Stupid Beliefs- Crystal Powers, Part 2

Stupid Things That Stupid People Believe

Crystal Healing

Crystal healers: idiots too dumb to understand modern medicine and falling back on mysticism, or scam artists co-opting ancient Eastern philosophy to sell sparkly things to said idiots? You decide, in part 2.

Random Reviews- Supreme #65+66

Random Reviews

Supreme #65+66

See, as Supreme descends further into bloody violence, depressing bleakness and incomprehensible continuity messes. Witness as I give Erik Larsen far too much credit. Experience an intricate, carefully constructed mythos being discarded in favour of pointless carnage.

Introduction

You should know almost everything yo need to know about the actual comic by now, but I should probably talk about Rob and Erik themselves. Specifically, their relationship and the relationships between their respective creations. I think they're friends, quite good friends actually.

I've mentioned how Image in the early days was a loose alliance of creator owned studios. Despite Rob's position as CEO, none of the founding partners/studio heads were allowed any creative or administrative control over each other or their creations. Why yes, this was a charter drawn up by a bunch of artists with no managerial experience, why do you ask? This also meant that, since the studio heads and not Image itself owned the various characters, characters would only share universes for as long as their respective owners decided to allow it.

I mention this because two of Erik's creations, Super Patriot and Mighty Man (kinda Captain America and oh-so-blatantly DC's Captain Marvel), are actually old friends of Alan Moore's Supreme, even fighting alongside him in World War 2 and in a couple of superhero teams over the decades (well, not exactly with Mighty Man but that's a long story). Anyway, they appeared in four issues of the comic, but what's weird is that all these comics were published after May 1996, when the Image partners (including Erik), voted to fire him. Since they were able to bury the hatchet pretty quickly after a pretty serious falling out, I guess Erik and Rob are pretty close, which is how Erik got the job in the first place.

So, we know that these characters are important to Alan Moore's Supreme, but I don't know if they have any significance to Liefeld's Supreme. Since Rob and Erik are clearly buddies, I can surmise that they may have played a part in his backstory, but I really don't know. In fact, I don't know anything about Liefeld Supreme. At all. Wikipedia gives a brief overview of his biography, but nothing about the character himself. I don't know anything about him, and I suspect I'm not alone. 

I know Rob has his fans. I don't doubt some people have read his original run. I'm sure some people went back to read his stories. However, I'm sure that most of Supreme's relatively small fanbase, like me, only really read Alan's run and ignored Rob's, and like I said, Rob's run isn't exactly easy to get hold of.

The fact that Rob and Erik seem to be so close may explain why Erik is giving so much prominence to Liefeld Supreme, but I don't know how I'm supposed to react here. Is Erik celebrating Liefeld Supreme or condemning him? Is he building him up only to knock him down? In short- am I meant to take this at face value or not? Is this Erik trying to make his friend look good at Alan Moore's expense, or is it a clever commentary on recent and former trends in comic books?

Also, what year is this supposed to be taking place in?

Plot

Recap

As Supreme, aka The Ivory Icon lay in post-coital slumber, Darius Dax and his army of alternate duplicates destroyed the Supremacy, crashed the Citadel in a densely populated area, and slaughtered almost the entire supporting cast with insulting ease, racking up a death toll in the hundreds, possibly thousands. The surviving Supremes released a living WMD with entitlement issues, a lust for violence that would put most Batman villains to shame and delusions of heroism. This resulted in one of the bloodiest curb-stomp battles I've ever seen, and the surviving Supremes were stripped of their powers so Liefeld Supreme could be special and wouldn't have to share. He then left to rampage unopposed, which he'll be doing for the next four issues of this idiocy.

Issue 65

Liefeld Supreme flies off, leaving the other surviving Supremes standing around in shock. Just to recap, they are (clockwise from left): Fifties Supreme, Sistah Supreme, Golden Age Supreme, Squeak the Supremouse and Moore Supreme. 

For narrative purposes, I'm going to call Moore Supreme "Ethan" from this point on, and as for Liefeld Supreme, I don't want to call him "Supreme" even if he did come first, but I read a note on TvTropes comparing him to Superboy Prime, so I'm going to run with that. As of now, his name is "Suprime".

Anyway, Squeak completely loses it and starts screaming that they're all doomed, and Fifties Supreme starts freaking out that he's still a lion (he has an addiction to the effects of Violet Supremium that's this universe's equivalent of Red Kryptonite, and often exposes himself deliberately- hence the lion head; I usually wouldn't mention it, but it's important later). The army surround the ruins of the Citadel and calls Supreme out personally- why? Well, as the stock anti-superhero general explains, the collapsing Citadel has killed hundreds of people and, "From where I'm standing- You're responsible!"

Where are you standing by the way, Stupidtown? Here's a couple of pictures of the Dax army attacking the Citadel from issue 64.

