How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?

A little more on nostalgia.

One thing I noticed on my list is that some of the cultural touchstones of my generation—Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, particularly—aren’t on my list of nostalgia movies. And I really do love Raiders, and I really did love Star Wars. They’re great movies, and came out right at the perfect time for me, when I was 8-11. Pretty much zero hour for nostalgia.

I guess the difference is: They kept coming out. Empire followed Star Wars, and was even better… but then Jedi came out, and it was good… but also kind of a letdown. I was in high school rather than elementary school, and instead of a mind-blowing experience, I got a really good action movie. And then neither of the Raiders movies grabbed me the same way as the first. Partially because I was older, and probably also because it’s breakneck pace simply wasn’t as new to me. (And maybe they weren’t as good. It’s been years since I’ve seen Temple of Doom or Last Crusade, and I didn’t even bother with the one this summer.)

And Star Wars, of course, returned with awfulness, to an extent that I’m surprised how thoroughly it killed my interest even in the original movies. That shouldn’t happen, but it did. But I don’t think it’s so much the drop in quality that makes me less nostalgic for these properties. It’s that, well, they’re properties. They kept coming out and were a constant presence at the time when I was growing up and realizing that these movies weren’t just amazing flights of imagination, but also launching pads for toys and games and lunchboxes and happy meals. If there’s just been one movie of each, the phenomenon would have passed before I recognized it. But since they kept coming out, each new movie was born to someone growing more cynical about the whole process. I was hardly a hard-nosed cynic at 14, but I was aware enough to know that people wanted to sell me things.

I wonder if the sweet spot of Star Wars nostalgia isn’t maybe 6 years younger than me, where the kids would have seen the first two movies on VHS or in the theater rereleases, and then they were taken to see Jedi for the first time. Their minds would be blown, just like mine was with that first movie. And then they would have had fifteen years of nothing… the perfect soil for nostalgia to take root. But since I first saw Star Wars, one thing has been layered on top of another so many times that the original moment I could be nostalgic for is lost under layers and layers of extraneous stuff.

This:

is occluded by this:

and by the time this comes out, who cares?

Strangely enough, I am still nostalgic for certain runs of comics I read as a kid: The Bates/Swan Superman of the 70s, the Bates/Novick Flash, the Levitz/Giffen Legion. I think, in their cases, there’s an opposite effect to a constant presence killing nostalgia. These books came out every month—so often, and with so much work produced, that I could be nostalgic for specific stories and runs without mixing it up with the properties themselves. I might not have noticed the departure of Irv Novick originally, but by the time Don Heck was drawing Flash a few years later, I knew my personal golden age on the title had passed... and later figured out when. And the Levitz run of Legion stood so high above what had come before that it was like comparing Star Wars to Solar Babies. It was incredible, world-expanding stuff. And even more important, it felt like it was mine.

Maybe that’s what nostalgia is. A sense of ownership of the material you love, and a true ownership of your own personal experience of reading/watching/listening to it. I remember hearing Styx’s “Too Much Time On My Hands” for the first time over the radio when my friend Tom slept over in 1979—the first time I ever listened to FM, top-40/rock radio. I’m not so nostalgic for that song, but man, do I remember that listen. That’s nostalgia.

We can’t own pop culture: it’s for everybody. It’s pop. But we can own our memories, and how these things touched us. I heard a story on the radio a while back about how when you remember an event that you’d forgotten for years, it’s much stronger and more precise—and more faithful to the truth of the event—than something you mull over every day. Which might be why Star Wars had progressively less hold on me when I got older and saw it in more and more contexts, and why Airplane—a movie I saw a lot in a specific time, and then not again for decades—hits me so much more strongly.

Rob

Brought to You By the Letter F

At Kalinara's site, I volunteered to do a meme in which I’d be assigned a letter, and then I’d write about five characters whose names begin with that letter. If you want to participate, just say so in the comments. I’m writing mostly about comic book characters, since it began as a comics meme, but I won’t impose those limits on you. Follow yer bliss.

Anyhow, my letter was F.

1. Naturally, my first character is Flash. I doubt he was the first superhero I was ever exposed to, but he was the first one I really latched onto, and remains my favorite superhero to this day. Except...

