Wednesday, November 28, 2007

What About the "Black-Skins?"



Recently, on a comics forum someone asked about our most treasured comic. I have to put this issue of Green Lantern / Green Arrow at the very top. It was a time of tulmut, racially in our country. DC Comics had a host of white male superheroes and almost nothing representing the diversity of our nation. While DC Comics' heroes were off fighting alien invasions, the real heroes were fighting for equity for blacks.

Although I was an infant when this book came out, I remember grabbing it off a table at our local flea market at the age of seven. Suddenly, the world was larger than my funny books. Green Lantern wasn't really answering the guy in the panel. The phrase kind of shot out over thousands of readers, a very subtle, yet in-your-face question that just sort of hangs over our hypocrisy, nudging us to peek behind it, even if just for a second.

I count this run of comics as treasured, because second only to the Bible, it helped shape my moral worldviews as a child.

If you've never read them, they've been collected in trade paperback over a dozen times, and the reciepient of numerous different awards and accolades.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Clergy Health in an Age of Spilled Drinks

I was reading the other day that clergy health is at an all time low. Clergy rank higher in almost every risk factor than do peers in other professions. We are at higher risk for heart attack, stroke, hypertension and depression than most professionals.

I wondered why this was, until I read a letter to the editor of my local paper. There is a gentlemen here locally, posturing himself on the shoulders of tragedy and taking aim at the faith community for not manning school crosswalks when the city failed to provide them.

How much absorption can you really demand from saturated sponges? As clergy, we are bombarded with needs every day. No one ever bombards us with resources. We work late, we work early, we can't just punch a time clock, or take the phone off the hook.

It seems to me that we live in a society demanding more saturation from our sponges, in spite of the fact that we collectively keep spilling our drinks. And yet, when the church asks us to hold our glasses a bit tighter, they get labeled as being judgmental.

Since when did ministry turn into a public feeding trough? I am reminded of something Jesus said in his first sermon to his home town crowd. They had been hearing about how he healed the sick and relieved the afflicted. They wanted him to do the same for them.

Jesus said this, "There were many lepers in the time of Elisha, but God healed none of them, except for Naaman, the Syrian."

In other words, there was a land full of need, but God didn't flail around trying to meet them all. He moved with purpose.

The next line of the story is the most amazing:

"This enraged the crowd."

The idea that just maybe God isn't going to be our personal Santa Claus does throw us into a fit of rage sometimes. I'm not so sure, the same isn't true of clergy. We want them when we need them, but not too much beyond that. We can set up a food pantry, but we're viewed as religious zealots if we dare offer them a spiritual truth in conjunction with the bread.

We live in an age of saturated sponges, and we'd rather demand more from them than to take a look at how we are holding our drinks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The Last American Penny

The Last American Penny


I am that I am[1]: the last American penny, an assortment of zinc and copper pressed into the image and likeness of my designers. I glance sideways at myself, carrying a symbol of upon my underbelly of democratic value. Yet, it is no soft parade for my ilk, no “gentle streets where children play,”[2] only the clang and clamor of countertops and piggy banks, activities which in short order have come to pass us and be gone. With 288 billion like me laying in pockets and ponds, my place—the place of the last American penny—will be the display case, an icon to an ideology peering out from history toward the furtherance of illusion.

Ideologies get tweaked with time: foaming up through decades to be empirically identified via their subscribers, settling down again to sleep in numbers and nostalgia. Valuable to those defining value, significant for a wish or two; or perhaps your baby teeth, I become invaluable only when the last of my kind passes through this languid epoch.

“Perfect,” the well-dressed man in spectacles and a white pressed shirt begins. “It is the law of supply and demand at work and you my friend have outlived your usefulness.”

He said, “Perfect.” The sister of omni-benevolence.

He said, “Supply and demand.” The magical law which spins the world.

He said, “Usefulness.” The axis on which a season finds its light.

The well-dressed man continues. “And to think a single one of you would get me a bushel of bananas across the sea or an audience for King Lear not so long ago.” He turns me over in his hand as I consider the last great savant of man:

“…there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.” [3]

Are the lawyers truly dead?”[4] I muse between his oily fingers. “Is there no chance for some of me to rub off on him, some piece that cannot be washed away with constructionist soap?”

I feel slick and impermeable, so masterfully held together that he would need ten-thousand fingers to the remove the first spec of me. Bananas, brooms, or abbot’s bottoms; no one can say anything about my placement save the one with whom I find utility, to which this aged collector most certainly exemplifies with showcased plans.

He said, “Across the sea.” Those pesky other countries for which he feels apt to judge my measure. Yet, there is more to me than them that use me, more to me than the shallow jelly jars in the back of the tent revival, more to me than the words in the Koran or the numbered gray hairs on his balding head, and more to me than this aged President to spend his days peering listless behind sealed glass with sanguine jaws.

His knowledge must at least enable him to explain and account for what is, or he is an insufficient judge of what ought to be.” [5]

What ought to be. Indeed, who better the judge than the copper which man pitches gleefully toward false hope? Who better than the "least of these" in naked prisons and empty store shelves in foreign lands?

How alike we must be, the God in whom we trust and the last American penny! The faith that moves us from utility to spectacle, from one man’s brain to another’s active hands, from anecdotal definition to a daily efficacy is certainly no wider than a church door.

