monthly Green Lantern book (on top of the eponymous title and Green Lantern Corps). To say the least, I was a little apprehensive. I was less apprehensive, however, to learn it would star the Green Lantern Corps' resident shit-kicker, Guy Gardner.

Bear with me for a short history lesson...

Guy has had a rough time in his history as a published character, not all of which I'm privy to. I'm pretty sure the first time I remember Guy being in a story was The Death of Superman arc, and that made a pretty big impression on me.

I'm jumping the gun, though. A lil' history first: Guy was originally supposed to be, well, the  guy. He was incapacitated or something when the Green Lantern ring was scanning earth for Abin Sur's replacement. Or was he closer? Knowing comics, either one could be correct. Anyway, if Hal Jordan hadn't been where he was at the time the ring went looking for a being who had the power to overcome great fear, Guy would've gotten the ring. So originally, he was a rival to Hal, and after many years of being a dick about not being the guy, Gardner was made a Green Lantern and subsequently (and famously) punched out by Batman, left powerless when the Corps went tits-up, and stole Sinestro's yellow ring, which is where I came in.

Before Sinestro had his own Corps, he was just one dude with a yellow ring that worked the same as a Green Lantern ring. So Guy steals it and ends up being part of the Justice League when Doomsday rampaged through on his way to 'kill' Superman. At one point, Guy is blinded, and when asked how effective he can be in battle, says something to the effect of "Just point my ring at that thing."

Guy may be an asshole and a cocky prick to his teammates in the League, but that one act of blind determination, to me, was a defining moment. I realized he could be an interesting, kickass character despite the fact that he was more than a bit of a douche.

He went through some ups and downs, gaining alien powers after losing the yellow ring and opening a bar called Warriors (the less said about his time as "Warrior" the better. It was a product of the "extreme" nineties).

So I was happy that when they brought back Hal they returned Guy to the fold as a lantern. He was still a prick, but they made him a more serious character who kicked a lot of ass (even gaining a red ring during Blackest Night which allowed him to kill the Black Lanterns in droves). He pissed off Salaak, the Guardians' go-to lantern, built a new bar on Oa, and became like a brother to Kyle Rayner, his lantern partner. Gardner was the 'dirty job' man in the Corps, being assigned to cases that other lanterns couldn't hack. He left behind his joke character status and became a layered, believable character.

So, the series. Guy ends up on a secretive mission to explore the "Unknown Sectors" of the universe, even getting the Guardians' blessing to do so(suspicious, since the Guardians rarely listen to anyone). He gets help in the form of Kilowog and Arisia, both veteran lanterns. Over the course of the issues I picked up, it becomes clear that someone is draining all the colored lantern corps' power and that Guy made a pact with Atrocitus (the leader of the Red Lanterns) and Ganthet (former Guardian turned Green Lantern) to find out where the drain is coming from.

Guy becomes a sort of a renegade cop character as the story progresses, and his fellow lanterns don't approve. He's still having some side effects from his time as a Red Lantern, barely able to control his rage at points and coughing up napalm blood on a regular basis. He's even stopped by Bleez, one of the Red Lanterns, from having his body purged of the red influence, because he'll allegedly need that power to combat whatever threat is coming.

It turns out Sodam Yat, Daxamite Green Lantern (think Superman with a power ring. The Daxamites are 'cousins' to the Kryptonians) and former host of the Green Will entity, Ion, thought dead when he entered Daxam's sun to turn it yellow and give his people superpowers to ward off an invasion from Mongul Jr., has crashed back to his home planet and has a bit of a cult following him, praising him as Daxam's savior. He might be the source of the power drain, and he's also being mind-controlled by some dude named Zardor.

Zardor's got three eyes and a flaming sword and tends to puke up snakes that eat telepaths' eyes. Pretty cool, no? He's been kidnapping and enslaving telepaths to boost his own power and control rookie Green Lanterns into thinking our merry band are members of the Sinestro Corps.

The heroes find Zardor and get their butts handed to them long enough for Sodam to show up and leave a cliffhanger. This is my problem with monthly comics. They're paced so methodically that month to month it seems like nothing's really going on. That sounds like I didn't care for the series, but that couldn't be farther from the truth; I'm merely lamenting the fact that had I not found these at Carol and John's on the West Side while they were having a back issue sale, I'd be watching the story unfold at a snail's pace. These stories are designed for the collected editions, and here's my other problem: it left me on a cliffhanger with the promise that the seventh issue would lead into their next crossover, War of the Green Lanterns. I know they're trying to have a summer event to tie into the movie's release, but when are the lanterns gonna get a fuckin' break?

So, pacing issues aside, did I enjoy it? Hell yes. Guy has come a very long way from being a joke character to probably my favorite ringslinger at the moment. Peter Tomasi has a great grasp on writing the character, having done so well with him previously in Green Lantern Corps. He writes Kilowog and Arisia's disdain of Guy's methods with weight and seriousness (Kilowog's speech about how the Corps once stood for something and how the universe is a darker place was particularly effective), and even makes Bleez more than a one-dimensional, mono-syllabic character controlled by her rage.

The art is phenomenal. Fernando Pasarin has clean layouts and exaggerates his characters just enough, even keeping some of the more alien characters grounded in a semblance of reality not seen often enough these days in comics. Keep him penciling the series, please.

