These days Mindy Newell knows that if she could do it all over again she’d have gone to college for screenwriting and film editing. Instead she became a nurse to please her parents and pleasing your parents was what it was all about for nice Jewish girls who graduated from high school in 1971. But the creative larva was in her soul, and when the cocoon broke and the butterfly emerged, it flew to DC’s New Talent Showcase program. Under the auspices of legendary editors Karen Berger, Len Wein, Julius Schwartz, Paul Levitz, and ComicMix’s own Robert Greenberger, Mindy learned the craft and art of writing comics, including Tales Of The Legion, V, Legionnaires 3, Amethyst, Lois Lane: When It Rains God Is Crying, and numerous other comics, including a Superman story based on a dream Mindy had as a child. She also worked on Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! and other independent comics. All this time Mindy continued to work as a nurse while being a single mom to her daughter Alixandra, until the late and dear Mark Gruenwald hired her as an assistant editor at Marvel, while writing stories of the Black Widow and Daredevil. She edited NFL Pro Action, a licensed kid’s magazine about football with the NFL until Marvel imploded in 1996. Returning to full-time nursing, she she also co-wrote a story for 2000 A.D. with her then-husband, British artist John Higgins. A few years ago Mike Gold called and asked her to join the team of columnists here at ComicMix, where her topics freely range from comics to pop culture to politics; she even wrote a piece about the great American thoroughbred Secretariat, which caused editor Mike to tell her that she had won the prize for the most off-topic column ever written ComicMix.
“Anybody who goes up in the damn thing is gonna be Spam in a can.” • Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard), “The Right Stuff” (1983), Written by Tom Wolfe and Phillip Kaufman based on the book by Tom Wolfe (1979), Directed by Phillip Kaufman
Henry Luce: “Now, I want them all to meet my people who will write their true stories. Naturally these stories will appear in Life magazine under their own bylines. For example, “by Betty Grissom,” or “by Virgil I. Grissom,” or…
Gus Grissom: “Gus!”
Henry Luce: “What was that?”
Gus Grissom: “Gus. Nobody calls me by…that other name.”
Henry Luce: “Gus? An astronaut named “Gus?” What’s your middle name?
Gus Grissom: “Ivan.”
Henry Luce: “Ivan…ahem…well. Maybe Gus isn’t so bad, might be something there…All right, all right. You can be “Gus.”Henry R. • Luce (John Dehner), Virgil (Gus) I. Grissom (Fred Ward)“The Right Stuff” (1983)
“Godspeed, John Glenn” • Scott Carpenter, Cmdr, USN, Project Mercury upon the launch of Friendship 7
To warp a phrase, and with apologies to my friend Peter David… But I’m digressing again…
February 20, 1962. 2:30 P.M. It is almost time to be dismissed from my 2nd grade classroom at P.S. 29 (which is still there, at the corner of Slosson Avenue and Victory Boulevard on Staten Island, New York), but no one is looking at the big clock on the wall. Mrs. Krieger – a woman with a softly wrinkled face and gray hair styled in a “1950’s Lois Lane” short, curled pageboy – is leaning against the closets that hold our winter coats and galoshes. We are all watching the television in front of her desk. She has pulled down the window blinds and shut off the lights. Walter Cronkite is talking over the picture of the white Atlas rocket standing in its gantry at Cape Canaveral, steam roiling out from its bottom. At the very “tippy-top” of the giant rocket is a tiny silver-gray fir cone. Inside that little metal capsule – officially the Mercury-Atlas 6, but more famously christened “Friendship 7,” is astronaut John Glenn.
I wonder what it’s like to be him, strapped into a chair, the door bolted shut – “Spam in acan” – as the countdown winds down. What is he thinking? Is he scared? Is he excited? What if something goes wrong? What if the rocket blows up?
10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1…
2:47 P.M. After over two hours of delays, and almost four hours since he entered Friendship 7, John Glenn is launched into orbit. The class erupts into cheers.
Seventeen years later, with the publication of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, we learned that Glenn’s mission did not go off without hitches that could have turned a moment of national triumph into national disaster.
A scheduled test to determine whether or not a pilot could fly the capsule manually became more than a test when it was discovered that a failure of the yaw attitude control jet forced Glenn to abandon the automated system and use the manual controls; Glenn flew the second and third orbits, plus re-entry “by the seat of his pants.”
NASA decided that three orbits were enough – instead of the possible seven – when telemetry revealed that the heat shield was loose. Without this heat shield, the astronaut and Friendship 7 would burn up in the atmosphere upon re-entry. It was determined that only the retrorocket pack was holding the heat shield in place. Normally, the retro pack would be jettisoned after re-entry, but Glenn determined to leave it in place to “steady” the heat shield. “It made for a very spectacular re-entry from where I was sitting,” he later said about the big chunks of burning material flying by the capsule’s window in that laconic manner that all pilots seem to have when discussing life-or-death situations; I know this personally from talking with my dad about some of his WW II, uh, adventures. “Fortunately, it was the rocket pack [and not the heat shield falling apart] or I wouldn’t be answering these questions.”
Splashdown occurred in the Atlantic Ocean four hours, 55 minutes and 30 seconds from launch, only 40 miles from the planned landing zone.
John Glenn was a real hero, as were all the men of the Mercury Project, as are all the men and women who have followed in their footsteps, going where no one has gone before.
The Right Stuff, book and movie, is not only the story of the test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of California, and of the men who became the astronauts of Mercury Project, the first manned missions into space, but also of the political machinations behind the “Space Race.”
I also believe that that it qualifies the era as the time in which promotional news and public relations began to dominate not only our political discourses, but also our entire culture; Tom Wolfe himself made the equation that “the astronauts [were like the] single combat warriors from an earlier era who received the honor and adoration of their people before going forth to fight on their behalf.”
Before any of them went up into space, before any of them had even stepped into a mock-up of the capsule, before even a rocket was successfully launched, the seven Mercury astronauts were hailed and wined and dined and given houses and sports cars and money from “sponsors” like Henry R. Luce’s Life magazine in exchange for “exclusive” interviews and peeks into their home life. And the military and government loved it, because the project needed funding. The storm of media trumpets around the Mercury 7 created such a storm of patriotism around them that no Congressman in his right mind would have denied NASA money. As Fred Ward’s Gus Grissom says in the film, “No bucks…no Buck Rogers.”
In the mirror universe of today’s media, the only thing that corporate media trumpeted Donald J. Trump’s bid for the presidency in the search for ratings, i.e., funding, so that few mainstream media outlets, including MSNBC and The New York Times, could not help but to enable Trump’s victory. Indeed, the coverage afforded Trump “free funding,” as every outrageous lie and tweet spawned more and more airtime. His campaign rallies were televised as if he were Jesus returned, delivering second and third Sermons on the Mount. Only his sermons involved making fun of disabled reporters, of disavowing sexual harassment and assault, of denying climate change as a Chinese hoax, and of vowing to “build a walland making Mexico pay,” to “lock her up,” and to “drain the swamp.” Of “making America great again.”