Buying and selling could just as easily be founded on the length of one’s toenails—what precisely is this terrible magic to which we are bewitched? Who needs the pressed metal, or the clamor of rudimentary, unverified economic law? Who needs the higher ideals of the divine? And why should any idea of man move its way from the appreciative gawk of shadows cast on cave walls toward the authenticated dream of men so embroidered in banks and steeples?

I am the geophysical manifestation of a belief. “I am that I am.”


[1] Exodus 3:14
[2] The Doors, “The Soft Parade” (1969)
[3] Act IV, Scene II
[4] Ibid.
[5] John Stewart Mill, Essays on some unsettled questions of Political Economy. Essay V: “On the definition of Political Economy”

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Is Oliver Queen Redeemable? Tony Bedard answers.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm a Green Arrow fan, big time. Oliver Queen is loud, proud, and idealistic. He's also obnoxious, over-zealous, and cocky. For the past five years, fans of this DC Comics character have had nothing to be a fan of.

Oliver walked out on his infant son and lied about it for years. Oliver participated in erasing Batman's memory and lied about it for years. He rekindled an old love, and subsequently cheated on her shortly after. Apparently still sexually unsatisfied, he proceeded to have sex with a fellow hero's wife. He scammed illegal stocks. He was ousted from his mayorship for a scandal. He failed to create a new Justice League when the old one was abandoned. He was defeated in almost every battle in his own title for half a decade. He allowed the city he was protecting to be destroyed. He followed dead lead, after dead lead thanks to a two year, yet unfinished story written by Judd Winick.

Oliver is the crapper. He went from being a proud, idealistic champion of the poor and disenfranchised, to a floating turd in the corner of the DC Comics Universe. Most fans were ready to see him get flushed. Again. You see, DC killed him off once before. I guess they didn't like the direction the character was going. (As if the current scene is much improved). DC never raised Ollie from the dead. They propped up his corpse and started throwing darts at it.

But just as fans were ready to pull the lever, along comes Tony Bedard (and Andy Diggle, but that comes in another blog). Bedard recently completed his four part story arc: Black Canary. The Black Canary is Oliver's lover returned yet again to her wayward and cheating man. It was a good story-- if you are a Green Arrow fan.

Backstory

Green Arrow completed writer Judd Winick's miserable run of stories by asking Black Canary to marry him. Fans wondered why any woman would ever return to such a louse of a man. Readers who know Oliver Queen prior to 2003 know exactly why she'd love him. But in a shallow attempt to redeem the character assassination heaped on Oliver's head over the last half decade, DC Comics gave fans a whiner baby Ollie who begs for his woman's life on bended knee, while the villain rests a fully erect sword in Black Canary's mouth (the symbolism was beyond insulting... and I'm not even a Dinah fan). Less severe, but also insulting was the cowering Green Arrow begging for mercy.

Obviously the current staff at DC Comics, and especially Judd Winick, don't understand Green Arrow or Oliver Queen. Thanks to a 12-million dollar ex-machina plot ending, replete with magic Justice League evaporation buttons, Ollie and Dinah live to see another day. That made for the fourth time Green Arrow had to be rescued in his own title during Mr. Winick's tenure on the Green Arrow title. Insulting, but par for the course. I actually believed that Judd would have Ollie save the day, to make up for his miserable run, but instead I got served a cry-baby Ollie who could nothing but sit and watch a villain molest his lover's mouth with a shiny sword.

Oliver proposed shortly after the rescue, and Dinah needed time to think it over. What woman would even consider it after such a manly display while she was victimized? Not to mention the cheating, the lying, the stealing, and the utter impotence that DC has allowed Oliver Queen to become... but

Enter Tony Bedard

The Black Canary mini (which in all reality should have been about Dinah with that title) gave readers a glimmer of hope in the cesspool of Oliver Queen's life. Ollie is patient in awaiting Dinah's answer. He befriends the little girl (named Sin) that Dinah has taken under her wing to raise in order to protect her from a life a violence. Ollie's old qualities begin to glimmer in issue #2 -- he is humorous, passionate, and hopeful. So much so that even a child raised in violence finds a way to love him. Dinah jokingly chalks it up to the girl being a bad judge of character.

Apparently a plot has been hatched to reclaim the young girl (a martial arts prodigy) and replace her in the League of Assassins and their future leader. Dinah is set up by her ex-husband who is being paid off by Merlyn, one of the few rogues in Green Arrow history that has had any staying power. The plan is to place Sin in a school thereby making Dinah feel safe before launching a kidnapping attempt.

The plan works, and in issue #3 we see Oliver trying to persuade Dinah into calling in the Justice League for assistance. Dinah wipes the floor with Oliver and runs off to face the baddies solo. Meanwhile, Oliver and his new ward (an HIV-infected, former prostitute) hatch a plan to keep the League of Assassins off their backs for good. They intend to fake the death of Sin, and escort her out of the country to the monastery where Oliver Queen and his son received training.

In issue #4, we see the plan in its entirety. Oliver fakes Sin's death by shooting a seemingly wayward arrow at the support cables that were lowering Sin to safety in an escape boat. Dinah is crushed and an onslaught of the enraged Canary begins, injuring everyone aboard, including Oliver.