I probably won't pick up any more of the series until the collections start hitting, but I recommend it. With all things Green coming out of DC and WB's media machine in preparation for the Green Lantern movie this summer, I'm happy to see that they've yet to stretch the GL brand thin. So light 'em up, kids. Much more than Thor and Captain America, I'm looking forward to Green Lantern hitting theatres. I think it's going to take quite a few people by surprise with its scope, vast mythos and science-fictiony goodness.

-Swift

Anarchy In The US

So. Ohio Senate Bill 5 is on its way into becoming law. It's going to fuck over a great many people here in Ohio, and if other states follow suit, the agenda that our owners have against the middle class could conceivably succeed.

I won't get into why this is bullshit and how unfair it is. But I will say I'm having a hard time feeling bad.

Many of the unions who now stand to lose their collective bargaining rights were the ones who got him elected in the first place. Unions are political machines. They mobilize their members into voting one way or another, within their own organizations, of course, but if you belong to a union, let me ask: when was the last time a big election came along and you weren't inundated with flyers in the mail, phone calls or both? It's like that South Park episode: they don't care if you vote; they just care that you vote for who and what they want you to vote for.

So I'm having trouble not being indifferent to our plight. It almost seems as though our chickens have come home to roost. Or maybe I should say your chickens?
I don't vote. I've never believed my vote makes any sort of difference at a city, state, or federal level, and even if I thought it could, I prefer not to participate in corruption. The system is broken, and voting isn't going to fix it. Voting is contributing to the problem by electing officials who don't give a fuck about the average guy or gal. You're encouraging the bastards.

So what would be better?
I wish I knew an answer. I truly wish it wasn't like this, but think about it. Roughly half of congress are millionaires. They don't care about their constituents, which is why these pricks continue their agenda against the middle class by making all of us poorer. That's not the way it should be.

You know what gives me comfort? Entropy.
These rich fucks getting richer while they screw us over? Their chickens are comin' home, eventually. They're running the economy into the ground, and when the economy collapses, all their millions will mean nothing. And yeah, for those of us former middle class people, socioeconomic collapse will suck very bad, but I'll be holding onto that thought if I'm unfortunate enough to live through it. They'll be boned, too. See? I'm a closet optimist.

All right, enough for now. I think I need to have a geeky topic next to cleanse all our pallets of this gloom and doom and social commentary horseshit. Til next time, kids.

-Swift

Raise My Taxes If It Means More Abortions

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I'm Chairman of the Bored

I'M BORED!!!



So yeah... This week has sucked. To steal a phrase from Jon Stewart, "I have the bubons. Again." I've been sick since monday with the flu and am just now feeling better. Which actually isn't saying much.

Plus work closed for the third time this year due to the weather when I was not scheduled to work. Awesome!

Anyways, I'm bored and wanted to ramble for a bit. I'm trying to come up with new articles, but after I knocked out the Steve Harvey one (and quite well, if I say so myself), I haven't really had the muse or whatever speaking to me. I'm sure something will catch my attention soon.

I have a couple weekends off in March coming up, and one of them I intended to spend with the lady in Pittsburgh to hang with the Kyklops gang. Any thoughts on a 'journal' while we're there? I'm sure a play-by-play of some of the shenanigans/conversations/anything involving Paul Stubbs could be extremely humorous to not only those that know him but to outside observers, as well.
Of course I could be setting myself up to lose a bunch of friends (not to mention my girlfriend!) who don't realize I'm that huge of a degenerate. But it's all or nothing with me, so figger out where ya stand now, fuckers.

Oh well. I'm getting back to health. Expect a new post when you see one, kids.

-Swift

Survey Says... Fuck You, Steve Harvey!

So, 'Broderick.' I understand you're more successful than ever. I hear that ratings on Family Feud have gone up twenty percent since you took over as host. I hear your radio show has over six million listeners.

But this is about your books. You know, the two relationship-advice books you've written, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man and Straight Talk, No Chaser. Now, as if the first book's title wasn't insulting and misogynistic enough, you happen to be a man who is on his third marriage giving people relationship advice.

That should be all I have to say, really. That it's taken you three tries to 'get it right,' and it remains to be seen if you'll get it right this time. You've been quoted as priding yourself on telling the 'truth.' What truth is that? That men are all cheating, piece-of-shit scumbags that have to be catered to, kowtowed to and coddled in order for a woman to keep them around? That women are all looking for someone to settle down and have children with as soon as possible?
Maybe the 'truth' is that a man isn't worth a woman's time unless he has a good relationship with his mama, not to mention a good relationship with gawd.

Broderick, I understand that your books are mostly aimed at a certain group: the six-inch-long nail and eighteen inches of fake hair crowd. You know, hoochie mamas. So you encourage these women to continue being vain, ignorant bitches who know that their place is at home, pumping out units, cooking, cleaning, and picking up the kids while you "profess, provide and protect?"

Fuck that.

Doesn't our culture do enough damage by indoctrinating girls into the whole cult of prettier-than-thou at an early age without your bald, mustached visage compounding matters? Do you even realize the damage you do by encouraging this sort of bigoted, chauvinistic viewpoint on Oprah and every morning on your radio show? Do you even care?
Never mind that some of these women want careers for themselves or to be able to support themselves without a man, or that children aren't in their plans at all. Or that they might want a relationship with a woman. It's all about keeping these women in line just like your bible says you ought to. So because you hide behind your religion with its outmoded ideas it makes the fact that you're being a complete bigot to the opposite sex okay, huh?

