Toddler Reboot: Fireman Sam

So I may have mentioned that I'm a dad. My son is only 2.5 years old, so he's still way to young for comics. I tried (when Mom wasn't looking) to get him started on Marvel's Super Hero Squad, but he didn't take too kindly to Fing Fang Foom or the Hulk. Maybe when he's a bit older. At the very least, he now calls the Jolly Green Giant the Hulk, so the foot is in the door.

He loves cartoons, though, and one cartoon in particular: Fireman Sam. It's set in the Welsh village of Pontypandy and everyone there is suicidal. This probably explains why there are only like eight people in the entire place (despite seeing row after row of houses) - the rest of the population succeeded in offing themselves and those that remain are just too dim to get the job done.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. Norman Price, the red headed son of the owner of the local market, endangers his life and others on a routine basis. He's always getting stuck on top of things (cliffs, towers), in things (fences, burning rooms), on things (doorknobs in said rooms), or at the bottom of things (wells). There's the town handyman, Mike Flood who is pretty clumsy and falls down pits or ends up dangling from roofs with a frequency that's even more disturbing when you consider his love of fireworks and rocketry. There's also a fisherman who gets stranded at sea, a sidekick firefighter who explodes ovens, a bus driver who really needs to pay better attention to the maintenance of his bus, and a handful of kids who just love to hide in underwater caves, under crates, or in burning buildings. Fireman Sam is called upon to rescue them all.

So what I'm saying is, it's a grim place. You think the writers of the show would have run out of emergencies by now, but Sam is actually in its second iteration. The original show was all claymation animated (and was originally all in Welsh) and the new version (the one my son loves) is computer animated.

Which leads me to my reboot, or at very least, my attempt to explain what the hell is going on.

Fireman Sam is dead. He is in Purgatory. The limited cast of characters that populate his limbo are the souls of those he could not rescue. Sam died in the transition between stopmotion animated and computer animation. This explains why the stereotypical Italian restaurant owner is now longer around - as a good Catholic, she ascended to Heaven.

Sam does not realize he is dead. He just goes through the same motions day after day. He will be free when he admits his failures, his sins, and his own death. There is an angel present - Charlie the Fisherman (get it!?). In the show, he's Sam's brother, a brother that was never mentioned in the show's initial run. That he is family in the Purgatory version is important as one of Sam's greatest sins is his refusal to acknowledge his own son, the only other ginger in town, Norman Price.

Norman has no stated dad and his mom, Dilys, has shown herself to be rather forward in her conquest of new lovers (Trevor the Bus Driver). So I imagine on some lonely night, perhaps while Sam was new in town, he and Dilys got it on. Dilys was blackmailing Sam - why else would she insist on calling him over every little thing? All those random visits were not just to "check the smoke detector," there was money exchanged. So when The Great Fire came, Sam took his chance and let Dilys burn. Unfortunately, he let the rest of the town burn as well.

So until he admits what he did, he's trapped, doomed to endlessly rescue the same crew of suicidal shades (they yearn to be free as well) from the hell of his own creation.

I sympathize with Fireman Sam, because until my toddler finds a new obsession, I'm damned as well - doomed to endlessly watch Fireman Sam endlessly rescue the same crew of suicidals.

What If Superman Were Gay?

Like most people who lurk on the fringes of the comics world, I've been following the whole Orson Scott Card Writes Superman debacle for a few weeks now. I'm not sure if anything else needs to be said about it beyond the broad strokes - famous author who actively campaigns to withhold the rights of others gets opportunity to write beloved character, fans of beloved character who (like the character himself) want equal rights for all get mad and promise to withhold support. DC is tone deaf on the issue which causes more consternation leading to the original artist who was paired with controversial author to bow out, delaying the whole comic.

Outside of wanting two people who love each other to be able to legally bind their lives together and not have to worry about being denied visiting their loved ones in a hospital, I don't have much of a horse in this race. I mean, the last time Card wrote comic story featuring a pre-existing character, he turned Iron Man into a big blue brain slug that was just shaped like a person.

Yeah, pass.

But it did get me thinking about what would happen if Superman was gay? This line of thought distracted me for all of ten seconds on the train ride in this morning because, well, it wouldn't change much. Would Superman still rescue people? Yes. Would he still fight intergalactic badguys? Sure. He'd be pretty much the same hero he always was, only instead of smooching Lois, he'd smooch Jimmy.

