Ten Mile

As a constant commuter between the municipalities of Lynden and Bellingham in the state of Washington, there are two main roads that are most useful for making such a trip: the Guide Meridian (named because it actually follows one of the global meridian lines) and the Hannegan. Regardless of which one you take, there are numerous cross streets that are the same on either side, and I couldn’t tell you what half of them are. I know Axton, Smith, Pole, and a couple of others off the top of my head.

Now, there’s only one that stands out: Ten Mile. No matter which side I drive and how much I’d rather not, I always have to pass Ten Mile on my way to and from Bellingham. It was never much of an issue before; it carried a few memories of a particularly bad Holiday season in 1998 when we laid my grandfather to rest, but nothing I couldn’t really put out of my mind when I needed to. I remember driving to a Middle School which sits on that road to see my sister play soccer once, and the field borders a farm with a low fence that I climbed over and had my first foot-to-mush experience with a cow pie.

But now, the only connotation that Ten Mile carries is that just down the road is the cemetery where, now in addition to my grandfather, my father currently lays. He will for the rest of, well, time I suppose.

The first Holiday season without my father has come a little too quickly for my liking, as I’m sure the case is for the rest of my family. This truly is unfamiliar territory for us. This time of year was always so important to our whole experience as a family, only later intensified by the birth of my sister’s two children and even further intensified by mine and my brother’s scholastic endeavors, because this was the one time of year where we were all truly together, without question.

That’s why this season coupled with my dad’s extremely noticeable absence really makes me feel pain every time I drive to Bellingham, and it always “pangs” when I drive past the unavoidable barrier of Ten Mile. If ever there was a reason to relocate myself to Bellingham, it would almost be entirely worth it just so I wouldn’t have to make that drive every day.

In a way, though, it’s a good thing because even though it reminds me of my Dad being gone, it also just reminds me of him. If ever there was someone that I should remember in my life it’s absolutely my Dad. I don’t see the harshness of his loss leaving any of my family anytime soon, and that pain that I feel whenever my car passes over Ten Mile isn’t something I would wish upon anyone. At least though, I get to be near my Dad once a day, and though I wish in my heart of hearts that the circumstances were different, it’s worth remembering because I had a good relationship with him. Not everyone can say that about their father.

His last gift to me was that I could.

New Comic Book Reviews at Batman-On-Film

I have a whopping three comic reviews this week at BOF:

Batman #704 by Tony Daniel

Batman: The Return by Grant Morrison and David Finch

and Batman Incorporated #1 by Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette

Check them out, and let me know what you think!

A Word on Weakness and Strength

So many people are concerned with looking weak in our society. They’re afraid of looking spineless, of showing their vulnerabilities, of crying at funerals, of embracing a significant other in a public place, or even feeling something that evokes “weakness.”

The way I’ve always understood it, taking into account the dictionary definition of weakness (basically just a flaw or weak point), the perception of weakness really goes back to how people will define strength. Both these things can have varying definitions to many different kinds of people. Too often, I’ve seen strength in men defined as someone so bubbled over with hormones that they’re ready to snap someone’s neck at a moment’s notice. It’s reliant on brutality over intellect, on anger over kindness, and on limited signals of intimacy or human vulnerability.

Now, I’m not trying to take away from the importance of physical stature. As human beings, we’re meant to take care of ourselves to a certain degree, instead of sitting lazily on a couch watching American Idol reruns with our hands in a greasy bag of Ruffles. All I’m saying is, how often is the brain neglected over the body? How often do people try to learn a thing or two every day, instead of remaining reliant on ignorance, which will create anger at things they don’t understand?

To put it simply, more often than not it seems like some peoples’ perceptions of strength falls into many peoples’ conceptions of stupidity. Take this guy I know: he’s so reliant on being perceived as a bad ass, willfully taking time to make sure his photos show him flipping off a camera and gloating about his “ability” (though I’d call it more of a handicap) to “not give a fuck about anyone” that he is probably one of the most ignorant, self-centered, idiotic bastards I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing. He’s not interesting on any level, because you can guess that his responses to any questions will range about an inept anecdote about guns or “tits” and is only interested in talking about movies with high body counts (He probably holds House of 1000 Corpses in the same regard as film buffs regard Citizen Kane.)