Maybe you're just cashing in on people's ignorance. On some level, if that were true, I might respect you a bit. But I really think you've bought into your entire line of bullshit to the point where you really think you're qualified to give women advice about how to "Find, Keep, and Understand a Man." Maybe I shouldn't care that you're just propagating a way of life that's been going on in our culture for generations.

And I suppose you're not the only one guilty of this. Look at these Duggar people and their nineteen kids: Religion strikes again. But even with their television show, I'm inclined to think people find them a little bit crazy. But you, Broderick? You're mainstream. You starred in a Spike Lee documentary! Any advice you give can't be bad, regardless of whether it continues to set gender relations back hundreds of years, right?

So I guess these books you write and their popularity isn't so much the cause of a greater disease but merely a symptom. Optimistically, I'd like to think our society has moved past so much of this nonsense about ancient texts being able to tell people how to live their lives, but then Act Like a Lady and its sequel come along and remind me that we have a long way to go.
Hell, the title of the first book alone should be enough to tell an intelligent, independent woman in the twenty-first century that they don't want to buy what you're selling, but almost two years on best-sellers' lists say otherwise.

Ladies, this is my plea to you: stop letting other people, specifically men (and men who decide to be relationship gurus after less than four years in their third marriage), tell you what you ought to be looking for. Stop letting society tell you how you should act, what you should wear, how you should think, and how much weight you could stand to lose, for fuck's sake.
Women still have it hard enough without caving in to pressure from bald assholes like Broderick who are just making a quick buck off of ignorance and stupidity, all the while hiding behind their 'experience' and their belief in an invisible bully to tell you your place.
Figure out, for yourself, what you want out of life. If any of that falls into the whole 'married with kids' thing, fine. Just so long as you wanted it for yourself and not because gawd told you your place was in the kitchen between pumping out children.

-Swift

Kids Are Dumb

Figure I'd have a quick rant since I'm 'researching' for a post about how much Steve Harvey sucks (would someone carve a line into his bald head, please?) and haven't posted in a bit. Just haven't been feeling it, or something.

Anyways...

Who the fuck are these dumb parents (and dumber kids) allowing their underage children to get modded? I was paraded with these people all week. A girl and her mother (a sensible one) were discussing the daughter's sixteen-year-old friend who has facial piercings and how she got them. We discussed how not only was the parent irresponsible for letting their child get pierced that young, but that the piercer doing it was probably a sketchy character.

But parents' and piercers'/tattooers' irresponsibility aside for the moment, it's short-sightedness on the part of the children.

More examples:

I waited on a nineteen-year-old who had a star tattooed on the webbing of her hand that had a least a couple years' fade on it.

Remember the seventeen-year-old with the tears on his face in an earlier post? How about the twenty-year-old with stars on hers?

I'm baffled. I want to ask these kids if they have a job, and if not, where they intend to find one.

First, to the parents: I know you want your kids to think you're cool. You're not cool. Your dumb ass is encouraging your dumb kid to make a dumb decision, a decision that should be looked at (moreso for tattoos) with a mature mindset from a person who knows exactly what they want and who they are.

Second, to the piercer or artist: What the fuck are you thinking, taking money from a kid under eighteen let alone letting a parent support dumb decisions? Yeah, I get that you wanna make money. But (again, mostly to the artists) do you have the integrity to step back and say, even to the kids who are eighteen: "How old are you again? What field of work are you trying to get into? Have you thought this through at all?"

Which leads to the kids. I just don't understand what the fuck you kids are thinking. I know any kids reading this would probably see me and call me a hypocrite. Nothing is farther from the truth.
Yes, I have a lot of visible tattoos that could make my life difficult if I lose my job. I understand the consequences of what I've done and made sure I was covered at my work before getting anything.
Yes, my work has no policy regarding tattoos and piercings. Would I have gotten hired, looking the way I do now? I doubt it.
Find yourself a job first that has some semblance of longevity or 'growth' or whatever the fuck they call it and then freak out a little bit with your body mods. Let the people you work for and with get to know you first and make sure they can't fire you or tell you to take jewelry out before getting modded, goddammit.
I doubt my parents would have signed off on a tattoo. Not that I wanted them when I was underage, but I'm glad I never asked. I got my first tattoo at twenty-three, and there's at least two pieces I wish I could cover up or do differently! What are you thinking?!

I think a lot more shops should resist the easy money of stupid people and say NO to letting parents sign. Tattoos and piercings are fucking grown folks' business!!! Keep the teenagers out of the studio regardless of whether they have mom's permission or the cash to pay. I've been saying for awhile now that they should change the 'modding age' to twenty-one; but then again I'm also of the opinion little kids shouldn't be allowed to have their ears pierced by guns that have a 'puncher' in them no sharper or sterile than the tines on a clean fork (the next time you think the cute girl with the nose stud at Claire's is positive exposure for piercings/tattoos, think again. She and her ilk are cretinous harpies promoting Blunt Force Trauma. Don't get me started on all that).

