Outrageous Fandom

Did you know there were so many dumb people on teh Interweb? Me neither. How did they get in? Let's look at some, because the only thing I can do to idiocy is laugh at it.



New Zealand television, after an awfully painful processing, has finally produced a real gem in Outrageous Fortune. Regardless of one's critical view, it really is staggering that we have a solid local drama that has now run for five seasons. The cultural cringe seems, for the most part, to be evaporating. We can now have telly progs which don't take themselves too seriously, can be creatively daring, and still entertain a huge audience, and in this reporter's opinion it's about bloody time.

Naturally, OF is represented online. The forums are of particular interest to us here. For the most part, there is plenty of cheerfully illiterate discussion about the prog; cast and characters, plot predictions, and so forth. But it is here on the OF forums that one oftimes meets the type of "munter" that is satirized on the show. Only now they're cyber-munters; a very rare kind of native troll.

Let's look at some examples, shall we? These are all from screengrabs I've taken over the past few months. I always seek out threads that have been "sunk", and especially the "closed" ones. But we'll start off with some casual stalking of Antonia Prebble:



Maybe he just wants a signed photograph. Or something. But that chap's a virtual Lothario compared to this guy:



Sorry, female blog readers; I wasn't able to get the screengrab before the mod deleted his number. So now you'll probably never get to savour that good body/average looks combo he promised. He does strike one as an earnest chap; I myself would just strike him. Screw posting his number, he shouldn't he allowed to post anything, at all, ever.

So we've got stalkers; also snarkers:



And sometimes, there are the truly vitriolic one-offs; folks who create an account purely to start a flame war. They roar in on an epic troll, then lay into the fan-dumb backlash like only Kiwi suburban trash could. A recent smackdown unfolded as follows:



Thus begins an august and measured debate worthy of history's finest orators:







Eventually the dueling flamethrowers cross beams, an a horrible beauty is born:





But sometimes the dark power of the OF forumers can be swayed to a good purpose...like harassing any reviewer who DARES criticize their show. Apollo help you if you incite their wrath!



Now properly roused, we see that same kind of impartial debate springs forth once more:



And hey, why not send aggressive and harassing emails to the reviewer!



Let us now leave the lively OF forums, and proceed to mocking a group of people far more wretched than some emotional TV fans. We're talking Gnatsies Nazis. Recently there was quite the to-do in the UK as Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, went on "Question Time". For my part, the journalist in me says that this oafish goblin of a man should be allowed on the telly, to be mocked and derided as brutally as he was on the show. But the historian in me says that yeah, well, they mocked Hitler at the start, too; and look how well that turned out - hence Griffin the Goblin shouldn't be allowed on TV. It's complicated.

As far as New Zealand goes, our native Nazis WISH they were as horribly high-profile as the BNP. But their mediocrity is truly astounding, even by the asshat standards of your average skinhead. Behold the head of our National Front, that noble scion of the Aryan Race, Kyle Chapman:



Isn't it funny how Nazis and fascists are always such poor examples of "their race", as they put it? An old joke in underground Nazi Germany went : "The Perfect Aryan is slim like Goering, tall like Goebbels, strong like Himmler, and pale like Hitler!".

This troglodyte's infamy is well known. Recently he claimed to have abandoned the Party and taken up the Mormon faith, as encouraged by his new wife (a member of the church). But obviously he got bored of being ignored, and has now come up with a new party, the Nationalist Alliance. He's got big plans about getting all survivalist in some isolated corner of the South Island.

And here's the punchline. Last Sunday's Star-Times featured a wee piece on Chapman's mediocre fantasies, and provided some hilarious quotes. Describing how they will set up this little camp, Chapman says:

"To avoid it becomming [sic] a [sausage] fest we will look at supporting some Eastern Euro like minded women for the many single men we have."



You said it, Cary. Get this : skins are BRINGING IN IMMIGRANTS! From EASTERN EUROPE! Is that not a tad IDEOLOGICALLY UNSOUND, LOSERS? But of course the real clanger is that "many single men" bit. O RLY? I wonder why that is. Imagine all these cretins trying not to succumb to their repressed homoerotic urges down there in the looong Southern winter night.

Anyway, let's give up on one bunch of grotty adolescents and their masturbatory fantasies, and move onto another! I was most upset at a certain aspect of the recently released 'G.I. Joe' flick, "Rise of Cobra". Don't make that face at me; for one thing I'm an 80's kid and it is - for better or worse - a part of my cultural heritage.

Now the Joe franchise has two kickarse action women : Scarlett (for the Joes) and the Baroness (for Cobra). It's one of the oldest designated catfights in toy history. They're both super lethal and just as sexy, so a live-action realization of these characters is appealing, I have to say. But that realization, when it came, was a major let-down.