And the hordes believed and cheered and honored and adored and rewarded him with the Presidency.
With the expected pick of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as his nominee for Secretary of State, Trump has completed his scam. And at Forest Lawn Cemetery, a snickering can be heard coming from the gravesite of W. C. Fields: “Never give a sucker an even break.”
In 2016, the American people wanted Project Mercury and the Mercury 7. They wanted America to be great again. They wanted a hero.
“…More importantly, the personal touch provokes some bracing moments that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. It’s one thing to have Neil DeGrasse Tyson or various NASA technicians talk about how they were inspired by Spock – or even to haveTrek-loving actors like Jim Parsons and Jason Alexander say that they sympathize with stories of Nimoy staying mostly in character when his show wasn’t shooting. But only Adam Nimoy could comment knowledgeably about what it was like to have a drunken argument with Leonard Nimoy and then walk out into a world where images of Mr. Spock were impossible to avoid. The best scenes inFor The Love Of Spock are the most conventional, featuring famous folk praising a pop culture legend. But the scenes that most linger in the mind are more like the one where the director confesses his complicated feelings about his father to another Spock, Zachary Quinto. It’s moving to know that even Nimoy’s son is as in thrall to an icon as the rest of us.” – Noel Murray, AV Club.com
“Leonard Nimoy was an artist who defined a timeless character.” – Andy Webster, New York Times
“The 1963 Corvette received a major restyling, new mechanics and a new name: ‘Stingray.’ Zora Arkus-Duntov convinced the brass at GM to include independent rear suspension on the ’63 because he convinced them he could sell 30,000 cars if they had it. The passenger compartment was still kept far to the rear of the car to allow the engine/transmission to sit behind the centerline of the front wheels. This allowed for a better weight ratio (47/53) that improved handling. The ’63 Corvette included new twin headlights that are hidden behind an electrically operated cover. This added to the aerodynamics of the car when the headlights were not in use. The fastback coupe was also new; it included a fixed roof with a large back window that was split down the center with a body-colored bar. (This bar was very controversial and was removed in 1964, making the ’63 very unique.) The car now had recessed non-functional hood lovers. Front fender louvers and ribbed rocker panels replaced the coves on the earlier models. The coupe also has lovers at the back of the side windows. The dash has circular gauges with black faces and the earlier models have storage space under the seats. Air conditioning, power brakes, and power-assisted steering were now available options.• Total 1963 Corvette Stingrays Built: 21,513 • Convertibles: 10, 919 • Coupes: 10, 594” – www.vettefacts.com
So, whass up, people? Sorry I wasn’t here last week, but a big thanks to Editor Mike (Gold) for the very funny piece he posted in my absence. Only laugh I had about Thanksgiving this year – nope, Turkey Day was not fun.
And what did I do the rest of the weekend, besides recover from my intestinal woes? Which really didn’t end until Monday morning, when I woke up “bright-eyed and busy-tailed” and really bummed out over what could have been a great four-day holiday from work?
Well, for one thing, I watched For the Love of Spock on Amazon Prime. A documentary originally intended to celebrate the much beloved Vulcan as part of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary celebration, Adam Nimoy – son of Leonard, originator of the idea, and director of many acclaimed television shows including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Ally McBeal, Gilmore Girls, and NYPD Blue – expanded the project into a love sonnet to his father and his long, successful careers as an actor, and later, a photographer. In order to do both the film and his father justice, Adam sought crowdfunding in June 2015 in order to raise enough money to meet the licensing fees needed to use clips, stills, and archival footage from Paramount Pictures and CBS. The month-long campaign on Kickstarter grabbed attention, and by the end of the month (June 2015), Adam had raised $662,640 from 9,439 lovers of Spock and Leonard from around the world.
Was it worth it? Are you kidding? Im-not-so-ho, it’s worth every cent. It’s just a totally wonderful movie, with interviews from William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, Simon Pegg, J.J. Abrams, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, and many others, including Leonard’s brother, sister-in-law, his daughter and grandchildren. Adam himself pulls no punches, talking about the raucous and rough relationship he had with his father until, in adulthood, the two men found their way back to family and love. (Adam directed his father in the remake of the classic episode, I, Robot on the revived Outer Limits, which ran from 1995 to 2002 on Showtime, SyFy – God, how I hate that spelling! – and in syndication.)
Seriously, people, devote a little more than an hour and watch this!
Hmm, what else?
I read Mike Gold’s column about Patton Oswalt with interest, being a fan of The Goldbergs (Wednesday, ABC) and knowing that Mr. Oswalt narrates the show, playing the writer and creator Adam Goldberg as he tells the story of his family. I then clicked on the link within Mike’s column to take me to Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and Jerry’s cup of joe with Patton – and you’re right, Mike, Mr. Oswalt’s Death of Superman is an absolutely fabulous idea!!! So much better than Doomsday – though after rewatching that monstrosity on HBO last week, part of my face-in-the-toilet Thanksgiving weekend (as if I wasn’t suffering enough) I do have to say that the best part of the movie, the only part that got me hooked and made me forget my woes were those last minutes as Wonder Woman fought the creature. Oh, right, Superman and Batman were there, too.
Anyway, then I started browsing CICGC, ‘cause I haven’t been on the site for a while, and watched Jerry have coffee with Barak Obama at the White House. Jerry calls him “thecoolest President ever!,” and you know what? Just to see Barak behind the wheel of Jerry’s 1963 Corvette Stingray – the coolest car ever!!! – well, “I’m hip, bro.”
Can you even imagine President – God, how I shiver as I type this – Donald J. Trump behind the wheel of the coolest car ever!!!
Mindy isn’t here this week. Well, she’s not here but she is still there. She’s having one of those annoyingly inconvenient gastro-intestinal “issues” that dogs and cats think of as recycling. And, poor child, it wasn’t even the result of Thanksgiving overeating – it hit her right before the Thanksgiving meal. She tried to actually consume some left-overs yesterday, but her gullet promptly informed her that was a very bad idea.
We’ll bet she is not alone in this particular difficulty. Thanksgiving should also be thought of as giving thanks for being able to digest all that food with your family. Or even without.
Then again, Mindy’s reaction could be the result of the election.
We here at ComicMix wish our friend and comrade a swift, complete and non-messy recovery.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
• Pastor Martin Niemoller, 1892 – 1984
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.”
• Attributed to Edmund Burke, 1729 – 1797
I am sorry if I am boring you, but simply talking about what series I am binging on now (Luke Cage) and how much I am digging it has been expunged by John Ostrander’s column yesterday.
I didn’t know that Humberto Ramos and George Pérez have decided not to attend any conventions held in any state that went “red” and voted for Trump until I read John’s piece, and I immediately clinked on the links to both men’s statements.