I simply can’t pick a favorite Flash. Barry Allen was the Flash of my childhood, and I still get a thrill whenever he shows up in a story. But his nephew Wally West is the Flash I grew up with, if you get my meaning. As Wally was taking on the mantle of the Flash and growing into the role, I was leaving high school, attending college, and entering the workforce. We became adults together, and as much as my sentiment leans toward Barry, Wally seems much more “my” Flash.

Either way, both Flashes’ adventures offered one thing that really appealed to me: the ability to take one specific talent and use it to maximum effect, in every way possible. It’s to writer John Broome’s credit that every issue of Flash didn’t come down to some sort of race. The never ending supply of speed tricks (a pattern he established, maintained by writers Cary Bates, William Messner-Loebs, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns) kept me coming back for more.

2. Firestorm. I’ve always dug the dual nature of Ronnie Raymond and Prof. Stein, flying around and changing machine guns into Hostess Fruit Pies and such. I also think he must seem absolutely bonkers to anyone who meets him: He talks out loud to the professor, who no one can hear. I have to admit, I’m not really up on the status quo of Jason Rusch, the new Firestorm. He seems like a nice kid, and a suitable replacement for Ronnie, but I haven’t yet read many stories he’s starred in, yet. Is the Professor still with him, or some professor-figure? That’s really the heart of Firestorm, in my opinion—without the conversations between the two, it’s just a whole different character.

3. Foggy Nelson. Daredevil’s law partner and best buddy always seemed like an accident waiting to happen. I like the fact that he’s become Matt Murdock’s rock, the one guy he can depend on through thick and thin. In that way, he’s like Ando in Heroes, even more heroic than the lead simply because he’s not built for the job. Matt sure makes his life a living hell, though, doesn’t he?

4. Fiona Webb. Man, I’d like to see what’s become of her. In the Flash series in the 1980s, she was the neighbor who Barry Allen fell in love with a few years after his wife Iris died (she got better, but only about a month before Barry himself kicked the bucket). After a tempestuous relationship (for some reason she thought Barry was an assassin hired to kill her), she and Barry were engaged to be married. But on the wedding day a) Barry never showed up (at least, not in a tux) and b) the Flash killed Professor Zoom right in front of her, in order to keep Zoom from killing Fiona (as he'd killed Iris years before). Which sent Fiona over the edge, nutty-wise. As far as I can recall, the last we saw of her, she was in the loony bin.

So now that Barry’s coming back, I sure hope we’ll get a chance to see how Fiona has fared in these last years.. and see her reaction to the man who left her at the altar coming back to his no-longer-dead first wife.

5. Fonzie. Sure, he’s not really a comic book character, but I find it fascinating that a character who routinely engaged in off-screen threesomes has become such a symbol of “a more innocent time.”

Ayyyyyy!

Rob
(Remember, if you want to take part in this, just post in the comments and I'll assign you a letter. Then have at!)

Flash: Rebirth

Sweet.

Rob

Any Questions?

Yeah, just one: What the holy hell is going on with Flash's anatomy? Is he smuggling deli ham under his armpit or something? And after more than three years of putting her at the forefront of the DCU, the Powers That Be still can't come up with a viable superhero name for Donna Troy?

Okay, that's three questions. But seriously: no matter how happy I am to see the 80s-era Titans back together, this art makes baby angels cry.

Rob

Green! Green! GREEN!

Keep yer pants on, fella. We still need to apply another coat tomorrow.

Rob

(What, you want an explanation? First coat of paint's finally on the guest room! Hell hasn't quite frozen over yet, but temperatures are dropping! Buy your satanic mukluks now! After three years, it's almost done!)

Happy Valentine's Day

Rob

Boot to the Head!

It's another round of the Bahlactus's regular Friday night throwdown, and it looks like Zoom's got Flash on the ropes...on the treadmill...in the cosmos...arrgh, I'm getting a headache, and I'm not even the one tasting boot.

Cue Dean Martin:

Yep...that's a kick in the head.

Welcome back, Wally!

Rob

My Fanboy Moment

I went to the WizardWorld: Philadelphia comics convention last weekend, and the highlight of it for me was getting to meet Carmine Infantino, co-creator of my favorite super hero, the Flash (Barry Allen*), and that I told him how much his work and the character mean to me.