Yet, people perceive him as “strong.” The lower levels of society will no doubt reward him for his bravado, while in the end he probably won’t make anything of himself.

Strength to me comes from the heart. Strength to me is the ability to be a big man and tell someone you love them. Strength is having the courage to cry, to express how you feel. Strength is accepting your human vulnerability and making no bones about it, everyone feels the way you feel. It’s part of what unites us as human beings.

Strength is honesty, telling the truth when a lie would serve you better. Strength is refusing to hide behind a stereotype or a label and creating your own niche, regardless of what other people think of it. Strength is being smart, and not feeling like you have to hide it. Strength is NOT settling for what other people tell you may be right, when you know in your heart that it’s not.

Strength is compassion, in a world becoming ever crueler, offering a hand, even if it’s slapped away. Strength is brave, knowing when to be scared but not letting fear stop you.

These are the things that measure the value of a human being. Not how easy it is to knock them out, not having an arsenal of put-downs at your disposal, and not trying to act like nothing in the world could ever surprise or harm you.

Strength is having the courage to be a good person and knowing it. Please don’t settle for anything less. This is far from a demand, this is my appeal.

Be a good person. They’re the strongest of us all.

Why I Can Now Feasibly Call Joe Miller a Fascist

Alaskan Senate Candidate Joe Miller is really a piece of work, as most Alaskan politicians seem to be. Does their large separation from the mainland United States really allow them to be so off-the-wall? Miller, who claims to be a so-called “Constitutional conservative,” is really exhibiting some non-Constitutional behavior as of late.

Ever since the ballots have started coming in from Election Day, Miller is about 11,000 votes behind write-in candidate and current incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski, a moderate Republican, was beaten in the primary season by Miller, who ran as a Tea Party candidate on the fringes of modern conservatism. “Get rid of the social safety net” and “abortion has absolutely no ground in matters of rape and incest” were just a couple of his campaign points.

I can appreciate anyone trying to get more controversial issues as matters of states’ rights, to an extent, but Miller seemed to think that Federal law had no place in our society whatsoever, which seems to imply that he’s kind of a thinly-veiled anarchist.

Before today, my calling Miller a fascist was mostly in jest, due to the fact that he’s trying to get rid of components of our society that many people depend on in order to live from day-to-day. Now, unfortunately, the description is pretty apt. Because Miller beat Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary for Senate, Murkowski is reliant on being a write-in candidate and Is managing to win the election. But Miller, desperate to close the gap by whatever means necessary is, wait for it…

Trying to get write-in votes disqualified over issues of “penmanship and incorrect spelling.”(Source)

So, because there are votes that are legal and should be counted that are not in favor of Miller, he is effectively attempting to silence the very voices of the people in order to suit his own ends. To organize an “election” where it is only representative of your own views instead of the will of the people is almost a dictionary definition of fascism.

For someone who claims that he is running on a purely constitutionalist perspective, Miller has betrayed the very principles he claims to be fighting for. You cannot claim to be a tireless fighter for that document and try to get votes disqualified because they’re not pretty enough. A vote is a vote, even if it’s ugly as all hell.

So Miller should just stop being a sore loser, adhere to his principles, and lose gracefully instead of being a jackass trying to disqualify votes just because he doesn’t like them.

What’s he going to argue? That some of those messy write-in voted were for him, even though his name was printed on the ballot?

Wouldn’t surprise me.

Regarding Superman: Why The Quest for Peace is Better than III

Easily, the most critically panned Superman film of the first series is 1987’s The Quest for Peace. It’s pretty easy to understand why: a full film was made, did horribly at test screenings, they cut the shit out of it, and what they ended up with was worse than what they had initially.

