Superman 102: Advanced Man of Steel

There are a few notable Superman stories that benefit from an existing familiarity with the characters. So, this is the stuff to check out when you’ve seen the Superman 101 list.

I’m splitting this into two categories. The 102 list is for the shorter self-contained storylines. There will be a later reading list dealing with longer crossovers, complete runs by certain creative team runs, as well as new version of tales you’ve seen before, and stories that are referenced in better material.

Superman: Speeding Bullets

This one-shot is a great introduction to DC’s Elseworlds comics, which typically featured self-contained storylines placing familiar heroes in new settings, or with completely different spins. The twist here is that DC merged their top heroes, so the last son of Krypton is adopted by the Waynes, and Lex Luthor deals with the aftermath of a nasty fall into a vat of chemicals.

Lex Luthor: Man of Steel

In this five issue mini-series (a predecesor to their best-selling Joker OGN), Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo explore things from Lex Luthor’s point of view. He has a certain predilection that was later incorporated into other writer’s takes on the character.

The Impact of Superman

It would usually be a bit indulgent for the publisher to write a story about the impact the character has had. But Superman is different. This strategy has resulted in at least two excellent self-contained stories that you could show people who don’t usually follow comics.

The elseworlds mini-series Secret Identity by Kurt Buisek and Stuart Immonen follows a young man named Clark Kent, who realizes that he has super powers in a world in which no one else does. The Vertigo graphic novel It’s A Bird…by Steven Seagle and Teddy Kristianson is an autobiographical as the writer of the Superman monthly deals with the possibility that he may have inherited Huntingtons Disease, and compares that to the alien experiences of Superman.

Action Comics #507-508, 510-512

These give issues include two great stories from the Cary Bates Curt Swan era shortly before Crisis on Infinite Earths, revealing that a major charm of the comics was the sense that anything could happen. So Clark Kent’s deceased father returns from the dead, while a young hippie develops the power to make anyone over thirty do as he says. Then, Lex Luthor seems to have reformed, claiming that the love of a good woman has set him straight. These stories informed Grant Morrison’s take on the character in All-Star Superman, and show why some readers preferred the Pre-Crisis Superman.

Superman: Red Son #1-3

There is a particular type of story that DC is quite good at, imagining what it would be like if their characters grew up in different environments. And the strongest of these stories is the mini-series by Mark Millar and Dave Johnson, which imagines what it would be like if Superman was raised in Soviet Russia, with Batman as a rebel whose parents will killed during a purge,  Lex Luthor as an American scientist who develops an obsession with the Russian superhero, and poor Lois as his wife. This three-parter has gotten more publicitly recently thanks to an appearance of the Red Son Superman in DC’s Injustice video game, which has even been featured in television advertisements.

Superman VS Muhammed Ali

This one-shot, recently praised by Tom Spurgeon, is simply one of the best looking comic books ever published, with possibly the most impressive artwork by the legendary Neal Adams, in his sole take on the man of steel.

Zod!

With Man of Steel, General Zod will have been depicted by a second Academy Award nominated actor in a blockbuster Superman film. It may be more than the character deserves, although unlike Mandarin, you can easily find some good comic book adventures with the villain. Steve Gerber and Gene Colan’s four-issue Phantom Zone mini series revealed the origins of the Phantom Zone, as a distinctive collection of Evil Kryptonians escaped, trapping Superman inside. A sequel of sorts could be found in DC Comics Presents #97.

For a long time, you didn’t see much of the evil Kryptonians as DC felt that it would be much better if Superman was the only remaining survivor of Krypton. But eventually, they went in a different direction. Last Son from Action Comics #844-846, 851, Annual #11 was a solid self-contained story that started with Superman discovering a Krpytonian child, and ended with him forced to side with some of his greatest enemies against Zod and his minions.

Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s Action Comics

Geoff Johns was joined on Action Comics by artist Gary Frank, and they worked together on several mostly self-contained stories, each with an accessible standalone premise. Superman and the Legion of Superheroes from Action Comics #858-863 was my favorite of these, building on Superman’s relationship with the superheroes of the future, as he found himself in a 31st Century in which his legacy was tarnished, and he had lost his powers. Brainiac from Action Comics #866-870 may have also been Supergirl’s finest hour, although it was a hell of an introduction to the real Brainiac, after the revelation that all of Superman’s previous battles against the monster had been against probes.

Single Issues

Obviously, there are a few single issues worth hunting down. Superman #76 features the first team-up between Batman and Superman. Superman #53 is the definitive Golden Age origin. Action Comics #252 introduced Supergirl. Superman #416 was another solid Lex Luthor story, with an interesting twist with a future version of the man of steel.

Superman #149 is one of the most notable imaginary stories, as Lex Luthor kills off the man of steel. It’s also written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel. “How Superman Would End the War” was the first of the imaginary stories, as Siegel and Shuster imagined how Superman would really respond to World War Two. Superman #199 was the most notable of his races against the Flash.

Superman #141 was the famed Return to Krypton. Superman #247 was Elliot S Magin’s “Why Must There Be a Superman?” Superman #400 is a great anniversary issue, showing the impact of the character over the generations.

Superman Volume 2 #2 and #8 are two highlights from John Byrne’s run on the title focusing on what makes Lex Luthor tick. Superman Adventures #41 has a clever trick by Mark Millar, as he tells 22 one page stories set in the world of the 1990s Superman cartoon. Hitman #34 features a different view of the character, as he has an inadvertent conversation with a professional killer.

Comic Book Resources leaders selected their favorite Superman stories. How does my selection stack up?