Notice how many of them there are? How much chaos and destruction they're causing? Notice how one of them is a fucking giant!? How could anybody for a hundred miles with functioning eyes fail to realise what happened? This is idiotic, and that's ignoring the fact that it's now daytime, despite the fact that the last issue took place in the dead of night. So, not only are the army so dumb that they can't tell who's attacking what, but they took anything between four to twelve hours to mobilise to the site of a hostile attack on American soil, while the experienced superheroes stood around staring at nothing. Then again it might simply be a continuity error, but given that every single member of the production team is the same between issues, that'd make them incredibly incompetent.

Anyway, Suprime flies through space whining about how Ethan stole his destiny, and everything was better when he was Supreme, and I'm totally seeing the Superboy Prime thing. He also completely removes any hope of me taking him seriously by calling Obama a Muslim- handy hint; if you want your hero, or villain or whatever this loser is supposed to be, to have even a shred of dignity or presence, don't make him a Birther because people will laugh at him- those freaks have lost court cases to empty rooms. 

Also, why is Obama President now? Rob and Alan's runs on the book took place in the nineties, there were several jokes and references to the fact that it was the nineties, Clinton was President. If Obama is President, then this takes place at some point after 2009, I suspect it takes place in 2012, when this mess was published- you cannot bring a comic back after a twelve year hiatus and pick up the story exactly where it left off but bring it up to modern times, or am I supposed to believe it took Ethan and Diana twelve years to get to the second date? 

In a startling display of common sense Suprime decides to separate Ethan from the fortress, in case he finds a weapon that can harm him. So he flies back to Earth, lifts up the Citadel and lifts it up to the Moon. The remaining Supremes bail out and the General quickly puts two and two together and realises that they've all lost their powers, so he takes them in for questioning. Character's intelligence and competence levels fluctuate wildly in this comic. If I were feeling charitable I would say that this is a plot, rather than character-driven work. Since I'm not feeling charitable, I call lazy writing. As the Supremes are driven away, Suprema flies down carrying Diana and lifts the armored car into the air, dropping them in the middle of a forest somewhere.

From this point on, like issue 63, this issue has a two-storyline structure, which basically sets the tone for the remaining four issues of this trainwreck- Ethan is a whiny bitch, Suprime beats people almost to death and nothing is accomplished.

Staying with Team Ethan- Suprema tries to spring Ethan but he insists that he be taken in for questioning so he can explain everything. All of this is quickly revealed to be pointless however as Diana runs out of the bushes screaming his real name at the top of her lungs. Great superhero girlfriending there. Team Ethan receive new clothes from the military and they're all pretty ready to give up and let Suprime do his thing, totally demoralised by the loss of their powers. Given how many times Superman loses his powers in any given year, I find it difficult to believe this is the first time these guys have been powerless over the course of their lives, but whatever.

New lease on... You're a fucking lion!
Plus, you all seem to have gotten over the horrible deaths of your friends and loved ones pretty quickly

Suprime smashes his way in to an unnamed army base, screaming that "Nobody can stop me- Not every again!", like a stroppy teenager acting out after being grounded. He breaks into the... place where Superpatriot is, there's almost no backgrounds except for one panel, which just shows bare concrete walls- is this where Superpatriot sleeps? You think they'd treat him better. The actual fight itself is almost pointless except for the questions it raises. Suprime just brutalises the poor guy, tearing off his cybernetics and punching his face to a bloody mess, all the while ranting about how he was "abandoned" by his "friends". Because that's what friends do right- assault each other? Also, like I said before I'm completely flying blind on this character- what are his motivations? What's his relationship to Superpatriot? What purpose does this serve? This sequence tells me nothing about the character that I didn't already know- that he's a violent, entitled asshole. This is the unpopular, seldom-read version of the character, and it has been at least sixteen years since he last had a published story. I know the comic industry works on the assumption that every single reader has an encyclopedic knowledge of comics covering decades, but a little exposition or background would be nice please.

At first Superpatriot quite naturally asks Suprime if he's crazy, but then things take an odd turn. Just before he passes out, he claims that "We thought you had changed..." during his time in space, which makes absolutely no sense. This guy knows Ethan, the Alan Moore Supreme, as far as he knows his friend has just gone nuts, but this seems to imply that he is somehow aware on some level of the revision, that Ethan was once Suprime, changed over his time in space. The next issue will attempt to explain this by claiming that Suprime's presence is warping the universe back to a "grim and gritty" state, but that still doesn't explain what's going on here- Ethan has a backstory eleven issues in the making, Superpatriot is an important part of his past, and not once in any of the flashbacks did he act anything like Suprime, he's always been pure and heroic and decent. If Suprime's presence is altering the universe retroactively by replacing Ethan's backstory with his own, the shouldn't Ethan's recent history (indeed Ethan himself) be removed as well?

Gah, how can something so dumb be so complicated?