So unless the shops and parents step up to be uncool and assholey to these teenagers and actually have some fucking integrity, these kids will continue making these rash decisions involving some not-so-temporary shit. Recent studies have shown that the human brain is essentially fucking retarded until the mid-twenties, people. Parents, Body Modders, please have a little responsibility and discourage widespread jackassery regarding people who don't have a fully-developed front lobe.

And yes, I realize that more responsible parents and Industry members won't stop kids (and ignorant people in general) from going to Scatchy McScratcherson tattooing out of his buddy's basement, but we gotta start having some fucking sense regarding this culture start somewhere, don't we?

Man, these kids are fucking dumb. I suppose it's not entirely their fault, but it doesn't make them any less dumb.

-Swift

Why Do We Think We Are Who We Think We Are?

There's a fairly new show on the telly called "Who Do You Think You Are?" where they send celebrities on a road trip to uncover their genealogy. Now, I'm not particularly fond of celebrities doing anything on television that doesn't involve their trade (I'm looking at you, Bono and countless others. I really don't give a fuck about your political views and what you're taking a stand for, okay?), around the time Tim McGraw found out his 8th great-grandfather once lodged George Washington, it got me thinking:

Why do we put so much importance on genealogy and family history? On some level I understand that people are curious about who their ancestors were and where their family came from. But it all boils down to a sort of haphazardly-placed pride in the achievements of people who you've never met.

Direct relations are one thing; My father and his father before him are (in Grandpa Swift's case, were) interesting characters and certified badasses, to boot. I'm happy to know my old man and happy I knew Charles Swift for as long as I did, though I wish I knew him better. But am I proud to know them? I don't think "pride" is the right word.

Happy is more appropriate. I'm happy that these two men shaped my life, along with countless others, to make me who I am today. I don't understand where pride comes into it. Pride is something you reserve for personal accomplishments, isn't it? Proud that you aced your test, proud that you broke your best score on Katamari. Proud that you mustered the strength for that extra lap on your morning run, if you're into that.

What I'm trying to get at is people take pride in their heritage. They take pride in their ethnicity. People take pride and identify themselves with far too many things that end up happening purely by accident.

Why take pride in things you had nothing to do with and no control over? It seems quite silly and presumptuous to me that people are proud to be Irish or Italian or Latino when it was sheer luck and genetics that got them there. Seriously, what the fuck did you have to do with it? And by researching your genealogy, what does that accomplish? Is this thing responsible for people's over-inflated sense of identity? Does finding out some distant relation of yours met some ancient celebrity change who you are?

Not for me it doesn't.

My dad was into genealogy for a little while, and while it's interesting, I felt it didn't affect me. What my ancestors did and where they came from is of little consequence to who I am as a person, in the present, save for the fact that they setlled where they did and passed along some genes.
It's all part of a larger problem with our culture, I think: this sycophantic longing to somehow gain a measure of celebrity for ourselves by associations with powerful, 'important', famous people. So when we're not too busy posting videos of whatever bullshit we got into over the weekend (or hoping people give a shit enough to read their blogged ramblings, perhaps? Touche, self-deprecation.) or tweeting that we just took a shit, we're looking backward now for some sort of affirmation that our ancestors mattered and that, by extension, we matter.

Hate to break it to you, folks, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter whether you're Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, African, Egyptian, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Taoist, or whatever. We're all just people, different breeds from the same species, and at the end of the day, unless you end up being the guy with your finger on the button that starts nuclear war and ends it all, nothing we do really matters, because our race will merely be a footnote in this planet's history. Optimistic, right? Okay, not a happy thought, but I think if more people realized how fleeting everything we do is in relation to this planet's and galaxy's longevity, maybe we wouldn't have so many idiotic problems regarding how we look at ourselves and each other.

So, enough of this pride. Be humble, goddammit. Just be fucking happy, wouldja? Save the pride for the things you work hard to do instead of taking pride in random acts of your grandparents fucking. Think about that, the next time you have these 'pride' thoughts floating up to the top of your brain like turds: your grandparents, great-grandparents and every ancestor you ever had going back to the Bronze Age, Fucking.

That'll keep you from taking too much stock in where you came from. Be happy where you came from. Don't be proud. Or be ashamed where you came from, even. I know a lot of us have shitty family out there. Just stop this pride bullshit.

-Swift

The Silver Age At DC, Or Where The Fuck Is Wally West?

I've praised DC for giving Dick Grayson his due in my second posting here On The Fringe, and being more of a DC guy, I approve of most of the things they're doing with a lot of their "legacy" characters. Even though I'm not a fan of the Justice League currently consisting of some of the "also-rans" like former Wonder Girl Donna Troy (but seriously, James Robinson, who in the fuck is Congorilla and why is he allowed to hang with your flagship team?), it's nice to see that former Titans (Donna, Cyborg, Dick as Batman) and a former Infinitor/Darkstar like Jade have 'graduated' to the big seats at the JLA table.
But this is about the flip side of that mentality. What about some of the other characters who took up their predecessors' mantles and have faded into the background or been constantly shit on due to editors favoring their Silver Age counterparts?

