Size matters not -- but pants do

Probably the biggest mixed blessing in my life right now is my new addiction to DC Comics' Archive Editions series. The upside: you get hardbound collections of very old (and rare, and valuable) comics titles, beautifully reprinted on glossy paper, that you can read without worrying about creases and tears and cookie crumbs and paper-eating finger acids. The downside: at $35-50 a pop, they don't come cheap — and once you start in on them, it's hard to stop.

Before discovering these collections, my exposure to old comics (by old I mean 1940s-60s) was pretty much limited to Superman and Batman. (The very first comic book I owned was a 1974 reprint of Action Comics #1 — which I must have read a hundred times. How's that for starting off on the right foot?)

Now I'm enjoying all manner of old titles, like WWII-era Wonder Woman and Blackhawk, and early space-age stuff like Adam Strange and Challengers of the Unknown. And discovering writers and artists previously known to me only by reputation — like John Broome, who seeded his Flash stories with enough science tidbits to rival Mr. Wizard, and Gil Kane, whose artwork in the old Green Lantern stories blows away anything else I've seen from the late 50s (yes, even Kirby).

The latest Archive Editions to grab my attention (and empty my wallet) are the Golden Age titles All-Star Comics and The Seven Soldiers of Victory. All-Star deals exclusively with the Justice Society (including the original Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman); Seven Soldiers is a team-up of strictly non-superpowered heroes, including the earliest incarnations of Green Arrow and Vigilante.

The writing in these 1940s books is, as one might expect, pretty awful — laced with all the racism and sexism and jingoism of the era. And there's virtually no variation between the characters. They all act and talk exactly the same. For instance: the Spectre, now known to DC fans as the ghostly and all-powerful embodiment of God's vengeance, keeps saying “Ta-ta.” I really wish he'd stop doing that.

The best part, though, are these Golden Age costumes — long before eyemasks and elaborate gadgetry came into vogue, capes and helmets were de rigeur. The color schemes were bright and inventive, and ornaments were encouraged: huge belt buckles, high collars, magical medallions, and the like. The original Flash's Mercury-inspired garb remains one of my favorite ensembles (how did he keep that helmet from flying off?), as does the Sandman's green suit, purple cape, fedora, and gas mask.

And then there's the Atom. Not the blue-and-red shrinking physicist Ray Palmer, familiar to Justice League fans, but Al Pratt, the original Atom — whose “super power“ was that he was a short, 90-pound weakling who learned to stand up for himself. After getting beat up and losing his girl once too often, he learned to box and became quite the little scrapper, and I guess his role in the DC universe was to be a role model for short men everywhere. Even little guys can kill Nazis!

Unfortunately, he donned what has the be the worst costume ever conceived. It amounted to a brown-and yellow leotard (yuck) with no leggings and a v-neck that plunged to his navel, plus these buckle-things that I assume he used to cinch up the leotard extra high in the crotch (maybe his name should have been Uprider). He also wore red galoshes and a smothering blue hood that covered his entire head, minus two tiny eyeholes. Attached to this hood at the neck — not at the shoulders — was a blue cape that absolutely screamed decapitation. Every time I see him, I hear Edna's tirade against capes, and I see her point.

All I can say is it's a good thing little Al was good with his fists. The rest of the JSA held their tongues, presumably because they knew the kid already had enough to deal with, what with sand-kicking bullies and cruel football players, and girls developing earlier than boys and all. But speaking as a short man, I'll take my inspiration from David Eckstein. And Shane.

Thanks though, Al. Now go put your pants back on.

Did you see that?

Wow. If you blinked, you might've missed it. I hope not, because it was something to behold. Yesterday — barely a week after snow and permafrost had brought life in Puget Sound to an icy halt — someone went and stuck a single day of late spring smack in the middle of January.