And, at the end of all of that, what does Suprime do? He just flies away, leaving Superpatriot comatose in a pool of his own blood, leaving the audience confused and with five pages worth of their time wasted.

Back with Team Ethan, a random citizen runs up shouting about how Suprime has attacked a military base and the Superpatriot. Given that this probably happened a maximum of an hour ago, how the hell does this guy know? You'd think the military would keep quiet that the World's Greatest Hero had beaten a supersoldier into a coma but whatever. Also, the people of Omegaopolis must be really used to weird shit happening, since he displays no reaction at all to the lion in a suit or the talking mouse wearing slacks. Ethan starts crying like a little girl about how he's powerless to stop Suprime. Then again, that statement is probably unfair, since the actual teenage girl- Suprema, decides to take on the near-omnipotent psycho single handed (spoiler alert: that doesn't work). I've got to admire her courage, but, as Squeak says "She could use some brains"- it's not like she's the only superhero left in the entire universe, she can ask others for help. I don't care how powerful this guy is, eventually sheer weight of numbers will bring him down.

Hey, would you like to know what the plots of the last three issues of Supreme: The Return were?

• Supreme: The Return, Issue 4- Radar fathers thousands of flying super-puppies which adorably run amok through the city, and eventually head off to colonise their own planet
• Supreme: The Return, Issue 5- pretentious comic book writer/Jimmy Olsen equivalent Billy Friday returns from the crazy house and merges with time-travelling supervillain, The Supremium Man, before heading back to confront Supreme as a teenager and kill him, leading to their first encounter back in the thirties, forming a closed time loop
• Supreme: The Return, Issue 6- Jack Kirby tribute/affectionate parody

You see what I'm getting at here? This is such an abrupt tonal shift it might as well be a different comic. I'm not saying that Alan Moore's Supreme was all light and fluffy rainbows and lollipops- there were serious moments, there were high stakes, Supreme had to make hard choices- he helped kill a lifelong friend for the sake of the world, but it was balanced with the fun, the goofy and the occasionally silly. I know that when a new writer takes over a book they like to place their own stamp on things and take the story in another direction, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, and quite frankly there are more graceful ways to do it.

Epilogue: Darius Duck is still alive.

Issue 66

Issue 66 begins with Ethan and Diana echoing the audience.

It turns out that, as I already explained, Suprime's presence has altered reality; meaning the comic book publisher they used to work for is now a coffee shop, Omegaopolis is a generic crumbling old city, and the apartment building Ethan used to live in is a vacant lot. Again, if reality has been altered to such an extent, why are Ethan, Diana, Suprema and the rest of them even still there? This is Larsen selectively enforcing the rules that Alan Moore laid out- he uses revisions to change the world to suit him, but ignores how revisions work- they're supposed to be quick and definite as opposed to the apparently gradual process that Suprime is causing, and they remove all traces of other Supremes- none of Alan Moore's characters should still be around, let them die with dignity already.

Ethan and Diana head up to Diana's apartment, only to find that in this world, Diana has a boyfriend named Ken and, as memories of their life flood back ti her, she callously tosses Ethan out. Again, this is not how revisions work, Diana shouldn't even be there, she should have been completely replaced by a different Diana, not have her memory altered as the universes changes around her, you cannot have it both ways Erik. 

Okay, to be fair, when I originally read this issue, I though I had been to harsh on Erik, and that this was all a clever commentary on the DC universe post-2011 reboot. I haven't actually read any of the Superman books, but from what I heard, it's a lot darker, Superman is acting outside the law, and he's not married to Lois anymore- instead he's bonking Wonder Woman, and Lois is sleeping with some loser whose name I can't be bothered to learn. I was wrong. This is just stupid

Anyway, Ethan head to the same comic book store Dax visited in #63, and my God that feels like a lifetime ago. The comic is much the same, only all traces of Ethan, Diana and the company they work for have disappeared. Also, the kids who were reading Ethan and Diana's issue of Omni-man are now reading an issue of Savage Dragon with huge smiles of joy- nice humility Erik. The store clerk does not recognise any of the names Ethan gives him until he mentions Omni-man. As such, the clerk digs out an issue of Invincible, the title character being the son of a different and unrelated character named Omni-man. He also mentions Image comics as being a real company in this universe, which makes the ending of this issue a mindfuck of truly epic proportions.

Meanwhile, Suprime encounters a group of reptile men robbing an armored van full of money, and promptly mutilates one and kills the other two, telling the survivor to spread the word that this is how he plans to deal with criminals from this point on. I really don't know how I'm supposed to respond to this guy, am I supposed to find him laudable or reprehensible- the fact that Liefeld Supreme was able to effortlessly walk through the Dax army, which had previously murdered almost every other Supreme (including the King of the Supremacy), as well as Team Ethan's total ineptitude seems to suggest that I'm supposed to find him cool, or at the very least, view him as superior to all other incarnations of Supreme and, by extension, the superiority of Rob Liefeld over Alan Moore. But at the same time he's such a colossal prick that it can't be unintentional. 