Let me start off by saying I love the Silver Age characters at DC. I have always been a huge Green Lantern fan, and I really applaud them (and specifically Geoff Johns) for undoing the whole "Hal Jordan went coo-coo bananas and is a villain because we're trying to be hip and trendy by replacing him with a younger character" mess that brought us Kyle Rayner in the nineties. They found a way to bring Hal back and explain that he was possessed by Parallax, rather than Parallax just being Hal's supervillain name. They made the sharp 'heel turn' of Hal matter without saying "well, let's forget that happened," as they are apt to do when someone has a dumb idea in comics.
They didn't kill off Kyle when Hal returned; they merely folded him into the GL mythos and kept him relevant, even saying if not for him, the Green Lantern Corps would not have been resurrected. Kyle currently has his own spotlight, more or less, in Green Lantern Corps. But even with Kyle having regular appearances, he's still taken a back seat to Hal, becoming the least of the four human Green Lantern Corps members.

As much as I grew to like Kyle and matured with his character throughout high school, I still have a fondness for Hal. It makes sense; for a significant portion of my comic-reading life, Hal was the Green Lantern. Sure, he had some greying in his hair, but he was the GL most prominent to me for the longest amount of time, so I get the Hero Worship associated with the character. That combined with the abrupt way they wrote him out of his own book made him ripe for resurrection and redemption.

So, to counter-point: Hal's Silver Age contemporary and one of his best friends was Barry Allen, the Flash. Unlike Hal, Barry did not remain a prominent character into the nineties; no, Barry sacrificed himself to save the universe (perhaps all universes) during Crisis on Infinite Earths in the eighties. It was a ballsy move on DC's part at the time, to kill off one of their big names. Ballsier still was their decision to have his young sidekick step into his mentor's boots and carry on the Flash legacy.

I'm talking about Wallace 'Wally' West.

Wally was the nephew of Barry Allen. He had an accident almost identical to his uncle's that granted him the same super-speed, and he ran alongside the Flash as Kid Flash. He was a founding member of the Teen Titans alongside his best friend Dick Grayson for many, many years.

When Wally took up the Flash mantle, it was a novel concept at the time. I'm fairly certain this was one of, if not the first time, that comics had done something like it.

Wally had big shoes to fill. He went through a lot, coming into money (and losing it), having his secret identity go public (way before Spider-Man's ordeal), got lost in time (what is it with comics characters getting lost this way?), got married, and discovered the fucking Speed Force, the power source of all DC's fleet-footed characters. His wife grew pregnant; his nemesis, Professor Zoom, made her miscarry. He had Hal Jordan (as the Spectre) make everyone forget (even him!) he was the Flash. He and his wife finally had twins and they decided to retire to an alternate reality, passing the Flash colors down to Bart Allen, Barry's grandson.

His retirement was short-lived, but his comic was cancelled and he was relegated to guest appearances (he did have two super-powered brats to try and raise now).

In summation, Wally was the Flash for over twenty years. He joined the JLA when the 'big seven' took over the title again alongside his contemporary, Kyle Rayner. He had a starring role in the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited animated shows (still the best DC cartoons ever), and was favored over his dead uncle as the Flash in many fans' eyes.

Wally was my Flash. He was my generation's Flash in that he's been the Flash to us longer than Barry.

During the recent Final Crisis and Flash:Rebirth, they resurrected Barry Allen. The latter was well-received and entertaining as all hell, featuring almost every speedster and incarnation of the Flash, from the Justice Society's Jay Garrick (ya know, the guy with the goofy helmet), to Wally (who received snazzy new Flash togs), to Bart Allen, former Impulse and Flash and current Kid Flash. It looked like good things were ahead for Wally, even with two super-powered brats. I figured Mr. Johns would give Wally something to do and keep him around, as he had done with Kyle.

But I was wrong. Besides showing up in Rebirth and Blackest Night, Wally hasn't been seen. Now I realize he'll probably turn up in the pending Flash crossover, Flashpoint, but that's like a consolation prize to this Wally West fan. Where the fuck has he been and what the fuck has he been doing when not involved in DC's giant crossovers? I get that he has kids now, but let's ask Bruce Wayne if having Damien around has slowed down his crimefighting and starring in three or four titles a month.

Just because editorial lets you bring back your favorite iteration of a character doesn't mean you have to shit on the ones who've carried the torch in their absence, or forget about them almost entirely. There's plenty of room for three Flashes, if two Batmen and thousands of Green Lanterns are any indication. In fact, Wally would fit in nicely among the other former Titans in the current League lineup. Hell, his best friend is now Batman! Don't you think he might have dropped by Wayne Tower to chat with Dick about the burden of carrying on a mantle? Wouldn't it have been cool, when Dick was having his doubts about being Bats in Bruce's absence, to have Wally speed into town and give him a pep talk?

Or does that make too much sense?

So, DC, Dan DiDio, and Geoff Johns: find something to do with the torch-bearers. Don't act like the Silver Age versions are any better than the contemporary out of preference or misplaced nostalgia. The readers invest time and money and emotion into these characters; I get that you don't want to kill them off because it's 'lazy' writing and you're not aiming to piss off their fans, but having them fade away is barely preferable.

DC has a rich history of characters that thrive on the fact that there are legacies and traditions of names, costumes, mantles and powers being passed down. In an age where one Wolverine is allowed to star in half a dozen titles, DC is unique in that they can have several different characters of the same name and give them plenty to do. There's very little excuse for having them go unused until you need them for your next big event just to remind us they're still around.