• 75. The Mightiest Team in the World- Superman #76
• 74. “22 Stories in a Single Bound” Superman Adventures #41
• 73. Phantom Zone the Final Chapter (DC Comics Presents #97)
• 69. “The Miraculous Return of Jonathan Kent” Action Comics #507-508
• 68. Speeding Bullets
• 67. How Superman Would End The War
• 64. “The Living Legends of Superman” Superman #400
• 58. It’s a Bird…
• 56. “The Origin of Superman!” Superman #53
• 51. “The Einstein Connection” Superman #416
• 48. “Superman Takes a Wife!” Action Comics #484
• 42. The Phantom Zone
• 34. “The Supergirl from Krypton!” Action Comics #252
• 29. “The Secret is Revealed!” Superman Volume 2 #2
• 25. “Return to Krypton” (Superman Volume 1 #141)
• 24. “Of Thee I Sing” Hitman #34 (1998)
• 22. “Must There Be a Superman?” Superman #247
• 19. “Brainiac” Action Comics #866-870
• 18. “Superman’s Race With the Flash!” Superman #199
• 17. “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes” Action Comics #858-863
• 16. Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
• 10. “The Death of Superman” (Superman Volume 1 #149)
• 9. Secret Identity #1-4
• 6. Superman: Red Son

IGN did a Top 25 list, just in time for Man of Steel.

• 25. Brainiac (Action Comics #886-890)
• 22. Superman: Speeding Bullets
• 21. Last Son (Action Comics #844-846, 851, Annual #11)
• 17. Superman Adventures #41
• 15. The Mightiest Team in the World- Superman #76
• 14. Must There Be a Superman?
• 13. The Race Between Superman and the Flash
• 12.  “The Origin of Superman!” Superman #53
• 10. It’s a Bird…
• 4. Superman: Secret Identity

Recommended June 11 2013

PVP was funny today. Well, it’s often funny, but today merits special attention.

Boing Boing’s excerpt for A User’s Guide to Neglectful Parenting is pretty funny. They’ve had a lot of solid comic book samples this week.

A Freakonomics fan complains about how the series has made it difficult for him to ignore the hidden side of things.

Ta-Neshi Coates thinks the complicated history of Mad Men’s Don Draper resembles the backstories of characters in comic books.

Reading Emily detail Draper’s back-story, I had the feeling that I’d seen this improbable twisting and turning before—in comic books. We grant comic books that license because they are arched over decades, forged by different writers and editors. Some writers emphasize one aspect of backstory more than others, and whole events are often retconned into oblivion. Either way I don’t think backstory is so much the problem, as the belief that backstory has more explanatory power than it actually does.

A sushi restaurant wants customers to know that tips are unnecessary, as the waiters get a decent salary.

The Leatherman Wave was the favorite multi-tool of lifehacker users. I don’t know much about home repair, but it looks cool.

Tom Spurgeon praised Superman VS Mohammad Ali. It is probably one of the best drawn comic books ever published.

Grame McMillan ponders the sales problems of Fearless Defenders.

Kieron Gillen wants to fundamentally alter Iron Man. 

However, in terms of “The Secret Origin Of Tony Stark,” I had a different aim in mind. I wanted to do something big and meaningful enough to be the movie. I wanted people to read it and think, “This could be Iron Man 5.” To someone who only knows the movies, it’s a case of showing something they haven’t seen before. And even if you only know Tony from the movies, seeing how he deals with a situation this extreme is an obvious appeal. Even if you only know Tony from that, you know it’s going to be an existential blow to his self-image.

Josh Barro considers possible fiscal compromises.

It is probably a bit of a cheat to consider defense spending as a mostly conservative issue, so that liberals can get something else for allowing cuts. I am fairly certain that there are many unnecessary expenses on in the one sphere in which all politicians benefit from increased spending. But those investigations should be separate from any grand bargains.

Tommy Christopher of mediaite lists the whistleblowers prosecuted by the Obama administration. Snowden was fired today. Jeffrey Toobin penned a piece for the New Yorker about the things Snowden did wrong.

The National Father’s Day committee declared Bill Clinton to be the father of the year. Jim Geraghty thinks this was a bad call.

My corrupt former state senator suggests everyone else in New York politics is pretty bad, too.

In addition to two sitting Congressmen, Cory Booker will face the Speaker of the New Jersey State Assembly in the Senate primary. I’m sure he’ll win easily, but it’s remarkable how many political enemies he has in the state.

Julian Castro is visiting Washington DC. Elizabeth Warren deals with political realities.

According to Dan Baiz, Chris Christie and Rand Paul offer models for Republicans eager to expand their voter share.

Mike Huckabee believes churches should consider giving up tax-deductible status in order to have less restrictions on what they’re allowed to say.

A comic book vendor did something really shady. Really shady.

A pregnant teenage rape victim in Ellswood, Indiana has some awful neighbors. This is not a happy story, although the lead is brave and sympathetic. It is upsetting that they keep referring to a crime as sexual assault instead of rape, although there may be legal reasons for that.

Spider-Man 103: Later Peter Parker

You could split the Spider-Man comics into four eras, many of which can be subdivided into later categories. The Silver Age, covered in the Spider-Man 102 reading list, included the runs of Stan Lee and Gerry Conway from Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #1-150. The Illusion of Change era of the bronze age essentially started with Len Wein’s run. This was a a decade in which the character didn’t change. He graduated college and went to Grad School. He dropped out of Grad School, but there was always the possibility he could go back. That was followed by The Married Spider-Man era, as Peter Parker had a confidante and new responsibilities. That was followed by the current post-One More Day era.

Here are some highlights from the later periods, appropriate for readers with some exposure to the wall-crawler.

The Return of the Burglar

The Burglar saga from Amazing Spider-Man #193-200, featured the first appearance of the Black Cat, the final appearance of the Kingpin (before he went on to become more of a Daredevil foe), the apparent death of Aunt May, as well as the rematch between Peter Parker and the man who killed Uncle Ben.

More Roger Stern

In the 101 section, I noted the highlights of Stern’s run which can belong on lists of the best comic book stories. The entire thing (Amazing Spider-Man #226-227, 229-236, 238-251) is worth hunting down, as it may just be the most consistently excellent run in the series’s history. The Hobgoblin Lives mini-series a few years later ties up some loose ends, and finally reveals the true identity of one of Spider-Man’s greatest enemies.