First : Scarlett. She's a redheaded Southern Belle, thus pushing mashing most of my buttons; but to top it off she was brought to the screen by a favorite actress of mine, Rachel Nichols. So I was hoping for serious funtimes here. But man, they screwed her over good. We're told early in the movie that she graduated from university at age 12, and is some kind of uber-genius. (This is emphasized by a scene showing her reading Kant while running on a treadmill - in tight pants and cutoff sweat top; coz you know, all geniuses do that). But she does TWO THINGS in the whole damn movie. She actually spends most of it "depowered", moping about all insecure and serving no purpose than to provide a love interest. So much for her awesomeness. She only comes right thanks to her man sorting it out.

The two things she does do are (a) shoot someone in the face with her trademark crossbow and (b) know Celtic! An important plot point at the climax of the film is saved by her Suddenly Remembering that she speaks "Celtic", whatever the hell that is - a proper linguist would have meant Erse.

Second : The Baroness. Well...



In this film, one of the most gleefully amoral and evil female characters in recent history is neutered utterly. It turns out she only went bad because (she thought) her man had done her wrong; and all it takes is the redemptive love of said man to bring her back. She's denied any free will or purpose; and is nothing but a pawn. It's sad. Aren't women allowed to be independently evil in Hollywood? Oh well; at least she'll always have this:


Destro and Baroness GET MONEY Song

Paige | MySpace Video

Strange Tales Redux

Back in those olden days of freaky beatniks and groovy trips there was a comic : Strange Tales. It was about as hardcore and horrific as a comic could get in America at the time, given the strict censorship. Later Stan Lee and Steve Ditko would "Marvelize" the title and it became a showcase for the craziest crap the House of Ideas could produce. Its greatest run was in the late 60's; the later dark-age incarnation was a lot less successful.



But now, in honor of Marvel's 70th anniversary, the title has seen a brief but inspired three-issue tribute, with an aptly unusual bent. A whole bunch of independent comic book artists have been invited to give their take on the MU, and present various short stories or character studies in their own inimitable styles. The result is really something; managing to be subversive and surreal, while still remaining loyal to the original inspiration. There's parody, but also reverence - about as happy a marriage as you could get between the commercial and independent comic sensibilities.





Some very talented writer/artists got on board, but there are two favorites of mine whose work I was particularly thrilled to see. The first is Nicholas Gurewitch, producer of the hilariously evil PBF Comics. He has several pieces in the first comic, but "The Blue Hair" stands out in its sublime genius



But I have to award the laurels to that cheeky old gothboy Jhonen Vasquez. It's not really surprising that he fell upon M.O.D.O.K. as the choice for his story. That psychotically ridiculous villain is just the kind of misunderstood freak that Vasquez loves.



I don't want to spoilerize the rest; needless to say:



There's more fantastic stuff besides; I think it's funny that this supposed parody comic actually has the best damn Black Widow story I've read in ages, for example. This is definitely a comic you should buy, even if you're normally adverse to the idea. At least, it doesn't matter if you're an indie snob or superhero neckbeard; comics are meant to be FUN, and this title has a lot of that.

The Ballad Of Patsy Walker (Part 3)

Part 3 : And The Tears Dried On Her Face



The third verse in our ballad covers the lowest period in Patsy's life. Her character's epic arc had curved into the so-called Dark Age of Comics - in this case, 1983 to 1993. She, along with all the other inhabitants of comic book fantasy, now found their world to be a bleak, angsty dystopia where it rained all the time. Everyone was wearing overcoats, hating themselves, and getting killed off horribly. Patsy - whose own career had closely mirrored the rise and fall of superhero comics - would be dragged down with the rest of them.

When we last left Pats, she had taken a break from superheroing to go indulge a bit of self-searching. She had recently befriended a new Defenders member, called Gargoyle. Originally he had been one of the demons trying to kill her; after Patsy 'freeded' him from his satanic side he became a loyal ally. It turns out he knew of one Joshua Walker, who - as a stunned Patsy discovers - may actually be her father, long presumed dead.



However, a certain infernal fiend who had claimed, in the past, to be Patsy's father, had to pop in on her YET AGAIN to exposit a few things.



It turns out this was all part of a big handwave by Marvel. By the early 80's they were getting a bit leery about using Satan in their comics. So they shoehorned this whole story into Patsy's life for the purposes of clearing up their demonic cosmology.



What follows is turgid and pretty unreadable (and worth skipping), but a basic point is made. This "Satan" and his merry red cohorts are just another bunch of godlike beings; not the definitive Satan of Judaeo-Christian belief. There are, it seems, a thousand hells and a thousand entities claiming to be Satan. It's just that THIS particular one is a colossal pain in the arse, and uses the name to get some attention.