Wally carried on the Flash legacy for two decades and made his uncle proud. He became the Flash to a lot of us growing up in the eighties and nineties. And while the Silver Age fever currently running rampant at DC is understandable for a disgraced and mishandled character like Hal, Wally doesn't deserve to go away now that Saint Barry (also referred to across the internet as "Boring Allen") has returned.

Uncle Barry may have died saving all possible worlds ages ago, but how many times has Wally saved the world since? He deserves better, DC. At the very least, he deserves something to fucking do between your mega-crossovers.

-Swift

What Happened To Wolverine?

Wolverine used to be the coolest, most badass and mysterious character this side of Boba Fett before the Prequels. But something, somewhere, went horribly wrong. Gone is the beer-drinking, stogie-chewing psychopath who read nudie magazines while all the other X-men were trying to keep a low profile in a drug store. Gone is the Wolverine who didn't take orders from a bald cripple, let alone his ass-kissing, four-eyed team leader. This guy is a pale shadow of his Former Self.

Admittedly, I'm not as much of a Marvel guy as I used to be, but I follow certain things and check up on what's going on at the former House Of Ideas just to keep the certification current on my dork credentials: Bucky has been brought back to life (in admittedly cool fashion) and is currently Captain America. Spider-man is no longer married to Mary Jane Watson. Tony Stark has become a huge dick and went "Mutant Registration Act" on the whole Marvel Universe. Some of these things are good; more often than not, like the continued kiddie-fying and pussification of our man Logan, they are very, very, bad.

Thanks to Joe "I swallowed Stan Lee's soul and shit it out in a big turd on Jack Kirby's grave" Quesada, there is a smoking ban in Marvel Comics. None of their characters are allowed to smoke (not even the Nazis!). But it started to go wrong before that. If I remember correctly, he quit the cigars when Magneto ripped out his Adamantium skeleton during one of the hologram-cover events that were so popular during the nineties. I suppose on some level I understand why they don't want their characters smoking; I assume, although I don't know for sure, that DC has a similar editorial mandate. The smoking thing is just a sign of the times.

What is not a sign of the times is the way he's been treated in the media over the last few decades.

I realized how domesticated they've made him just recently. My fantastic girlfriend has a four-year-old and she's just started introducing him to dorky staples such as Ghostbusters and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. This past weekend, she put on a DVD for him that had several episodes of Marvel's latest animated endeavor, The Superhero Squad Show. Now, I'm all for the characters of my childhood being re-worked, re-imagined and simplified (to a point) for a new generation. This is why I don't hate on new iterations of Transformers, G.I.Joe, etcetera even though it might not appeal to me.

But this Superhero Squad nonsense? It's pretty bad. It's purposely aimed toward children, and I get that. But I see a three-fingered, butterknife-clawed, super-deformed iteration of Wolverine running around alongside cutesy-fied versions of Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man and I feel, in Wolvie's case, that this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

So where did it start to go wrong?

It started right before our (my generation's) eyes with over-exposure. It began way before that, perhaps, when he was given his own monthly title, but he was still an X-man. Okay, fine. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America all have their own monthly books while still co-starring in Justice League and the Avengers, respectively.

But Wolverine is, to my knowledge, currently a member of the New Avengers, the X-men, X-Force, and still has strong ties to SHIELD. How does the furry little runt have time for all that? Then there's the numerous guest appearances and mini-series as well as several self-titled books (and yes, I'm counting his son, Daken's title, Dark Wolverine, where Logan is a recurring character).

Now, I understand why Wolverine appeals to kids. He's got fucking knives that pop out at will from the backs of his hands! How fucking cool would that be? He's a tough guy, he's mysterious.

Or at least he used to be. Thanks to recent storylines, he now remembers all of his murky, violent past. It's had the same effect on him that the Star Wars prequels had on Darth Vader and Boba Fett: nobody wants to see the cool mysterious badasses as whiny little kids. And while Origin, the story that laid out Wolverine's story from birth up until the time he lost his first love (at his own hands, er, claws, no less) and repressed the traumatic memories, was fairly entertaining and handled carefully, I feel as if taking the mystery away from the character also takes away the character's edge.

Continuing that line of thought: why did they start pairing him with increasingly annoying teenagers? Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde was the first, of course, but that was when Wolverine was merely a member of the X-men and not the unofficial star. Then came Jubilee, the annoying, yellow-raincoat-wearing, bubble-gum popping character with the incredibly useless power of being able to annoy the shit out of her foes with harmless fireworks. Briefly he was paired with Cannonball, the former New Mutant whose ass and legs disappear into an explosion that propels him skyward.

This trend has continued into the three X-men movies, where Hugh Jackman was paired with Anna Paquin's Rogue. It continued into the X-men: Evolution cartoon where Logan was the elder on a team of de-aged X-men who were still in high school. Even in Grant Morrison's New X-men he was stuck with a foul-mouth insect-winged hispanic girl named Angel. It's almost as if Marvel wants Wolverine to be kid-friendly by pairing him with younger characters as a Point of Reference for the kiddies. And say what you want about the lackluster big screen Wolverine movie, but they had the decency to keep the young sidekicks out of it (unless you count the pretty boy Twilight reject they had playing "Gambit." I don't).

