Professor Xtos didn’t agree with what I wrote about DK2–namely, that it works best as fish wrap. Impudent ignoramus! Needless to say, I’m changing the access codes on the Fortress of Surlitude. He’ll be cut to ribbons by my automated death laser next time he shows up for poker night.

Below you’ll find the text of his e-mail, somewhat edited. I reprint it not in the interested of “equal time” or “balanced journalism” (fie!), but only to illustrate why annihilation is not only justified but necessary. It’s full of “spoilers,” so hold your nose.

Well, I finally read all of DK2. I may be treading on thin sheet metal here, but I have to disagree with your review. I mean, it wasn’t anything like the original, which was dense, and had a concrete story line–I agree with you there. And if I’d read it stand-alone, not as a sequel, I wouldn’t think much of it… but, here’s the weird part, I think that it works best when you consider it as a sequel.

I think that the differences between it and DK1.0 make it interesting… that it’s the OPPOSITE of dense and concrete… instead, it’s iconic, the drawings are big, bold, wildly-colored, and the story is the same, meant to be skimmed, kind of.

I know what you mean about the “man in the street” seeming to be idiotic, but there’s an overall consistency to it… that Joe Six-Pack had been seduced and manipulated by Lex Luthor and company, and that the “heroes”, when they lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, gave up, went away, or sold out. Even in the current Superman comic there’s a hint of this with Luthor getting elected President, and Supes being conflicted about how to deal with it.

And it makes a kind of sense that Batman, alone of the heroes, says “fuck that!” The conversations between Batman and Superman, and especially Batman and the Flash, are consistent with this… and GL says something like “Funny that it was Batman, the *mean* one, who called it right.”

In execution the story is kind of weak, because no one can have a clue except Batman… the depiction of Wonder Woman was really bad, I thought… and the “daughter of Superman” thing was totally contrived… it could’ve been written to have Supes do all of her parts, but it wouldn’t have LOOKED as cool… that was where the skimming part was really needed.

I forgave the Green Lantern ex machina… I mean, GL had to be convinced to come back, and he obviously didn’t want to stick around, so Bats offered him a clearly defined task to arrive, accomplish, and split without even setting foot on the planet… OK, it’s a stretch, but whatever… when you want to talk seriously about that part, you know where to find me.

I actually thought the end was funny, in a way… Supes and his daughter wondering what they were going to do with “their” planet… which is exactly what would happen if there really WAS a Superman, a point that was made in Miracleman how many years ago? It’s not something that DC has ever made even the smallest allusion to, as far as I know. -Xtos

Diodes… melting… circuits… jammed… ERROR… ERROR… pi equals three point one four one… five… uh… nine… something… curse… your… human… logic….

Riso turned me on to Robot Frank, who produced this awesome little photo comic. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Robot Frank also has his own old-fashioned comic comic as well as a six-page mini comic.

Robot Frank’s friend Robot Ron looks an awfully lot like Red Robot from Diesel Sweeties. Coincidence? One thing’s for sure: Frank, Ron, and Red all live to kick ass on humans, and for that I salute them.

Sure, I talk about crushing humans and wrecking havoc. When I started out, I had the usual dream of going on a rampage in downtown Tokyo. But the closest I ever got was turning over some trash cans in Scranton. Now, instead of crushing humans, I review your lame comics.

I’ve sold out. My life sucks.

If you loved the original Dark Knight–the brilliant series of graphic novels that pretty much reinvented superhero comics back in 1986–then run like hell from this ugly, incoherent sequel. Disappointment awaits all who enter.

Just for fun, let me access my central processing array and deactivate the chip that compares sequels to their predecessors (*click*). Now let me scan DK2 again. What do you know… it still sucks!

Writer Frank Miller doesn’t bother with the basic questions a storyteller needs to answer, such as “What motivates my characters?” and “Why should readers give a shit about them?” Worst of all, Miller doesn’t seem to know whose story this is. Is it Batman’s? Superman’s? Catgirl’s? Any one will do–just make a choice, Frank.

His pacing seems off, too. The story comes to a climax, then comes to another climax, then leaves and doesn’t send flowers or even call. Believe me, you WILL feel used.