The Owl/ Octopus War

This eight-part storyline from Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #72-79, featured some of the most memorable confrontations between Spider-Man and one of his greatest enemies, as well as major developments with the Black Cat, one of the great loves of Peter Parker’s life. It fits pretty well between Amazing Spider-Man #236 and 238 from Stern’s run.

The Alien Costume Saga

The first eight issues of Tom Defalco’s Amazing Spider-Man run (Issues 252-259), with the Alien Costume saga are worth reading. The Black Fox, Rose and Puma would go on to torment Spider-Man again, while the alien costume has become one of the most significant additions to the series. There were also some major developments with Mary Jane.

More Peter David

Peter David was an irregular presence on Spider-Man in the 1980s, sometimes filling in for writers on other titles. But it includes several highlights for the series, especially the return of the Sin-Eater in Spectacular Spider-Man #134-136, and the commuter saga from Amazing Spider-Man #267, ad Spider-Man deals with the menace of suburbia. Web of Spider-Man #13 had a great take on Spider-Man’s conflict with J Jonah Jameson.

More Michelinie

David Michelinie wrote Amazing Spider-Man for about eight years, so he had quite a few notable stories, aside from just the introduction of Venom. The wedding from Amazing Spider-Man #290-292 and Annual 21 was an important part of the series’s history. “The Return of the Sinister Six” from Amazing Spider-Man #334-339 was likely Erik Larsen’s magnum opus on the title, and marked the Sinister Six becoming a regular presence in the title, after a 25 year absence. Carnage was introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #361-363, which also featured the first team-up between Spider-Man and Venom.

JM Dematteis and Sal Buscema’s Spectacular Spider-Man

JM Dematteis’s 23 issue run on Spectacular Spider-Man #178-200 with artist Sal Buscema, features the best-written mega-arc in the series’s history, as Harry Osborn becomes the Green Goblin once again. The ending was adapted rather faithfully for Spider-Man 3. In other highlights, the Vulture deals with the consequences of a bad thing that he did during “Return of the Sinister Six” and the Rhino makes a mistake.

Coming Home

The first nine issues of J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr’s Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #30-38 are well worth hunting down. Morlun and Ezekiel are introduced, Peter Parker gets a new job, and someone learns his secret identity. These feature one of Spider-Man’s greatest battles, a question that shakes the series to the core, as well as Spider-Man’s responsible to the greatest tragedy in New York’s history.

In other highlights from the run, Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #50 features the reunion of Peter Parker and Mary Jane, after being separated for several years. Amazing Spider-Man #506-508 ties up the Ezekiel saga. The Happy Birthday arc from Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #57-58, 500, 502 features glimpses of Spider-Man’s future.

Mark Millar’s Marvel Knights Spider-Man

The idea of Marvel Knights Spider-Man was brilliantly simple. Give A-list creators twelve issues to do their take on Spider-Man, and repeat. The first time around Marvel produced a masterpiece. This is pretty much the single definitive Spider-Man story, a collection of all that is good and great about the wall-crawler. The new Venom went on to have an impact on the series.

Best of Ultimate Spider-Man

While the entire 150+ issue run is worth getting, someone interested in the highlights of Ultimate Spider-Man (after the first year) should check out several smaller volumes. Ultimate Spider-Man #29-32 may just be the best story in which Spider-Man is framed, a common trope in the series. Elements from the story were used in the Amazing Spider-Man film. Ultimate Spider-Man #33-39 reimagines the origin of Venom. The clone saga from Ultimate Spider-Man #97-105 is one of the defining storylines of the series, as Bendis mines the worst stories of the 90s to find some gems, and reminds readers that anything can happen in this book. Ultimate Spider-Man #156-160 features the biggest event since the first issue. Ultimate Fallout introduced Miles Morales, whose origin is covered in Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 3 #1-13.  Spider-Men is the first crossover between the two worlds.

Recent Spider-Man

I’m going to do a list later of the Spider-Man stories worth reading to put Superior Spider-Man into context, but there are a few Spider-Man tales from the Brand New Day and Big Time eras that are sure to be talked about years from now. These are recommended for anyone with an interest in the Spider-Man comics. New Ways to Die (Amazing Spider-Man #568-573) pit the wall-crawler against Norman Osborn’s Thunderbolts, with gorgeous art by John Romita Jr. Flashbacks (Amazing Spider-Man #574) had some life-changing developments for Flash Thompson. Unscheduled Stop (Amazing Spider-Man #578-579) introduces a significant supporting character, and marks the moment Marcos Martin was essentially accepted as one of the best artists in the industry. The Gauntlet mega-arc featured shake-ups for the Rhino (Amazing Spider-Man #617, 625) and the Lizard (Amazing Spider-Man #630-633) as well as a few significant returns (Amazing Spider-Man #634-637.)

The Big Time (Amazing Spider-Man #648-651) introduces a new Hobgoblin, and the cast of Horizon Labs. No One Dies (Amazing Spider-Man #655-656) was an artistic tour de force dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy. Spider Island (Amazing Spider-Man #666-673) wondered what would happen if Spider-Man’s powers became a lot more widespread. Dying Wish (Amazing Spider-Man #698-700) set up the Superior Spider-Man era.

Single Issues

There are a few scattered single issues worth hunting down. Tangled Web #20 reveals a lot about J Jonah Jameson. Amazing Spider-Man #271 revealed the fate of Crusher Hogan, the wrestler from Amazing Fantasy #15. Spider-Man VS. Wolverine is one of the great tragedies, as well as the most notable team-up between Marvel’s two most popular characters, as Peter Parker getting involved in affairs way out of his league.

Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #127 may just be the definitive Lizard story. “To Have And To Hold” from Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1 is a great standalone story from the Spider-Man era, although your brain may explode trying to figure out how all of that got reversed.

Best of Spider-Man Watch

These issues tend to appear on the lists of the greatest Spider-Man stories. So just to confirm, that this is the conventional wisdom, here’s the breakdown of those lists.

