I still remember standing in line outside my hometown theater for forty-five minutes on the third day of Spider-Man One’s opening weekend. The imagined possibilities of other superheroes getting a big screen treatment reeling around inside my brain like a six-year-old on a sugar binge. Sure, We had those Batman… uh.. things, and X-men, but somehow it felt different; like the air was charged with possibilities (of course that could have been hypothermia setting in as my clothes absorbed three hobbits worth of water). Now a superhero hitting the big screen gets as much coverage on the news as a shuttle launch, and the air is as limp and empty of joy as Superman with a Kryptonite condom.
But I am not here to talk about why that is. Our own expectations and the corporate “Hype” machine have pretty much sucked all the magic out of the superhero movie world. Now when I stand in the rain outside the theater, the only thing in the air is pollution and the smell of the geek in front of me who hasn’t bathed in two weeks and has been standing in line for five days “fermenting” in the summer heat just so he can get a good seat.
One thing I remember from that fateful rain soak Sunday outside my theater five years ago was the piece of conversation I picked up from the people behind me in line. They were discussing, like we all were, the possibilities ahead of us in the future. What characters we would like to see, what villains, trying to trump each other with ever more obscure comic books characters in an attempt to impress our fellow nerds with our “geek-cred”. Anyway, one guy mentions how cool a Justice League movie would be, and everyone else starts chiming in, that is until someone pipes up with the Judas of comic superheroes: Aquaman. I almost feel sorry for the poor guy who put those two cents into the conversation. His friends met his suggestion with derision, and I wasn’t surprised.
Aquaman has long been the whipping boy of the superhero world. When people think of superheroes, they imagine the rippling muscles of Superman, or the brains of Batman, or the… uh.. “Bracelets” of Wonder Woman. Often over the years, when Aquaman enters the conversation, I have heard the same reaction. People scoff and retort, “What good is he? He talks to fish!”
Why, ladies and gentlemen, has Aquaman been sidelined into a third-string player? I mean, in the end, what is so bad about being able to talk to fish? I can imagine the lucrative and creative business opportunities available to the man who can communicate with fish and find out where all the good shipwrecks are. Not to mention hosting your own “Fish Whisperer” television show on National Geographic channel. The important and subtle difference to remember people is that he doesn’t talk to fish, he commands them. Think about all the creatures in the ocean, and then all of those creatures that are perfect predators in their watery environment. I can’t think of a more deadly super-power to wield against your average evil villain. Imagine how long the Joker would laugh if he gets knocked out of his clown-themed fishing trawler by Jaws. Then, when he is treading water surrounded by several of the world’s most evolved predator, out of the briny deep comes Aquaman riding on the back of a Blue whale like a badass while Barracudas ride shotgun just under the waves.
Not only has his super-power been marginalized but the character himself is often laughed at. True, I can’t think of a less scary color scheme than an orange shirt and green pants. Whatever you think of his suit, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. At one point in the Aquaman storyline, he loses his hand. Now, in the comics the circumstances involve a tank full of piranhas and the loss of his telepathic abilities, poor chump. However, in the Justice League cartoon series they took a different route, and firmly established Aquaman as a hardcore-badass-motherfucker in my book. Aquaman is chained to a rock by a usurper to his throne along his baby son. The rock is about to fall into a crack on the ocean floor filled with lava. As the rock starts sliding over the edge Aquaman struggles in his chains, succeeding in getting one free, but he doesn’t have time to free his other hand, he looks at his son and then reaches for the sharp letter “A” belt buckle on his waist, and then cuts off his own hand in order to free himself and save his son. THEN he swims back to Atlantis for a final showdown with the usurper. I don’t know about you, but anyone who willingly cuts off an appendage just to free himself has officially won the Biggest Balls in The Universe contest. Right now fictional Aquaman is second only to the very real climber whose arm was trapped under a rock, and he lay stuck for several days before cutting off his arm and then hiking back to civilization.
When I think about it, I think Aquaman’s situation is a unique one. I mean who else in the superhero world would cut off their own arm to save a child. I am sure a lot of them claim they would be willing to, but how many superheroes, when stuck in that situation, without any other recourse or superpower to rely on, would go that extra distance. Think about it. Superman, with his ridiculous retard strength would have done any one of a dozen things to the rock or chains with any one of his superpowers. Face it, the guy is like a Swiss Army Knife of superhero powers. Even if he couldn’t free himself from the chains or break the lock, Superman would be incapable of cutting off his own arm. He is the man of Steel after all.