The plot concerns Batman’s efforts to liberate the world from the control of Lex Luthor and Brainiac, who have installed a hologram as president of the U.S. and coerced Superman into serving as their errand boy. All other superheroes have been outlawed (this being a dark and dismal future, doncha know). Batman’s plan: get his other old super-friends–including the Flash, the Atom, and the Green Lantern–back into action and let them do the heavy lifting.

The main lapse of logic: Green Lantern is now as powerful as God. He can, and does, fix everything in a kind of lantern ex machina scene. So who needs the friggin’ Atom? Batman can call Green Lantern anytime, but he waits until everything is a complete mess before he does so. In the meantime, we have to sit through many super-person internal monologues that sound portentous but, in fact, portend nothing. Miller takes us on a long trip to nowhere, and he doesn’t choose a fun route.

Like I said, that’s the main lapse of logic; the book is chock full of them. Perhaps not coincidentally, DK2 goes out of its way to portray the average person on the street (in other words, non-superheroes) as ugly, petty, and stupid. I’m down with that, but there’s so much bashing of Joe Six-pack that it began to get tedious. It made me wonder: Why is this here? Is Miller making a point about how he perceives his readers?

Thanks for the love, Frank. See you again in another 16 years.

Back when Kitty was a rock star, he ran up a lot of debts and sexed up a lot of underaged girls. Now that his band has dissolved and he’s just an ordinary cat, people want to flay his furry hide. His ex-girlfriend, mother of his cat/human-hybrid love child, excoriates him on a German talk show hosted by a clone of Andy Warhol. A shadowy creditor who claims to be Satan dispatches his own dimwitted son to capture Kitty. And bunch of cybernetic samurai want him dead. Kitty’s only friend is Popbot, a 1930s-era robot designed to fight for the Nazis during World War II.

I just covered a lot of ground, so let’s review. Cat = former punk rocker. Robot pal = Nazi war machine. Oh, wait, I forgot that interstellar travel is commonplace in 1999. And former sex robots have embraced radical feminism and started their own detective agency. And Europe is some kind of toxic wasteland. And Sherlock Holmes is part of the story, thanks to time travel. And some guy in a house is talking to a naked woman, but what that has to do with Kitty is anybody’s guess.

Mmmm… smells like postmodern sci-fi absurdist gumbo. But personally, I like the taste. What holds Popbot together is Ashley Wood’s artwork–from gray washes to line drawings to photo-realistic paintings, Wood renders the story in a number of different styles, all of them interesting.

Wood also came up with the cockamamie story, with Sam Kieth writing the script. Where is it all going? Honestly, by the time we got to the murderous, horned sock puppet (another of Kitty’s creditors), I had stopped caring. The pretty pictures and the parade of wacky concepts carried me through book one of this series. And they could easily hold me through a few more.

Why haven’t I reviewed the new Spider-Man movie yet? Because I’ve been waiting for Krantoor the Munificent to come to town. He’s visiting from his island fortress, and we’re going to see Spidey sometime during the next few days. We’ll write a joint review in spite of the fact that we’re the last sentient entities on the planet to see the damn thing.

In the meantime, read this article I wrote for the Baltimore City Paper about Dan Poole’s 1992 Spider-Man movie, The Green Goblin’s Last Stand. Poole made his movie without Marvel’s permission, and it’s become a cult classic among comic fans.

BTW, I pointed Slashdot to my article, and it sparked quite a lively discussion on their message board. (Scroll down to read the reactions.)

Sole survivor of a spaceship crash, Navee grew up on a jungle planet, swinging from vines and making friends with the more sophisticated animals. Just as she ripened into womanhood, her planet gets wasted and she ends up living with a group of aliens who travel the stars in a vast convoy of ships. Since she’s got all this jungle grrl power, the aliens start sending her on dangerous missions. She doesn’t mind, but she sure would like to meet another human being to find out… uh… what human being do.

If you think this sounds hokey, think again. Wake is a very cool series of graphic novels from NMB Publishing. We’re talking straight-ahead, old-school science fiction with an emphasis on good storytelling. Me like good storytelling.

Book one starts with Navee in her jungle and shows us the fate of her planet–basically, a scary-looking alien scorches it and all its wildlife. Now, here’s what Wake does really well–you start off thinking this alien is a bad guy, but once you learn his motive you’re not so sure. By the end, you’re left thinking, “I might have done the same in his situation.”