I am immensely impressed by their willingness to speak out and not to be one of those good men who do nothing.
I am immensely pissed off about the horrible vitriol flung against Mr. Ramos, whom I don’t know, and George, whom of course I certainly do. It’s really disgusting, especially the barbs slung at George – go ahead, read them, just scroll down to the comments section on the Newsarama page – and I can’t help wondering just what the comments would be if either man’s last name was “Smith” or “Jones” instead of Hispanic origin. Of course, as John said, it is the Internet, after all…
…But I also must point out that we now have a President-Elect who uses Twitter to insult and rant and threaten litigation against anyone he conceives to be against him; an about-to-be White House Chief Strategist (Steve Bannon) whose Breitbart News website is a haven for white supremacists and whose divorce filing included this statement from his wife about their kids’ education: “…the biggest problem he had…is the number of Jews that attend. He said that he doesn’t like Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls goingto school with Jews;” an about-to-be National Security Advisor (retired Lt. General Michael Flynn) who joined the crowds at Trump campaigns in shouting “Lock her up” about Mrs. Clinton and who tweeted “Fear of Muslims is rational;” and a nominated Attorney General (Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama) who has called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “an intrusive piece of legislature,” who endorses a ban on Muslim immigration, and, oh, by the way, was rejected by a Republican-controlled Senate for a federal judge seat after being nominated by President Reagan in 1986 because of his racism.
Bottom line: I am proud of Mr. Ramos and of George. They not only speak truth to power, but they have acted upon it.
As for me, I will do what I have always done – speak up when and where it is necessary, post on Facebook, and write this column. I will try not to bore you by turning this into a weekly anti-Trump diatribe, but please don’t expect me to apologize, either, if my thoughts about the pop culture world are interrupted by a frightening shadow that is about to become a reality on Friday, January 20, 2017.
I used to play the guitar. I never had any really talent for it, and soon put it away. But there was one song that I did learn. I did a pretty good job with it, too.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway,
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts,
And all around me, a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.
Legendary folk artist and social commentator Woody Guthrie wrote This Land Is Your Land in 1940, reacting to Kate Smith’s recording of Irving Berlin’s God Bless America, which was played everywhere and constantly during during the Great Depression; he thought it purposely complacent about the terrible injustices being suffered by most of the American public which he had witnessed first-hand after leaving his native Oklahoma to travel the rails across America, eventually ending up in California, where the Dust Bowl refugees – “Okies” – who had migrated hoping to find a better life, and instead finding only more suffering and cruelty – see John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, or, even better, read the book by John Steinbeck – while the government did nothing
Why do I bring up this up? Because, when Guthrie recorded it in 1944 for Moe Asch at Folkways Records in New York City, Asch left out one particular lyric:
Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing –
This land was made for you and me.
Which, of course, made me think of our President-Elect.
And then, while doing a bit of research for this column, I found this from the New York Times, written on January 25 of this year by reporter Thomas Kaplan:
“More than a half-century ago, the folk singer Woody Guthrie signed a lease in an apartment complex in Brooklyn. He soon had bitter words for his landlord: Donald J. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump.
“Mr. Guthrie, in writings uncovered by a scholar working on a book, invoked ‘Old Man Trump’ while suggesting that blacks were unwelcome as tenants in the Trump apartment complex, near Coney Island.
“‘He thought that Fred Trump was one who stirs up racial hate, and implicitly profits from it,’ the scholar, Will Kaufman, a professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire in Britain, said in an interview…[who] about his findings … for The Conversation, a news website.
“In December 1950, Mr. Guthrie signed a lease at the Beach Haven apartment complex, Mr. Kaufman wrote in his piece. Soon, Mr. Guthrie was ‘lamenting the bigotry that pervaded his new, lily-white neighborhood,’ [Mr. Kaufman] wrote, with words like these:
‘I suppose / Old Man Trump knows / Just how much / Racial Hate / he stirred up / In the bloodpot of human hearts / When he drawed / That color line / Here at his / Eighteen hundred family project’
“Mr. Guthrie even reworked his song ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’ into a critique of Fred Trump, according to Mr. Kaufman:
‘Beach Haven ain’t my home! / I just can’t pay this rent! / My money’s down the drain! / And my soul is badly bent! / Beach Haven looks like heaven / Where no black ones come to roam! / No, no, no! Old Man Trump! / Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!’
“Mr. Guthrie died in 1967, and in the 1970s, the Justice Department sued the Trumps, accusing them of discriminating against blacks. (A settlement was eventually reached; at the time, Trump Management noted the agreement did not constitute an admission of guilt)…
“Mr. Kaufman, the author of ‘Woody Guthrie, American Radical,’ said Mr. Guthrie would be repulsed by the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. He pointed to Mr. Trump’s comments about Mexicans and Muslims, and contrasted the candidate’s sentiments to those of Mr. Guthrie in his song ‘Deportee,’ written about a plane crash that killed Mexican farm workers…
“‘Woody was always championing those who didn’t have a voice, who didn’t have any money, who didn’t have any power,’ Mr. Kaufman said. ‘There’s no doubt that he would have had maximum contempt for Donald Trump, even without the issue of race.’”
So…
What now?
As someone posted on Facebook, maybe Superman can start fighting the Klu Klux Klan again.
Before I get to the heart of my column today, I just wanted to mention that if you’re jonesing for Matt Smith, may I suggest The Crown, the new Netflix original series, about Queen Elizabeth. No, not the red-headed daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry Tudor (a.k.a. Henry VIII) whose story has been told numerous times on both small and big screens, but Queen Elizabeth II, the current English monarch whose reign is at 62 years and counting.
The erstwhile titular star of Doctor Who plays Prince Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, who married Elizabeth in 1947 after officially giving up his royal relationship to the Greek and Danish royal families and becoming a naturalized British citizen. I have never been a fan of Prince Philip – he has always seemed to me to be the epitome of the “ruling class,” cold, distant, and without empathy or sympathy for us working slobs. In fact, I’ve often wondered just what the hell Elizabeth Windsor ever saw in him. However, as played by Matt – at least so far, I’ve only seen the first two episodes (before King George’s death from cancer, though he is already terminally ill) and concentrating on the young royal couple’s carefree life – the young Philip is sexy, athletic, incredibly handsome, loving, and an all-around great guy. He even takes over the renovating of Clarence House.
And attention Matt Smith fans! He has an adorable butt, as seen in a bedroom scene… and according to the RadioTimes website, more are coming! Quoting from the article:
“The British actor – who stars alongside [Claire] Foy in Peter Morgan’s lavish tale of Queen Elizabeth II’s early years – bares his backside in the occasional bedroom scene, but not for the reasons one might expect.