Suprime then goes to stand on a mountaintop and brood, stating how he plans to act as Judge, Jury and Executioner. Again, is this guy meant to be a hero or not, I'm familiar with the Designated Hero trope, but surely you can't show someone so vicious and psychotic and expect him to be liked. Suprema arives to try to reason with him, but when  he (naturally) refuses to listen. Therefore, we get the only three decent pages in this miasma of failure- Suprema smacks the guy around and knocks him into a mountain, declaring that if Ethan can't stop Suprime, then she will. Awesome.

But no, Erik Larsen can't allow characters to develop or show any kind of greater ability to his friends' precious Gary Stu, as Suprime bursts open the mountain and viciously beats the teenaged girl whilst screaming about how criminals will be punished, no room for mercy, how their way only leads to more evil, blah blah blah.

Anyway, as Supreme stands over her broken body and readies the killing blow, someone catches his wrist- it's Invincible's Omni-man, the guy confirmed as being a fictional character in-universe Six Pages Ago! I know I keep saying this, but what the holy flying fuck is happening in this idiocy!

You've been in an extra-dimensional prison for sixteen years.
How do you even know who he is?

Conclusion

This series not only gets worse by every issue, it also somehow manages to get both stupider and more confusing. Every panel just piles on new layers of idiocy, I feel personally insulted by this. If they wanted to write a conclusion to Supreme set in 2012, including the Rob Liefeld stuff, there are better ways of doing it.

Hell, I've got an idea right now- "Whatever Happened To The Ivory Icon". Have Diana Dane tell in a flashback the story of how Suprime escaped from the Supremacy and went on a rampage through the Rogue's Gallery. Ethan tries to take him on but gets his ass kicked, so he is forced to team up with Dax, and attack him using Supremium lasers. Dax is killed in the conflict and Ethan is forced to kill Suprime to save the lives of a prison full of convicts. Wracked with anguish over taking another life, Ethan exposes himself to Silver Supremium. We cut back to Diana and it turns out she's been speaking to the other Diana Dane's in the Supremacy; Ethan has been revised out and a new Supreme has taken his place. That might even lead to another run on the book with a new Supreme. Yes it's a total ripoff of Alan Moores' earlier work but it puts his run to bed while still honouring it, it strengthens the Superman parallels that Alan built his entire work around, and most importantly of all, put's Rob Liefeld's work in it's proper place- namely the grave.

Regardless of whether or not we're supposed to like Suprime, on the face of it, this entire run is a celebration of everything Image comics has spent twenty years digging itself out of- mindless violence with no rhyme or reason dealt out by self righteous jerks in the name of being "edgy". Who the hell thought this would be a good idea?

Not him, people that matter.

At the very least it is nice to see Suprema show some inner strength and come into her own once out from under her brother's shadow, but at the same time it's just a drop in the extremely stormy ocean, and totally wasted since she gets beaten almost to death for her troubles. Hey, there's another idea for a continuation- Suprema defeating Suprime, and taking her brother's place as Earth's protector. I think it would be really good- showing the scared, little girl sidekick becoming a hero in her own right.

 I just do not understand the thought processes that went into this- why does this even  need to exist? Who was asking for this? Why was it made? They decided to restart a cult series by removing almost everything that made it good. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY!?!?

... Anyway, 

Issue 63- 4.0/5

Issue 64- 1.0/5

Issue 65- 0.5/5 

Issue 66- 1.5/5 (if only because Suprema actually acts pretty badass)

Average- 1.75/5

Stupid Beliefs- Crystal Powers, Part 1

Stupid Things That Stupid People Believe

Crystal Magic

In part one of this two-part series, we examine crystals and the hidden truths behind them, do they have mystical properties? 

Of course not, don't be an idiot.

Random Reviews- Supreme #63+64

Random Reviews

Supreme #63+64

There are good comics, there are bad comics, there are comics that get better, and comics that get worse. In this three-part series, we'll meet the comic that was bad, became good, and started sucking again.

Schedule delay

Blog maintenance

First of all, I know I've been playing a little fast and loose with updates recently, but I've been moving and I haven't had time to finish todays post. It was my own fault for taking on such a big project at what was going to be a busy time for me. It should be up tomorrow, I swear.

Page Break

Blog Maintenance

I just noticed that I neglected to put in page breaks for the double bills, I have corrected the problem

Stupid Beliefs- Psychic Surgery

Manipulative Lies That Desperate People Believe

Psychic Surgery

Oh these guys are scum

Random Reviews Double Bill- The Singing Ringing Tree and Star Trek TAS

Random Reviews

Double Bill

Two reviews in one.