When the dust settles, Dinah is shown throwing her engagement ring in the trash can. Ollie approaches and asks Dinah to read a letter, written by Sin in her knew home. She launches into a dialogue with Oliver about how selfish his life truly has become, but notes that he was willing to risk everything to get Sin to safety. She suggests that for once he wasn't doing something for Oliver, he was thinking of others. She digs the ring from the garbage and accepts.

What I thought... The PROS

1. It was a "five star" Green Arrow story in a Black Canary wrapping. Now that doesn't bother me at all, but I can see where the Canary fans might be disappointed. Black Canary has grown strong since leaving Oliver. She remade herself, earned the respect of her peers, and now heads the most powerful fighting force in the DC Comics Universe: the Justice League. Moving back to Oliver is a step back for her...

...but I suggest that it never had to be. It's a step backward for her because DC Comics allowed this once noble, thoughtful, and self-sacrificing emerald archer to be drug through the muck.

2. Green Arrow deserves a story like this. Canary fans get great stories month after month in Birds of Prey, thanks to a writer (Gail Simone) that actually loves her heroes more than her villains. Canary fans get to see their hero lead the Justice League-- they watch as she wields as much influence over the DC Comics Universe as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

Green Arrow fans don't have squat. They have a miserable solo title that continually makes Oliver Queen the laughing stock of the DCU. Even writers in other titles cannot help but take pot shots at Oliver and his ruined character. I think he is sometimes mentioned just to get an extra laugh in these days.

3. Tony "gets" Green Arrow, at least much better than any of the last several writers that were allowed to use his name in a story. He reminds us what is worth loving about this slandered character.

4. The art is good, especially the fight sequences in the final issue.

5. Although I don't like Sin being removed from the family unit, fans can rejoice that Judd Winick will not have her at his disposal with the new series, Green Arrow / Black Canary.


What I Thought... THE CONS

1. Removing Sin from the new family unit takes away some potential development and interesting story dynamics that would be available to future writers.

2. The first few pages of this mini are a flashback. Oliver is shown to be a complete jerk in no uncertain terms. Nothing like what I've read of the old Green Arrow offerings. More like casting Judd Winick's idea of GA backward into history. It was a pretty disgusting start. Even so, the portrayal wasn't enough to keep this story arc from getting five full stars for me. The rest of Bedard's story silenced my inner critic.

3. Dinah's speech to Oliver in the final issue before she accepts the ring. I guess it had to happen, but I would remind Tony and readers, that Oliver has NEVER been all about himself until this past decade of writers began butchering him. You might could accuse him of being about the higher ideals at the expense of those closest to him, but you could never justify him caring only about himself. In fact, his mistake with Roy was about him caring too much about everyone else and wanting to help others so much that he neglected his responsibility to care for his ward.

Nothing in the CON section was enough to take away from the fun of this story arc. Of course, I'm a die-hard Green Arrow fan, so I could see no other way.

Is Oliver Queen redeemable? Tony Bedard answers...

YES!

He gives fans the best Green Arrow reading since Kevin Smith started writing. He shows us what is worth loving about Oliver Queen. He launches us forward in a hopeful direction....

Ooops. As I was waxing prophetic I forgot to mention: the title goes right back to Judd Winick. I guess I'll be reading other people's blogs to see what happens, because I've jumped ship on Winick's Green Arrow, after 30 long years of collecting all things Queen. It's really gotten that bad.

But between Bedard and Diggle, I got a great Green Arrow fix that hopefully will outlast Winick on the new title.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Eyes Wide Open

My cat died a couple of nights ago. We live in a family of four and we've had numerous cats over the last 10 years, but this one was mine.

I named him Bugsy, after the musical Bugsy Malone and the mythical gangster. I found the whole film to be confusing, but no less amusing as a young child. I admired the main character Bugsy Malone for his ability to walk the line.

My recently departed cat, Bugsy, and his brothers were dumped near a public garbage receptacle. They were barely weaned off mom's milk and clear signs of starvation had set in. Six brothers in all were abandoned and Bugsy was the runt.

A few of us at my place of employment divided up the cats to provide them with a good home. I took two. At first, I was only going to take one cat, but no one wanted Bugsy. He was the most sickly looking of the group. I took him home and on the drive, he and his brother climbed my legs and perched themselves on either shoulder.

Bugsy was an introverted cat with a personality much like my own. He could care less if you were in the room, he just kept doing his own thing and although he was a very loving cat, he could be accused of being anti-social. That's probably common to most cats, but Bugsy was a bit extreme.

At the age of five, his brother contracted a lung infection and died. The product, I'm certain, of having been dumped and malnourished as a kitten. We lost five other cats during the seven years we owned Bugsy. One very recently was struck by a car; he likely died while looking for another one of cats who vanished, we had another one vanish (probably a coyote), and the family favorite Maxx, was I believe also taken by a coyote.

Bugsy was a survivor. Each death effected him I think, but no car or coyote was ever going to get him. He was too cautious and too smart. He always faced life, challenges, and the outdoors with both eyes bugging out, wide open.

About three months ago, Bugsy developed a leaky heart. It started as chest congestion and later the blood moved into his stomach. Last week, he started vomiting blood. The vets said there wasn't much we could do, but they offered us some medicine to attempt regulating the leak. Bugsy hated medicine. He was like an old man who refused it with all his might. We'd find the pills all over the house where he'd hack them back up after we forced them down his throat.