54°. There were still traces of a snowman's carcass across the street on Monday, and on Wednesday we get 54°. The groundhog's alarm doesn't even go off for 9 more days, and people are throwing frisbees to dogs out there. Isn't there still some football going on, somewhere? Screw that. Tell me about pitchers and catchers, baby.

I spent most of the afternoon walking around all dumbfounded and giddy. Everyone on the street had the same expression — we looked like the last scene of War of the Worlds, when the machines have all mysteriously died and the survivors slowly emerge from the ashes and the rubble, confused and exhausted, tears of quiet joy and relief streaming down their sooty faces.

Today we're back down to normal. 42° and gray. A bounce back up into the 50s is predicted for this weekend, but I think that's just mass hysteria among meteorologists.

The downside: I think the lawn woke up. I may be mowing again within the week. And I have to assume the weeds are already laying out a plan of attack for their big spring offensive.

This is hands-down the weirdest winter ever. I'm not letting my guard down — we'll probably see seven feet of snow in April.

It's Chloracle!

Wow. So much for the Chlois theory — after last week's Smallville, you have to revise that to Chloracle.

I've been looking forward to this “Justice” storyline, in which we get to see the JLA in its infancy. The writing has been good — a clever balance of faithful reverence and inventive departures from the source material. For instance: Green Arrow, the JLA's longtime black sheep/problem child, now becomes the League's founder and principled leader. Highly improbable, although it's perfectly in character for Ollie to assign Clark the codename “Boy Scout.”

The rest of the team looks more like the Teen Titans than the JLA. No Batman, no Wonder Woman, no Green Lantern — even their “Flash” character is actually just Impulse (Bart Allen, still a long way from filling the asbestos-coated shoes of protospeedsters Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West). It's just Ollie, Cyborg, Aquaman, Impulse, and a reluctant, capeless Clark Kent.

And, of course, Chloe! In another move I didn't see coming, they got her into a clock tower with a headset and a bank of computers, and had her coordinate all the League's moves. I'm just surprised they didn't find a way to get her into a wheelchair to complete the allusion. I suppose I should have anticipated this when they set up Ollie's penthouse to look just like Oracle's clock tower. But I'm dumb that way.

My only question: Where was Martian Manhunter? We know he's around — we have the Oreos to prove it. But not a sign of him since his 2-second appearance back in November. Not so much as a crumb.

Name the boy, and you name the man

Maus and I are four months from the Big Day, and paraphernalia is already starting to pop up around the house — booties, onesies, little plastic spoons, books about fish (as my friend Clark would say, all the quintessential infantile accoutrements).

I'm still in hammer-and-haul mode, coping with impending fatherhood by reconfiguring the house, moving piles of junk out of the baby's way, installing safety features, basically clearing a wide path for a kid who won't even be walking for a year.

Naturally, the subject of names comes up a lot around here. Maus and I already have a shortlist that we're holding close to the vest, but I still greatly enjoy a spirited and creative baby-naming forum, so we encourage our friends (and heck, strangers on the street) to keep lobbing ideas our way.

Some memorable suggestions include Jeff's Oort C., Obi W., and Buster K.; and Heather, Emily, and John's collaborative Seussism Squishy-Squashy Dixie-Doxie Mini-Mausie. As a filmbuff, I'm drawn to Orson Fairbanks. And Peck Lancaster. And Dashiell Bogart. The comics lover in me likes Flash Lantern and Darwyn Kirby and Oliver Zan Gotham. Maus, a big fan of the movie Giant, is partial to Bick Benedict. She's also convinced he'll grow up to be a rockstar if we name him Jettison Caecilius.