Stupid Beliefs Double Bill- Geocentrism and Fairies

Stupid Things That Stupid People Believe

Double Bill

Two short posts in one!

Double Bills

Blog Maintenance

I looked at my calendar a few weeks ago and realised that August was packed, and that I would have almost no time to write, and for various reasons would have no internet access for most of the month. With that in mind, I decided to do two double bill posts. On the 4th of August there will be a double bill of Stupid Beliefs, and on the 18th, there will be a double bill of Random Reviews.

Normal service resumes in September.

Random Reviews- The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe

Random Reviews

The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe

I hate this comic. I hate it so much I can't think of a witty little opening paragraph.

If I could, I'd gather every existing copy and the entire creative team in a building and bring it down on top of them.

Stuff From My Life- Candy vegetables

Stuff From My Life

Another strange dream. this one is divided up into sections. First I was on a high ropes course in my home town, but it lead into my bedroom. The course literally ended at my bed (which for some reason had a trampoline next to it). Anyway, I finished the course, and suddenly the Simpsons into was playing in my head- I don't mean I turned on a TV in the dream or anything, the dream just skipped to part two. The Simpsons intro was slightly different all the way, for instance, Ralph Wiggum and Lisa were in a little car, and Bart was waving around a giant Flump (a popular form of marshmallow here in the UK). When the episode began, a group of Springfield children were eating a taxi that was painted with pictures of fruit. Suddenly the whole thing transitioned again and I was standing outside the library in my home town, so I went to my parent's house, and discovered that my mother had developed a mutant strain of vegetables that taste like candy. Then I woke up.

Stupid Beliefs- Real Vampires

Stupid things That Stupid People Believe

Real Vampires

They walk among us. Creatures of the night. Feasting on our blood. They look like us, but they are not us. They are, a bunch of deluded goth idiots.

Random Reviews- Superman: Speeding Bullets

Random Reviews

Superman: Speeding Bullets

There are plenty of Elseworlds that examine how things could have turned out if someone else found Supermans' rocket- he could have become a Communist dictator, a medieval knight, or even a pawn of Darkseid. This is just one of them.

Stupid Beliefs- Climate Change

Stupid Things That Stupid People Believe

Climate Change Sceptics

Background

Global warming- everyone's heard about it, a lot of people are worried about it. Global warming is a result of the Greenhouse Effect: high-frequency solar radiation from the sun passes through the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere without being absorbed due to their short wavelengths, this solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth and re-emitted as low-frequency infra-red radiation, this radiation is absorbed by the greenhouse gases (Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Water vapour are the main ones) and re-emitted in all directions- some into space, and some back to Earth, thereby raising global temperatures. 

The Greenhouse Effect is a natural process, without it Earth would be a frozen wasteland unable to support life. However, the greenhouse gases produced by modern agriculture, industry, power generation, etc. pumps more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, raising the temperature. This increase in global temperatures disrupts weather patterns, and causes glacial ice to melt- raising sea levels and altering tides. It does not simply mean everywhere on Earth gets warmer by a uniform and constant amount, for instance, when the ice on Greenland melts, the cold water rushing into the sea will halt the Atlantic currents that warm Western Europe, meaning it will freeze over. According to The Inconvenient Truth anyway.

I condemn you to the Ice!

There is a scientific consensus that global warming is a fact, but there are still people who refuse to believe it. In the last post I called these people "denialists", but that was my mistake, they prefer the term "Sceptics", partially because "Sceptic" sounds like they're applying critical thinking to the issue, and partially because "Denialist" has... certain... connotations. We all know who I'm talking about.

There are actual scientists who are climate change sceptics, the consensus is about 97% of scientists worldwide, but there are still people who argue against it. In some ways that's actually a good thing, scientific progress relies on people who question the conventional wisdom and challenge what is accepted as fact through their own observations. Ever heard of phlogiston? Of course you haven't, because Lavoisier disproved it after centuries of phlogiston theory being a cornerstone of chemistry. However, in this case, with the survival of the human species at risk, maybe we should play it safe and assume, unless new evidence becomes available, that we are responsible, and that it is a problem.

What Are Their Arguments?

Climate change sceptics are a nebulous group, in fact, most groups that will be in this segment are like that, except the cults and I'm not opening that particular Pandora's Box for a good long while I can tell you. However, here are a few of the most common arguments I've been able to find on the internet.