A couple of days ago it looked like Bugsy wasn't going to make it through the week. He had hacked up some really large blood clots, lost half his weight, and wouldn't even get up to use the bathroom. I grew up around animals, so I knew what was coming.

I took him to the vet with every intention of putting him down. When the doctor brought in the paper work for me to sign to end his life, Bugsy sprung to life. He purred and nuzzled up on me, looking up with those buggy eyes wide open. I couldn't do it. He didn't want me to do it. So, I took him home and fixed him a place by the window. Around midnight, I headed to bed. I stopped and stroked him a few times, he looked really bad, but comfortable.

I'm a very sound sleeper and almost never awake in the middle of the night unless something is out of order. My kids come into my room and my wife gets up without me ever knowing some nights. But I heard a sound around 3:40 in the morning. Instinctively, I knew it was my cat.

Bugsy was stretched out in the spasms of death. His breathing was quick and labored. I knelt down beside him and began stroking his fur. Within 30 seconds he passed very peacefully. He was waiting for me, I knew.

At first, I felt guilty that I didn't put him down that morning. I wondered if I made him suffer needlessly. But I think that Bugsy wanted to die his own way, on his own time. That's the kind of cat he was. He died with his eyes wide open, just like he lived his life: head-on and self-assured. It was a good death. If only we could all be that lucky.

Early that morning a dug a hole out back. I carried his stiffening body there and curled him up in the hole. As I folded him neatly inside, a pocket of trapped air emerged in growl. I jumped back startled and frightened. His eyes were still wide open, and he held a last breath and a last message the grave... a deep, maddening growl. Head-on, self assured, eyes wide open, and growling at death with his last breath. If only we could all be that brave.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

20/20 Vision... 20 Years?

A 20 year reunion. It's been 20 long years since high school. I don't feel a bit different now than I did then... but am I? After a few conversations, I know that I am different. Who can really say if a person changes over time? Who is the best judge? After all, I look in the mirror each day and see me... the changes are slow and subtle. I hardly notice them. Someone who hasn't seen me in 20 years, things tend to look a bit different to them.

The Chinese used to have a form of execution known as "Death by a thousand cuts."

The idea is pretty barbaric and basic; it's nothing short of torture and has been long since outlawed, although it continued for years after. The idea itself carries meaning, both for the convicted and the executioner.

First, we should examine the convicted. Perhaps in certain occasions, ones in which a human being has committed the most vile of crimes, a person could condone torture. More often that not, the process was probably inordinately cruel and even after being outlawed was rumored to have been applied to Christian missionaries at the turn of the last century.

I look back on my life and fully recognize that I lack 20/20 vision of my high school experience. After all, it's been 20 years. But time has a way of reckoning the past, and my personal development has stemmed from a thousand cuts... each one a little deeper, even gashes that carved out whole new places in which my soul has learned to settle into the vacuum of each removed piece.

Some of the slashes are mere wrinkles, a receding hairline on its way out for a pass from a quarterback that never throws the ball, or even shades of gray appearing in locks of hair from the front to the back like the surface of lake at the end of a cloudy sunset. Others are deeper cuts and they seldom show themselves apart from a detailed conversation about the journey life takes each of us through.

The victim is itself the loss of innocence, though we seldom call it such. It is that idealistic belief that true love never dies, that justice and goodness win the battles against our prejudices, our fears, and apathy. It doesn't seem like these notions of truth and beauty are capable of reduction beneath time's scalpel, but they are as vulnerable as the face and hair color. Our most noble ideas need not whither with time, but the death is slow and for many of us, it is often deliberate and hidden.

The second big idea around the death by a thousand cuts involves the role of the executioner. It is doubtless true that old saying, "You will always be your own worse enemy." The loss of innocence is a garden expulsion, to use biblical references. An expulsion involves a violation of the order of things. As life's rich and often painful experiences attack our psyches they offer to us choices. We can close up, we can open up and more often than not, we do both simultaneously.

As one door begins to shut and one slice penetrates the will, we are forced in turn to open another door. Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, there can be no new tree. So 20 years later, surrounded by my dearest friends, I am offered a light into the places I let close down... the victims I subjected to the death by a thousand cuts. Yet the loss of idealism and innocence is in fact the path to realism. We emerge stronger and better equipped to parent and to protect, to love with eyes wide open, and to stand above the grayish haze of life's finer ideas and evaluate their fitness for our human experiences. The door to truth opens wider-- no longer a naive Maxim which must be followed, instead truth becomes an intricate structure of being, which when lived and applied brings out a richer fruit.

The innocence beneath the executioner's blade then moves from a victim who is succumbing to torture to a patient who is undergoing surgery. I've learned to excise some of the parts of me which didn't function in a real world setting, and after a thousand cuts, I trust that these places have emerged from youth with something much different to offer my own waywardness and gullibility.

The strangest thing about looking back is the sinking feeling that comes from wondering if the surgery was really worth it. I think it probably was... but after an hour long chat with faces I've not seen in 20-years, the ghosts of childhood innocence begin their haunting and each clean cut begins to bleed again. On night's like this, I break out the scales and begin to evaluate which way the changes lean, not just for myself, but for my friends as well-- the ones present, and the ones absent.

I'm certain it is different for each of us. Our conversations and stories can only take us closer to seeing the fullness of our lives with 20/20 vision. I regret not having more time, more talks, and even more ghosts brought out to examine with a shimmering blade.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The Echo, or the Voice?