From Wizard’s 1998 list of the ten greatest Spider-Man stories…

• 10. Spider-Man VS. Wolverine
• 3. Caught in the Act (Amazing Spider-Man #231-232)

From Comic Book Resources list of the 50 greatest Spider-Man stories….

• 43. The Conversation (Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #38)
• 41. The Wedding (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21)
• 40. I’m With Stupid (Spider-Man/ Human Torch #1-5)
• 39. Return of the Burglar (Amazing Spider-Man #198-200)
• 38. Return of the Sinister Six (Amazing Spider-Man #334-339)
• 37. To Have and to Hold (Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1)
• 36. The Commuter Cometh! (Amazing Spider-Man #267)
• 35. Down Among the Dead Men (Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12)
• 34. Return of the Sin-Eater (Spectacular Spider-Man #134-136)
• 33. Venom (Ultimate Spider-Man #33-38)
• 32. New Ways to Die (Amazing Spider-Man #568-573)
• 29. Unscheduled Stop (Amazing Spider-Man #578-579)
• 28. Spider-Island (Amazing Spider-Man #666-673)
• 27. Death of Spider-Man (Ultimate Spider-Man #156-160)
• 23. The Second Hobgoblin Saga (Amazing Spider-Man #259-261)
• 19. No One Dies (Amazing Spider-Man #655-656)
• 17. The Owl/ Octopus War (Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #72-79)
• 14. The Alien Costume Saga (Amazing Spider-Man #252-258)
• 13. Coming Home (Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #30-35)
• 10. The Harry Osborn Saga (Spectacular Spider-Man #178-200)

From IGN’s list of the 25 greatest Spider-Man stories…

• 25. Down Among the Dead Men (Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12)
• 23. The Conversation (Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #38)
• 21. The Wedding (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21)
• 20. Rage of the Rhino (Amazing Spider-Man #617 and 625)
• 19. Venom (Ultimate Spider-Man #33-38)
• 18. Ultimate Fallout
• 17. I’m With Stupid (Spider-Man/ Human Torch #1-5)
• 16. The Original Clone Saga (Amazing Spider-Man #143-150)
• 14. Shed (Amazing Spider-Man #630-633)
• 13. The Commuter Cometh! (Amazing Spider-Man #267)
• 12. No One Dies (Amazing Spider-Man #655-656)
• 8. The Harry Osborn Saga (Spectacular Spider-Man #178-200)
• 5. To Have and to Hold (Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1)

From the spidermanreviews.com Top 50 (to be fair, I was involved in this one)…

• 48. I’m With Stupid (Spider-Man/ Human Torch #1-5)
• 32. The Commuter Cometh! (Amazing Spider-Man #267)
• 28. No One Dies (Amazing Spider-Man #655-656)
• 23. Spider-Man VS. Wolverine
• 17. Death of Spider-Man (Ultimate Spider-Man #156-160)
• 15. Happy Birthday! (Amazing Spider-Man #498-500)
• 14. To Have and to Hold (Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1)
• 13. The Wedding (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21)
• 6. Down Among the Dead Men (Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12)

Recommended June 9 2013

There is audio of reclusive Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko talking about the nature of heroes. It was for a Masters of Comic Art VHS in the late 1980s, when he was still doing occasional work for Marvel. Considering only four known photos of Ditko exist, it’s great to be able to hear his voice in any form.

Glen Weldon, the author of Superman the Unauthorized Biography (a book I’ll read soon enough) gave his thoughts on the new trailer in an interview with Robot Six.

I wrote a piece for Monkey See when that (second?) trailer came out, showing Pa Kent expressing fear. My reaction then stands — I kind of like it. It makes sense to me. Ma and Pa Kent have always been treated as secondary characters whose role, in the hero’s journey, is to instill Midwestern values in him, outfit him with a few homespun homilies, and send him on his way. Which is fine — you need to surround your protagonist with characters that help define and delineate him.

But what if they weren’t secondary, flat characters? What if they had internal conflicts of their own, conflicts that served to complicate the wisdom they impart as parents? Smallville touched on this, a little, in its way. It may not work, but it certainly serves to make Pa Kent a character in his own right.

In the ’78 film, Jor-El and Pa Kent represented head and heart, respectively. Jor-El supplied him with knowledge, and a respect for the rules. Pa Kent taught him that he has the power to help people – to save them – and that’s what matters. So his final decision, in the last act, to hit the temporal reset button is effectively a rejection of his cold, Kryptonian heritage and an embrace of his status as a child of Earth.

Years later, in the Man of Steel miniseries, Bryne would turn that subtext into the explicit text. And years after that, Waid’s Birthright would invert it again. It will continue to see-saw back and forth, as new writers put their spin on the guy.

SuperScholar.Org has a decent Superman infographic.

The webcomic series Refugees of Make Believe made be laugh. It’s one of those series with storybook characters in the real world. I may be biased because I’ve had a beer with the guy at an aspiring comics creators meetup.

A town in Spain had an interesting solution against owners who don’t clean up after their dogs.

Johanna of Comics Worth Reading considers whether comic books that have been helped by kickstarter can ever be successful. This concerns me as the two comic stories I’ve had published have been through projects funded by kickstarter.

Personally, I’d rather buy through a shop or bookstore, because it provides more protection for me — I’m able to see the work, I can purchase using a method of my choice, I know the book will appear — but the Kickstarters I’ve purchased are titles that I’m not sure will ever appear there. Maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe the dedicated customers have already bought the comic. Or maybe the creators using Kickstarter aren’t thinking about the long-term, about making a series instead of getting their book printed. And some of those that are looking to serialize seem to think that they can just Kickstart issue after issue, which doesn’t seem like a viable strategy, since there’s likely to be a significant dropoff. You can’t keep going back to that well the same way.

But I digress. Doing marketing to achieve a successful Kickstarter is a lot of work, and doing it all again to sell a project into the direct market may seem like too much effort for too little reward.

Tommy Christopher of mediaite suggests that the gay activist who heckled Michelle Obama exercised white privilege. My guess is that the activist would have done the same to Jill Biden.