So what can be done about it? Nothing, really. I for one steer clear of most X-men fare these days, especially since things with Marvel's Merry Mutants have gotten so murky (I understand they've spent the last few months battling vampires. Really, Marvel? No wonder you don't call yourself "The House of Ideas" anymore).

I just feel it's a shame that a character who used to be the epitome of badass in comics has been toned down in so many other forms of media (let alone his own funnybooks), not to mention watered down by imitators and rip-offs, many of whom are from his own company (I'm looking at you, Wild Child, Sabretooth and X-23)!

It could be argued that Marvel is just after its own bottom line; that they are simply capitalizing on a popular character to make as much money as possible off him. But time was that Logan would black out into a Berserker Rage and kill friend and foe alike! This was a man who has killed at least three of the women he loved! He is a tragic, complicated character who was great because you didn't know a lot about him. Even he didn't know all of his own past!

When he was created and first showed up in the pages of X-men, he was a very different character. He was a loose cannon, a loner, a guy you didn't want to fuck with and were glad to have on your side. In a time when the terms "grim and gritty" and "anti-hero" weren't overused, Wolverine was revolutionary. He was fresh in that his morals and restraint weren't as rigidly structured or laid out as say, Batman or Spider-man. And alongside established, tamer characters such as that, Logan was unique.

But now he's just another cash cow for Marvel, as much a character franchise as Batman or Iron Man or any other traditional superhero, the only small difference being that he's willing to implicitly kill, but only in the comics.

So, as I lament the character's fall into mediocrity, I will leave on an uncharacteristic note of hope: director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem For a Dream, The Wrestler, The Black Swan) is currently working on a pseudo-sequel to the abysmal X-men Origins: Wolverine. Simply titled "The Wolverine," Hugh Jackman has stated he loves the script and that it's heavily influenced by the original Chris Claremont and Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series set in Japan.

A few suggestions for Mister Aronofsky: Turn up the violence, keep Joe Quesada and Avi Arad at arm's length (and off your set) and give fans like me the Wolverine we've been waiting decades to see on the big screen. Give us a Wolverine who really is the best there is at what he does, with extra emphasis on what he does not being very nice.

-Swift

Don't Be An Asshole: A Public Service Announcement To Tattoo And Piercing Customers

Being in the unique position of 'the outsider looking in' on the Body Mod industry, and not having to worry about alienating clientele, there are a few things that I've witnessed while hanging around my favorite shop that I feel should be addressed. I'm sure there are some of you who have tattoos that may even be ignorant to certain questions, comments and assumptions you have made, but I'm going to lay it out for you and I'm not going to be nice about it. Here we go.

1. These people are professionals and they know better than you.

So you might have an idea, an image to work off of, or a picture of a piece in your brain that you think needs to be exactly the way you think it is. You might want something extremely complicated. Your artist will make suggestions; you might feel apprehensive and uncertain that it will come out the way you want it because you had your heart set on it looking just the way you drew or your friend drew it or like the image you printed off your Google search.

Guess what? You don't know what makes a good tattoo.  I've been getting tattooed for the better part of the last eight years, and even I am still not sure what makes a good, clean-looking tattoo. The artists know what is going to look good and what will have the best presentation, the best staying power on your skin. If an artist says something is too small, hear them out and consider making it bigger. If they say certain details will be lost, that your image is too cluttered, let them change it up a little bit to make it clearer. This includes taking your complexion into consideration; if you're darker, be realistic and don't expect a brightly-colored piece of work. It's not going to show up very well.

On the flip side, don't go in for a piercing and say, "I want this done but I want this flashy piece of jewelry you have in your case right here." Hold up. When you get a piercing, for the most part, you can't just shove whatever piece of jewelry in there that you want right off the bat. You commonly start with surgical stainless steel that has properly sterilized, give it time to heal, and then have your piercer put that goofy dangly bullshit in your navel that says "jizz dumpster" or whatever. You might think you know what looks good and that a labret stub would go great in your eyebrow; you're wrong. Professional piercers work hard to perfect their craft and know what kind of jewelry is supposed to go where. Don't pretend you know otherwise.

2. Stop shopping around for a price. They hate that.

And I do, too. Countless times I've seen people walk in and say, "how much do you charge for (insert tattoo/piercing here)?" I'm going to paraphrase the relevant Sailor Jerry quote and say that cheap work is almost always shitty work. If you want a gigantic back piece or a full sleeve, be fucking realistic and realize it's going to cost more than you thought.

It's one thing for tattoos if you have an image ready and a size in mind; if you have either of those things, then they'll usually accomodate you and give you an estimate. It's entirely another thing to have no idea what kind of script you want your deceased relative's name to be in and have no clue how big you want it. They need a point of reference in order to tell you how much they'll charge. At least have an idea what size you want it and whether or not you want black and grey or color before charging in to ask how much they want.

Back to the 'shopping around' thing: If you want a tattoo or piercing, price should be no object. Now, I realize there are shops out there that jack up their prices and gouge the customer a little bit (maybe more than a little) because they might have a reputation or more name recognition than the budding studio down the street. But here's the thing: you want quality work, yes? Then look at portfolios and see what the artists or piercers have done before asking for a price and letting just any asshole with a tattoo machine or a piercing needle quote you a price and do your work. If you want a certain style, say, a portrait, then see if they've done portraits. Some places will be courteous enough to steer you in the direction of an artist who specializes in the style you're looking for.