I've been a bit consumed at night researching my martial art, which is called Sanjuriu. Apparently, it matters to a handful of people out there what style you are taking and whether or not your style can claim a pedigree line that dates back to a particular instructor with a proficient set of credentials.

My research and my questions led to an hour long discussion with my sensei. During this conversation, we talked about what we know, what we don't know, and what's important about either. My instructor ended our conversation with the following question:

"David, what you have to decide is do you want to be the echo, or the voice."

I knew exactly what he meant, and felt no additional need to discuss the matter further. People obsessed with lineage and history are clinging to the echo of the past in order to claim legitimacy in their training. People who master their own circle allow what they have learned and practiced do the speaking for them.

I suppose there is some truth to be found in lineage and history, but great martial artists are not made from paper and diplomas. They are born from hours and hours of practice and demonstrated proficiency in their techniques.

As usual, my mind wandered off with these thoughts into the world of Christianity and my personal faith. As Christians, we have both a lineage and a history. There are those who like to argue and debate such things... self-appointed textual critics who can inform us via scientific analysis whether Jesus lived and if he really said the things contained in the gospels. Such individuals are bright and probably decent people, but they are nevertheless an echo of something gone by.

My mind also wandered to one of my favorite thinkers, Mahatma Gandhi. He once said to Christian friend:

"I do not like your Christians, but I like you Christ. Your Christians are nothing like your Christ."

It occurred to me that here we also see the downside of choosing to be the echo. It's somewhat typical these days to claim authority and legitimacy because of our history. It's easy to quote scripture verses at people and echo a time gone by. But quoting the right verses at the right time is a product of having a voice, not echoing something because we think the power rests "way back there" in a magical time and a far away place.

The same is true when I hear people say, "We've never done it that way before," or "I've been a member of the deacon body for over forty years, I have the right to X, Y, and Z." Again, these are only echoes of the past and claims to legitimacy that hardly matter in today's world.

I am not dogging the past, or saying the past isn't important, but when we choose to stop in the past, without applying and using it in the future, we lose our voice. Jesus preached a famous sermon in which he started several sentences like this:

"You have heard it said .... X .... but I say .... Y ...."

John the Baptist is referred to as "the voice" crying out in the wilderness. He was a voice because he took the echoes of the past and applied them to the present.

Likewise, Paul the Apostle trained a young man by the name of Timothy. He said, "Let no one look down on you because you are young, but instead set an example..." In other words, don't let the echo tell you that you aren't good enough, wise enough, or pure enough to lead. Instead, be a voice. Let your life be your voice in the kind of example you set for other people.

Jesus said it himself, when he stated to his disciples: "You will do greater things than this..." In other words, you and others like you are going to be voices just like me.

The statement by my sensei has me thinking about a lot more than just martial arts. I am doing some soul-searching, trying to figure out exactly whether my personal faith is just an echo from the past, or a voice that speaks to the present. I encourage you to join me in these thoughts.

Until then,

Peace and Love

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Sinestro Corps: Bad Guy Envy

Let me go on record as saying that I loved Sinestro Corps. It was what you expect out of a comic... good storytelling, great art. The issue contained peril for heroes, the assembly of a mighty team of foes, and heroes committing themselves to rise to the occasion. Stellar issue through and through.

I only wish I could see more of this in the DC's regular hero installments. Heroes in the DC Universe have gotten wishy-washy. They have jelly legs; they are continually written as people who are full of self-doubt and even self-loathing. Besides a ridiculous Bart Allen story line, I believe Flash: Fastest Man Alive failed because fans didn't want to have to read about another hero trying to come to grips with his power, doubting himself, fearing his strength, ad nauseam.

A quick glance through the past five years of stories show us something totally different when it comes to the bad guys. The villains of the DC Comics universe are resolute. The villains can pull themselves together. They can work together. Villains choose clear objectives and work toward achieving those objectives. Villains stand against impossible odds and "keep on swinging" while the heroes cry like babies and accuse each other of this or that.

Why can't the heroes get their act together? Why the shift from making comics about hero self-sacrifice to comics about a villain's strength and power? It's not unfamiliar really, on the surface. Movies like Hannibal are built off fan's love for the villain. The humor of a show like The Simpsons is built off making the standard good guys (parents, Christians, etc.) look like boobs.

But comics are a genre all to themselves, or at least they ought to be. Heroes are supposed to be the resolute ones. Heroes are supposed to be the ones that you want to emulate. But not in the DC Comics Universe. Here, we see all to well that Freud's "penis envy" has shifted. Now the most noble portrayals of heroes are overshadowed by the strength and power of the story's villains. Fans are regularly given stories that make them want to be more like the bad guy.

Sinestro Corps will do better than most DCU comic stories, because at the heart of the matter, in the hearts of fans, there is an overwhelming desire to see success and strength. When the regular titles fail to give fans this simple reality that used to be inherent to the genre, we are forced to turn to our villains.


Personally, I find it to be a sad state of affairs, no matter how much I loved Sinestro Corps this month.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Evan Almighty: The Torture of God's Love

I'm not really sure who miffed the critics on this movie to make them hate it so much. I found the film to be pretty boring, but no more so than 90% of the rest of the "stuff" Hollywood shovels. At least this one tackles a few moral themes.

