I've been so distracted by recent events in DC's Identity Crisis that I haven't been paying attention to the big summer event over at Marvel, Avengers Disassembled.

Marvel.com realizes that you can't tell the players without a scorecard, so they've created one: A bingo-card grid with pictures of the thirty characters affected by the "Disassembled" storyline, coded for dead, missing or "just plain nuts" and a note explaining how and in which comic. (Sorry, I can't link to it: You'll have to look for the "Disassembled Watchlist" at Marvel.com.) "Balder: Tagged and Bagged"? "Iron Man: Hissy Fit at the U.N."? "Jack of Hearts: Blowed Up Real Good"? And the card is headlined "Who Gets It Next?"

"Identity Crisis" looks downright sedate by comparison.

A new issue of Spider-Man is out, so now we know, or think we know, who those masked figures are: They're (spoilers ahoy) Peter's children. See, Gwen Stacy disappeared for a few months back before she was killed, and it turns out she was pregnant when she left and had twins while she was gone. (She never had a chance to tell Peter about them before she was killed by the Green Goblin.) They are grown-up and resentful now and looking to kill both Spider-Man and Peter Parker. And lucky them, they've just learned that their targets are the same person.

But wait a minute. It's been well established that comic book time isn't like real time, since characters age much more slowly than they should. If Peter has adult children (and for all Pete's shock, he doesn't seem to question the possibility of the timeline), that raises a question: How old is Peter Parker?

Okay, I understand. Comics are currently undergoing a transition. It might be birth throes, it might be death rattles, but it's definitely a metamorphosis. It's pretty clear that it's been years since comics were written for kids, but with both of the Big Two companies having instituted a form of reader classification, and both publishing comics that actually are intended for kids (Marvel has a "Marvel Age" imprint and a formal rating system, DC has a reborn "Johnny DC" mascot who appears on comics for younger readers), they're also formally tweaking their "mainstream" line to cater to the high school and college-age readers (and older, emotionally stunted readers like me, I suppose) who are their primary audience.

Of the two, DC seems to be handling it better. Two mini-series in current release are bookending and redefining the "Silver Age" of comics: One, DC: The New Frontier, is set in the late fifties/early sixties, as a new generation of heroes works to serve, protect, and earn the trust of "normal" people: The other, Identity Crisis, happens "now" but flashes back to an traumatic event at, or near, the end of that "Silver Age". The two could not be more different in tone. "New Frontier" is written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke, in a style that compares favorably to Milton Caniff, strongly influenced by Julius Schwartz (editor of most of the "Silver Age"), Carmine Infantino (The Flash) and Jack Kirby (Fantastic Four, Challengers of the Unknown): "Identity Crisis" is a post-Frank Miller (Dark Knight Returns), post-Alan Moore (Watchmen), post-James Robinson (Starman) deconstruction by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales. But the fact that they are both being published, simultaneously, shows that DC is now prepared to take chances, even with their cash cow characters. We may even find out that DC has quietly introduced something approaching Real Time.

And unless events in Amazing Spider-Man play out dramatically differently than how writer J. Michael Straczynski appears to have laid them out (which is always a possibility), Marvel may be doing the same thing. Which is fine. As surprising as it is to think that Peter Parker has adult children, I'd rather he had kids than clones.

(Yes, I know that Spider-Girl is Peter's daughter. That doesn't count: It's an "alternate reality" set in the future, an improbable bubble in continuity. Amazing Spider-Man is about as mainstream as Marvel gets.)

...can a boy from Virginia and a girl from Ohio make love on the sidewalk in Boise, Idaho as a pro-vegetarian statement.


Of course, it's PETA.

I'm trying to remember if four dollars seems like any larger a chunk of my change than ten (or twelve) cents did back in the day. Memory fails: I have no idea.

The second issue of DC Comics' Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer is out, and apparently being beaten to death and the body burned isn't indignity enough for Sue Dibny. Now we learn (spoilers ahoy) that, some years ago (thirty years ago in real time, but probably no more than five in comic-book years), she was attacked and raped by Doctor Light.

I liked this kind of story when I saw it in Alan Moore's Watchmen, and I may yet like it here, when it's finished. But the characters in Watchmen were created for the purpose of telling that story. Reading Identity Crisis is like watching Laura Petrie get raped.