If you wanna be a cheapskate, it's going to show in the work you receive. If you don't have a lot of money for the piece you want and don't give a shit what it's going to look like, you shouldn't be getting work done in the first place, let alone getting these people's hopes up for your business. If you really don't care then go to the back of the nail salon and see the fucking Scratcher with a guitar string hooked up to a car battery and stop wasting the professionals' time.

Again: take into account the artist/piercer's input. If they have suggestions, take them under advisement. Almost every piece of work I have has been tweaked by my artist/piercer, and for the better, whether it be sizing, coloring, placement, composition or type of jewelry.

3. Think!

Now, some people won't agree with me on this, (wait- this is my blog, so fuck you!) but here is my one rule for getting names tattooed on you:

Don't tattoo your significant other's name on you. I don't fucking care that you think you've found the love of your life or even if you're married. My friend and artist Pistol Pete once had a guy come in: "I screwed up real bad this weekend with my girlfriend and wanna make it up to her by gettin' her name tattooed on me real big."
Pete's reply was honest, brief, and to the point: "Well, dude, I do a lot of names, but I also do a lot of cover-ups."

One of my friends in college had a unique way of looking at it. When his girlfriend said they should get their names tattooed on one another; he told her no. Not because he didn't love her; he explained that there was no telling what could happen between them, but if they had children, he was willing to get the kids' names tattooed. He reasoned that the kids' names were okay, because they would always, no matter what, be his children. A partner or spouse's name is different and a risky, because you have no fucking clue what could happen between the two of you down the road, do you?

So. Children, parents, grandparents, good friends who pass away? That's acceptable. That makes sense. Significant others' names being tattooed is simply tempting Fate. If you truly feel that strongly for someone and still want a tattoo for them, be creative. Get an image that represents your love, perhaps, as opposed to something as obvious and potentially regretable as their name. But I feel even that is ill-advised.

Think about the permanency of any Body Modification before getting a tattoo or piercing!
Teenagers are especially guilty of this. With every day that passes I see more and more kids, still in their teens, with tattoos that can cost them a potential job. There was a fucking seventeen-year-old in the library with a teardrop tattooed on his face! Seventeen! What kind of future do you think he has?
Now, I realize the societal stigma of having tattoos is slowly loosening up. I get that. Some places (like my job) that have any sort of union don't have anything in their dress code about tattoos. I've certainly benefited from this fact, but I made sure my ass was covered before covering anything else. But what if you don't have a union? What if you work for a private employer?
I hate to say it, but an owner of a private business can decide what type of people they want to hire, and if you get heavily tattooed before you have a career, you face the possibility of being frowned upon and turned away from job opportunities. Just think about how difficult you want to make life on yourself.

Piercings are a somewhat different story. They're semi-permanent in that they leave scars if you take them out. Some aren't noticeable, but if you're going to go into a career--say, in Healthcare--and you know you won't be able to have them, realize that you will have tiny divets where they were. Think about it before you get pierced and weigh that against whatever decision you make. Sure, they're small and unobtrusive, but some people can get bent out of shape over a couple blemishes and you should recognize whether you are one of those people or not before getting your lips pierced.

Plus, tattoos and piercings hurt. In the case of tattoos, it hurts more to have them removed. Don't make rash decisions when it comes to this. Think it over for quite some time first.

4. Be polite and have some fucking respect.

Tattoo shops are private businesses. They can refuse service if you're an asshole to them. Don't come in and act the prick, all right? Be courteous. Be patient, especially if your artist has gone through several designs because they're trying to get it just the way you want it. Recognize the time and trouble that go into any tattoo's creation and appreciate their effort.

Don't complain about how expensive it is if they price something out for you. Don't come in fresh from the bar, drunk and obnoxious; they will turn you away, and rightfully so (and if you do come in drunk, insistent and flashing money around, don't complain if they tattoo you anyway and it turns out shitty because you bleed more and it scabs horribly). Just don't come in reeking of booze or pot or the fact that you decided to get tattooed after not showering for a week. These people have to get up close and personal, so be mindful of that. Make the experience as pleasant as possible, because that's what the artists and piercers will try to do for you in the hopes that they will have a repeat customer.

Also, don't assume you get the hookup because you know someone who went there. It's not cool. It makes your friend or acquaintance look like an asshole just for knowing your assumption-making ass. If the artist is willing to work with you on price, you damn well better give them a good tip, which brings us to...

5. "Tipping is not a city in China."

Tip these people! It is a service, like having your hair done, like having food or appliances or furniture delivered. A lot of these folks work on a commision or a percentage of the work they do. If you have an artist draw something up for you several times, think about that when you go to pay them and tip accordingly. Show them that you appreciate their work and they will remember you for it, appreciate it and welcome your returning patronage.


Tattoos and piercings are a great form of expressing yourself. It's freeing and exciting to have good work done that gets you noticed and even complimented, but it's not instantaneous and it's not magic. It's a process, a collaboration between artist/piercer and client. I'm very fortunate to be in the position I'm in with my tattoos and piercings, and I never, ever forget that. Be polite, be respectful, think about what you want for a good long time, pay what they ask, and tip your people well. They'll appreciate it.

-Swift