Global warming isn't real

Yes it is. There’s really nothing I can add here, global temperatures and CO2 levels have been rocketing up since the mid-to-late 1800’s, which was shortly after the Industrial Revolution was complete and the West moved to the mechanised civilisation it is today. There’s really nothing I can add except, look at the charts

Weird, they look so alike you'd almost think they were connected or something

It's a natural process

This is technically true actually. An Ice Age isn’t simply a period where the world is covered in a lot of ice, Ice Ages are divided up into periods known as “glacials” and “interglacials”, where glaciers grow and retreat respectively, due to shifts in Earth’s orbit. We’re in the middle of an Ice Age right now, specifically an interglacial. During interglacial periods global temperatures rise and ice sheets retreat, and tests done on ice cores have proven that atmospheric CO2 does indeed rise prior during an interglacial period. However, tests on ice cores and recent measurements show that atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures are at their highest levels in history, and rising at a much faster rate than any of the previous interglacial periods, indicating that the current global warming is at least partially man-made. A good indication is the rapid decline of glaciers in the last 150 years- that may seem like a long to a human, but in geological terms it’s barely enough time to blink.

The measurements are flawed

There have been a lot of accusations, and some pretty serious evidence, that certain scientists have been twisting data to fit pre-determined conclusions, creating simulations that show dire consequences of global warming that bear little relation to reality, or have been exaggerating the effects of global warming. I haven’t seen the original data and I probably wouldn’t have the training to analyse it anyway so I can’t make an independent judgement. All I can say is, if that’s true, then it’s bad science but it’s also just isolated incidents, which don’t invalidate the scientific consensus of global warming- one flawed study does not disprove anything.

More studies are needed 

Funny story, people have been noticing rising global temperatures since 1896, Svante Arrhenius- a Nobel Prize winning Swedish chemist who discovered the formula that shows the relationship between the rate of a chemical reaction and temperature, also came up with the theory of the greenhouse effect, and was the first scientists to suggest that CO2 emissions may lead to global warming. Admittedly he thought it would be a good thing, since he was afraid that civilisation would fall if Earth entered another glacial period, but he still noticed it. Another scientist called G.S. Callendar also noticed it in 1938, but he vastly under-estimated its effects (2°C in 200 years) and also thought it would be good. Since then scientists have been becoming gradually more aware of global warming and its dangers- things really started kicking off in the late seventies. I should think we’ve done enough research to be reasonably sure by this point. (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm)

It's cold outside

Okay, to be fair, none of the actual scientists among climate change sceptics use this argument- it’s mostly consigned to idiots in the comments box of news websites, but it needs to be addressed. In the UK we’ve gotten used to the phrase “coldest since records began” over the last few years, which Daily Mail-reading morons have used as evidence that global warming is fake, between spouting racial slurs and denying that they are in fact racists. I said this in the introduction and I’ll say it again- global warming doesn’t just make things hotter- it raises global temperatures and thereby messes up weather patterns- of course Britain is freezing up every year, Europe is doomed to an icy grave.

PS. For the benefit of all Daily Mail readers- the EU referendum won’t save you, climate change laughs at your puny human politics.

Leftist Conspiracy!!!

Wow, I really didn’t know there were people who thought this. I’m a cynic but not this much of a cynic. Again, no actual scientists say this, just far-right crazy people and a member of the Australian Senate. Basically the idea is that global warming is an elaborate hoax concocted by “The Left”, that vast monolithic international organisation that wants to turn your children into gay stoners and bring about the End Times to serve the interests of the Zionist banking collective via witchcraft learned from JK Rowling. I’ve found explanations such as disguising the fact that increasingly erratic weather patterns are God’s punishment against homosexuality, a ploy to create green taxes and rob Regular Joes of their hard-earned money to pay for their social programs to give free homes to lazy scroungers, and to de-industrialise the world into their vegetarian atheist communist hippy dystopia.

I get that global warming is scary. I get that people don't want to believe it's real, or that it's not as bad as we think, or at the very least that it's not our fault. But if we hide our heads in the sand and refuse to face reality and deal with the problem then we, as a civilisation, if not a species, are doomed.

Conclusion

Do I even have to say it? Global warming exists, it's real and it's the greatest threat to human life and civilisation right now- North Korea be damned. Even if, for a moment, we assume that I and 97% of the global scientific community is wrong (it's happened before), we shouldn't ignore the evidence in front of us; even if global warming isn't causing it, the glaciers are melting, the seas are rising and the weather is fucked up. Even if this is a natural process it's still bad- natural processes lead to some of the biggest extinctions in history (natural processes and us, obviously), so we should probably get ready for the consequences. And if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, maybe we should try to reduce them, just to be safe, and to reduce our reliance on dwindling fossil fuels.

Anyway, this was a heavy topic and not too fun to write about, so next time we'll move on to something more lighthearted- people who think they're vampires.

Random Reviews- JLA: The Island of Dr Moreau

Random Reviews

JLA: The Island of Dr Moreau

Background

I should probably start by explaining what this is and why it exists. For those of you who aren't comic fans or who aren't particularly familiar with DC comics, this is an Elseworlds story. Elseworlds comics are set in alternate universes to the "main" DC universe and feature famous characters in new and (supposedly) interesting ways. Some of these stories are set in universes similar to the original universe, while others are wildly different; only one Elseworlds story ever tried to recreate the old "Imaginary Story" formula of setting it in the mainstream universe and then taking events in a whole new direction from that point, and that was JLA: Act of God, one of the most notoriously bad Elseworlds in comic history.