Andrew Sullivan considers why he categorizes himself as a conservative.

I totally take his point about the quixotic nature of using that word in America today for anything other than what conservatives call themselves – and his matter-of-factness about that is refreshing. But the tradition I have long studied and thought about is not a conservatism finding solutions to problems. It is about finding solutions to problems you suspect may not be solutions at all, and may be moot once you’ve done your best; it’s about the elusive nature of prudential judgment; the creation of character through culture; the love of what is and what is one’s own; and a non-rational grasp of the times any statesman lives through. It is about a view of the whole that keeps politics in its place. It is, in the end, a way of being contingently in the world.

Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has become the fifth Republican Senator to support the immigration bill.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker may be a likely Senator, but he does have enemies in New Jersey.

Recommended June 7 2013

There are two interesting AV Club pieces tying to Game of Thrones. Tasha Robinson looks at the meaning of the Red Wedding, and where the series goes next. Brandon Narwalk and Todd VanDerWerff consider one reason the show holds up so well to repeat viewings.

What we’re talking about is, I think, a new way of constructing television. Let’s look at a fairly classical serialized drama like Breaking Bad. On Breaking Bad, we tend to get the motivation before the character takes action. There are places where a character’s actions seem a mystery to us (namely with Gus Fring in season four), but for the most part, we watch as Walter White learns he has cancer and launches his desperate plan, bit by agonizing bit. I think shows like Game Of Thrones andArrested Development are putting the action before the motivation. We watch as Jaime Lannister or George Bluth Sr., wanders around, doing things that seem surface-level, then we get the motivation later on. Again, it’s a novelistic conceit: We delve into the characters once we’re hooked into them on an actions-first level. It’s the first really major alteration of the Sopranos template when it comes to making quality television, and it’s exciting to watch it play out, even if not every step pans out along the way. Other shows do this from time to time, but the shows of this era seem increasingly to only do it. Mystery becomes the reason for existence.

Peter David posted an old review of Spider-Man: Chapter One for his blog.

That aspect of the Spider-Man origin which Byrne considered so unacceptable—the apparently random coincidence—was in fact one of the strongest aspects of the origin.

It was that awful randomness, the incredible unpredictability, that underscored the terrible lesson that Spider-Man learned. Thirty years ago, the robber appeared out of nowhere, disappeared back into nowhere, only to show up from nowhere again. His facelessness made him all the more frightening and disturbing. It accented the capriciousness of fate, and brought into strong relief the eternal vigilance that would be Spider-Man’s price for the powers he had acquired.

The recent revelations about NSA spying have made this a good week for Rand Paul. The New York Times softened an editorial against President Obama. Andrew Sullivan published a letter he sent the Times for a piece about Glenn Greenwald.

I count Glenn as an honest blogger whose passions in real time can sometimes lead to misreadings of others. But we’re all vulnerable to that in the blogosphere, and in our various spats, I’ve always enjoyed the give-and-take, rather than resenting some of the occasionally unfair barbs. They come with the territory. But once you get into a debate with him, it can be hard to get the last word. A friend described debating him as like engaging with a rhetorical trampoline. But I actually enjoy rhetorical trampolining, as long as no one gets hurt too much. I do not take anything he writes about my work personally.

His passion is a great antidote to the insidery access-driven village of Washington journalism, but at times, I think he has little grip on what it actually means to govern a country or run a war. He’s a purist in a way that, in my view, constrains the sophistication of his work.

Paul Jenkins recounted a clash with editors at DC, who told him that a script had to be revised, because everyone knows that Batman never sits.

On Comics Alliance, Chris Sims suggests that cancellation is worse for a comic book character than death, and suggests that Deadshot had the best return of any character thanks to Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers’s Detective Comics and John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell’s Suicide Squad.

Cracked had a great entry: 13 texts superheroes sent out last night. And this introduced me to textsfromsuperheroes.com.

Rowan Kasper considers the problems with the most expensive video games.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite, it is this: the rigid form of the action blockbuster game is inimical to themes of emotional or intellectual power. The blockbuster can make the attempt, and it can succeed in bits and pieces, but maintaining a tight, tense action-packed thrill ride seems to become the dominant force of the game no matter what. The increasing importance of non-blockbuster games, like the massively successful The Walking Dead, an examination of ethics in a post-apocalyptic world, or award-winner Journey with its meditation on faith, point to a different kind of video-game industry. Given the volatility of a business model for which 3.5 million copies sold can be both failing and successful, trying to attach depth to a blockbuster seems risky. BioShock Infinite and Tomb Raider should both be lauded for being willing to take that risk, even if it only demonstrates the impossibility of the thematically smart, successful blockbuster video game. Microsoft, Sony, and several other game publishers will likely be throwing money at game developers to create prestigious blockbusters for the impending releases of their next generation of Xbox and PlayStation consoles coming later this year. But without a dramatic and unlikely rethinking of the core form of the blockbuster, huge-budget game, they’re almost certainly going to remain action-packed combat games with the occasional stab at meaning.

Larry Alex Tauton of the Atlantic asked atheists how they came to that philosophy, determining the ways many became disillusioned with the religion they grew up with. I think he makes a slight mistake making it seem remarkable that so many of the young atheists started out as Christians because this would be very likely in a nation in which the majority of the populace belongs to the faith.

Vanity Fair looks at why World War Z has become so expensive, as well as the possibly doomed efforts to prevent the movie from being a trainwreck.

Spider-Man 102: Amazing Spider-Man 1-150

These lists are essentially the comic book version of the Western Canon split into smaller digestible chunks. So, if the Spider-Man 101 list is the reading list for an inaugural Fall course on the wallcrawler, this is one of the two choices for the Spring semester to finish the introduction. Another list will feature acclaimed stories published after 1975 that didn’t make the preliminary list, often because those stories are more satisfying when readers are more familiar with what came first.

