You know what DC needs most right now?

Not just Plastic Man--although Plastic Man would be a hoot. But Plas is far too ungritty and unserious for the emotionally enervating and humorless nu52. DC would just stick him with Ambush Bug in the pointless and lame Channel 52 back-up, with the satire and edge neutered in favor of the stale-and-in-no-way-dated Anchorman riff.

But what DC really needs is some sense of self-deprecation, some ability to poke fun at themselves. I mean, look at that splash above--DC actually published that!! They actually put out a book featuring a story whose sole point was to mock them (and Marvel) for their faux-grittiness and event-itis. Can you imagine?

Nowadays, of course, that could never happened. In an age where Dan DiDio can bury an Ambush Bug series finale for over a year--and then replace it with tripe--because he found some of the jokes hit too close to home, it's clear that the current DC elite would never allow anyone in-house to turn a jaundiced eye upon themselves, to wink and nod with the audience, to be even mildly self-satirical. Which is pretty ironic, given how many MAD Magazine variant covers they publish.

But what the hell, DC...bring back Plas. Give him his own series, or just the occasional special that this story came from (Plastic Man Special #1 (1999)). Bring back Ty Templeton, and let him run slightly amok. [Aside--this piece of Ty's is pretty funny and pretty on-target.] Show that you're grown-ups and can have a sense of humor about yourselves. And hell, just to bring some variety to your increasingly homogenous nu52.

Yeah, I know, it'll never happen. But a Monstrobot can hope...

On Formspring, Tom Brevoort spilled a bean or two about Marvel's future plans:

If all goes as planned, our big storyline for 2015 will have a title that’s two words long, ten letters in total.

Well, then, game on. Two words. Ten letters. Go!


It might take that long to actually clear up the rights tangle.

But it's a great name for a series, right?

Of course, the question then becomes, how exactly does Marvelman fit into the Marvel Universe? Does Doctor Gargunza know Dr. Doom? Does Mike Moran work at the Daily Bugle? Or would this just turn into another Sentry-level clusterfrak?


By 2015 Disney will have given the Star Wars comic(s) to Marvel. And why not be ambitious about it? An Exiles team leaps into the Star Wars universe, and inadvertently brings Vader back to 616. Ah, the ensuing havoc. Especially when it turns out that The Force is...

Hey, it makes more sense than having Norman Osborn run things during Dark Reign...


Marvel will finally resolve whatever the pesky contractual problems are, and revive the Malibu Universe, and integrate it into Marvel-616. Black September II, dawg!!


Speaking of intractable rights problems...

Well, it's late, that's all I've got. Your turn now.

Big storyline. Two words. Ten letters. GO!!!

It's funny the stupid stuff you never notice for 35 years of comic book fandom, that suddenly leap out and smack you in the forehead.

Two panels from Fantastic Four #326 (1989). First:

"I stopped by to see how "Inferno" went"?? Really?

And later in the same issue...

"In the Secret War"???

Don't ask me why, but it just suddenly strikes me as odd to see comic book characters referring to their mega-events by the same titles the writers gave to those events. It just seems...off.

I mean, I know it's convenient shorthand for the readers, but do the heroes really go around referring to the demon invasion of New York as "Inferno"? Do the participants in Secret Wars all refer to those events as 'The Secret War" (at least until Bendis came along and used the title again)?

It just seems very...meta...to me, you know? Do the X-Men wander around saying, "Geez, that was pretty rough, back during the X-Tinction Agenda!" (and more importantly, do they actually leave the "E" off , in their heads, when they say it?!?)?? Did DC heroes call the events of Armageddon: 2001 "Armageddon" (obviously not 2001, for sliding timeline purposes...but still)? Do Marvel heroes call that one time every villain switched up heroes "Acts Of Vengeance" when they tell the story???

It just seems weird, that's all...like a Dickens character coming out and saying, "Well, this is indeed a Tale Of Two Cities..."

Sure, they always used to refer to a vague "Crisis" post-Crisis On Infinite Earths, but they never actually called it "Crisis On Infinite Earths". And I doubt you had a JLA meeting where Booster Gold said, "Wow, that Infinite Crisis was really something, eh?" Nor, I'm fairly certain, did you ever hear, say, Ms. Marvel opine, "Man, this sure is a Dark Reign we're experiencing, isn't it?"

Then again, people in DC's future keep referring to the "Flashpoint," so who knows. Maybe a few months from now we'll hear Avengers referring to "X-Sanction", or Hank McCoy saying, "You know, back during The Messiah Complex..."

Yeah, yeah, I know--I'm an idiot. But seeing it happen so explicitly there, twice in the same issue, just made my brain tickle. Blame Steve Englehart John Harkness, not me...