BTW, a search of eromenos gives the information that the relationship was not always a homosexual relationship between the man and young boy, but might involve the man instructing the boy by taking him along to the right orgys or sharing courtesans. So in the comic, Herc is getting pretty close to the definition of eromenos by worrying about the boy still being a virgin.

Of course people raised in different cultures, alien or ancient, would have different values on touchy subjects like sex. Being able to bring this element into the story in a humerous way instead of being preachy shows the great writing. You can’t praise the book but then complain that it’s different.

I recently learned that she’s from the 1940s (which, yes, I should have known, but I hope you’ll forgive me) and in the comic in which I learned this, Ron Marz (of all people) does a nice job with the faint culture shock she feels.

I remember once before you said you considered him a hack – or you called him one but then said you didn’t think he was – but Ron Marz is a pretty solid writer, and little character bits like that are the sort of thing he does well, so I find it odd that you give him an ‘of all people’.
He might not be a ground-breaking big ideas writer, but he is the sort of writer who knows their continuity and uses it to their advantage, unlike someone like Millar or Bendis, who often show they don’t know much about the characters they are writing.
If you go and take a look at his part of the Justice Society Returns mini-series/event from ’99, you’ll see what I mean.
(That was the series of one shots of titles the JSA characters used to appear in, headed up by James Robinson and David Goyer).

If Cornell did that, I probably forgot. As noted above, I’m old and slipping gently into senility.

I started buying the singles of Scalped for that reason exactly. I don’t know if it will help, or if the trade sales are good enough that Vertigo/DC will just let them do what they want, confident that they’ll pick up the slack in trades.

No problem on True Believers. It’s a fun book.

In other news: Air is a weird comic, but the second issue was an improvement, I thought.

I thought that Cornell established Spitfire’s vampiric “secret” in a previous issue of CD&MI13? Like in a conversation or monologue during her fight in issue 1?

I buy Scalped in trade…do I need to be supporting the singles in order to make sure Aaron & Guera can finish it the way they intend to?

Ghost Rider, Herc, ASS and Moon Knight are all awesome, but very different. Viva la comics!

Thanks for the recommendation on True Believers. I’m all caught up and enjoying it immensely.

The reason it’s called Flanderization when Homer and for that matter every other character on the damn show exhibits it, is because Ned Flanders’ dominant trait– his devout Christianity– was never meant to be anything more than a background detail. Originally Ned was just the perfect neighbor that Homer felt constantly jealous of, and being a committed Christian did little more than help cement that point. Over the course of the series, it became all Ned was known for, and today he’s just a caricature of the Religious Right.

At least Homer was always an idiotic blowhard, even if he wasn’t so egregious until later episodes.

I now actively avoid comics that Axel Alonso edits.

The problem, in practice, is that I have a hard time believing that’s what Frubaker was going for. When a character has as little screen time as Dazzler did, you have to assume their speech is representative of how they actually talk. To bring someone in for one scene and intentionally have them act out of character would be odd. It seems like comic book characters are particularly vulnerable to what the TV Tropes Wiki Web site calls “Flanderization” (when a single character trait becomes exaggerated over time until it dominates a character’s personality). Characters are passed from writer to writer, many of whom have no previous experience with the character, and they latch on to one quirk (like Dazzler being a pop singer, or Nightcrawler being religious, or Longshot being naive for that matter) and use it to define the character.

What bothered me a lot more than Ali’s dialogue, though, was the idea that she wants Pixie to spray mind-affecting dust over her audience. That seems a tad irresponsible, like dosing all the food at a venue with ecstasy, to “make everything just that much more crazy.” Granted, I can’t remember ever seeing Pixie actually USE her oft-mentioned “Pixie dust” powers, so maybe they just make people happy (and I’m sure the X-Men have tested them extensively to make sure they don’t have the same possible side effects as the ecstasy idea) but even if they’re sure it’s safe, is having a mutant indiscriminately use her powers on large groups the best way to convince normal humans that they have no reason to be afraid of mutants?

It’s not that Dazzler couldn’t be an idiot, it’s that most writers have written her as having chosen singing over law school, and she could have been a lawyer if not for her desire to sing. So there’s that. But in general, Alison hasn’t been written like Britney Spears, so I’m a bit annoyed that she acts like a vacuous pop star here.

Alison isn’t 15, last time I checked, and her dad was a lawyer, so she’s not an idiot. That line made me sad.

Uh, most actual lawyers themselves tend to be idiots, why is it far-fetched that the daughter of one would not be too bright?

No, the real Skrull is Land. I’m half-convinced that he was sent here by the Skrull empire to dismantle the comic industry by dramatically lowering its standards in terms of art.

I’m not defending Dazzler’s quoted dialogue, but are you suggesting that it’s not possible to be the child of a lawyer and an idiot? That sentence made me sad.

Mike: I agree with that summation completely. The way a comic book connects with you emotionally is a HUGE part of why you love something. Much of Morrison’s work, for me, hinges on whether he can connect emotionally with the audience, because in his best work, he does, and in his lesser stuff, he doesn’t (at least according to me). He does it better in All Star Superman than in some of his other comics (like The Filth, to use my example from the review), which is why I like it, but I don’t think he does it as successfully as he does in other of his comics, which is why I don’t think this is as fantastic as many think. But I definitely agree with you that the people who do love it identify with it on a deeper emotional level than I do.