If you ran out to be amused, there are enough scenes to keep you from walking out of theater altogether. Personally, I think I laughed more during the trailers. If you went to see it just to find out how badly Hollywood butchered and riddiculed the Noah story, then you probably got your money worth.

I had no expectations for this film. So, given such low standards, I was impressed in a few places that were somewhat unrelated to the overall plot. And in spite of being a minister who probably should have loved the moral message of the film:

"You can change the world with one small, random act of kindness at a time"

I was instead put off by the cheese of such a statement that reflects an utterly naive world view. I doubt offering to help the Taliban cross the street would keep them from blowing themselves up once they reached the other side. The movie doesn't take into account that there is umambigious evil in the world, that human beings are basically selfish, and that "no good deed goes unpunished." A random act of kindness makes for a great bumper sticker, and certainly a noble goal for each of us, but it is hardly a solution.

Nevertheless, I was impressed to see a movie that hinted at the idea that God still works. Beyond that, I was very impressed to see a movie that supported the notion that God doesn't work the way we want him to.

Evan was stubborn, self-centered, and self-absorbed. You don't just change a person like that from the inside-out. Like peeling back layers of an onion, Morgan Freeman's portrayal of God attacks Evan's appearance, his job, and seemingly his family. This movie demonstrated to me how far God sometimes has to go to get our attention. Granted, none of us are growing eternal beards, nor are we being followed by pairs of animals, but the metaphor remains true.

Ironically, these theological truths are bathed in a twist on the Genesis Flood narrative. It is the torture of God's love that drives so many people away from faith. As Evan discovers, the more attention God gave him in the movie, the worse things seemed to get in his life. At one point, after trying to run away from God, Evan just begs God to go away.

It seems pretty true in our human relationships as well. The closer someone gets to us, the more of us they see, even the messy things. That can make us really uncomfortable. When it comes time to change some of these things, we resist. Unlike God, our families and friends don't have the ability to peel away our layers the way God does.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who is having a very difficult time. I can't imagine the stress and sadness surrounding her. After a few "listening" sessions, she asked me what I thought. I said, "I have no idea, but I'm sorry. What do you think God might be saying?"

The question had never crossed her mind. God's love can feel like torture. He knows where He wants us to go and He knows that nine times out of ten, we won't go there on our own. So he begins to peel back the comfort zone one layer at a time. We either get it or we don't, but most of it boils down to whether or not we are looking.

Admittedly, Evan had the advantage. God performed supernatural activities around Evan's life to get his attention. He started slowly, with alarm clocks stuck on 6:14, but then He just appeared in person. I doubt seriously any of us will ever have that luxury. But even natural events tend to speak to us. Science can tell all day long what something "is" but when it comes to what a thing "means," we need a different set of glasses. Evan found his... and by the end of the movie, the seeming torture made sense. I believe deep down the same is true for each of us.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Apocalypto: God, Humanity, and Combat

Last night, I was up really late watching Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I wanted to avoid this picture in a big way because I knew what Mel was going to make me watch: human sacrifice. I wouldn't put Apocalypto up there with Schindler's List, but occasionally there are movies that I make myself watch, even if only to push me to places I don't want to go.

On the surface, I enjoyed the movie. It was everything a good movie is supposed to be about-- a) really bad guys do really bad things; b) good guys fight back; c) good guys win. But like Schindler's List, the movie leaves you feeling hollow inside. During the gruesome scenes of human sacrifice, my mind wandered to Romans 1:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Maybe I am just naive, but it seems "plain to me" that abducting people from their homes, cutting out their hearts, and chopping off their heads is evil. We live in a culture that wants to make excuses for this kind of behavior, we'd like to rationalize it away as the product of bad upbringing. Even so, it's difficult to imagine how this sort of activity isn't patently evil.

My culture wants to tell me that if I lived in the ancient Mayan empire that I too would advocate for the slaughter of innocent people. My culture wants to tell me that I'd not know that what I was doing was wrong. My culture is misguided.

I understand predisposition. I understand that kids raised in certain environments are conditioned and desensitized to violence. But I also understand the "gut," the root of conscience, the Spirit of God -- you call it whatever you want. I understand mercy, love, and grace. My culture wants to tell me that these things inside me are part of the tapestry of human existence... we are apt to follow delusions, apt to act magnanimously, apt to save life and take it. "It all depends on how you are raised," they say. It's my human situation that makes me weak, and my human situation that makes me strong. Because of this duality, I'm in no position to say what I would or wouldn't do. I'm in no position to pass judgment.

Personally, that sort of jive makes me want to puke. Whether it is a terrorist beheading a Western reporter, or a Mayan chief cutting the heart out of a captive, evil is blatant. I admit there are subtleties. I admit that gray areas can make it difficult at times to know what to do. I admit that morality does have a contextualization component.

But we are without excuse when it comes to outright evil. There are choices to be made when it comes to wielding the knife. When torture enters the picture, it's about the killer, not the victim. If all our ethics are situational, and there is no set law of morality, then someone tell me in what situation is acceptable to torture a child? In all possible worlds, it is not permissible to torture children. I dare anyone to say otherwise. There is an absolute truth, hazy though it may be at times. But we do in fact know it when we see it.

I watched this movie basically thanking God that I was born in a different time and place. You see, I couldn't stand back and watch that sort of thing. I'd change it or die. Which brings me to the topic of combat. I'm a martial artist who has never, and probably will never, use my training. I'd rather take a dozen black eyes than ever use a single technique.