And with that, he's gone (for the time being at least). Patsy finally got to have a lucky break, too; as she discovered Joshua Walker was indeed her real father.





So Pats suddenly got a whole family in her life. It certainly made for a brief up-beat moment, especially after that business with her devil-worshipping mother (no wonder Joshua left). It was a brief ray of light, I suppose, before the deluge.



These changes seemed to please that most implacable of people - the readers. Prior to the Internet, nerds actually had to write a real letter and send it to the comic, if they wanted to air their "opinions". One interesting letter, from this 1983 period, is worth looking at:



That satanic rewrite went down well for this guy, at least. (Isn't "darksome majesty" a great phrase? Although he sounds kinda Christian, I bet this guy was cranking some Sab at the time). He also adds this comment:



She really had come a long way.

With this all now neatly resolved, Patsy returned to the Defenders to settle some other unfinished business - her relationship with Hellstrom, the "Son of Satan". Unbeknown to them, two people are watching (and narrating) over this all like some kind of galactic soap opera - Doctor Strange and the Overmind. They have, not a scientific curiosity, but rather a magical one, in how this relationship will work out.



Pats and Daimon get a blissful little period where they can hold hands and pretend they're normal for a while. She also mentions at this point she's working on a book. This will become the "Hellcat Chronicles", the first of three books she will ultimately produce (as of this date).



This prompts Daimon to get all serious. He and Pats had never actually done a good job of examining just what their relationship was about, making this as good a time as any for them to deal with it.











Well, the course of true love never ran smooth, and so forth; especially in the case of two characters with as much baggage as Pats and Daimon. But this is also indicative of a mass general personality meltdown which took place in the mid-80's.

In 1986, two 'watershed' comics were published - Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns" and Alan Moore's "Watchmen". They totally overturned the established precepts about superhero comics, and prompted a dramatic change throughout the genre. The problem was, other comics picked up the style, but not the substance, of those two great works. "Watchmen" and "DKR" did a great job in depicting anti-heroes in a complicated way; lesser works just reproduced the sex-and-violence-and-wangst without any irony. A whole style of cheesy, excessive superhero comics came into development; and acting like a total dick was the order of the day.

This applied to Patsy, now all moody because of her demon-boy troubles. She promptly takes it out on her old gal-pal Valkyrie:



(You can also note a new tone slipping into the writing - the rhythmic nonsense of the 70's now replaced with a purple, pretentious, English-Lit sensibility).

This naturally prompts Val to have her own meltdown. Her struggle with her two halves - the blonde cheerleading college girl Barbara, and the castrating warrior goddess Brunhilde - had definitely become an issue. The latter had all but overwhelmed the former, detaching her more and more from humanity.



But a heart-to-heart girltalk worked the trick, as it had so often in the past. Although now it had, of course, that slightly darker edge. Nothing seemed straightforward anymore.



Settling down to write her book, our Pats manages to make an Anais Nin reference. (That's an interesting place for her to be coming from - and I can't help feeling it's that same 80's thing rearing its head again). Also, the fact her and Daimon still have something to resolve is brought up.





She gets a whole bunch of Luke-on-Dagobah-type wicked dreams screaming "Daimon's in trouble!". Naturally this prompts her to enlist her best friend Beast and go looking for the AWOL Hellstrom. She also shows off a bit first.



What is boils down to, is that Hellstrom is battling a force called the Darksoul. It's the bad mojo which makes him 'demonic'. Naturally his father, the Not-Satan, wants the Darksoul to take over so he can finally get his heir. But with the help of the rather impressively powerful Overmind, Pats is able to destroy the Darksoul and free Daimon from his satanic heritage.





With the Darksoul gone, Pats and Daimon get to have their one classic moment; the best two pages these kids ever had. It marked a whole new stage in both their lives.





Now officially engaged, Pats and Daimon decide to set out on their own as occult investigators, specializing in dealing with people's supernatural hassles. Their teammates have a positive but mixed reaction; nobody ever really trusted Daimon, and a general air of unease hangs about. Valkyrie packs her own sad, as her natural Norse-goddess instincts always prompted her to dislike Hellstrom - and her feelings for Patsy suffer.









So we come to the wedding of the decade! But it turns out our happy couple's special day is going to be a complicated one - not unlike that time Robin Hood tried to get married on Falcon Crest (another glorious 80's moment). An old nemesis of Patsy's in on-hand to crash the event - and he is quite familiar to us:



It is, of course, that freckle-faced soda jockey Buzz Baxter, Patsy's first husband. Boy howdy, he's become a very sick and bitter man in the years since Pats last bested him. Now reborn as Mad Dog, he and a few other Z-grade minor villains decide this wedding will be the perfect chance for payback on the assembled heroes.