But even so, I enjoy Superman IV quite a bit more than its predecessor, for a number of reasons. I’ll list a few of them off:

1) Simply Describing the Plot to People Sounds Better

Here’s IV: Feeling a responsibility to defend the Earth from the very real threat of nuclear annihilation, Superman takes it upon himself to rid our planet of the powerful weapons. Wanting to profiteer off of fear and humanity’s innate desire to create war, Lex Luthor uses Superman’s good deed as a tool to destroy him, by creating a being that can both kill Superman and allow Luthor to make billions of dollars rearming the world’s governments.

Here’s III: A technology tycoon manipulates a clueless man who has an innate ability to use computers into using his technological skills to try and rule the world financially. Seeing Superman as a threat, he finds a way to create an element causing him to doubt himself and his purpose, all the while an old flame has returned to Clark Kent’s life in the form of high school sweetheart Lana Lang.

Now, just off the fly, which of those movies sound better to you? The one about a goofball that uses computers played by Richard Pryor, or the one about Superman trying to save the world from nuclear weapons and Lex Luthor?

2) Reeve’s Performance

Although the execution of this movie was cheap and embarrassing, Christopher Reeve’s performance is actually one of his best in this series, right behind the obviously-superior first two parts. There are several of his bumbling Clark Kent moments that are very well comedically timed, and the straight-faced way Superman wants to save us all from ourselves comes across as rather genuine. His banter with Lex Luthor and the way he conducts himself while damaged after his fight with Nuclear Man is also rather good.

Reeve was always extraordinary in this role in every installment, particularly with his uncanny ability to play several different characters through one overarching Man of Steel. He does this in III with the fight against himself and the way he created the persona of the “corrupted” Superman. In IV, Clark has some very quiet and personal moments where it’s almost as if you can see the weight of the world on his shoulders.

3) Gene Hackman and the Return of Lex Luthor

It’s well documented that the only reason Hackman even considered this film was as a personal favor to Christopher Reeve, but his mere presence, I feel, automatically gives this film more credibility than the previous installment. With many famous actors in bad movies, you can pretty much tell when they’re phoning a performance in. Admittedly, Hackman does this in a few places. But the moments where he is directly interacting with Superman, or extorting other maniacal world leaders for their share of nuclear profits, it’s easy to see that the Gene Hackman from 1978 decided to make a quite noticeable return in 1987.

I also argue that using Luthor once more, while it would later prove problematic for Superman Returns (which was criticized for using Luthor yet again), was a good move since he’s obviously the superior villain to the hackneyed Luthor-lite they came up with in Superman III.

But yes, I will admit, the character of Lenny was the most redundant thing I may have ever seen in any movie ever.

4) An Overall More Serious Tone

Superman III suffered in large part to me because the entire thing seemed to have its tongue planted in its cheek. From the mere casting of Richard Pryor, to opening up with a shameless slapstick comedy scene, it’s probably the oddest and most out-of-place installment of a Superman film.

With The Quest for Peace, Christopher Reeve had a direct hand in developing the story, noticing the very points I’ve outlined, and wanted to return to the former glory of the first film. That mere intention raises the stature of this film well above III, because as a fan of the character I don’t need to see him treated like an excuse to be “wacky.” If Richard Donner had directed this film, and if it was given a proper budget and more creative clout behind it, we would still be going to movie theaters every couple of summers to watch Christopher Reeve take flight.

So, in the end, I like The Quest for Peace quite a bit more than I like Superman III. It’s not an argument I win very much, but even so, I thought I might as well spell it out while it had crossed my mind again.

Buys Wins, the 42nd District Loses

Disregard this post if you’re not a member of Washington State’s 42^nd Legislative District.

In the recent mid-term election, local political newcomer Vincent Buys, a 31-year old Republican business owner from Lynden, pulled off an upset victory by defeating and unseating eighteen year incumbent Democrat Kelli Linville as the Position 2 rep of the 42nd District in the State House of Representatives. A lot of people through Bellingham are asking how this was possible, but the answer is rather simple: Buys blamed a state budget deficit on one person, made it seem like she was going to single-handedly tax everyone to hell, and frankly, had a more evident campaign presence in online institutions such as Facebook and Twitter.