So why did I take this art form upon myself? The answer is really simple. Should this morally ambiguous culture of ours ever get to the point of beheading people for kicks, I'll die fighting it. I watched Apocalypto with great interest as the victims were marched up the steps to their slaughter. None of them fought back. Even the hero of the story, when they marched the remaining captives out to target practice, ran away from the enemy. The hero's hands were freed and he ran. He didn't fight until the final 20 minutes of the movie.

I wanted to take an art form and learn it so well that if I ever found myself in that kind of situation, I could look a man in the eyes and resist him with my very best efforts. I'd rather take my chances with an evildoer's hands around my neck, than his spears in my back.

It's not what Jesus would do. He would allow men to slaughter him on the off chance they'd see how evil they had become. But it seems pretty "plain to me." Evil is to be resisted. Not that morally gray area that the Christian-Right wants to get you fired up about. I'm talking about genuine evil. The kind that grins while it tortures. The kind that enjoys pain. You know it when you see it. The question is probably less about what Jesus did. He was on a specific mission. The question really is, what would God do? And whether Jesus would or not, I believe we should fight evil when it is as utterly blatant and sickening as murder for pleasure.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Green Arrow: Wedding Bells and a Failed Generation

BACKSTORY

My favorite comic book character of all time is Green Arrow, a.k.a. Oliver Queen. He's a DC Comics character. The real irony of my love for this character is that he is a flaming liberal. I tend to lean right in my politics, so it's an odd match between me, as reader, and Ollie, as a character. We share however a common idealism: the belief that a utopian society (while perhaps never possible) is still something worth fighting for.

Oliver Queen's history is rich. Originally written as Batman with a bow (replete with his Arrow Cave and Arrow Car), one fine author took the Emeral Archer in a daring new direction. Denny O'Neil began writing Oliver in tumult of the late sixties and early seventies. I was still in diapers.

At the age of nine, I used to frequent the local flea market for bargain comic book deals. Denny's Green Arrow was a decade old when I read my first issue. I bought it for the cover, which displayed Green Arrow's ward Roy Harper being carried down a dirty alley. Roy had overdosed from heroin.

Denny and a phenomenal artist, Neal Adams, conjured up an incredible story in the mind of this nine year old kid. Lives were ruined and remade-- usually in a matter of three or four issues, (quite unlike the ruined life that is working on a four year pit to climb out of). Oliver was forced to look at what his abandonment did to feed his ward's drug addiction, to honestly evaluate his hard-line environmental stances, to examine his beliefs about a variety of social ills, and then make personal changes at the end of each story arc. Needless to say, I was hooked. At nine year's old, I started gobbling up as many of these back issues as I could find.

Green Arrow was appearing monthly in the Green Lantern title starring Hal Jordan. These two best friends decided to travel America together and gain a deeper appreciation for each other's opposing political views. Oliver was an idealist, and I loved him for it. He was loud and obnoxious-- barking out about the poor, the oppressed, racial discrimination, the lure of big business, over-population, gang violence, drug abuse, and the environment. Hal was his sounding board, and Ollie was Hal's.

It's probably safe to say that in spite of being right leaning as an adult, my early childhood years were bathed in social justice thanks to Denny O'Neil's writing. One thing that libs and conservatives should be able to agree on no matter what is social justice. We might disagree on how to get there, but our target is the same moral place, or at least it ought to be.

Now the hippie, goatee wearing archer has popped the question to his lover of over thirty years of stories. Seems like a good thing, right?

It might have been. It might have been the best comic book ever written, but this won't happen now. You see, for the past four years DC Comics has decided to humanize Oliver Queen a bit more. Like we needed that. I mean, it's funny to me that everytime someone needs "humanizing" they are drug through the muck. Why not humanize a villian and make him/her more kind? Making Oliver more of louse is akin to making the Joker love puppies.

The avalanche began when it was revealed to us first that Ollie walked-out on a newborn son. Later he flagarantly cheated on his lover with a young woman who was killed off an issue later. The next three years gave rise to failure after failure for Mr. Queen. The best this once noble character has been able to offer readers in the face of his failures is a handful smuck one-liners saturated with MTV slang and American Pie flavored humor. I'm sure some people enjoy it, in between X-Box games and watching their Paris Hilton videos.

In three short years, Oliver was so beaten down by crooks, that he needed to be rescued in his own title four times. Besides getting bested by almost every villian he faced, Oliver Queen made a run for Mayor of his hometown and won. That's a good thing, right? Well it would have been if had done anything while in office. Editorial decisions had Ollie forced out of office due to a scandal for funding a rogue superhero group -- while the biggest scandal of all -- Oliver Queen's illegal stock trading still lies in a unwrapped package for some future author to dig up and sully his character with.

During his stay as Mayor, Oliver Queen didn't use one red cent of his own money to support the poor and oppressed in spite of being a billionare. He called in Bruce Wayne and used his money. He didn't advocate for anyone (except homosexuals, and that was because he wanted their revenue dollars). His core values went AWOL and Oliver Queen became "The Man." He joined the system since it was apparent the staff of DC Comics weren't going to let him beat it.