Elseworlds are extremely hit and miss. There are good stories; Superman: Red Son, JLA: The Nail, Batman: Darkest Knight, etc. But there are also a lot of bad ones; some of the most infamous are Kamandi: At Earth's End and the aforementioned Act Of God. Some are almost agressively average, and some are just plain weird. The problem, in my opinion, is that Elseworlds are almost impossible to judge on their own merits, they demand comparison to mainstream stories; Elseworlds are designed to be a fresh new take on the mythology, but if you go too far in that, you basically end up with an original story with a couple of names and concepts tagged on that just seem out of place.

Others go one step further by simply placing the characters in famous stories such as Frankenstein (Batman: Castle of the Bat), usually following the original plot until around halfway through and then completely changing direction about hallway through. JLA: The Island of Doctor Moreau is one of those.

Plot

I'm going to admit right now that I've not read The Island of Doctor Moreau or seen either of the movie adaptations. I saw the Simpsons parody on one of their Halloween episodes, but that doesn't really count.

Heh. Disco Shew.

Anyway, I read the Wikipedia summary for the novel, and, to cut it down a lot: narrator washes up on an island owned by a crazy scientist called Moreau, Moreau has been using the power of technobabble to surgically alter animals into humanoids that worship him and that he has been trying to make act human, they regress and kill Moreau, the narrator escapes on a boat and lives in solitude for the rest of his life. It really isn't a premise that lends itself to superheroics, but it could be a good start for a halfway decent tounge in cheek parody. Which this is not.

Anyway, like I said, the first part of the comic follows the book pretty well, but with a couple of changes; the narrator is now Lucas "Snapper" Carr, a recurring background character who I've only seen  in the Justice League: Year One miniseries, Moreau's assistant is now Professor Ivo, a mad scientist and recurring villain, and Moreau's animal-men are rough equivalents of the Justice League. We have Deanna- an albino gorilla Wonder Woman, Jubatus- a cheetah version of the Flash, and, um...

I'm gonna level with you, I have no idea who the rest of these guys are meant to be. There's a dolphin man called Delphinus, who I guess is probably Aquaman; a scaly guy called Komodo, who might be Killer Croc but could be Martian Manhunter for all I know; and Bernardus- a dogman with electric eels growing out of his arm. Black Lightning? Cyborg? Just who the hell is this guy? This is a classic case of an Elseworlds going too far- at least one of these guys could probably be considered an Original Character.

Also, Snapper is an idiot. I get that superpowered animal people are a little outside the average person's frame of reference, but if your only comment on a clearly inhuman  and furry  cheetah man is that he has "weirdly mottled skin" I have to wonder exactly what kind of university your biology degree came from (yeah, he has a biology degree). Then again, maybe he just has vision problems, since he's apparently unable to tell whether or not those really are eels growing out of the dog-man's arm.

Anyway, Snapper exposits that Moreau fled the law and England when he was caught performing illegal surgical experiments on animals. He goes to Moreau's lab to find him and Ivo operating on a porcupine-bear thing called "Black Arrow", who I suppose is meant to be Oliver Queen, but I'm going by the name alone, and "Dirus Falconus", he's a roughly humanoid hawk/wolf hybrid, a "Hawk-man" if you will. It's actually a pretty atmospheric scene, and looking at the writers biography he's a very talented and experienced writer who was Editor-in-Chief at Marvel for a while, and some parts of this story are genuinely well done. He just clearly didn't bring his A-game for this one.

Moreau rambles for a few pages to demonstrate that (just in case the audience are as dumb as Snapper) hey, this guy might be evil, and, though I'm probably overanalysing here- more than a little crazy. We also learn that Moreau has formed a cult around himself consisting of a series of commandments that forbid such animal-like behaviour as eating meat, which is kinda weird since A- humans eat meat, and B- only one of these creatures is a herbivore.

Yes, that's scientifically plausible.

Also, Moreau looks like Santa Claus

Anyway, since Snapper's arrived he's decided to take his JLA or "Justifiers of Law to the Anointed". As a side note, Ivo refers to them as "Just a Lot of Animals". As a side note, the Just'a Lotta Animals were a group of animal parody versions of the JLA, who existed on an alternate Earth prior to Crisis On Inifinite Earths and appeared in a comic entitled "Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew", that Roy Thomas, the writer of this story, contributed to. I know things that I have no business knowing.

Green Lambkin, The Crash, Wonder Wabbit, Captain Carrot, Aquaduck, Batmouse and Super-Squirrel

No punchline or anything, there's literally nothing I can add here

Anyway, since we've reached the point in the adaptation where we abandon the plot of the original, they return to England, and Moreau decides to prove his creations' worth by setting them on Jack the Ripper. I should mention that throughout the story Snapper becomes increasingly concerned that the JLA are regressing back to beasts.