The bad guys really wreak havoc - they stun the heroes with sundry mind-tricks, and Mad Dog's poisonous bite incapacitates Patsy. But Pats' old mentor Moondragon is more than able to fighting back, and once she has Mad Dog on the ropes, a very pissed off groom wades in to do some damage. You sure as Hell don't mess with the Son of Satan's girl.





So with that - and the party standing over a bunch of defeated villains - Patsy Walker and Daimon Hellstrom are wed at last.



This marked a real change for our Pats. She was officially out of the Defenders now, and hence had no regular place in any storyline. No specific Pats-and-Daimon comic series was actually produced; they would just guest-star in other titles, or appear in various one-shots.

Pats' life, in 1986, saw her now sporting a Cyndi Lauper 'do, and with her book racing up the bestseller list. Appearing on an obnoxious tabloid TV show to tout the book, she finds things take a rapid turn for the worse on ALL levels.



Obviously short on ideas for Pats, she got Mad Dog thrown back into her life. Remember this is immediately post-Watchmen/DKR, and the first seeds of superhero decadence were being sown.



You can start to get a feel of how this "dark and gritty" thing was going in these panels. I consider the following page to be particularly creepy, as Pats getting casually molested by her twisted ex-husband is apparently no big deal to the writer.



But Mad Dog has to have his big moment; it's all about him being the wangsty villain who must make his big speech. He gets to be really brutal to Pats too, because again, everything's just so sadistic cooler now.



Nonetheless, Pats can still kick his arse easy. Although now she does it with a whole dose of gritty self-reflection, and some sort of attempt by the writer to give her a victim mentality. Hell, it's even raining.





One story Pats got at this time, involved her and Daimon returning to her hometown of Centerville. It was drawn in a homage style to her old 60's comics. Back on her old turf, Pats and her new husband face a lot of grief from her family and the other townsfolk. Basically, these happy small-towners have a REAL problem with their 'heroine' marrying such a dodgy fellow





In the end, though, all it takes is a guy with a demon for a father to give a sitcom speech, and everything is right in the world.



So we fade in to the 90's, and the Dark Age enters its blackest era. Excess was the order of the day, as no-one could be too have too much big hair, too many big guns, or be any more x-treme. (This was also, of course, the period I came on board as a comics fan...so yeah). A fine example of all this wallowing would be the scene of Patsy's death. (To put it in context it may help to have this playing in the background for the rest of the blog).

The book was a 12-part series called "Hellstorm: Prince of Lies". The moving of the 'r' in that name was important - he had deliberately changed it from "-strom" because hey, it's the 90s. The whole title was about establishing him as a kick-arse battler of demons and all sorts of occult horrors. It was a real indulgence of the whole cult of the anti-hero, presenting Hellstorm as something of a sexy bad-boy who played by nobody's rules but his own. At least they got a crack in about his old costume:



Where was our beloved Pats then, in the middle of all this grimness? The answer was a horrid shock if you'd been following her her entire life:





AUGH.

(At least, this means some of her 70's portrayals no longer qualify as her ugliest rendering).

This page was a cold, wet slap in the face purely for shock's sake - the beginning of Pats' turn to be stuffed in the fridge. I hate it.

How did she come to this horrid pass? Over the next few issues, it was revealed that the whole business with the Darksoul had come back to bite our happy couple. Initially Daimon had seemed all normal, and had lost the demonic evil which had caused all the misery in the past. But then he fell sick, and Patsy discovered that the only way her husband could be saved would be to put the Darksoul back in her. Sporting a horrid 90's bodysuit - and ignoring the advice of the Gargoyle - she summons up our old friend the Not-Satan to save her husband.





The whole ordeal brings Daimon back, but - despite Pats' long experience in this stuff - drives her totally insane.



She spends a few more issues running around the house, a wretched creature, babbling all kinds of demonic weirdness. Meanwhile, Daimon is off having a great time and seems heedless of his broken wife.





With issue #12, a new creative team came on board. The writer was Warren Ellis, at the start of his career; and the artist was Peter Gross. These guys are extremely talented, but mad bride that I am, I will forever associate them with the killing off of Patsy. Basically, I think, they just didn't know what to do with her, and sent her the way of all those female characters who become superfluous to their man's plotline.









That's a damn bitter end for a character who was so strong and distinctive. The fact she's killed off (worse, she technically kills herself) just because it's "grim-and-gritty" really does make this the absolute nadir of Patsy Walker's life.



But nothing is ever really lost...with some good sense, Ellis left a little plothook behind that would save Patsy. She was gone not forgotten - and despite the despair the Hellcat would come back again.



(The fourth, and final, part to come).