COMMENTARY

So this was about a wedding... his lover has apparently said "Yes" to his proposal, in spite of the cheating, the lying, and the failures. But given the track record of the past four years, who honestly would want this guy? Green Arrow went from being a political activist who quoted Hemmingway, understood Latin, and spoke intelligently about social justice, the Greek Gods, economies, and other significant issues of our day to becoming a loser dad and an unfaithful twit with a big "Duh" stapled on his forehead.

Did the character need to be dumbed down to appeal to new readers? I was nine years old when I began my journey with Oliver Queen. I doubt seriously that making him more "hip" will do anything other than give the mindless generation behind me just one more thing to outgrow. Sadly, I suspect we can add a failed marriage to Oliver's list of woes, because I don't see his fiance lasting long with him either. She outgrew him years ago.

In a sad realization, it came to me the other night, that Oliver Queen really is the child of the tumultous sixties and seventies. You remember that generation that was so bent on changing the world that they neglected their marriages, their children, and dropped the ball in social justice? Yeah, that's them. He epitomizes a group of world-changers that just upped and joined the system when free love got old and their marriages got stale and their parenting responsibilities started cutting into their down time.

Green Arrow has become the voice of the impotent Left; devoid of anything exept a few fancy speeches, he is a rich bastard-making womanizer who wants everyone else to use their money to serve the poor, while still hanging on to his own. He's bent on telling the rest of us how to live while wearing a hypocrite's mask. (Al Gore's house eating up four times more energy than mine comes to mind.) Oliver Queen has become what he once hated, what he fought against, and what a little boy at the flea market prayed he'd never become:

A milk-less teat on full display in a hungry world.

There's something to be said about life imitating art. I just wish we could set the bar a little higher and have something put before that is worth imitating. Is that too much to ask?

All-Stars: In Children and in Comics

Tonight, my son will engage in his first ever "All-Star" baseball tournament. I'm proud of course. He was selected from a pool of 15 boys on his regular season team to represent the city's Boy's Club in an area wide competition. He was selected because, at the age of 5 years, he listens well and generally does what he's asked to do. He's not a phenomenal ball player, he strikes out as much as he hits, and he can barely throw a baseball 20 feet. (Long story there). But he does listen.

I've been gobbling up issues of the "All Star" DC Comics line-up since they started printing them a little over a year ago. I've had two very unique and very different experiences with the titles.

1st up to bat: All-Star Superman.

I'd like to just go on record as witnessing a home-run comic book. Morrison and Quietly have given us truly something to cheer about in the fan section. The stories have been stellar... they've been one-shots that all sort of loosely tie together, so new readers don't feel like they are playing "catch-up." Each story has been unique and very meaningful as Clark deals with dying, his secret identity, and the death of his father. I highly recommend grabbing up back-issues, or the compilation which I think just hit shelves in a prestige hardback form.

2nd hitter to approach the plate: All-Star Batman and Robin

I'd like to go on record as witnessing a train-wreck. As much as I loved Frank Miller's 300 and Sin City, I'm just not caring much for anything he's doing in the DC Comics Universe. I suppose to be fair, he's writing in a universe of his own. As the stories stand, they are first and foremost late-- I mean major league late. If you like waiting a year between your comics, then by all means take up collecting All-Star Batman and Robin. They aren't bad stories they are just hardly worth it and by the time you get your copy, you've forgotten why you were reading in the first place.

My complaint is minor for sure. It's mostly just that I don't dig his take. Miller's Batman is more than just dark, his character is uber-creepy. Batman has all but tortured the young Robin-In-Waiting in the first five installments of this title. From kidnapping him, to slapping him around, to driving at top speeds and scaring the kid to death, I'm just not liking this title at all. Miller's Batman is an ego-manic who doesn't just struggle with the death of his parents, he is illogically consumed by it. It's hard to see anywhere in Miller's work the intelligent Batman, who has been dubbed, "The World's Greatest Detective."

We started this affair with my son's All-Star game this evening.

Will my son step up to the plate and knock one out of the park? I highly doubt it. You see, he wasn't chosen for All-Stars because he is such a great ball player. He was chosen because he listens and follows instructions. As it relates to comics, we have two world class series at play: one that listens to the history of the character and creates; another that has pretty much ignored the history and has taken off writing his own instruction manual. It's obvious which type of All-Star I prefer.

As much as I loved so many different Frank Miller creations, I am ready for him to take his hands of "The Bat."

Thursday, June 21, 2007

A New Blog, A New Day...

I'd like to think these little tidbits of mine will be interesting to someone other than myself. Hmph. Let's call the whole thing what it is from the get-go. It is self-indulgence. A little piece of me that just wants to be heard.

Today I sat drinking Hefeweizen with a guy I'd never met. He is, of all things, a turtle tracker. I'm not lying. He tracks turtles and does whatever turtle-trackers do. His name was John and we quickly delved into what was for me, a beer-induced conversation about life, deism, and the future of humanity.

I write about this here because you don't meet too many people like John. Chit-chat and idle chatter tend to fill up most of my non-work related conversation. Life just seems a bit too short for such things, hence the Blog.

I'm an idealist in my heart and soul. Facts are great and people that ignore them tend to fall off buildings or burn their houses down. But facts without meaning are trite little survival mechanisms missing the very thing that makes survival worth its salt in the first place.

I subtitled this Blog, and my webpage: A Place for Deeper Swimmers.

Let's hope we do more than scratch the surface.

Peace and love,

SB