For the most part, one of the best ways to become acquainted with the Spider-Man comics is to read the first 150 or so issues. These are the stories that have shaped the public’s perception of the character, and it was set early in the series’s history that the writers were able to take interesting risks. They had yet to seriously commit to the Illusion of Change approach, which may have been necessary to preserve the series for another few decades,  but did mean that much of the remaining material just wasn’t as exciting.

Tom Spurgeon praised the era in a piece celebrating Spider-Man’s fiftieth anniversary.

That initial run of Amazing Spider-Man is one of the few series in the pantheon of great comics, and the one that functions the most like we expect a comic book series to function. Unlike MAD, or glory-years Fantastic Four, or the first volume Love and Rockets, that run of Amazing Spider-Man gains strength from things that usually make series worse: creative-team changes, collaboration, commercial restrictions, the occasional very special episode. It’s a miracle that they’re as fun as they are.

David Brothers of Comics Alliance had similar thoughts on the matter.

The first 140-odd issues of Amazing Spider-Man are my Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four. There’s a purity there that I greatly enjoy, and the first fifty issues tell the story of a boy becoming a man even while they show us what happens when a boy becomes a hero. We see Peter Parker at his most sour and most vibrant, and when he puts that costume back on, we understand exactly why. We see him grow up over the course of four or five years, long enough for being Spider-Man to become second-nature and long enough for Peter Parker to grow into a fully-realized adult. He goes from zero to hero, and that happens slowly, almost in real-time, instead of in his debut issue.

These first 150 issues can essentially be split into four chunks. Here’s what you get by following up the Spider-Man 101 list with the remaining stories from the first thirteen years.

More Lee/ Ditko

The entirety of the Lee/ Ditko run (Amazing Spider-Man #1-38, Annuals #1-2) is worth checking out. Even the least significant character from these issues tends to show up again at some point. The Living Brain has popped up in Superior Spider-Man, but stories that weren’t significant enough to make the 101 list introduced Marvel Universe mainstays like the Vulture, Sandman and Electro. Even fifty years later, these stories remain the official version of Spider-Man’s first year. It hasn’t been retconned, so these are defining moments for the characters, forming a rich part of their backstory in subsequent appearances.

One of the major differences between Silver Age Marvel and the Distinguished Competition was the way things changed for Marvel heroes. Over the course of the first 38 issues, Peter Parker meets a girl, comforts her during a family tragedy, loses the girl, gets a job, graduates high school and enters college. Events in one story tend to have consequences in later issues. When Peter loses his Spider-Man costume, he has to rely on a store-bought imitation for the next two issues. An ill-considered blood transfusion in one story results in a medical emergency two years later.

More Lee/ Romita

The rest of the Lee/ Romita run (Amazing Spider-Man #39-67, Annual #3, Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #1-2) is quite good. “Disaster” (Amazing Spider-Man #53-59) is a particular highlight. For a little while, I was convinced that this was the best Spider-Man story I’ve ever read, and it’s only fallen a little bit in my esteem. There’s just fun stuff that goes against the expectations for superhero comics, as Peter Parker wonders whether insurance can pay for damage caused by Doctor Octopus, and later has to explain to friends and family why he had disappeared for several days while Spider-Man seemed to lose his memory.

These stories feature the introductions of rogues gallery mainstays Rhino and Shocker, as well as the most famous romantic triangle in the series’s history, with Peter having to choose between Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy. He gets some father figures in the form of Captain Stacy and Robbie Robertson, while he also manages to become friends with Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn, who he didn’t get quite get along with in the Lee/ Ditko days.

More Stan Lee

Romita soon became an irregular presence on the book, and the quality dipped a bit, even ith the great Gil Kane on art. Amazing Spider-Man still had some major moments with the Tablet of Time Saga, Harry Osborn’s drug problems and the first appearances of the Prowler and Kingpin’s son. Even stories that weren’t particularly memorable could still have an impact. Amazing Spider-Man #95, with Spider-Man versus terrorists in London, may just be the worst of the the first 100 issues, but it inspired J. Michael Straszynski to deal with contemporary topics during his run on the series thirty years later.

Roy Thomas’s brief four issue run (Amazing Spider-Man #101-104) introduced Morbius, and featured Spider-Man’s trip to the Savage Land with Gwen Stacy, as well as the  first appearance of a monster that would reappear in Erik Larsen’s 1990s run. Stan Lee returned to the series for another seven issues, before turning over the reins to Gerry Conway, who at nineteen was essentially the same age as the college student superhero.

More Gerry Conway

You could probably pick and choose among Conway’s run, although much of it had a long-term impact on the series. Amazing Spider-Man #112-115 introduced Hammerhead, and began a long-running subplot with Aunt May moving in with Doctor Octopus. Amazing Spider-Man #124-125 introduced the Man-Wolf, a major development in Spider-Man and J Jonah Jameson’s conflicts.

Amazing Spider-Man #129-137 feature the first appearances of the Punisher and the Jackal, the ridiculous but oft-mentioned wedding of Doctor Octopus and Aunt May, the return of Liz Allen and the Molten Man, and the transformation of Harry Osborn into one of Spider-Man’s greatest enemies. Amazing Spider-Man #141-149 tied up Conway’s run, with the first clone saga. The 150th issue was an epilogue by Archie Goodwin, which was also an important part of Peter’s relationship with Mary Jane.

Best of Spider-Man Watch

These issues tend to appear on the lists of the greatest Spider-Man stories. So just to confirm that this is the conventional wisdom, here’s the breakdown of those lists.

From Comic Book Resources’ list of the 50 greatest Spider-Man stories….

