Batman: Reborn and Fixing DC Comics (UPDATED 07/02)

Batman comics are just about all I buy anymore. Marvel forfeited my business – completely, irrevocably - after the plodding mediocrity of Secret Invasion and unimpressive early entries to Dark Avengers (”pick up Invincible Iron Man,” they coo, vainly). DC, unable to unify its disparate brands after the brilliant psychedelia of Final Crisis (ultimately insignificant, save for DC’s predictable “Final Crisis Aftermath” schlock and Batman, but more on that later), pretty much has me in the bag for this summer’s “blockbuster event” Blackest Night, but has me less and less interested in some of my previously favorite books like Justice Society of America, Action Comics, Green Arrow/Black Canary, and The Outsiders; they’re just too all over the place. Will I pick them up on occasion? Sure. But can I really find it within myself to actually care about the supposed importance of, say, Deathstroke’s most recent dip into the bleeding rumps of the Teen Titans? Not really. Because half the time, these stories aren’t even fun anymore, and they almost never have any impact whatsoever on the rest of the “DC Universe,” which now seems a collection of galaxies with light year upon light year between them.

It’s cynical, but it’s also mostly true. DC understands how to provide excellent standalone stories, based on the preview material for Wednesday Comics – which looks stunning – and their major events like Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis (mentioned above) and Geoff Johns’ Sinestro Corps War (which, despite spanning several issues across a number of series, is collected in two very digestible trade paperbacks), yet its monthlies exist in some sort of horrible limbo between those and the admirable cohesion of the Marvel Universe. The monthlies share characters, vague references to “big ideas” (Martian Manhunter and Batman getting incinerated are about the only two things that DC’s writers seem to be getting out of Morrison’s sprawling opus), but generally fail miserably in attaining any sort of dramatic weight. The Spectre can suffer and rampage all he wants in the Revelations mini-series, but then a seemingly different character altogether is featured a few months later in Justice Society under the same name, which makes both exercises seem pretty insignificant. Similarly, Mary Marvel, forced to change her look and become an insane force of lust and violence after being possessed by an evil God in Final Crisis, should, presumably, be back to sorts after Darkseid is crushed and good prevails, but she’s strangely present in her S&M form in Johns’ recent JSA arc; is this supposed to take place during Final Crisis, when all of these characters were united against a force beyond all reckoning and the skies were raining fucking blood, or is it set afterwords in a DCU that is seemingly – bewilderingly - unaffected by the cataclysm, save for Mary Marvel’s ass-hideous haircut and exposed Shazam-boobies? Readers can’t enjoy these stories on their own, as they would be able to with the aforementioned events or Wednesday Comics, because the editors insist on pushing the concept that these threads are all connected when they just aren’t.

It’s difficult territory to navigate, I’m sure. Marvel’s Universe feels like a cohesive whole, but that can make it kind of boring and one-note from time to time. And we wouldn’t want DC to forget continuity completely, because then the comics would feel less essential and the science fiction tapestry would collapse altogether. So what should they do?

If the last month of Batman is any indication: reboot.

Ficly is sweet

I may hate Twitter, but I love Ficly. Scope my page, homies, and enjoy the first of what I hope will be many short stories that are remniscient of, ahem, “vintage Damon Beres.” (Charles will love me, Claire will not.)

Sorry I’ve been absent from the blog. Enjoying my summer in New York City too much, perhaps. WILL TRY TO REMEDY. Should be published in New York Daily News tomorrow. Will tell you how that goes. Sentence fragments.

Google: Damon Beres

Sometimes people arrive here from Google, which is concerning because, well, Googling my name happens to produce things like this, and I’d really rather everyone just see the good stuff, like a 600 word treatise against delicious cafeteria cookies or a number of short, cosmically significant spurts about how much I love my girlfriend (who has, for those keeping score at home, lost a point or two for disparaging my recent eBay acquisition of a Xorn action figure).

So rather than lying awake at night wondering what people will stumble upon in their desperate thirst for more Damon Beres, I decided to cull some of the choicest results and put them here. Because egg on the face is better when it’s on your terms, right? Like, over easy instead of scrambled?

I don’t know.

Here:

- The aforementioned “preggo waffles” Urban Dictionary definition. Because sometimes, when you’re a high school junior malcontent who isn’t quite getting enough exposure on Xanga, these things need to happen.

(And no, you will not find my Xanga, ever.)