I bought a copy of his retrospective art book, The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino, and asked him to do a sketch in the front pages. This was Sunday the 17^th – it might be the most recent drawing of Flash he’s done. It was great to see him work, laying down the pencil lines before finishing it up in ink. I had a chance to tell him how much I enjoyed his Elongated Man stories as well – I’m just finishing a collected edition of them now.

Anyway, without further ado… the Flash, by Carmine Infantino.

Rob

*(Remember when you could say who your favorite super hero was without having to give his secret identity? I hope Gorilla Grodd doesn’t read this blog.)

Happiness Is...

Mark Waid returning to write Flash. There's none better.

Rob

Ulp!

DC just released this teaser in connection with its Countdown event:



Now, aside from the underlying message, I like the image a lot. It's extremely well-drawn, and it's reminiscent of this image from the cover of The Flash 174, by Carmine Infantino. I could have sworn he or other Flash artists went back to this well a few other times, but I can't find anything else; nor can I find an image from Will Eisner's Spirit that I've heard it's based on, although I think it's more likely that it's simply Eisneresque in the way it brings the logo into the action.



And it certainly keeps with the tradition that "in every Crisis, a little Flash must fall." How this got to be a tradition, I don't know. Barry Allen died in one Crisis, and when the next one rolls around, suddenly Wally's a target? And now, Countdown may kick into high gear with Barry's grandson's Bart's death.

At least, he's the only Flash currently running around in that uniform right now. Wally's MIA (not dead, at least) and, well, Barry's still dead. And the original, Jay Garrick, never wore that uniform. So it looks like the folks at DC want us to believe that Bart is taking the golden treadmill to the pearly gates. Heck, the Rogues (always sticklers for detail) even shot up the "alive" part of the logo, just to drive the point home. (I bet that was Mirror Master. Always has to get in a little extra "dig.")

Then again, I've also heard a rumor that Bart actually is Barry Allen, somehow de-aged (and then re-aged? it makes my head hurt) and sent through time. I don't beleive that for a second. As a friend at work said of the idea: "It reeks of Spider-Clone." And no one wants to make their cologne Spider-Clone.

But DC pretty clearly wants to do something to shake Flash up. At least they recognize there's a problem. When the comic was relaunched last year with Bart at the helm, it and Wonder Woman were its highest-profile debuts that month. But the first issue was disappointing, and by the second issue it became abundantly clear that the writers, Bilson and DeMeo, were doing a lousy job... which was just as well, because artist Ken Lashley couldn't draw his way out of a paper bag. (Incidentally, I haven't seen much of his art for around a year, now. I suspect he's in a paper bag.)

And sales plummeted.

DC acted as swiftly as they could, replacing Bilson and DeMeo with Marc Guggenheim, who's been turning in entertaining scripts for the past few months, and replacing Lashley with Tony Daniel (an aritst I'm not crazy about, but he's mastered the lunchbag escape at least). So the title seems to be getting its mojo back. But DC needs to get the attention of all the readers that fled the book in the first place. (I was nearly one of them, by the way--and I've bought every issue of Flash I could get my hands on since 1977. So that's saying something.)

I hope, whoever they kill (if they kill anyone), it's a good story, worthy of the character. While I haven't been happy with his stint as Flash, I've always liked Bart Allen as Impulse and, later, Kid Flash. To die after only a few months as Flash would be an ignominious end. He deserves something better than a shot in the back.

We, also, deserve better. We've been given watered-down Flash stories for the past year or so. But that's not Bart's fault, and killing him won't make the stories any better. Unless the storytelling continues to improve, we'll be doing this all over again in 2009.

Rob

How does anyone but the Flash get around?

Over at the Absorbascon, Scipio's concocted a quiz dealing with the whacked-out Infantino perspectives of Central City. Go and see. And be sure to check out his earlier look at Central City for more fun.

Rob

Every tool is a weapon...

Yikes.

I just read about the lead story of Flash #144 an old Flash lettercol, and a quick check of the Grand Comic Book Database reveals that yes, its rather shocking title did appear on the cover:


"Menace of the Man-Missle." Yow.

Rob