“’A crucial thing is that Philip sleeps naked. That’s a fact. That was something that we found out… They weren’t put in – it’s just the fact that there are bed scenes. And what do you do, put Philip in a pair of [sic] pyjamas? That’s not right for the character.’ Smith joked that the scenes were ‘actually the best bit of acting I did in the whole series. No word of a lie. It was my most truthful moment.’”
As I said, I’ve only seen the first two episodes – the only reason I stopped was that it was getting really late and my eyelids were growing heavy – but so far, so good. (By the way, an added bonus is watching John Lithgow as the once and re-elected Prime Minister Winston Churchill.) So if you needing your Matt Smith fix, or just really missing Downton Abbey – I’ve been rebinging on the Crawley family, and now that I think of it, my guess is that they would all be still alive in 1947. Well, maybe except for the Dowager Countess Violet, but I wouldn’t really be surprised if that redoubtable woman spit in the face of death – go stream The Crown.
• • • • •
Tomorrow is Election Day. As I posted to Mary Mitchell, John Ostrander’s talented and lovely wife <snikt>
We interrupt this column for your columnist to watch the last 1:43 seconds of the Giants-Eagles game. Score is Giants 28, Eagles 23. Both teams are 4-3. Eagles just intercepted, in easy field goal range, but the Eagles are going for it. (They are now on the Giants’ 17-yard line.) Third down and ten. Now fourth and ten. Timeout – clock reset 10 seconds, now 1:28 left. Fourth down conversions for Eagles today is 1 for 3. Eagles quarterback Wentz throw a pass into the end zone to Eagles wide receiver Matthews. No good!!!!!!!! The Giants hang on to win!!!!!! <snikt>
As I was saying…
Tomorrow is Election Day. As I posted to Mary Mitchell, John Ostrander’s talented and lovely wife – Iam absolutely terrified that he will win. And I have never been scared of the “other” candidate winning. Sad? Yes. Concerned? Yes. But never terrified.
For the record, while I am a registered Democrat – I became one back in 2008 so I could vote for Obama in the primary here in New Jersey – and while I do believe that the Republican Party has, since the election of Bill Clinton, completed its morphication into the Repugnantican Party, as those who follow me and/or on Facebook know – it might interest you to know that I have voted the Republican ticket before: for Tom Kean and Christie Whitman as New Jersey governors in their respective races, and, most notably, you will all drop dead with surprise now, for George H. W. “Pappy” Bush as President in his (first) 1988 campaign. (Unlike waaaaay too many Americans, I also consider foreign policy when choosing my Presidents, and as Director of the CIA, “Pappy” had the inside track; there’s a reason we didn’t go all the way into Baghdad in the Gulf War, and George H. W. Bush knew it and got it, i.e., the balance of power sometimes makes ugly bedfellows. See Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin in WW II for reference. Or if it’s too much work for you to do a little historical research, just look what’s happened in the Middle East since Bush, Jr. took out Saddam.) Besides, Barbara Bush is pro-choice, and I have always suspected that her husband is, too, even if it has not been politically expedient for him to say so.
So why am I so terrified of a President Trump? Let me put into comic book terms:
I would rather have Lex Luthor as President than Donald Trump. Why? Because Lex Luthor, archenemy of Superman, is smart. Trump is not.
I would vote for Wilson Fisk before I could ever vote for Donald Trump. Why? Because Wilson Fisk, archenemy of Daredevil, loves his woman beyond himself. Trump is a man whose women are only reflections of his own narcissism.
I would vote for Doctor Doom before I could ever vote for Donald Trump. Why? Because Doctor Doom, archenemy of the Fantastic Four, loves his country, Latveria. Trump does not love the United States; he loves Amerika.
Amerika.
Do you want a taste of Trump’s Amerika?
Here is the transcript of what President Obama said to the crowds attending his rally for Hillary Clinton on Friday night in Fayetteville, North Carolina as he was interrupted by a Trump supporter; the crowd was loudly booing and getting riled up:
“Hey! Listen up! I told you to be focused, and you’re not focused right now. Listen to what I’m saying. Hold up. Hold up! Hold up! Hold up! Everybody sit down, and be quiet for a second… First of all, we live in a country that respects free speech. Second of all, it looks like maybe he might’ve served in our military and we got to respect that. Third of all, he was elderly and we got to respect our elders. And fourth of all, don’t boo, vote.”
And here is what Trump told his supporters about the incident at his campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania:
“There was a protester and a protester that likes us. And what happened is they wouldn’t put the cameras on him. They kept the cameras on Obama… He was talking to a protester, screaming at him, really screaming at him. By the way, if I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester, they would say he became unhinged.”
Friday’s latest plot twist in this year’s Presidential campaign – the announcement that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Hillary’s e-mails based on some suspicious correspondence found on Anthony Weiner’s computer – had all of us spinning our heads like Linda Blair in The Exorcist…sans pea soup vomit, I hope.
Well, none of us knows yet the results of the election – now only eight days away, as the media would say in its annoyingly obsessive countdown – but one more immediate result was that it had me thinking about great fictional plot twists that none of us, or at least most of us, didn’t see coming, the ones that made go Whoa, Nellie!!!!
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Darth Vader: “Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father.”
Luke: “He told me enough. He told me you killed him.
Darth Vader: “No. I am your father.”
Im-not-so-ho, the greatest plot twist ever. Search your hearts, you know it to be true.
Planet of the Apes
Taylor: “Oh, my God. I’m back. All the time, it was…we finally really did it.”
Taylor: “You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
The original, not the remake. Oh, definitely not the remake.
And definitely the second-best twist ever. Imho, of course. YMMV.
The Sixth Sense
“I see dead people.”
The story of Cole Sear, a boy whose ability to see ghosts has sent him into a deep depression and an alienation from the world and from his desperate mother, and of Dr. Malcolm Crowe, the child psychologist who tries to help him, is a film whose plot twist totally sent the public’s head spinning – some people may have vomited pea soup from some of the gorier and emotionally upsetting scenes – in 1999.
The beauty of the film is M. Night Shyamalan’s writing and direction, for as an audience we became involved in the story unfolding before our eyes, which on the surface was a modern-day family drama with some, uh, creepier aspects, and totally missed the clues so beautifully woven into the storyline and superb cinematography of Tak Fujimoto – the color red, absent from movie’s pallet except when the “afterlife” is intersecting with our world; the drop in temperature whenever a ghost is around (Cole’s mother complains about the house being cold, we can see Cole’s breath in the red tent when the little girl visits him; Cole’s mother never interacts with her son’s psychologist; and Malcolm never interacts with his environment (touching or moving objects) except around Cole. Well, until the end of the movie, and that red doorknob.
The twist – that Malcom is dead – should also have been as plain as the noses on all our faces when Cole, in the hospital, tells Malcolm “…They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.” But we were all so caught up in Cole’s personal trauma that we, collectively, only thought that Malcom was helping Cole by getting him to admit what was at the heart of his, uh, troubles.