(There was, in fact, an episode of the Dick van Dyke show in which the subject of wife-beating was addressed. The guilty character was a never-again-seen guest star, the unsavory acts were safely off-screen in the guest's back story, and the episode simply didn't work. Wife-beating doesn't belong in TVLand. The jury is still out as to whether it can belong on Earth-1.)

Dr Light broke into the JLA satellite and was discovered by its only occupant at the time, Sue Dibny. She had plenty of time to sound an alarm, did so, and in fact told him that she had done so. He could have escaped. Did he figure he still had time to do what he came for? Then why didn't he do that? Or WAS attacking Sue what he'd come for?

So, while Light's on the floor on top of Sue, the first of the heroes arrives: The Flash. He takes one look at the scene and throws Light across the room (and who wouldn't?). The rest of the current League follows soon after and, in response to continued hostility from Light, beat the tar out of him.

And this isn't even the part of the story that the author intended as the Big Wham.

After Ralph has taken Sue to the hospital, while Light is huddled on the floor imprisoned in Green Lantern's beam, Light taunts the League, saying he's going to find ALL of their loved ones. He uses his light-based powers to create a holographic replay of what he did to Sue, bragging that his fellow prisoners in whatever jail they send him to will enjoy the "show", "My Date with Sue." (Why did he provoke the heroes so severely? What did he hope to accomplish? What was he thinking?)

After a few minutes of this, the League got so sick of it that Zatanna (the resident magician) put Light to sleep. He could have been maintained so indefinitely. Light could have been held in solitary, and would have been on the League's say-so, to prevent the "show" he was threatening to give to his fellow inmates. The need wasn't immediate. There was no hurry.

But Our Heroes were deeply affected by the crime they'd witnessed. "How many times are we going to go through this with Light?" Lock him up, watch him escape, catch him again, lock him up, watch him escape, where does it end?

All they wanted to do was, as Hawkman put it, "clean him up a little", when they sent Zatanna into his head, magically. And she screwed it up. She scrambled his mind. She changed him into... a joke. A pathetic loser who was just as much a criminal as he ever was, but incompetent. He went from being a Justice League-level threat to a clown that any randomly-chosen Teen Titan could handle without breaking a sweat.

A super-villain on training wheels.

And then, while relating this incident to today's Flash and Green Lantern, Green Arrow drops one more grenade: Light wasn't the only one they "fixed". To be continued. (This is #2 of 7.)

So, what did I think?

Brad Meltzer's story is provocative. It's got my attention, and I'll keep reading. Rags Morales' art is first-rate. I just wish, as with Watchmen, they'd created new characters to kill off.

Scotsman.com | Let the Games Begin
Kent remembers sitting in the village, watching athletes walk through the door and playing a game of Guess What They Do. "The bikers have skinny little upper bodies, farmer tans and massive, clean-shaven thighs. Invert them and you get the kayakers, who have skinny little legs and massive backs and shoulders. The seven-foot-tall giant who ducks under the doorway entering the cafeteria is probably from basketball. The seven-foot giant who smacks his head on the door frame is definitely a rower; they don't have that hand-eye co-ordination thing. The kids running at the rowers' ankles with the high-pitched voices are gymnasts. It just goes on and on. Being at the village is like taking your place in a wild anatomical parade seen nowhere else on the planet."

Living in the Olympics' host city is... unique. We're still talking about it here.

c|net | Robot uses minesweeping technology to clean rugs
Burlington, Mass.-based iRobot came out with a new line of robotic vacuum cleaners Monday that, according to the company, feature longer battery life, overall improved performance and an ability to detect dirt.

When the robot drives across a particularly dirty patch of carpet or floor, sensors begin to "listen" to dirt through a vibration detector. The navigation system then steers the robot in circles in the area to eradicate all of the vibration anomalies, at which point the robot resumes its normal course.

Discover | Conversation Analyst Steve Clayman
So with these little bits of conduct, then, you can actually chart a decline in deference to the president over time and the rise of a more vigorous, aggressive way of dealing with public figures. You can also isolate the circumstantial factors that predict aggressiveness. Here’s a little factoid that we think holds up really well: In general, the questions are softer when they deal with foreign affairs or military affairs than when they deal with domestic affairs; the forms of aggressiveness I’ve described are less common. Presidents get a kind of buffer or shield against aggressive questioning if the questions deal with foreign affairs. And the magnitude of that shield—the gap between the foreign and domestic questions—has remained more or less constant over the last 50 years.