Hell (H'eL?), you wouldn't even need to change much of his backstory. I mean, he's a person with a secret who grew up in a conservative farm town in Kansas. In Superman's case, that secret is that he's an alien. For a lot of people, that secret is that they are gay, bi, or transgender and feel that they are unable to admit it due to societal pressures. Compared to being an alien, being gay is so far down the list of Things Clark Needs to Worry About (below 'Pa Needs To Watch His Cholesterol,' above 'Warranty on the Tractor is Running Out in Two Years') that he'd probably be out by his senior year just to get Lana off his back.

Would we see a change in Superman's behavior? Maybe. It'd be hard for him to be more of a champion for equality, but then again he is an immigrant and I don't recall him speaking up on those issues as well. He might have been distracted by all the alien-punching, plane catching, and Luthor-thwarting he does.

Because Superman's sexuality is rarely at the forefront, it really doesn't matter where on the Kinsey scale he falls. It's just not important to the character or the stories he appears in. He'd still appear to be the same hero he is now.

I wonder, though, if the same could be said about changing Superman's ethnic appearance or gender? In those cases, you'd have a hero who would physically appear different than what we have now. We'd still have the Kents' upbringing guiding the hero's behavior, giving him/her a sense of right and wrong. The character would do the same things - fight Mogul, throw missiles into the sun, jump tall buildings - and would probably be treated much the same in the world of the comic. Given that the majority of people are okay with a big green guy from Mars flying around, I'm pretty sure they could take a darker skinned Superman. They have no problem with Wonder Woman, so I'm sure Superwoman would get a pass too. In the setting, Superman is Superman is Superwoman is Superman.

No, the big change would come from how the creators and the readers would treat this Alternate Superman. Think about how Wonder Woman is drawn. Think about all the lazy stereotypes applied to minorities in comics. Could the current comics industry pull off a Superman who isn't a white dude?

Yearly Check In

I should really keep up on this blog. I'm reading comics again (but nothing from the New 52) and even will be going to Comic-Con this summer.

My consumption of comics has changed over the year - mostly iPad based ComiXology binges. I still make sure to buy Adventure Time single issues from the Favorite Local, but have started to falter on picking up trades, mainly because I can't remember where I am in a given series.

I listen to a few comic podcasts as well - House to Astonish and Wait, What? mainly. I tried some others, but they didn't stick. I'm not sure why - W,W? is essentially two hours of rambling, but it's two hours I like for some reason. Looking over my podcast pull-list, I see a trend for favoring podcasts featuring "friends with accents who are enthusiastic about a topic" so I guess my fondness rests solely on Graeme McMillan's cheery shoulders.

Anyways, I was pondering doing a Living Marvel Universe type thing where I move through Marvel history and actually have characters age and die and so on, but I realized I'd be stuck when I finished the Bronze Age. Are there any new Marvel characters after, say, 1995? If so, would they be compelling without the Old Classics still kicking around?

My Little PLony

Yeah, yeah, long time, no post. Between the academic semester resuming and my preference for trades over single issues, I've not had much to say about comics.

So instead, here's a digression involving English Premier League Teams and My Little Pony!

Adventure Time!

It's Lovecraft Time!

Well, I figure if they can do it with Fionna and Cake, why not Phin and Zeke? Phin is short of Phineas, of course, and Zeke is Ezekiel, two wholesome Lovecraftian names. Phin and Zeke live in the Eldritch Kingdom where they help out Princess Niggurath by protecting her against the constant incursions by the Nice King, a stuck up fellow with a strange obsession regarding reforming princesses. Occasionally, they hang out with Marzilkael the Wayward Angel (don't let her halo fool you - she's just as wicked as the rest of the bunch) or just wander the Land of Ia searching for that which man was not meant to know.

Tarot Tuesday: The Empress and Emperor

Whoops. I had a nagging suspicion yesterday that I had forgotten something but I just couldn't figure it out.

We're up to the Empress now, who of course is Wonder Woman. Who else could be described as a "daughter of heaven and earth," especially now in the Nu52 where it's been revealed that she's actually Zeus's daughter. I'm not a big fan of that turn of events, by the way, as it takes away one of my favorite aspects of Wonder Woman (that she's essentially a golem) and replaces it with what is pretty much Hercules' backstory. This means we can look forward to a slew of godly daddy issues that were already covered in recent memory by Marvel's Hercules titles. Given that Herc once punched someone into a Hell taken straight from the third panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights to the sound effect 'BOSCH!' I'm not sure Wondy can top that.

Still, in my preferred version, being a clay statue that has had life breathed into it by the gods still satisfies the "daughter of heaven and earth" description. Her outfit even matches - we're talking diadems and stars here, stuff that Wonder Woman has in spades. Despite being the most magical of the Big Three, Wonder Woman traditionally doesn't seem to deal with much magic. Sure, there was Circe, but her magic was pretty much straight out of the "zap you're a pig now" tradition. No real mysteries or mystical understandings, just good old fashioned punching and light bondage.