In that vein: Over the weekend I rented Mystery Science Theater 3000's viewing of the fantastically dreadful Space Mutiny (for my money, MST3K is still the best there is in comfort television — with the possible exception of a Ken Burns documentary). I won't go into all the glorious ugly details of Space Mutiny (that's a whole other dissertation), but it can summed up thus:

The “spaceship” is a basement with a concrete floor and brick-and-mortar walls; the “chase scenes” involve these tiny, wedge-shaped bumper cars that top out at about 2; and the “hero” is super-beefy Reb Brown (aka Yor, the Hunter from the Future), who shrieks and squeals like a JV cheerleader when he gets fightin' mad. Oh yeah, and all the space battle scenes are recycled footage from Battlestar Galactica...

The high points of Mike, Crow, and Tom's commentary involve them shouting out scores of manly new names for this overmuscled hunk of Rascal-drivin' action. I cite but a few of their finest samples here:

“Slab Bulkhead!” · “Flint Ironstag!”
“Vault Vanderhuge!” · “Blast Hardcheese!”
“Stump Beefknob!” · “Think McRunfast!”
“Slam Squatthrust!” · “Reef Blastbody!”
“Dirk Hardpeck!” · “Hunt Speedchunk!”
“Punch Rockgroin!” · “Meat Punchbeef!”
“Rip Steakface!” · “Slate Fistcrunch!”
“Smoke McManmuscle!” · “Lump Beefbroth!”
“Buck Plankchest!” · “Smash Slamjaw!”
“Fridge Largebeef!” · “Butch Deadlift!”
“Buff Drinklots!” · “Grod Bonemeal!”

and my personal favorite:
“Big McLargehuge!”

I'll have to float some of these past Maus. I don't think she'll go for Beef or Smash, but I might be able to sell her on Vault or Reef. Or we could just go with Grod, and tell people it's a family name.

Writer's grog

Well, the inevitable has happened: Going back to work next Monday, after eight glorious months of devil-may-care bummery. Lots of homework piling up between now and then, leaving my creative synapses soggy and wilted. I got nuthin' today.

So here's this — cobbled together from the highly entertaining Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers. These are my 10 favorite pairings; try matching the cocktails to the writers (all the clues you need are there, if you know both your literary and libational history):

The Boozers Charles Bukowski William Faulkner F. Scott Fitzgerald Dashiell Hammett Ernest Hemingway James Jones Jack Kerouac Jack London H.L. Mencken Edgar Allan Poe

The Booze Bacardi Cocktail Boilermaker Gin Rickey Margarita Martini Mint Julep Mojito Sazerac Singapore Sling Stinger

Jeff, I'm looking at you on this one.

Trouble '07

For some reason I'm always sick on New Year's Day. And no, it's not a hangover — not this year, anyway. I think it's just January's way of announcing itself: You're mine, Bender. For 31 days I got ya. I got ya.

Fine, whatever. There's no love lost between me and Janus, that two-faced bastard. I've got a bottle of bourbon and a stack of DVDs and I'm not coming out til Groundhog Dog, so there.

One thing January's good for, though, is the Resolution. Actually, the Resolution technically belongs to December 31, so never mind — January's useless. But, in the spirit of the whole man-in-the-mirror thing, I offer four:

• This year I will manage the Mariners to their very first Pennant. But we'll lose the Series to San Francisco when J.J. beans Bonds with the bases loaded — on my orders. Sorry, my bad.
  
  
• This year I will publish not one, but three novels: The Magnanimous Animus, Mauser Faustus, and Return of the Warbler — which will be adapted into a children's holiday special, a Sci-Fi Channel series, and a Russian opera, respectively.
  
  
• This year I will vanish in the Far East and master the ancient arts of infiltration and stealth, combat and defense, detection and analysis, honing my mind and body into a silent weapon of sudden and terrifying justice, and returning in the dark guise of a ghoulish alter-ego, a living shadow, I will combat evil in all its forms, preying on society's predators and turning fear against the vilest of criminals — especially Republicans.
  
  
• This year I will be a good father, and a devoted and supportive husband to the mother of my son.

And in the spirit of maintaining reasonable expectations, I will hold myself accountable for keeping... oh... one of these Resolutions. Maybe two.