How about Batman? To tell you the truth, I have seen Batman trapped in so many soon-to-die situations that I would almost relish watching him try to get out of the situation and then have a large “Epic Fail” sign appear above him so it is the last thing he sees as the rock he is chained to plummets him to a molten death. However, we all know that Batman has more gadgets and doohickeys than a compulsive shopper on EBay. Even with both his hands chained securely, and fastened well away from his belt I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up at the end of the episode all smug and quiet, never revealing how he escaped the trap. He probably has some trained lab monkey that’s genetically engineered to breath underwater that he stuffed up his ass that morning as an afterthought “just in case he gets chained to a rock at the bottom of the ocean”. And Wonder Woman? Face it, that bitch would have drowned.
In the end, people just don’t give Aquaman a chance. The man who would be King of Atlantis trumped by a goofy costume, unique super-power, and the preconceived notions of an air-breathing audience. Well, I still believe in him even if you don’t. When Aquaman is long gone, and his comic book kingdom is crumbling into ruin, who will mourn for Aquaman? I will.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Death of The Golden Age
I remember hearing about the golden age of comic books. Comics themselves reference this era with gleeful abandon, and a positive outlook that normally is only reserved for for elderly men sitting outside old convenience stores reminiscing about the "the good old days".
Yes, it was a simpler time back then. You knew who the villains were and you knew who you could trust. Oh, and lets not forget about the fact that the obsolete door-lock industry was in the slump, much to the benefit of the many and the lament of the few locksmiths trying to feed their families. As I sit here and type this, I too am reminiscing about a simpler time. It was not in the distant past, only to be remembered through stories told to me by my grandfather while roasting marshmallows around the campfire, no it was as far back as my senior year of high school which was the ancient year of 2002.
The thing I remember most about that year is that was the year my Dad bought me my own computer. Sure he would use it, but we both knew that I was the one it belonged to, especially since I was the one who had to put it together. That's right folks, my computer came in about fifteen different boxes and I had to put it together one day in the tech room after school.
That year my mom also got a computer, she got herself an eMac. It was a sexy looking piece of machinery with an infrared mouse and a delicious color scheme. She was a fan of puzzle games, so the guy at the store convinced her to buy Myst III: Exile. I was busy at the time tearing my way through Quake 3 Arena, with its polygonal eye-candy and detailed 256 color bitmap textures, so I didn't really want to waste my time with a boring game like the Myst series.
Needless to say though, I ended up putting the disk in and seeing what was so special about these games. I guess you could say that I was at the time a closet Macaddict. I would often sneak onto my mother's computer when she wasn't home. When it was her boxy little apple II I would play Dungeon of Doom, with her eMac I would play Cro-mag rally. Since Myst III could run on both our systems, I decided to install it on mine.
Several hours later I was still sitting in front of my computer, pulling a lever and watching a ball roll down a tube only to break something. I would then have to go and adjust the components that made up the ball, and then do it over again, noting down any changes. the tediouseness of the game was offset by the fact that I could turn around and stare across a massive expanse of water at a storm that was raging far away. The puzzles were mind-numbingly difficult, the only reason I made it as far as I did in the game was because I was lucky enough to accidently click on something that I didn't know was there. In the end though, the game was just too difficult for my FPS brain to deal with.
Now though, I am typing this on my own MacBook Pro, and my reflexes aren't what they used to be. I am like an old man when it comes to games like Halo, but I find myself thinking back to those slow-paced games and their infuriatingly difficult puzzles. Which is the reason that I am fully realizing that The Golden Age of Technology is over.
After spending the last few days trying to get my mother's copy of Myst III to work, I have come to the realization that the Cult of Mac has embraced change without fully thinking about the past. The fact that I am unable to get this game to work simply because my system has chosen to abandon it's roots frightens and angers me. It isn't simply a problem with Macintosh, although the fervor surrounding an announcement by Steve Jobs can be compared to the second coming of Jesus.
Think about the console wars. True, nowdays backwards compatability is a requirement, but compare our console wars and the quest for the next-gen gaming system to let's say the first televisions. Think about how often people bought new televisions. They didn't. They bought a television and that was the family television for the next fifteen years (if they were sensible). Now we buy a system and five years later we are planning for the new system to come out. I see a commercial for a new cell phone almost every month. I knew a girl who had a new phone every six months. I kept my phone for three years. Hell, it had a monochromatic background, no camera; it didn't even have polyphonic ringtones. The coolest thing my phone did was glow blue. I freaking loved that phone. I would still be using it today if it still worked.