Now as much as I can, I can respect Buys’ ability to win this election, which he won by a margin of a mere 241 votes. It’s a testament to a well-organized campaign, and letting ads and websites do all the talking.

Before Election Day, I attended two separate candidate forums in Bellingham where Buys and Linville had a chance to have a mini-debate, and on the fly, I wasn’t overly impressed with his ability to conduct himself against the obviously-more experienced Linville. Bias aside, Buys clung to his “support for the Defense of Marriage Act” when asked if he’d support homosexual unions (a response copied directly from Doug Ericksen at the previous forum), said that the biggest budget he’d had to manage was “his own” (which wasn’t even true, since he owns a business and could’ve used that much more politically safe answer), and was visibly nervous when posed a question about the importance of high school preparatory work for colleges and universities.

Even with all that, the numbers don’t lie. If they hold through the election certification on the 23^rd of this month, Buys will replace Linville as the 42^nd District Rep in position 2. It was a pretty foregone conclusion that Jason Overstreet was going to win the first position seat, since the exiting Doug Ericksen pledged his full support for the new Republican there. But this is the first time since the 1970’s that the 42^nd hasn’t sent a rep from each party to Olympia.

Because of this, our district is the real loser here. This is because even though there were slight Republican increases in the State House, Democrats still hold to a pretty solid majority. Consequently, no representative from our district will have the ability to caucus with the majority in the House, which means that our representation there has effectively shrunk to an infinitely smaller level than was there before.

Republicans will brag about their victory, but when something happens in this District that they want their Legislator to act on, they’re going to be left wondering why Buys or Overstreet haven’t done anything about it. That’s what happens when you cut yourself out of the process without the facts, voters.

You lose.

"First you ground him, then you abandon him?"

J. Michael Straczynski is a writer I respect.

I first discovered his strangely spelled name when I decided to jump into Amazing Spider-Man, albeit at the worst possible time: One More Day. Although the execution of that story was atrocious, and it’s end result was rather demeaning to the character of Spidey, I appreciated the thought that went into all the dialogue, and the emotional weight that each sentence was given.

About a year later, I decided to go back and try and collect every single issue of Amazing that he had penned. This was just after I had managed to track down all 61 issues of Geoff Johns’ initial Flash run, so I figured the 74-issue Straczynski run of ASM wouldn’t prove too difficult. After a lucky eBay win and a couple of chance encounters at conventions, as well as scouring the back-issue boxes at work, I managed to track them all down and read them. Other than the travesty of One More Day, the run was unique, rather progressive and innovative, and overall well-crafted. Similarly, his run on Thor helped introduce me to that character, and was probably a better read than his ASM run for many reasons.

When Straczynski jumped ship to DC about 18 months ago, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that his favorite super hero was in my top 2: Superman. My eventual hopes once I heard this news were happily realized not long after, when Straczynski was announced to be the new “shepherd” of the Man of Steel with a new, original graphic novel in an alternate earth coming out, as well as ol’ JMS tackling the main Superman title in the DC Universe-proper.

Although some people seem to be perplexed by the current Grounded arc in Superman, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. It seems like America as a whole hasn’t appreciated Superman as a cultural icon since the late seventies and very early eighties (Not surprisingly, right before Superman III hit theaters), and on some level, Grounded is taking that to task by trying to restore Superman to his rightful place as the quintessential American hero.

Although Straczynski has a reputation for lateness and we’ve already seen a fill-in issue for Grounded, I’ve kept with it and took solace in the fact that the complete story by Straczynski would be in the same vein as his good issues of Spider-Man and Thor, runs that he stuck with even when delays hinted otherwise.