- Douchey Blogger profile with lame high school interests. I really just couldn’t get enough No Doubt and Guitar Vader. This Blogger profile will lead you to a handful of my creative writing endeavors from high school, some of which are kind of awesome, actually.

- My reviews on Paperback Reader, where I was “hired” as a writer. And by reviews, I mean review. It was a B+.

- Evidence that I once entered an online competition to win a comic book. No, I didn’t win.

- Evidence, if you’ll look in the comments section, that I used to be one of those Japan nerds in high school. (Also evidence that I used to be really unfunny, which has yet to change.)

- Evidence that I’m a cat lady.

- A number of angry New Yorkers absolutely carving into my ass on Curbed after my Gramercy Green story got a modicum of coverage in The New York Times last fall. “Oooh, if you read the NYT article and look at the photo of the kid, he looks like Mr. Hipster, Jr. The expression on his face is worth more than his condorm,” and “That kid looks like a total douche bag and his comments to the NYT indicate that, at least with respect to this tool, you can judge a book by its cover” being the harshest comments, I think. (I kind of like “Mr. Hipster, Jr,” though.)

- Someone praising (?) me for an involved blog comment about Batwoman and Aquaman. I’m… totally into comic books, guys.

- Proof that I’m published in a book that you can buy at Barnes and Noble.

- Yet another collection of my high school creative writing. A promising start to my featured piece: “The hospital smelled like someone pissed on Grandma.” 

- Me commenting to Tina Fey that she is “The new Jesus.”

- Perhaps most frightful of all, a short film I made in high school. It’s complete nonsense and I cannot bring myself to watch it again, no sir.

And it kind of keeps going, but you get the gist. Probably, when I am trying to actually make something of myself, I will have to legally change my name, but it’s worth it for preggo waffles. By the time our children reach 20, I wonder how much they’ll have all over the internet, jeez Louise.

So. Anything juicy when you Google your name?

P.S.

New fiction coming soon on this blog. Not my Deviant Art. Yeesh.

Life is good when:

- You have a girlfriend who is so voraciously intent on reading the latest Seaguy that she insists on having it before you do.

- You have a girlfriend that, like, really wants to see Star Trek.

- Said girlfriend does not, as might be expected from the above information, look like this.

(Listen I am just saying.)

BRRWWWRrrWWnnwwwnn… zzz.

I can fall asleep with the likes of Mastodon and Boris blasting directly into my weathered ear canals, and I do it a lot, actually. 

And despite the fact that these are the sludge metal equivalents of Johann Sebastian Bach, I think, probably, that says something about me.

No?

(I will say, though, that the music video for Sea Beast will, without fail, prevent slumber for upwards of 7 hours.)

“Boredoms” is Great, Y’all

I’ve been listening to a lot of Super Ae recently, which is an album by Boredoms, and it’s probably about as good as Japanese avant-garde noise punk hullabaloo can be. (Which is very, actually!)

But more importantly than their music is the subject of their debut album:

Which bears the following tracklisting:

1. Anal Eat
2. God From Anal
3. Born To Anal

And is thus, at the very least, a beacon of interminable promise.

I guess I’m not really sure if Boredoms is the sort of “music” people are supposed to like, or if noise rock in general is ever intended to be enjoyable, but I think it’s pretty excellent and you should at least check out the aforementioned Super Ae because pretenious indie music publication Pitchfork called it the 44th best album of the 1990s and boy if that doesn’t sell you I can hardly fathom what will!

Seriously though: Born To Anal.

Music Bingin’

There is not much for me to do back in Chicago this weekend other than read comic books, worry about the next two weeks (oh Sociology, bane of my existence), and listen to music, so I’ve been doing a lot of that. For homework, please obtain and enjoy the following, peasants:

I mean, yes, of course, it’s so obvious but, probably, one or two of you have yet to be enlightened, furreal. Also, totally wish I was 20 in, say, 1990.

Cutely, I had a conversation with my mom tonight about some music, because she thinks she totally tears it up with her Ting Tings, and she was very excited to inform me that she has “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies and “Reckoner” by Radiohead “from their upcoming album.” I really like my mom.

“Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” And Us

I’ve just finished Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? It is a Thursday in April. I am on a plane from New York to Chicago. I have checked a 59-pound bag stuffed with Jack Kirby, Grant Morrison, an ugly brown coat. I’ve listened to songs by the Pixies over 44 times in the past 4 hours. Any of this might be important, I suppose. The most important of anything. More likely, not.