Even the stalwart television is changing. in the last eight years, I have seen three major new television technologies come out. Which is more than the two decades before that can claim.
I am not saying that new isn't better, but I feel like we jump at every shiny new object that gets put in front of us. Instead of frothing at the mouth everytime a new cell phone, or game console, or computer operating system comes out; we should instead be asking ourselves what this new thing is going to fix about that old thing, and whether or not having said new thing is going to cut us off from our past. In a world changing as fast as ours, our roots are going to help define ourselves.
Yes, it was a simpler time back then. You knew who the villains were and you knew who you could trust. Oh, and lets not forget about the fact that the obsolete door-lock industry was in the slump, much to the benefit of the many and the lament of the few locksmiths trying to feed their families. As I sit here and type this, I too am reminiscing about a simpler time. It was not in the distant past, only to be remembered through stories told to me by my grandfather while roasting marshmallows around the campfire, no it was as far back as my senior year of high school which was the ancient year of 2002.
The thing I remember most about that year is that was the year my Dad bought me my own computer. Sure he would use it, but we both knew that I was the one it belonged to, especially since I was the one who had to put it together. That's right folks, my computer came in about fifteen different boxes and I had to put it together one day in the tech room after school.
That year my mom also got a computer, she got herself an eMac. It was a sexy looking piece of machinery with an infrared mouse and a delicious color scheme. She was a fan of puzzle games, so the guy at the store convinced her to buy Myst III: Exile. I was busy at the time tearing my way through Quake 3 Arena, with its polygonal eye-candy and detailed 256 color bitmap textures, so I didn't really want to waste my time with a boring game like the Myst series.
Needless to say though, I ended up putting the disk in and seeing what was so special about these games. I guess you could say that I was at the time a closet Macaddict. I would often sneak onto my mother's computer when she wasn't home. When it was her boxy little apple II I would play Dungeon of Doom, with her eMac I would play Cro-mag rally. Since Myst III could run on both our systems, I decided to install it on mine.
Several hours later I was still sitting in front of my computer, pulling a lever and watching a ball roll down a tube only to break something. I would then have to go and adjust the components that made up the ball, and then do it over again, noting down any changes. the tediouseness of the game was offset by the fact that I could turn around and stare across a massive expanse of water at a storm that was raging far away. The puzzles were mind-numbingly difficult, the only reason I made it as far as I did in the game was because I was lucky enough to accidently click on something that I didn't know was there. In the end though, the game was just too difficult for my FPS brain to deal with.
Now though, I am typing this on my own MacBook Pro, and my reflexes aren't what they used to be. I am like an old man when it comes to games like Halo, but I find myself thinking back to those slow-paced games and their infuriatingly difficult puzzles. Which is the reason that I am fully realizing that The Golden Age of Technology is over.
After spending the last few days trying to get my mother's copy of Myst III to work, I have come to the realization that the Cult of Mac has embraced change without fully thinking about the past. The fact that I am unable to get this game to work simply because my system has chosen to abandon it's roots frightens and angers me. It isn't simply a problem with Macintosh, although the fervor surrounding an announcement by Steve Jobs can be compared to the second coming of Jesus.
Think about the console wars. True, nowdays backwards compatability is a requirement, but compare our console wars and the quest for the next-gen gaming system to let's say the first televisions. Think about how often people bought new televisions. They didn't. They bought a television and that was the family television for the next fifteen years (if they were sensible). Now we buy a system and five years later we are planning for the new system to come out. I see a commercial for a new cell phone almost every month. I knew a girl who had a new phone every six months. I kept my phone for three years. Hell, it had a monochromatic background, no camera; it didn't even have polyphonic ringtones. The coolest thing my phone did was glow blue. I freaking loved that phone. I would still be using it today if it still worked.
Even the stalwart television is changing. in the last eight years, I have seen three major new television technologies come out. Which is more than the two decades before that can claim.
I am not saying that new isn't better, but I feel like we jump at every shiny new object that gets put in front of us. Instead of frothing at the mouth everytime a new cell phone, or game console, or computer operating system comes out; we should instead be asking ourselves what this new thing is going to fix about that old thing, and whether or not having said new thing is going to cut us off from our past. In a world changing as fast as ours, our roots are going to help define ourselves.
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