What accounts for that?

There’s an old expression: Politics stops at the water’s edge.

Who? Why, the man responsible for Darkwing Duck. There's a long interview with him being serialized in Animation World Magazine.

Part one and part two. (Part three comes next month.)

When Bob Dylan showed up on a Victoria's Secret commercial, I guess it was inevitable that Alice Cooper would sell school supplies for Staples. (And yes, they are using "School's Out.")

Long Beach Press Telegram (AP) | Wendy's gaining edge in burger wars
The burger wars aren't being fought with hamburgers, but with salads.

Wendy's is neck-and-neck with rival Burger King, poised to take over as the nation's No. 2 restaurant chain behind McDonald's, analysts said Friday.

But its burgers aren't what put the company there. Analysts say the chain's salads and atmosphere attract adult fast-food eaters, a market not covered by McDonald's often kid-focused strategies.

Since introducing its Garden Sensations salads in 2002, Wendy's sales have been catching up to Burger King more quickly. The chain offers six specialty salads, ranging from Taco Supremo to Mandarin Chicken. Burger King's menu has just two Fire- Grilled Garden and Caesar salads.

One of these days, someone's going to notice that none of the Big Three fast-food eateries offers a salad-based meal. If you're eating green, it's gonna cost you extra: The salad alone costs about what a meal/combo costs, and it doesn't come with a drink.

It's right there in the open on Michael Moore's own website, on his "Must Read" (recommended links) page. One of the sources he cites for "Real News" -- at the top of the list, just under MediaChannel.org -- is The Onion.

Now I get it. "Michael Moore" is a hoax persona, like those generated by Alan Abel and Joey Skaggs. Heck, maybe he is Joey Skaggs: It would be perfectly in character, save that "Michael Moore" has lasted longer than Skaggs usually allows his "performance art" to run before confessing.

But then some people still believe The Blair Witch Project was a documentary, too.

(See also Hoystory and Ipse Dixit.)

Yahoo News (AP) | Library Clock Has 'IIII' Instead of 'IV'
GARDNER, Mass. - Library director Gail Landy learned that when it comes to Roman numerals on clocks, IIII equals IV.

Construction manager Tom Kondel, head of the Levi Heywood Memorial Library project, came to her recently and said, "Gail, we've got a problem with the clock," referring to the large clock installed over the west door of the new library building.

As Kondel said, the number four on the clock was IIII instead of the expected IV. Landy decided it wouldn't do to have what she called "an illiterate" clock.

"We called up the clock manufacturer and they said, `That's the way we do clocks,'" she told the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester in an interview published Friday.

When she looked at her watch, which had Roman numerals, she discovered that it too used IIII for the number four.

Actually, it may be of note that the AP reporter used Wikipedia as a source.

KOAT (AP) | Red-Light Camera Busts Cheating Wife
HAWTHORNE, Calif. -- A red light camera in Southern California caught one woman in the act -- of cheating.

Hawthorne Officer Mark Escalante said a local resident is challenging his $341 red-light violation ticket.

The ticket was mailed to the registered owner of the car. But the car owner says the camera's automatic videotape shows he wasn't driving -- it was his wife's lover behind the wheel. The jilted husband is getting a divorce.

But the new red-light traffic cameras snagged more than 1,400 motorists last month in Hawthorne, leading to a slew of complaints.

There's been a threefold increase in tickets since the red-light camera were installed this spring. Cameras snapped pictures that resulted in 1,414 tickets issued in June.

Some motorists outraged over getting the tickets storm into the police station to dispute the violations, not knowing the photos come accompanied by videotape.

"In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first signs of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk." --Klaatu, "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

Right.

That requires correction. I've been reading comic books for as long as I can remember. But there are a handful of comics I've been reading recently that I intend to talk about now.