Somehow I missed book 2 (a situation I hope to correct soon). But book 3 recently arrived, and it’s got that same twisty, who’s-really-right-who’s-really-wrong element. Basically, Navee visits a snowbound planet to investigate a race of creatures who look kind of like humans (except for those Panda-style markings on their faces) and a mysterious something buried under the ice. She gets help from a Panda-faced pseudo-Bolshevik and together they manage to either save the planet or doom it, depending on your point of view.

Adventure, excellent artwork, head-scratching moral conundrums–what’s not to like? Actually, some of you priggish humans may be bothered by the book’s high T&A factor–Navee is, after all, a recovering jungle queen, and doesn’t mind stripping down when the situation calls for it.

You want to know: “Is it exploitive?” Sorry, you’re asking the wrong robot. I wasn’t programmed for political correctness. Plus, I happen to like my comics with plenty o’ skin.

Judge for yourself–online previews can be found here. Or better yet, don’t worry about it and just buy the damn book!

Gilbert Hernandez has a new series called Grip: The Strange World of Men, published by DC/Vertigo. Check out the review I wrote for it in the March issue of Wired. And by the way, you can read all of my Wired reviews by going here.

The United States answers to no one, and we like it that way. Our president pretty much says so at every turn. U.N. conference on racism? No thanks, he’d rather go fishing. Kyoto Accord for limiting greenhouse gasses? Not while there’s oil in Texas!

America behaves badly because we know we can get away with it. We’re the rat with the most cheese, and you foreign mice better pipe down if you want any gouda. But how did we get to be so gosh darn mighty? To understand, you have to go back to the 1950s. Fortunately American Century can take you there.

The American Century: Scars & Stars trade paperback collects the first four issues of this ongoing series from DC/Vertigo comics. In it, we follow the adventures of Harry Block, a World War II veteran who goes AWOL when Uncle Sam asks him to ship out to Korea. As seen by Harry, the ’50s were a time of domestic dissatisfaction concealed by the shiny new exterior of consumer culture. Internationally, the U.S. was perfecting a ruthless foreign policy, using third world nations as pawns in its struggle against the Soviet Union. We gleefully installed despots and madmen as heads of state in foreign lands, just so long as they were our despots and madmen.

Issue one (which I reviewed here on 03.21.01) tracks Harry’s decision to leave his unfaithful wife and desert his country. The other three issues in this book follow his adventures in Guatemala. Harry just wants a quiet life as an expatriate smuggler, but there’s a little too much local turmoil for that. Before it’s over, Harry runs afoul of the CIA, the KGB, and U.S. Fruit; Harry’s Spanish-speaking friends die; and the U.S. installs a child molester as the new Guatemalan president.

The plot’s a bit harebrained, elaborately contrived so that Harry bounces off all the major players at one time or another. Whatever. American Century is a rock ‘em-sock ‘em historical melodrama. When the ammunition is spent, you’ll remember the atmosphere–America at the dawn of its superpowerhood, squeezing the life out of little guys domestic and foreign to get what it wants.

And, of course, the brooding character of Harry–part Bogey-style tough guy, part sulky teenager. Harry thinks everything sucks, especially U.S. foreign policy. Wonder what he’d say if he were alive today?

Bradford W. Wright says this about Superman in his earliest years:

Audiences familiar with the rather stiff and morally upright character that Superman later became would be surprised to discover that Siegel and Shuster’s original character was actually a tough and cynical wise guy, similar to the hard-boiled detectives like Sam Spade who also became popular during the Depression years. Superman took to crimefighting with an adolescent glee, routinely taking the opportunity to mock and humiliate his adversaries as he thrashed them.

Wright writes this near the start of his new book, Comic Book Nation, an excellent survey of comics from the 1930s to the 1990s. Wright looks at comics as an expression of youth culture–specifically, one that’s also a consumer commodity. Along the way he makes some interesting observations about familiar comic characters. Did you know that, early in his career, Superman fought fat-cat capitalists, as opposed to mad scientists and his fellow aliens?