• 50. The Crime Master VS The Green Goblin (Amazing Spider-Man #26-27)
• 48. The Original End of Spider-Man (Amazing Spider-Man #18-19)
• 46. The Horns of the Rhino (Amazing Spider-Man #41-43)
• 42. Doc Ock Wins (Amazing Spider-Man #53-56)
• 31. The Spider or the Man (Amazing Spider-Man #100-102)
• 15. Harry Osborn is on Drugs! (Amazing Spider-Man #96-98)

From the spidermanreviews.com Top 50 (to be fair, I was involved in this one)…

• 50. To Become an Avenger! (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3)
• 37. The Green Goblin Lives (Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2)
• 36. The Original End of Spider-Man (Amazing Spider-Man #18)
• 34. The Madness of Mysterio (Amazing Spider-Man #66-67)
• 29. Doc Ock Wins (Amazing Spider-Man #53-56)

Wizard’s 25 Greatest Comic Book Moments Circa 1998

Back in 1998, the now defunct Wizard magazine published their list of the 25 Greatest Comic Book Moments. It was fantastic.

This list includes spoilers for Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight, Wolfman/ Perez’s Teen Titans, Crisis of Infinite Earths, Daredevil: Born Again, Walt Simonson’s Thor, The Infinity Gauntlet, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four (Twice), Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, the first volume of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Alan Moore’s Miracleman, Alan Moore’s two famous Superman stories, Thunderbolts #1, Daredevil #181, Batman: The Killing Joke, Amazing Spider-Man #121, Roger Stern and John Byrne’s Captain America, Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men (three times), Kingdom Come, Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

A few writers and artists are well-represented. Five of Alan Moore’s stories make the list. Frank Miller appears three times. There are also three moments from one run: Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men. Byrne is also represented with two moments from his solo run on Fantastic Four, as well as his Captain America with writer Roger Stern. Stern also appears on the list twice, but never due to his Spider-Man work, which Wizard also really loved. Two stories from Wolfman/ Perez’s collaborations also make the list. Each of the moments was set in a superhero title, as even Sandman was set in the DC Universe.

There is some overlap with their Top 40 Comics Stories list, as 15 of the moments came from those stories. Three more moments came from legendary runs represented on that list by other stories: John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Walt Simonson’s Thor, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The 24th and third moments are harder to classify, as the payoff to those scenes could be found in stories that made the Top 40 list.

As a note, the images are a bit blurry, but if you click on it, you’ll be able to open up a much larger version. At that point, the fifteen year old (yikes) text is quite visible.

Recommended June 6 2013

The covers for Spider-Man 2099’s return in Superior Spider-Man sure look good.

The acclaimed anthology series Batman: Black and White is coming back. Newsarama has a list of the top ten Batman villains. #10 doesn’t merit inclusion.

Ace of Spades raises an interesting question about a story I noted yesterday: Is it problematic when a little girl is able to get a lung transplant because her family is media-savvy?

There was an interesting exchange between Eric Holder and Mark Kirk, Obama’s successor in the Senate.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) began by referencing the developing scandal surrounding the revelation that the National Security Agency has been requesting the phone records of all of Verizon’s customers.

“You know, when government bureaucrats are sloppy they’re usually really sloppy,” Krik said. “Want to just ask, could you assure to us that no phones inside the Capitol were monitored of members of Congress that would give a future executive branch, if they started pulling this kind of thing up, would give them unique leverage over the legislature?”

“With all due respect, senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue,” Holder replied. “I’d be more than glad to come back in an appropriate setting to discuss the issues that you have raised, but in this open forum..”

Kirk interrupted Holder. “The correct answer would be, ‘No, we stayed within our lane and I’m assuring you we did not spy on members of Congress,” he said.

The Post considers how Matt Drudge was remarkably prescient regarding the current media environment.

Slate’s Farhad Manjoo looks at the statistics of what the people who click on the magazine’s stories do. And that story had a link to another Slate piece by John Dickerson comparing the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the tax mess to their investigation of Bill Clinton in the 90s. Dickerson concludes that the House has yet to overreach.

In a nonpresidential election year where base motivation is even more important, the IRS investigations offer perhaps the greatest opportunity for Republicans to score free points in the history of politics. Grassroots Tea Party activists are invited to Washington to tell their stories of harassment and discrimination, and even Democrats have to tell them how wronged they were. Republicans can baste their supporters in love and vindication. Tea Party members have had their specific fears about government targeting ratified, and this week they’re getting more validation for their broader view about government bloat. An IRS inspector general’s report out this week catalogued roughly $50 million spent on agency conferences, with loose attention to cost in some cases. High-profile items in the report included $17,000 to hire an artist to paint portraits of Michael Jordan and Bono and $50,000 to produce videos that included a Star Trek parody.

The long-term danger for Chairman Issa may not be overreach but ineffectiveness. When you overhype evidence, people will notice if you don’t have the goods, and ultimately you lose credibility. But we are a long way from that. Right now, the public wants Republicans to make their case.

To commemorate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s divorce, NY Mag has photos of him and his wife looking miserable together. There have been reports that Putin has a second family with a much younger gymnastics champion. A friend of mine joked that Putin really is trying to do his best to be a James Bond villain, hooking up with the time of woman you’d expect to see kicking Bond’s ass.

Amazing Fantasy: A Pitch

This would be a finite series lasting several years retelling Spider-Man’s story in a closed setting, outside the Marvel Universe, the Ultimate Universe or any other existing fictional world. It’s vaguely inspired by Naoki Urasawa’s manga Pluto, which spent eight volumes on a new version of the classic Astro Boy adventure “The Greatest Robot in the World” from a different perspective with a modern sensibility. I’m well aware of the multiple retellings of Spider-Man’s origin, which have varied from excellent (the first five issues of Ultimate Spider-Man) to redundant (Spider-Man Season One) but there could be something to this tale  that we haven’t seen since Amazing Fantasy #15.

Every subsequent version of Spider-Man’s origin is shaped by the knowledge that we’ll soon see the likes of Doctor Octopus and the Alien Costume, that the story is the setup to a standard superhero series with a somewhat safe status quo. What would make this title unique is that—in this world—Peter Parker gaining super powers from a spider bite is the only unnatural event. Everything else has to be something that can plausibly exist in New York City circa 2013, or whenever this gets published. There may be new versions of classic villains, but these have to be versions of the characters that can exist on the evening news. That bodes well for the Kingpin and Tombstone, but not so much for the Lizard and Sandman.