In a couple hours, assuming this airplane stays its course, I’ll be typing this up on my computer and sending it into cyberspace, where an average of 14 faceless people might read it everyday. Maybe that matters, I guess, and maybe it doesn’t.

Here’s what I want to say: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, a two-part story spread across an issue of Batman and an issue of Detective Comics (not traditionally the most venerated or celebrated of literary tomes), is one of the most sobering, incredible things I’ve ever read, and I’m wondering if I might look back on this statement 10, 20 years from now and wonder what it was about a giant bat and a pearl necklace that meant so much to me, but this, I suppose, is not quite the point. Batman, super heroes, these myths, are eternal. Could I “grow out of it”? Perhaps. But Batman will always face the hellish night in Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and come out the other side, prevail against the sadistic Azrael, fall to the lord of all evil while saving Earth, be Adam West and Christian Bale, leap from a bridge to save Commissioner Gordon’s baby, and, well, Batman will always be Batman.

It is this very idea that’s most obviously explored in the keenly self-aware Whatever Happened, which details a Batman brought to the brink of death and/or sanity (presumably as a result of R.I.P. and Final Crisis, but it doesn’t really matter in this story, all things considered), who must accept his ultimate fate however it may come. This is a story about icons. And it’s not the first of such – Morrison seems devoted to this concept in almost all of his super hero stories but very obviously works it in throughout the aforementioned R.I.P. and Final Crisis, especially the Superman Beyond 3D tie-in – but this could be the best.

Because ultimately, it doesn’t have to be about comic books or mythology or Bruce Wayne. My girlfriend and I recently had one of those stereotypical college kid discussions about “time,” and I’m not quite sure I really understand what she was getting at (her GPA is better than mine), but the idea is that she doesn’t buy into time as a linear concept. “But tomorrow is tomorrow and today is today,” I would argue; there are such things as “past,” “present,” and “future.” But not for comic book heroes, as writer Neil Gaiman so beautifully conveys here. And I realize, maybe not quite for us, either.

I mean, yes, I am on a plane now and an asteriod might lodge itself in my face a week from now. But that’s missing the point. What does time mean when I remember countless winter nights on a telephone or a smile in a Gold Creek Court hallway? A night on my best friend’s patio or next to my father when his remaining breaths could be counted on one hand? Or the feeling I get remembering “Airbag” first blaring into my life, or Black Francis’ banshee screams? These aren’t things you quantify. Maybe for you, in your mind or memory, they aren’t there forever (brain tumors happen), but to recall anything, to hold a memory close to your heart is projecting it into eternity. These things aren’t just the past, because in some way, they will always be happening, their reach ever pushing into your heart or tickling your brain. And that’s why something like “Batman,” a drawing of some man wailing on a criminally insane clown, can be just as real as this plane ride; blasted into the ether and played upon our hearts, what’s the difference between the two, really?

So I guess, basically, you should read some Batman comics.

(And I should get a life?)

On Elizabeth Wurtzel

We interviewed Elizabeth Wurtzel in my reporting class. Here’s what I have to say about it:

She’s got a best-selling book in her repertoire, 1994’s “Prozac Nation,” also the impetus to a film adaptation starring acclaimed actress Christina Ricci, a spot in one of New York’s top law firms, but author-turned-attorney Elizabeth Wurtzel is still depressed.

 

“I have always and probably will always, in some way, struggle with depression,” said Wurtzel in a recent interview.

 

She wears her infamy about as comfortably as the massive fur coat draped about her shoulders, which she is quick to justify as PETA-friendly; “I promise it’s vintage,” said Wurtzel, an unprompted response to a room of New York University journalism students.

 

And it’s hard to blame her. Do a Google search for “Elizabeth Wurtzel” and a number of juicy tidbits avail themselves. First, that she’s authored three books and appeared in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Rolling Stone. Next, that media gossip site Gawker has a thing to say about her controversial love life; the third result on the search page is a post titled “On Knowing Elizabeth Wurtzel Screwed David Foster Wallace.” And finally, that an unfiltered image search will produce a topless shot on the second page.

 

To say Wurtzel’s been in the limelight, not always on her own terms, may be something of an understatement. But what has fame brought her?

 

“It doesn’t solve anything,” said Wurtzel. “When you’re depressed, you’re depressed.” And despite the widespread attention both she and her seminal tome “Prozac Nation” have earned, she suggests that she doesn’t quite separate herself from jes plain folks.