The Others
Grace: “If you’re dead, then leave us in peace. Leave us in peace!”
Mrs. Mills: “And suppose we do leave you, ma’am, do you suppose that they will?”
Grace: “Who?”
Mrs. Mills: “The intruders.”
World War II has ended, and on the Isle of Jersey Grace Stewart and her two children are awaiting the return of her husband from the front. Her daughter Anne insists that she has seen “others” in the house, and when three servants appear on Grace’s doorstep in answer to her advertisement, other strange and creepy occurrences start to happen; curtains are taken down, the piano, dusty and out of tune, is heard being played in perfect resonance, Grace hears voices, and her son reports meeting a boy named Victor who told him that he (Victor) lives there with his family.
The twist: Stricken with grief upon the news of her husband’s death in the war, Grace went mad and smothered her children in their sleep, and then shot herself. Waking up the next morning to find her and the children still alive (the kids are pillow fighting) Grace believes that she has been given another chance by God to prove herself to be a good mother. But the real truth is that it is Grace, her children, and her servants who have been haunting the current occupants of the house – Victor and his family. It is they who took down the curtains, who played the piano, whose voices were heard by Grace. The family leaves the house, unable to exorcise Grace and her children, and as they drive off, we see Grace and the children watching them from a window as Grace promises the children that they will never leave their home.
Other great movies with great plot twists not seen coming include:
Chinatown:
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
Evelyn Mulwray reveals to Jake Gittes that her sister is actually her daughter; she has had an incestuous relationship with her father, Noah Cross.
The Usual Suspects:
“Who is Keyser Soze? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that, poof. He’s gone.”
Keyser Soze is Verbal Kint.
Primal Fear
Martin Vail: “So there never… there never was a Roy?”
Roy: “Jesus Christ, Marty. If that’s what you think, I am disappointed in you, I don’t mind telling you. There never was an Aaron… counselor! Come on, Marty, I thought you had it figured, there at the end. The way you put me on the stand like that? That was fucking brilliant, Marty! And that whole thing like “act-like-a-man”? Jesus, I knew exactly what you wanted from me. It was like we were dancing, Marty!”
Aaron Stamper never existed, never had multiple personality disorder. It was always Roy.
Let me know what you think. Is Empire’s reveal better than Planet of the Apes? What have I left off the list? Did you guess the twists before they occurred, or did you just “say” you did around the water cooler?
On Friday, October 21, 2016, something remarkable happened.
Princess Diana of Themiscrya was appointed an Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls everywhere around the globe by the United Nations in a ceremony led by Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information Christina Gallach. It was attended by the actors Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot. Remarkably, the Princess herself did not appear.
Why is this remarkable?
Princess Diana of Themiscrya is a fictional comic book character co-created 75 years ago by writers William Moulton Marston, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and artist H.G. Peter. She first appeared to the public in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941) and then was given the cover to Sensation Comics #1 (January, 1942). The very first issue of her eponymous book showed up on the newsstands in the summer of that same year.
Don’t recognize the name? Then how about this one…
Wonder Woman.
While DC Entertainment – a.k.a. DC Comics – and its parent company (hmm, is that Time Warner or AT&T or Apple or…?) must be plotzing. Not everybody is happy. Started by fifty United Nations staff members and women’s rights advocates around the world, a petition by “Concerned Members of the United Nations Staff” is now circulating on the Care2 Petitions website asking the U.N. to “reconsider.” As of yesterday (Sunday, October 23) 2,284 people have added their names; the goal is 5,000 signatures. Part of the petition reads as follows:
“Although the original creators may have intended Wonder Woman to represent a strong and independent ‘warrior’ woman with a feminist message, the reality is that the character’s current iteration is that of a large breasted, white woman of impossible proportions, scantily clad in a shimmery, thigh-baring body suit with an American flag motif and knee high boots – the epitome of a ‘pin-up’ girl…
“… At a time when issues such as gender parity in senior roles and the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls is at the top of the United Nation’s agenda…[I]t is alarming that the United Nations would consider using a character with an overtly sexualized image at a time when the headline news in [sic] United States and the world is the objectification of women and girls…”
As a former writer of Wonder Woman, and as a fan of the magnificent work by so many others, including George Pérez, Trina Robbins, Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, Cat Staggs, Liam Sharp, and Nicola Scott – and that’s just a quick list off the top of my head as I write this – I totally and absolutely disagree with the petitioners’ assessment of the character as a woman of “epitome of a pin-up girl.”
Wonder Woman ain’t no Bettie Page; when I look at her or think about her or write about her, I don’t see “fantasy sex kitten.” I see “strong” and “proud” and “educated” and “independent” and “smart” and “real.”
As real as any of us.
“In some magical and mystical way, there lies within each of us a Wonder Woman. She is real. She lives and she breathes. I know this because she lives in me, and she lives in stories that these women tell me, day in and day out. I see it in the letters and in the stories. I read it on social media. I see it in the tears that fall from the eyes of the women who say it saved them from some awful thing that they endured – because they saw that they could do something great… She brings out the strength every woman has. We are stronger together. We are half the world. We have a voice. We are the mothers of mankind.”
Well, the fall television season has begun, which means I’ve been watching the return of my favorite series and the premiere of new shows that have tickled my interest. Here’s a rundown.
Timeless (Mondays, 10 P.M., NBC)
Everyone who reads this column regularly knows that I’m a nut for alternate history and time-travel stories, so of course I was going to check out Timeless, which premiered last week, October 3… and, of course, I missed it. So on Saturday I logged onto Hulu and caught up.
The premise is a familiar one to science fiction geeks like me – what happens to our present if someone goes back and either deliberately or accidentally changes the history we know? This is best illustrated, at least for me, by Ray Bradbury’s classic and beautifully written “A Sound of Thunder,” in which a big game hunter travels back to the Jurassic era to stalk a Tyrannosaurus Rex, accidentally kills a butterfly, and returns to his present to find the world he knew has changed, both in subtle and overt ways. Although the term was not coined by physicists and other scientists until the 1960s by chaos theory pioneer Edward Norton Lorenz – when he noted that small changes in the initial conditions of hurricane formation would change the outcome of that hurricane, i.e., time of formation, wind speed, path – this has become known as the butterfly effect, which essentially states that even an infinitesimal alteration in primary conditions will change the outcome. (This leads me to believe that Lorenz read “A Sound of Thunder” at some time in his life; if he hadn’t – one small change – the phenomenon might be called something else.)
When a secret government-funded time travel machine is stolen by a “bad guy,” a misaligned team is assigned to follow him and stop his nefarious plans to alter the time line: a historian, a Delta Force soldier, and a computer coder. But how can they follow him? Turns out that there is an earlier, less sophisticated time machine, an alpha model, that has been kept in mothballs “just in case” [a rescue was needed]. This more primitive device can take the team to the same time period, but can’t lock on to the exact coordinates of the newer version.