Doing so requires a certain amount of predictable old-fogy complaints about today's comic-book storytelling--including questioning the word "storytelling" as applied to an endless series of exquisitely-reproduced, lushly-colored, overdrawn pin-ups that, somehow, appear to have advanced the plot by some infinitesimally small increment over the course of 20 pages yet, on closer inspection, defy me to find an example within those pages of something, anything, having actually happened.

For purposes of comparison, see Action Comics #252, May 1959, cover-featuring "The Supergirl from Krypton", the first appearance of, well, you figure it out. Eight pages, written by Otto Binder, art by Al Plastino. In the course of those eight pages, we go from "What's that rocket in the sky?" to meeting Kara, verifying her bona-fides, creating a secret identity for her, placing her in a nearby orphanage (well, it wouldn't do for bachelor Clark Kent to live with a teenaged girl, now would it?), and setting up her situation for her ongoing series in the back of Action Comics. Also featuring a lead Superman feature and a Congo Bill story. Cover price ten cents.

Then see Superman-Batman #8-13, May-October 2004, featuring "The Supergirl from Krypton", featuring the revised first appearance in current continuity of, well, you figure it out. 120 pages over six issues. written by Jeph Loeb, art by Michael Turner. Currently three issues into the arc and we still haven't established that Kara is who she says she is. Total cover price $17.70.

While I'm complaining: Superman-Batman #9 ends with an attack and attempted kidnapping of Kara by (as we see in a Stunning Last-Page Reveal(tm)) Wonder Woman. Superman-Batman #10 opens with Kara on Themsicyra (the new name for what old fogeys like me remember as Paradise Island, where the lesbians Amazons live). We learn in opening exposition that what appeared to be an attack was actually cooked up by Wonder Woman and Batman to test Superman's reaction. The conversation in which they explain this to Superman happens between issues, since it apparently didn't involve beating anybody up. (Although had I been Superman, and a teenaged girl dependent on me had been roughed up to test me, I would certainly have considered booting up the old heat vision and "testing" my colleagues with a little second-degree sunburn. How's the Bat-Sunblock, old buddy?)

And this is one of the good books.

Then there's The Amazing Spider-Man #509, Aug 2004, featuring part one of the five-part "Sins Past" story arc, written by J Michael Straczynski (yeah, the Babylon 5 guy), art by Mike Deodato. It looks like JMS has something in mind for Gwen Stacy (an old girlfriend of Peter Parker's, killed way back in #121 [31 years ago!], over whom he has never really quit pining). It's hard to tell. Pete is attacked at Gwen's graveside by two masked figures, and although one of them eventually unmasks (another Stunning Last-Page Reveal(tm)), and we are obviously meant to recognize him, Deodato's inability to draw clearly recognizable faces undercuts the reveal so badly that, even with the face fully exposed, we can't be sure who it is.

I could guess, I suppose. Best guess among the fan community on the message boards is that it's a double of Peter Parker last seen in the hated Clone Saga of several years ago. And thanks to online trade solicitations, we've already seen the cover to #511, on which the masked woman is revealed to be... well, again, it's hard to tell. Although if the setup means anything, it's probably meant to be either Gwen Stacy or her double (she is known to have a double, again from that Clone Saga). Deodato had to give her the same hairband she wore in the early seventies (which she is, improbably, wearing under her mask) to create any resemblance to Gwen at all. Possibly we'll find out that it was the double who died and the real Gwen is still alive. That's just the kind of trauma the now-happily-married Peter Parker needs to return his life to the eternal angst fans seem to expect.

I should tell you that the revelation that turned readers away from Spider-Man by the thousands, from which Marvel backpedaled after the damage had been done and quickly rewrote the story to establish that it wasn't true, was that the Peter we'd been reading about for the past twenty years was the clone. The character we'd known as the clone, who traveled under the name "Ben Reilly" and believed himself to be the clone, was the real Peter. As I said, that particular twist was undone, and the clone was apparently killed, but then this wouldn't be the first time he's returned from apparent death. Apparently JMS, or his editor, feels the time is right to revisit this, this, dare I use the word, quagmire and see if there's anything left after the swamp has been drained.

So, we've now reached the point where everyone who has a costume has to wear it all the time, or else the readers can't tell what's going on.