Then, Superman: Earth One hit and did a complete blitz into the original graphic novel market. Now, as I noted in my Comics Place review of that book (which you can read HERE), I enjoyed it. However, I also enjoyed it under the pretense that it wouldn’t affect the Grounded story or the monthly Superman title.

Well, as reported by a shitload of comics outlets, that’s exactly what’s happened. Due to the “overwhelming” response of Earth One, Straczynski is leaving the main Superman title in the hands of another writer to complete his story, and focusing on graphic novels because JMS believes that they are the future of this medium. Because of this,

J. Michael Straczynski is a writer I’m pissed at.

Finish. What. You. Start. I wanted to see your full realization of this story. Granted, the new writer may be fantastic, but it will still feel like you are deserting a project that you started, and as a reader and a fan, that is frustrating to me. If Superman truly is your favorite comic book character, don’t abandon the legacy character for the emo/hipster version that you created. The Man of Steel has called and you answered, and it would be nice if you had the complete story under your belt before handing the reins off to someone else.

We were lead to believe that Grounded was but the first story in a years-long run of your Superman, and now you’re going off of monthly comics entirely in some chase for the “future” of the medium. Samaritan X is intriguing to me, and I’m sure I’ll get Earth One Volume 2 when it comes out, but when you signed on for Grounded and your arc in Wonder Woman, you should remain committed to it.

Have we not learned enough from the delayed mess that The Twelve has become? You say that minis are the future, but how can we be confident in this belief of yours if you can’t finish one?

Mr. Straczynski, you’ve always been able to have work that resonates with me on some level, as with many fans. And you agreed to take the Last Son of Krypton on this journey across America. Superman deserves better, but more importantly, your fans deserve better.

The Half-Hearted Manifesto

A blog.

With many people, such a thing has started to become a testament to self-righteousness. “I feel that my opinion is important enough that I shall create my own, personal forum to broadcast my opinions across the internets!” At least, that can be the perception of purpose for having such a thing.

But slowly, a realization struck me. When people talk to me, whether at my place of employment, at school, over the internet through the various soapboxes provided to me, or even at home, it seems as if there are a few people out there that actually care about certain things I have to say. Through some avenues, particularly further reaching ones such as Batman-On-Film, I’ve been able to make connections with a wide variety of different people to talk about one of my greatest passions in entertainment: comics. Particularly, super hero comics.

In other ways, I’ve been able to talk with a lot of people over another aspect of life that’s important to me, namely current events and American politics. For a lot of people, I understand that this is a very dry and polarizing topic, a point with which I disagree vehemently. Public policy, both domestic and international, shapes the very way we live. Maybe not in an immediate way, or an extreme way, but that is one of the components of our society that shapes how we live. How we’re governed. Forgive me for not being particularly fond of sports, but every four years, a presidential debate carries the importance of a super bowl.

So, I enjoy the banter, the specificity, and the insight into people that discussions about politics and current events can provide. You very easily start to see that many people don’t believe in something you may perceive as “wrong” out of malice, they may actually believe that what they’re arguing is the better way. Because of this, it’s always best not to question the motives of your opponents in a political discussion. More broadly, it’s best not to do that in any argument.

So, after belaboring a little bit, if you don’t know me, this is who I am: my name is Chris Clow. I’m a 22-year old university student that works in a comic book store. I believe in the heroes I read about every Wednesday. I also believe in the power people hold, each one of us, to shape the world in which we live. I may post things on here that you disagree with, but my intentions aren’t malicious. I’m just another voice in the ocean of internet blogs that decided I didn’t have anywhere else to put my opinions but on a blogspot account.

Does that make me rather pathetic? Maybe.

But hopefully, through this exercise in pitiful redundancy, I might be able to foster a thought or two. Maybe I’ll be able to vent my own frustrations and make a bad day a little bit better. Maybe I’ll be able to just shoot with people over mutual interests.

Either way, it seemed that the positives outweigh the negatives, and I’m just a guy trying to straighten out those kinds of economics in this condition called life.

Can you really blame me?

Wait, don’t answer that. This is the internet, of course you can.