Yes, it’s a big “coincidence.” But what the hell – without this, uh, contrivance, there would be no show, right?
There is a lot in Timeless that we have seen before. The facility where the time machine is kept looks like every secret government facility ever seen on The X-Files; the machine itself sits isolated in front of a bank of monitors and computers manned by technicians as in Stargate (and Stargate-SG1); and the gears of the apparatus turn and spin around the command pod as it warms up for its leap, reminding me of the “worm-hole opener” in Contact. Oh, and speaking of leaps, I kept thinking of Quantum Leap, too. But by now, if you’re any sort of fan of science fiction, it’s not so much the ingredients. To misquote another time traveler by the name of Clara Osborne, the soufflé is the soufflé.
The first jump is to May 6, 1937, the day of the Hindenburg explosion. ‘Nuff said, for those of you who haven’t seen Timeless, yet; although I will add a little spice by saying that the “bad guy” may not be so bad after all.
Also, Timeless plays with butterflies.
All in all, I enjoyed it, but like I said, I’m an easy mark for time-travel stories.
Designated Survivor (Wednesdays, 10 P.M., ABC)
From Wikipedia: “In the United States, a designated survivor (or designated successor) is an individual in the presidential line of succession, usually a member of the United States Cabinet, who is arranged to be at a physically distant, secure, and undisclosed location when the President and the country’s other top leaders (e.g., Vice President and Cabinet members) are gathered at a single location, such as during State of the Union and presidential inaugurations. This is intended to guarantee continuity of government in the event of a catastrophic occurrence that kills the President and many officials in the presidential line of succession. If such an event occurred, killing both the President and Vice President, the surviving official highest in the line, possibly the designated survivor, would become the Acting President of the United States under the Presidential Succession Act.”
Tom Kirkland, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is watching the President deliver the State of the Union on television when an explosion rips through the Capitol building, destroying it and killing everyone inside it. Tom Kirkland, the designated survivor, is now the President of the United States.
Designated Survivor star Kiefer Sutherland is no stranger to political thrillers; as Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer on the seminal 24, he always knew what to do and when to do it; “squeamish” was most definitely not a word in Bauer’s dictionary. But this show isn’t about President Jack Bauer; Tom Kirkland is a not a natural-born hero – far from it. Instead of immediately “manning up” and taking charge, Kirkland is overwhelmed; in the White House, excusing himself from a rambunctious and loud meeting where everyone is yelling over each other, Kirkland excuses himself, ducks into a bathroom, and throws his guts up.
And it works. Jack Bauer, as mesmerizing as he was, was a toy soldier, an antidote to an American public still reeling in shock from 9/11 (although the show was already on Fox’s schedule before that horrible day) and in need of a G.I. Joe who would take our collective revenge upon the bad guys. Tom Kirkland is an ordinary government bureaucrat, perhaps a bit more idealistic, earnest and dedicated than most, who doesn’t really fit into the cut-throat world of Washington politics; in fact, early in the first hour we learn that he’s been “shifted” from the office of HUD – read “fired” – and offered a job as Ambassador to the Canadian Coast Guard (or something like that – Kirkland wants to know if there really is a Canadian Coast Guard.) Kirkland reacts the way most of us really would, as in “What the fuck?” and “Stop the world, I want to get off!” Simply put, Jack Bauer is the fantasy; Tom Kirkland is the real deal.
Kai Penn, late of House and the real West Wing – quit acting for a time to work for the Obama administration as Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement – plays Seth Wright, a junior speechwriter for the late President whom Kirkland hires as chief speechwriter after their embarrassing meeting in the bathroom where Kirkland was puking in one stall while Wright opined on the inadequacies of the new President in another.
But Wright isn’t the only one wary of Kirkland’s aptitude for the office. Just about everyone is questioning his ability, to the point of ad nauesum, if you ask me. (Is there no one – except his family, of course – who wants to help Kirkland step up to the job?) But the biggest fly in the ointment – im-not-so-ho – of what could be an absolutely terrific series is the “General Angryman” (as Entertainment Weekly writer Ray Rahman calls him), who, at least right now, is the caricatured hawk to Kirkland’s (supposed) dove. “General Angryman” wants to display American certitude and force by bombing the shit out of anyone and everyone who has ever name-called America – specifically Iran, whose Navy is apparently making forays into the Strait of Hormuz, threatening the world’s oil supply.
Seriously, I am really hoping that the writers are throwing us for a loop, because this guy is beyond Dr. Strangelove.
I’ve seen all three episodes of Designated Survivor, and while I’m liking it, there are problems, the most important one being – again, im-not-so-ho – that there doesn’t really seem to be anyone interested in putting country before politics (well, except for Kai Penn’s character) in helping President Kirkland establish the “continuity of government” that the role of “designated survivor” is meant to do. But considering the way we were bamboozled into Iraq by a real administration that put politics before country, and the way the two current leaders of the Republican party are refusing to disavow their current Presidential candidate, again putting politics ahead of country – well, perhaps the fictional roadblocks facing the fictional President Kirkland aren’t all that, well, fictional.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Wednesdays, 9 P.M., NBC)
SVU is now in its 18th season, and while some may say that the show has seen better days, I would argue that it has matured like fine wine. I can’t say exactly what it is about that show that makes me addicted to its current incarnation as well as all its reruns on USA network and other channels, but I am hooked on it like a patient with chronic back pain is hooked on Oycondone.
Supergirl (Mondays, 8 P.M., CW)
The Girl of Steel premieres tonight on its new network home, but who hasn’t seen the “sneak peek” on YouTube (or other web sites) featuring Kara and her cuz’?
Like so many others, I was surprised when Supergirl was announced as a CBS show; it was such an outlier for that network. Like so many others, I was, well, relieved when I heard that the CW had picked it up; not only because it wasn’t cancelled permanently from our screens, but because the CW has become a natural home for a show based on a comic book, and do I really need to specify that statement?
Here are some quotes from Entertainment Weekly’s interview with Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg on the future of Supergirl, with my opinions thrown in for good measure:
“There is going to be a change in the show that I think is a natural progression in a show that’s growing up. We were really blessed withThe Flash – The Flash came out fully formed; that show knew what it was very early on. The experience ofSupergirlis more akin to the experience we had on Arrow, where we knew there was a great show in there, and every once in a while we made a great one, but it wasn’t until the back half of that first season – and certainly the beginning of season 2 – that we really felt like we had a handle of what that show was creatively. That’s how we feel aboutSupergirl, that towards the end of last year, the characters were really coming to life and we were really starting to tell the right stories.”
Me: No PR bullshit here, Kreisberg is absolutely right about the second half of the series.
“Now with season 2, we really feel like this show has gotten, I always say, bigger and smaller; it’s gotten bigger in terms of what we’re able to accomplish in terms of the scope of the show, but it’s also gotten smaller in terms of the characters. We are able to go to deeper places, richer places, and to some places that I think are unexpected.”