Which leads us back to DC:

Identity Crisis #1-7, Aug 2004-Feb 2005, written by Brad Meltzer, art by Rags Morales and Michael Bair. The final nail in the coffin of the Silver Age, as a beloved (if now minor) character dies, horribly, heartbreakingly and (probably) irrevocably. (In comics death is not a sure thing even when you've seen the body.)

This is DC's Big Event for the summer. (Well, at the moment DC is in the midst of several Big Events, but this is the one that's getting real-world press, because Meltzer is a real author.) It has just begun, and they're keeping an unusually tight lid on it to preserve the surprises, but it appears to involve a serial killer who preys on superheroes' loved ones and a dark secret that five Justice League members share.

In order to talk about Identity Crisis, I have to at least mention Kingdom Come, an acclaimed limited series of a couple of years back in which the superhero population, having grown less responsible with succeeding generations, is now indulging in its pet battles with little or no regard for those affected, sometimes tragically, by their presence. As a commentary on a trend, it was brilliant. But now mainstream comics resemble the nightmare world of Kingdom Come, and the cautionary series has helped to create the situation it was warning us about.

Leading directly to Identity Crisis #1, in which a non-powered, just plain human loved one of a costumed adventurer is killed by someone who knew (spoiler pronoun) her well enough to call her by her first name. Someone who was able to enter her apartment despite the combination of Kryptonian, Thanagarian, Themiscyrian, Martian, and Apocaliptic technology that protected it.

Being a hero has a price. And it's not always the people who Knew The Job Was Dangerous who pay it.

There is no Stunning Last-Page Reveal(tm) in this story. It proceeds with all the (if you didn't like it) predictability and (if you did) inevitability of Hitchcockian suspense. You know what coming. You just don't know when. And all the while you're hoping you're wrong.

(Spoiler follows.) If you didn't know the history of Ralph (Elongated Man) Dibny and his wife Sue Dearbon Dibny, Meltzer sets the stage as painlessly as possible--although if you get past page two and still don't know who's going to die, you probably shouldn't be reading murder mysteries. Some have said that this death is over the top, and as much as I love the character of (final warning) Sue Dibny, I want to think so too. This is not just another comic book death, and Meltzer had to make that clear.

And he does. We see her broken. We see her killer turn a flamethrower on her. We see Ralph find her blistered body. We see the anniversary present she had prepared for him (an antique magnifying glass). And we see the extra detail that elevates this from "mere" brutality to epic tragedy, the reminder that the future that she represented, the moment when Ralph would have opened that present and seen that detail, the surprise and joy and happily-ever-after that would have followed, have been cruelly stolen from him, and from us all.

It's just a comic book.

No, it's not. It's a damned good one.

Death matters. Even that of a supporting character of a third-tier inactive superhero. Even that of someone who never wore a cape and mask. The double-page spread of the mourners at Sue's funeral is an indication of just how big a difference the death of a Normal Person is going to make before this story is over.

I can't judge the whole series on the basis of one issue, but I'd call it a memorable start.

(More information at Newsarama and at Brad Meltzer's own site. OH, and at Comicon.com PULSE, and Toon Zone Forum.)

...but since I've been getting e-mails from people hoping for a little free publicity on Nude Calendar Watch, I've made a few updates. And now, even though nobody demanded it, each year's grouping is alphabetized. The number of calendars has steadily grown each year, and 2005 is off to a strong start, given that it's only June.

More to the point, will anyone send review copies?

(Only kidding: I only document the trend. I don't buy 'em, I don't sell 'em, and I don't review 'em.)

AP | Plane Soars Out of Earth's Atmosphere
MOJAVE, Calif. - A rocket plane soared above Earth's atmosphere Monday in the first privately financed manned spaceflight, then glided back to Earth for an unpowered landing.

SpaceShipOne pilot Mike Melvill was aiming to fly 62 miles above the Earth's surface and he just exceeded that goal, reaching 62.21 miles, according to radar data.

...Later, standing on the tarmac beside the ship, Melvill said seeing the Earth from outside the atmosphere was "almost a religious experience."

"You can see the curvature of the Earth," he said. "You got a hell of a view from 60, 62 miles."

He also found time for a demonstration of weightlessness by opening a bag of M&M;'s candies and watching them float through the cockpit. "It was so cool," he said.

It doesn't get much cooler than that.