The Empress is a mother figure, which Wonder Woman, being the First Among Female Superheroes is as well. In post-Silver Age times, Wonder Woman has been an inspirational figure, laying the groundwork for more female superheroes in comics, while her TV version is considered a gay icon. Both the Empress and Wonder Woman are passionate figures, much more prone to action than introspection.


In order to make up for yesterday's slackerdom, let's toss in a bonus card - The Emperor. My iPad woes cost this series its pictorial back-up after all, so why not let loose on the throttle?

The Emperor, the King of the World, is Aquaman.

Aquaman, as ruler of the oceans that cover the majority of the planet, is pretty much the defacto ruler of the world. That he doesn't meddle with surface governments is akin to the USA not meddling with Canada too much. Yeah, we all know you're up there, just keep it down, will ya? Don't make me come up there, Atlantis' Hat. In addition to the sheer size of the oceans, remember also their vital role in the ecology of the Earth. Without the green algae that produce most of our oxygen, we'd be kinda fucked.

The Emperor represents stability. And though we've seen a few different versions of Aquaman over the years, from harpoon-handed-grizzled-warrior to swashbuckling bravo (The Brave and the Bold's version is by far my favorite), there has always been a certain stability to the character:

He's the butt of a lot of jokes.

Aquaman, though he doesn't, will forever suck. Too many standup comedians, animators, and cartoonists have seen to that. Even his recent reboot wasted a lot of time trying to make him look good, which is sort of pathetic in a "yeah, I have a girlfriend. She lives in Canada - you haven't met her" way. Even the Brave and the Bold Aquaman is a comic relief character to a certain extent.

Just as the Empress and Emperor are linked thematically, so are Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Beyond being stuck together in the invisible jet more often than not in Superfriends, both are important members of royal families based in semi-historical (Greek) inspired fantasy monarchies. Even the shambling travesty that was Flashpoint recognized that there was a connection between the two when it promptly set the Atlanteans and Amazons at war. Were I to plan out a Kingdom Come style What-If future of the DC Universe, I'd probably have Diana and Arthur get together long before Diana and Clark. As the other Big Name heroes fade away or leave the planet, it's up to Wonder Woman and Aquaman to take stewardship of the world, to help protect the entire planet even as humanity heads to the stars. Wonder Woman can speak with the animals, Aquaman talks to the fish - who better to watch out for the rest of the Earth that we leave behind?

Tarot Tuesday: The High Priestess

Bit of a disaster this weekend. I foolishly decided to upgrade my iPad firmware to iOS5. My SketchBookPro files seemed to make it through the upgrade, but after the first sync the entire app went away. Foom, three weeks of future sketches and five months worth of past doodlings wiped out.

Still, we forge ahead. Perhaps we're tempting the gods and fates by playing with the building blocks of the future? Who knows. All I know is I need a weekly reason to post to keep this blog active.

Anyways, the High Priestess is representative of learning, wisdom, virtue, knowledge, and intuition. There are some signifiers for a lack of patience in there too when reversed.

She is, of course, Lois Lane.

So why Lois? Why not one of DC's other female characters? Well, to me, Lois has always been a questing character. She's out there trying to get the scoop, to uncover what was covered, to reveal what was done in darkness. Unlike the Magician, her discoveries are more external than internal. I don't think Lois is a very introspective character, but she does have that whole quest for understanding thing going on at a very intuitive level. What the Magician works to understand, the Priestess just sort of does. How many times has Lois sort of stumbled her way into peril?

And then there's this quote: She represents also the Second Marriage of the Prince who is no longer of this world; she is the spiritual Bride and Mother, the daughter of the stars and the Higher Garden of Eden. She is, in fine, the Queen of the borrowed light, but this is the light of all. The Second Marriage here is, of course, the Earth-2 and preBoot marriages to Superman/Clark Kent. Lois's borrowed light is that of Superman - her relationship with the Kryptonian gives her so much more cache in the DC universe than you'd expect from someone who doesn't wear tights.

Also, I think it's important that the 'understanding' cards like the Magician, High Priestess, and later the Hierophant be human characters bereft of powers of their own. That alone rules out other candidates like Wonder Woman or Zatanna who were born/made with their powers. You have the Magician who is a sort of self-made seeker for understanding, the High Priestess who is the understanding savant, and then the Hierophant who is more the dogmatic seeker who understands via synthesis (betcha you can guess who that'll be now, huh?), which sort of sets up a nice triad that I had doodled out but lost.

We're also keeping to the date of creation here, but I suspect that'll go by the wayside before long. Lois predates Diana by several years and Zatanna by decades.