Me: Oh, boy, do I really hope that this is absolutely not PR bullshit!
“Because it was the first female superhero on TV in a long time, and then the first female superhero especially in the current explosion of comic book properties, the show had expectations to it and the show had preconceived notions, and the show had I don’t want to say limitations, but everybody had an opinion on what a female superhero should do and be and say. I think all of us collectively as a studio, as a network, as showrunners [sic], as cast, we all got locked into answering that question a lot at the early stages.“
Me: See my first column about the show. Oh, the girl was just so adorably perky. Gagged me with a spoon. If I hadn’t loved the character so much my whole life I would never had stuck with it.
“Kara will be traveling from her dimension to our dimension, ‘our’ being the world that The Flash, Arrow, and Legendslives in.”
Me: The Flash episode totally rocked!!!! Probably responsible for saving the series, and also probably responsible for the realization that Supergirl belonged on the CW. But it’s Supergirl. Not Supergirl and… Please remember that. Please don’t forget that. Please, please, please let Kara stand on her own two feet.
“…we come into season 2 and she feels like she’s got a handle on being Supergirl – it’s everybody else in her life that she feels like, ‘How can I be a girlfriend? What am I supposed to do with my career? How can I be there for my sister?’ So it’s all the Kara stuff that’s really the tough stuff early on, and that’s where Clark comes in. We say it’s like becoming a parent, where when you were a kid, your parents knew everything and then you become an adult and you’re like, ‘I’m lost, I don’t know what to do.’ You realize that neither did your parents; they were making it up as they went, they just presented themselves as knowingit all even if they were dying inside. That’s one of things that Kara says, like, ‘I know how to be Supergirl, but I don’t know how to do any of this other stuff. But Clark, he makes it look easy, he’s Superman, he’s a great reporter, he’s a great boyfriend. How does he do it?’ And Clark says, ‘I’m making it up as I go, too. It’s all about balancing it and it’s all a day-to-day thing. Just because I make it look easy, doesn’t mean that it is.’ So Kara is really growing up this season, that’s really her journey.
Me: Superman is cool. The trailer was cool. But, again, just remember that this is Supergirl. Not Supergirl and Her Cousin, Superman. There really is a lot there to explore, lots of great story possibilities. Don’t fuck this up.
“Alex is struggling with Clark being in town. It sets up this interesting dynamic where she has been everything to Kara; she’s her family, and she has a little bit of a chip on her shoulder about Clark. She loves him, he’s family and she knows he loves them, but he left Kara on their doorstep. Kara is so excited to see Clark and so excited to be with him, but it’s almost a little bit like Alex feels taken for granted, because she’s the family member who’s put in the time. It sets up an interesting conflict between her and Kara in the first couple of episodes.”
Me: This is great. But it sounds like it’s going to be resolved by the end of the second episode. No, no, no! Played right (like not focusing on it constantly, spreading it out over 22 episodes), it would make a great full-season arc.
“Really this year is about coming into one’s own and becoming who you are. In a way, all of the characters are dealing with that. Kara is certainly dealing with that at work; Winn is becoming who he is by working at the DEO; J’onn is stepping out and embracing more being the Manhunter, which is something that he spent 300 years hiding, but now he doesn’t have to hide that anymore.”
Me: But where’s Cat Grant? Oh, no! She’s been reduced to a recurring character! That totally sucks! (And I still think she knows that Kara Danvers is Supergirl.)
One story I would love to see – selfishly because it’s a favorite of mine – brought to the series is “Supergirl’s Secret Enemy,” by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney, and which ran from Action Comics #279, August 1961 to Action Comics #281, October 1961.
Lesla-Lar is a low-level scientist who lives in the bottle city of Kandor (Okay, we haven’t established Kandor on the show, but that could be worked around.) Already on the emotional edge, being forced to live in Kandor while watching Kara live a life not defined by the walls of a bottle drives her over the cliff; she figures out a way to switch places with her. (I forgot to mention that she looks exactly like Kara.) The process robs Kara of her memory; she believes she is Lesla-Lar while the real Lesla-Lar lives her life on Earth, assuming the role of Supergirl so successfully that everyone, including her cousin, is unaware of the old switcheroo. How will Kara escape?
The budget would probably be way too much for the show to handle, and I would hate for it to have the bare-bottom look of the adaptation of “For the Man Who Has Everything.” But it would still be a great story to run, especially during the “sweeps” ratings months.
I did a little bit of research for today’s column just to make sure I had my facts right, Googling “Jewish influence on comic books” in honor of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. There were 509,000 hits, from Den of Geek’s Mensch of Steel: Superman’s Jewish Roots to the Daily Beast’s Superman is Jewish?: The Hebrew Roots of America’s Greatest Superhero to Stormfront’s How and Why the Jews Stole the Comic Book Industry.
Wait. What?
Stormfront is a white supremacist site whose “welcome” page reads:
“We are a community of racial realists and idealists. We are White Nationalists who supporttrue diversity and a homeland forall peoples. Thousands of organizations promote the interests, values and heritage of non-White (sic) minorities. We promote ours.
“We are the voice of the new, embattled white minority!
“Tell the truth and fear no one!”
The article is a mixture of facts, lies, and innuendos. It starts off introducing one-time pulp magazine writer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (1890 – 1968), who, according to the site, lived an “extraordinary” life, rising to become the youngest major in Army history – or was that in the U.S. Cavalry, or was that “one of the youngest majors” in the U.S. Cavalry? He also “chased bandits on the Mexican border, fought fevers and played polo in the Philippines, led a battalion of infantry against the Bolsheviks in Siberia, helped straighten out the affairs of the army in France [and] commanded the headquarters cavalry of the American force in the Rhine”. His Cavalry unit was among those under John J. Pershing’s command that in 1916 hunted the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. The following year, he served under Pershing fighting the Muslim Moros in the Philippines, and with a Cossack troop in Siberia. Subsequent outposts included Japan; London, England; and Germany.”
But all these daring-do activities were according to Wheeler-Nicholson’s own accounts. So I looked him up on Wikipedia. The article included the above paragraph. But it also had this:
“Following his public criticism of Army command in a New York Timesopen letter to President Warren G. Harding, as well as accusations by the major against senior officers, plus countercharges, hearings, a lawsuit against West Point Superintendent General Fred W. Sladen, and what the family calls an Army-sanctioned assassination attempt that left Wheeler-Nicholson hospitalized with a bullet wound. Wheeler-Nicholson In June 1922 was convicted in a court-martial trial of violating the 96th Article of Warin publishing the open letter. Although he was not demoted, his career was dead-ended. He resigned his commission in 1923. His $100,000 lawsuit against Sladen was dismissed by the New York State Supreme Court the following year.”
Just the facts, ma’am.