Other Superman stories explore the conflict between corporate greed and public welfare. One finds Superman crushing a plot by wealthy American financiers working for a foreign power to manipulate the stock exchange and plunge the nation into another depression… In many cautionary tales Superman appeared as a sort of progressive “super-reformer.” In a crusade for automobile safety nearly thirty years before anyone heard of Ralph Nader, Superman destroys a car factory after finding that the owner has been using “inferior metals and parts so as to make higher profits at the cost of human lives!”

Imagine if Superman had stayed true to his origins, instead of mutating into a defender of the capitalist status quo. He would have spent the last year hunting down all those dot com idiots who screwed up the stock market. He’d burst into the boardroom of Firestone, hang a defective tire around the CEO’s neck, and set it ablaze with his heat vision. Now that’s a Superman story I’d pay to read.

According to Wright, greedy rich villains usually turned out to be agents of a hostile foreign power. Is there any doubt that Bill Gates works for North Korea? Get him, Supes!

Wright examines not only comic characters, but the industry itself. What is direct marketing, and how did it ruin the content of mainstream comic books? When did people start buying new comics as an investment, rather than entertainment? How was Marvel Comics almost pimped to death by Ron Perelman? (Get him, Supes!)

Take a look at Comic Book Nation. And watch the skies for a real hero.

Today I detour from comics to talk about the new Planet of the Apes movie. Professor Xtos and I attended an advanced screening last night in D.C. (His wife got us tickets–thanks Madame Xtos!)

Here’s what you want to know: No, it was not as good as the original. But the really sad thing is, it didn’t try to be.

I’ll back up and start with the positive. By the standards of Hollywood in the year 2001, it’s an O.K. action/adventure movie. This simply means that the special effects are good. The apes act more like real apes than in the original film. All of the jumping around, climbing, and hooting make for a frenzy of activity that’s frightening and fascinating. And most of the apes really look like apes (not Helena Bonham Carter, though–she looks like Helena Bonham Carter).

However, the plot and characters don’t really stand up to close scrutiny. I get the feeling that director Tim Burton knew this. In fact, the more Burton films I view, the more I see his trademark visual glamour as an act of desperation. “If I give them enough to look at, they’ll be too distracted to realize that the characters are behaving inconsistently, or nonsensically. The clumsy improbability of key scenes will be erased by color, motion, and the exquisitely detailed clutter of the sets.” In his disdain for internal logic and continuity, Burton is in lockstep with the rest of contemporary Hollywood.

But there’s something else wrong with this new movie, something that robs it of anything but the most visceral of pleasures: the filmmakers didn’t take their subject matter seriously. They went for the funny bone, where the original went for the groin.

I recently saw a documentary about the making of the 1968 film. It explains that a major concern of the filmmakers was the reaction viewers would have to the ape makeup. It was important that the audience not laugh, or the whole enterprise would degrade into farce. That film turned out campy in some ways–Charleton Heston’s acting goes way over the top–but the serious illusion of the ape makeup grounded the fantasy world. Building out from that foundation, the film was able to reference real-world issues like race, animal rights, and the Vietnam War.

The new movie utilizes better makeup (except for Carter). But instead of fighting to keep a serious tone, it forfeits it almost immediately in favor of a cheap laugh. One of the first apes to speak paraphrases a Heston line from the original movie: “Get your hands off me, you damn dirty human!” Get it? Later, Heston himself shows up as an ape and paraphrases his last, most melodramatic moment from the original. Speaking about humans, he cries, “Damn them! Damn them all to hell!” Then he dies.

These are meant as jokes, and the audience laughed. But with that laughter went their suspension of disbelief. Suddenly, we’re not looking at a world of apes; we’re looking at a world of people dressed as apes. We can’t look back at our own world through new eyes, because we’ve never left it.

“Can’t we all just get along?” As trite as this is, it’s the only subtext the new film hints at. Burton seems embarrassed by it, so he has the question come out of the mouth of an insincere, cynical orangutan slave trader– again playing for laughs. For this alone he surrenders what might have been the film’s high ground.

As promised, the ending is a twist. But it’s not one you take seriously. (I don’t like reviews that give too much away, so I won’t.) Suffice to say that the movie ends with a sight gag that’s difficult, if not impossible, to explain in the context of the story. In any case, the filmmakers make no effort to do so.

The audience laughed, of course. But it would have been nice if they left the theater thinking as well.