Page by page, panel by panel annotations of DC Comics' summer events and crossovers
The long-awaited (by some) BATMAN: THREE JOKERS story has been given a new release date of August 25 (hey, that’s my birthday!) and DC has released some new art, including this page:
Artist Jason Fabok is clearly channelling his best Brian Bolland there, but one panel leapt out at me:
If Batman, Robin and Batgirl are wandering around the Gotham Aquarium, just please let one of them mention this, even in passing:
That would make me and Mrs Earth-Prime very happy.
Regular readers know that I occasionally dip into the spam filter on this blog and talk about some of the weird stuff that (usually) bots try to post as comments on the blog.
Every now and then, I take a look at the search history too, trying to get a handle on what brings people to my little corner of the web. This last week or so, the usual things have appeared in the Search Terms list:
Certainly the top four is what I would hope would bring people here – where else are you going to find such a good selection of variant covers of the Death of Supergirl? And I think you’ll be hard pushed to find anyone else who’s taken the time to annotate that most revered of DC crossovers, BLOODLINES.
But there was one a little further down the list that made me chuckle. I know that there are sites out there that cater to this sort of thing – Rule 34, anybody? – but you won’t be finding it here, is all I’m saying.
Nope, move along, nothing to see here.
There’s an article over on Newsarama (with a dreadfully misleading headling) where Ron Marz and Darryl Banks, writer and artist of GREEN LANTERN back in the 90s talk about the run they had together on the title. As a fan of that run, and of Kyle Rayner who was created by them and introduced at the start of it, I was interested to read it and a couple of things caught my eye.
From the interview:
Banks: I was already on the project with another writer then the editors decided to go in a different direction.
Marz: The previous writer had a different storyline in mind for issues #48 through #50, and Darryl actually drew some pages from that issue script.
It’s almost as though they can’t bring themselves to mention Gerard Jones by name, the writer who revitalised the Green Lantern books in the 90s . . . and who was sentenced in 2018 to prison for possession of child pornography. Don’t get me wrong – the guy’s a scumbag and deserves everything he gets, I just don’t see the point in pretending he didn’t exist.
There’s also mention of the “fridging” scene where Kyle’s girlfriend Alex is killed by Major Force and stuffed in the refrigerator. This is the original incident that sparked the “women in refrigerators” movement that rightly brought attention to the way female characters were/are often treated in fiction.
When the incident is brought up, Marz says:
Marz: Right, I knew that Kyle’s irresponsibility with the ring was going to get Alex killed. We wanted her death to be a gut punch for the audience, something unexpected and memorable. And I guess in that respect we succeeded. Certainly, in retrospect the larger context is much more apparent … Then, it was a story I was writing. I was not thinking about the larger context, both in comics and other media. Now, or course, it’s impossible to think of it without the larger context. Which I think is a good thing.
He’s right, it is a good thing that this sort of treatment of female characters should be front and centre when people are putting stories together.
Banks, however, seems to miss the point.
Nrama: What do you think of the term “fridging”?
Banks: That term wouldn’t exist except for a botched attempt at censoring the scene. If the panel was left the way I originally drew it (clearly showing Alex intact) fans may have just moved on.
Here’s the original art (which I hadn’t seen until this interview):
And here’s what was published:
Banks is wrong – “fridging” is not and never has been about how Alex appeared in the fridge, or whether she was intact or not – it’s the fact that she was created and killed with the express purpose of supplying angst and motivation to the main character.
It’s a shame that Banks, unlike Marz, doesn’t get that.
Despite that, it’s a good interview and if you, like me, remember that run with fondness overall, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Crisis on Earth-Prime 