In 1934 he formed National Allied Publications, which later evolved into National Periodicals and then DC Comics and now DC Entertainment. His comics were the first to print original stories, which included “Yellow Peril” (sic) adventure “Barry O’Neill”, featuring a Fu Manchu-styled villain, Fang Gow.”
Here’s where the innuendos start.
When Wheeler-Nicholson brought on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (pre-Superman) in 1935, the innuendo is that it was the hiring of these two men, i.e., Jews, which caused profits to start sliding because, according to Stormfront, “newsstands refused to stock his magazine.”
By 1937, the company was in debt to printing plant owner and magazine distributor Romanian Jew [sic] Harry Donenfeld, and in order to keep publishing Wheeler-Nicholson was compelled [sic] to take on Donenfeld as a partner. Evidently Donenfeld was no saint – he was a fast-talking and slick businessman with ties to the gangster Frank Costello and other members of the underworld. He allegedly helped Costello smuggle alcohol into the States from Canada during Prohibition, and acquired the rights for his company, Martin Press, to “print six million subscription leaflets forHearstmagazines such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping…due to Donenfeld’s…underworld contacts having close connections with Hearst newspaper salesman Moe Annenberg.”
Also according to Stormfront, Wheeler-Nicholson was forced to form a partnership with Donenfeld and Jack (Jacob) S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld’s accountant, in order to keep Detective Comics, Inc. (pre-Batman) in business. And then, quoting the white supremacist website, “things went from bad to worse with Wheeler-Nicholson having to sell his publishing business to Donenfield and Liebowtiz in 1937,” thought the website neglects to mention that the Great Depression of the 1930s forced many publishing houses out of the business.
Those conniving Jews did a further disservice to Wheeler-Nicholson when – and here Stormfront decides to quote comic books historian Gerard Jones:
“In early 1938, Harry Donenfeld sends him and his wife on a cruise to Cuba to ‘work up new ideas.’ When they came home, the Major found the lock to his office door changed. In his absence, Harry had sued him for non-payment and pushed Detective Comics, Inc. into bankruptcy…where a judge named Abe Mennen, one of Harry’s old Tammany buddies, had been appointed interim president of the firm and arranged a quick sale of its assets to Independent News.”
Stormfront adds that Wheeler-Nicholson was given a percentage of More Fun Comics as a “shut-up” token, and essentially told him not to let the back door hit him on the ass on the way out.
And then Stormfront says: This is how the Jews stole the comics books.”
Yeah. Those stinkin’ Jews.
In 1938, as you and me and the world knows, Siegel and Shuster created Superman, whose first appearance was in Action Comics #1, and heralded in what is known as the Golden Age of comics, with the introduction of many of our most-beloved comics heroes. And although there was nothing “inherently Jewish” about the heroes, Stormfront makes special note that Captain America was created by two more Jewish creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, nee Jacob Kurtzberg; Cap dared – my word, not theirs, although the innuendo is certainly apparent – to go after the Red Skull, the special agent of the Nazis. The site also makes sure that it’s readers know that Steve Rogers, Caps’ alter-ego, “could be seen as a symbol for the way Jews were frail and passive. That is, until he took a serum that transformed him into the robust Captain America,” and that “The serum was created by ‘Professor Reinstein,’ an obvious nod to famed Jewish physicist Albert Einstein.
Oh, and the white supremacists and yearning – again, my word, not theirs – Nazis also make note of the story, possibly apocryphal, that “Superman gave such a pounding to Nazi agents from 1941 – 1945 that Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels jumped up in the midst of a Reichstag meeting and denounced the Man of Steel as a Jew.”
Huh? But Jews were, according to the Nazi line, were “frail and passive.” So naming Superman as an indefatigable and unbeatable warrior against the Aryan super race would be an oxymoron, isn’t that true, Herr Goebbels? Go snort some more cocaine and finish fucking editing Leni Riefenstahl.
Stormfront goes on tally up all the Jewish creators of the comic books industry, being sure to make snarky – and incredibly offensive – remarks. The creators include everybody from Bill Gaines, Harvey Kurtzman, Stan Lee – of whom they make sure to make mention of his birth name, Stanley Martin Lieber – and the aforementioned Jack Kirby, again making sure that their readers are aware that the King’s “real” name is Jacob Kurtzberg to Art Spiegelman, Harvey Pekar, Will Eisner, Joe Kubert, and current graphic novel authors James Sturm (The Golem’s Mighty Swing), Miriam Katin (We Are On Our Own) and Ben Katchor (The Jew of New York).
And it makes special mention of Chris Claremont, who created the “openly Jewish”X-Man Kitty Pryde, who “wore a Star of David necklace,” and Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four member Ben Grimm, i.e., the Thing, who has a bar mitzvah in an early story.
Some of the article reads as very “respectful” and “appreciative,” until you get to the end, which…well, I’m just going to quote it in its entirety, though I have to warn you that the author also takes an extreme and out of nowhere jump in what I can only call an attempt to compare apples and oranges, a false equivalency, by suddenly inserting what is called “modern music” – and I left the misspelling and grammatical errors in to show what a, uh, brilliant writer this person is:
“The real aim modern music is to destroy the Male “SUPEREGO.” (American Nazi party founder) George Lincoln Rockwell explains this in an old article of the 1960s he wrote. Though not mentioning the SUPEREGO it is this I now believe he means.
“To destroy the SUPEREGO the JEWS first needed to create a gap between young and old. Once they achieved this the SUPEREGO (which is passed down from father to his kids) was attacked by feminised rock bands. Infact, the music from that day on fuelled the id (pleasure principle) and not the EGO (reality principle) and SUPEREGO (conscience). Children were no longer listening to their parents, but instead to defective “artists” and “lyrics” that were destructive to behavioural development. Freudian Psychoanalysis is being used to destroy OUR people via modern music.
Now the same could be said about the Superheroes. Like Rockwell said, “Kids’ need “heroes”. They must have them to grow emotionally and spiritually.” But Superheroes are abstract fantasy, and not real heroes. The Superheroes then replaced REAL fighting heroes of the likes Rockwell mentions. Kids now wanted to be like Superman and fly through the air. But kids can’t fly through the air, can they? Not being an expert in this field, and I’m only guessing, but would this must have some effect on the ego?”
Jesus H. Fucking Joosevelt Christ.
L’shana tovah, everybody! That’s Hebrew for Happy New Year. Have some honey on an apple or challah to bring in a sweet, healthy, and happy New Year.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Major Wheeler-Nicholson’s granddaughter Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson Brown has been working with the aforementioned Gerard Jones on a meticulously researched biography of the Major titled Lost Hero: The Adventurous and Tragic Life of the Man Who Invented Comic Books. A swell interview with Nicky can be found here.)
Henry Luce: “Now, I want them all to meet my people who will write their true stories. Naturally these stories will appear in Life magazine under their own bylines. For example, “by Betty Grissom,” or “by Virgil I. Grissom,” or…