The JLA search Whitehall to no avail but eventually they corner him after he claims another victim and find him in a makeshift "House Of Pain" where he's been using prostitutes as test subjects to reverse Moreau's experiments- transforming people into animals. Why? Because he's Moreau's first test subject, an Orang-utan-man. Okay...

This is an orang-utan with a moustache and a bowler hat.

We're meant to take him seriously as credible threat and ruthless killer.

This is not a parody. 

So anyway, he pulls the usual "join me" villain speech, but instead Wonder Gorilla bashes his head out against the wall. The JLA decide "screw Moreau's crazy laws" and eat his corpse, and at this point I'm wondering if all this could have been avoided if Moreau simply used slightly less aggressive animals as his test subjects. I don't see a sheep-man becoming a raging monster, is all I'm saying.

This comic predates Infinite Crisis by three years if you're interested

Anyway, Moreau declares success despite either not having a body to show the police and the press, or having a body that's been picked clean. Again I question the logic of the characters in this story; if my private army of mutant super-carnivores who I'd forbidden to eat meat and who are in constant danger of regressing to savagery dropped a carcass in my lap, I'd be slightly worried. Also, if he had seen the body, wouldn't he recognise the fact that it's clearly not a human being? I think a scientific genius could recognise the pretty clear differences between an orang-utan and a person.

Anyway, Snapper leaves but has a premonition that something bad is going to happen, so he comes back just as Moreau is trying to force the JLA to go through another set of operations to splice some ape in there, thereby transforming them into Gods. There's a fine line between genius and madness and Moreau is using it as a skipping rope. They refuse, so Moreau threatens them with a gun and shoots Delphinus, half the animals turn on him while the others side with him inexplicably.

Literally two pages ago, you were openly defying him, you ate the orang-utan along with everyone else. WTH is going on?

They get into a fight, Ivo and Moreau are killed and the JLA along with them. Snapper torches the place and leaves. The End!

Conclusion

I did not go into this with high hopes, but this did manage to exceed my expectations slightly. There's no real criteria an Elseworlds needs to fill to be good, but this just doesn't work for me. I can't describe it other than saying that it just doesn't feel right- it's too far into the source material with not enough elements of the DCU, so it's not a good Elseworlds. That isn't to say you can't have a good Elseworlds story that takes place in a wildly different universe; Roy Thomas himself wrote two others- Superman's Metropolis and Superman: War of the Worlds, both of which I really like, but they still have deep connections to the DCU and still feel like Superman stories. I swear if you changed some names and costumes and told me this was an independent, I would believe you. I've read a comic called Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer, I'll believe anything.

Whether or not it's a good story is a different matter. It's.

.. not so great. It's readable, but that's about it. The plot is solid enough, but Jack the Ripper being an orang-utan was completely unnecessary, since it doesn't affect the plot in any way- if he'd just been some random nutjob human, the story would be exactly the same. Which is a problem because there was potential there as both a Moreau subject and as one of the most notorious serial killers in history, but no, he just exists to get his head bashed in and that's it. I've mentioned that the division in the JLA made no sense and came out of nowhere, but superhero teams fall apart over nothing all the time, so that's okay. Nobody's actions make any kind of sense- these people are operating on a logic all their own.

The story does have some genuinely dramatic and slightly disturbing moments- like I said there was a good creative team behind this, and Moreau himself does come off as a genuinely unbalanced and dangerous individual, but that's probably because he's the only character with an actual personality. Out of the JLA, only Deanna has anything approaching a character trait, Ivo is completely useless and has drunkenness as his only characteristic, and Snapper is a bland protagonist to rival Keanu Reeves.

Even looks a little like him.

Basically this comic is stupid in none of the fun ways. Elseworlds tend to take themselves very seriously, I don't think I've ever seen an intentionally ridiculous Elseworlds (although some are a bit more lighthearted than others), and that's usually okay if the story is good, but this story just doesn't lend itself to that kind of tone. Roy Thomas already created a series about superhero animals that was well-liked and well-remembered. I guess he was hoping he could do that again but "Darker And Edgier", to use the TvTropes term, but it just didn't work. This wasn't a doomed concept, but at the same time it wasn't going to be the next Watchmen either. Overall, I think if the execution had been a bit different- with some more overt connections to the DCU, and maybe if they had taken better advantage of the Jack the Ripper idea, this could have been okay, but they didn't and it isn't. If you want a score I'd have to say 2/5, not completely terrible, but nowhere near as good as it could have been.

Furry cosplayers. Only a matter of time.

Favourite Panel

Heh. No real reason for why I like this one so much, I just like it when Americans write that sort of dialogue for British characters.