 

“You have literary success or whatever, but you’re still taking the garbage out,” she said of life after “Prozac Nation.” But most don’t come in from the dumpster to gaze upon degrees from Harvard College and Yale Law School, a coffee table full of magazines they’ve been published in.

 

Still, chatting with CNN producer Phil Rosenbaum’s reporting class, even breaking for pizza with students and offering her email address to interested parties after the interview, Wurtzel was admittedly at ease, her rapport spanning topics from celebrity gossip to television dramas.

 

“I watch Law & Order re-runs…  I actually just watched the E! True Hollywood Story on the Kardashians… they seem like a nice family, in a weird way,” said Wurtzel.

 

She struggles with the bar examination, a requisite for those who want to practice law, criticizes the popularization of Brooklyn as a hip spot for married couples (“It’s Kabul, Afghanistan before it’s Cobble Hill; I can’t hear one more time that Brooklyn is the new Manhattan”), enthusiastically talks about her dog, and ponders the effect the internet has on blind dating.

 

You wouldn’t think so leafing through her books, trolling internet blogs, or maybe even at first glance, but Elizabeth Wurtzel is almost painstakingly normal; melancholic, occasionally depressive, prone to romantic foibles, self-involved and concerned about little more than the nebulous “world around her.”

 

She’s a best-selling author, yes, a big-time attorney, and indeed, still depressed.

 

Who wouldn’t be?

Today I wrote about cookies

(It’s an April Fool’s column, what can I say?)

Siphoned from the exuberant Washington Square News:

Cafeteria cookies are just too damn delicious

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene isn’t the only institution taking issue with NYU’s dining halls: The masses have spoken, and those cookies at Hayden Dining Hall may just be TOO delicious.

The whole cookie ordeal is just so smug and presumptuous anyway. Some kind-looking lunch lady extracts a massive tray laden with the gooey delights from an oven (an oven that may as well be the forge of Hephaestus himself, given the sumptuous treasures it produces), piles them onto a plate and just walks away like she doesn’t even realize the hysteria unleashed by their presence.

“And what?” she spurts, as kids nearly kill themselves in a mad dash for the heavenly baked goods.

It’s not responsible. I’m told, by a source close to the situation, that the recipe for these chocolate chip cookies (if we are to believe that these are truly so simple a creation) was originally funded by the United States government in an effort to create real-life Powerpuff Girls for use in “Operation Enduring Freedom.” After a few failed trial runs, the formula faced minor tweaks and is now used to fatten NYU students.

Still (and this is the honest-to-goodness truth), the ingredients are G-14 classified (a designation made famous by Chris Tucker in NYU alumnus Brett Ratner’s seminal film “Rush Hour”), and lesser reporters than myself have found themselves slaughtered and turned into “Mondo Meatloaf” for merely asking the wrong questions.

The fiasco, unbelievably, has gone unabated; the administration turns a blind eye to this dangerous dessert, and students refuse to probe Hayden Dining Hall, too placated by the warm, viscous chocolate avalanching down their throats. Here are the hard facts: People get their feet stepped on as often as once every few weeks attempting to access the cookie plate; many have testified that they feel “unable to stop with just one;” and each one has, at the very least, a bajillion calories.

What is wrong with those vegan peanut butter cookies that taste and feel a little bit like a piece of sidewalk chalk rolled around in some dirt? They are healthier, don’t incite conflicts among peers, don’t dribble goop all over your fingers and have the added benefit of steering NYU society away from fattening dessert foods. I mean, they are so gross that they could very well turn someone away from any dessert for life, based entirely on principle.

But no. We are taunted by these devilish treats. Today, in a fit of sheer ecstasy, I saw a portly lad strip to his nether regions, sandwich three of the cookies between two hunks of Funfetti and roll about on the floor moaning while ravenously consuming the new creation. He had to be removed by an NYU Public Safety officer, frosting and chocolate chip molasses running down his curves, crusting into his folds for all eternity — a wailing scar of dessert taken too far.

This is what we, as students, must rise up against: the definitive perversion of our dining hall goods. We found ourselves unmoved by the ultimately tepid sermons of Take Back NYU, allow ourselves to be bulldozed by tuition increases year after year, but here is where we make a stand.

For shame, Hayden Dining Hall. The delicious has gone too far.

Damon Beres is opinion editor (Lord knows why). E-mail him at dberes@nyunews.com.