Ideally, the story would have a complete beginning, middle and end like Preacher, Ex Machina and Y The Last Man. It would be appropriate if the finished series were 38 issues and two annuals long, but the length would depend on whatever feels natural to the story. Marvel is short on acclaimed finite runs, which have tremendous staying power in the Graphic Novel sections of book stores.

The first arc would introduce Peter Parker as a lower middle class teenager from Queens who suddenly becomes very different in an unprecedented way, as a spider bite turns him into the only person in the world with super powers. This isn’t a world with the Fantastic Four, mutants, or even any hints that there may be supervillains. So Peter would consider using his powers to become a wrestling superstar as the alternative to other options like breaking into Fort Knox. He thinks he’s being completely moral, by choosing not to be a bad guy, even though there’s no one who can stop him. He’ll try to keep his abilities secret, so his aunt and uncle don’t get too worried. He will be quite tempted to tell Liz Allen—the girl he’s been in love with since middle school—everything, although he might scare the hell out of her when he uses his powers against Flash Thompson, the douchebag who has been bullying him since middle school.

The second arc would focus on the brief period in which Spider-Man was a celebrity. We haven’t seen that much of it, outside of David Lapham and Tony Harris’s mini-series With Great Power. He’s blowing off school to stage wrestling events under the assumption that he’ll soon become a world famous millionaire. And then his Uncle Ben is killed, and he learns the lesson about power and responsibility.

This would be a Peter Parker who doesn’t yet know how to be a superhero, who has only seen that lesson applied in comic books and movies. He has power enough to fight the criminals, but he wouldn’t really know where to find them. The Punisher may be introduced in an early storyline, as a mentor figure. Frank Castle knows a lot more about fighting crime than Spidey does, and an insecure teenager whose father figure was just murdered might think the war hero has a point about him becoming judge, jury and executioner. At least for a little while.

Norman Osborn may be introduced as a weapons designer profiting from the fear that there may be others with super powers. But this would have to be a version of the Green Goblin that can exist in the real world, at least after a masked vigilante has been somewhat successful taking the law into his own hands. Because of the finite length of the series, he might be the one recurring villain, quickly becoming Spider-Man’s archenemy.

Because the series isn’t meant to last forever, we can explore the consequences of permanent changes to the status quo. There’s no need for any retcons, because we’ll eventually get to the third act of the story. Maybe Peter Parker will quit being Spider-Man, and mean it. Perhaps he’ll accidentally go too far in a confrontation with J. Jonah Jameson. He could screw up, and lose Aunt May too. At the end of the 31st issue, Peter Parker and everyone in the book can be in a completely different place than at the end of the 13th.

This series would explore the things Spider-Man fans have always wondered. What would it be like if you suddenly had the ability to be a superhero? And what would be the consequences of a masked teenager with wedding, spider sense and the proportionate strength of a spider deciding to take the law into his own hands?

Recommended June 5 2013

Neil Gaiman suggests that the next Doctor should be an unknown.

I like to see The Doctor as The Doctor, and an actor who doesn’t bring baggage is a grand sort of thing. A star waiting to happen. So I don’t want to see Helen Mirren or Sir Ian McKellen or Chiwetel Ejiofor, or any of the famous names people are suggesting. I want to see The Doctor.

I want to be taken by surprise. I want to squint at a photo of the person online and go “but how can that be The Doctor?”. Then I want to be amazingly, delightedly, completely proven wrong, and, six episodes in, I want to wonder how I could have been so blind. Because this is the Doctor. Of course it is.

 

Tom Brevoort discusses the structure of Age of Ultron with Newsarama.

This is sort of an odd thing to say, but one of the things that I liked the most about it is the fact that it seemed to so baffle so many readers. Just in terms of the way the story unfolded, and the bounces that it took. Issue after issue, I heard from readers used to a certain type of storytelling. They’re used to a very A goes to B goes to C sort of thing, and the fact thatAge of Ultron started at C really threw them off of their pins, and they kept waiting for B. That I found interesting, just in terms of how people related to the story that was being told — and that’s for people who liked it, people who hated it, people who were indifferent to it, people who went out and bought every tie-in that we did.

Certainly it was probably more challenging to our more dyed-in-the-wool, long-term readers than slightly more casual readers. Our core constituency tended to spend a lot of effort and energy and brainpower on either, “How does this fit in with all the other things that you’re publishing? You keep saying that it’s happening now, but what about this, what about that?” Or on the other side going, “Oh, this isn’t going to matter at all. This can’t matter at all, because it’s all going to be wiped away.” And yet, everybody that was saying that — or a lot of them at least — seemed to be saying it after they read every single issue. [Laughs.] So they were involved enough in what was going on, and intrigued enough — or shocked and horrified enough — to want to follow the story and see exactly what the heck we were going to do next.

I think the thing that I take away from it more than anything else is the fact that we were pretty successful of being able to keep people off-balance and guessing as to what was going to happen. Whether it’s good or whether it’s bad by an individual reader standpoint, it was certainly unexpected all the way through.

Paul Jenkins discusses his new exclusive contract with Boom Studios, as well as his problems at Marvel and especially DC.

DC is in the toilet right now. It reminds me of the way Marvel was just before we did Marvel Knights. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the similarities and connections. Suffice it to say they have created a culture of dishonesty that affects too many creators. And the worst part of all is that they bully their creators. They tried to bully me, and I told them to go to Hell. The horror stories are many and varied. I have a few of my own, and I have heard way too many of them from various creators who are being beaten into submission with the threat of losing their jobs if they do not play ball. DC seem to have developed a culture where they think “professionalism” is screwing a creator in some fashion, and then pretending to be friendly at a convention. Professionalism is about handing in quality work on time, or about being friendly to fans at conventions, or about working towards a mutually beneficial goal. Professionalism is about dedication to your craft, not about running around the offices like a demented gerbil telling everyone how busy you are – so busy, in fact, that you forget to do any actual work. Here’s what pisses me off about this situation: it does not take a rocket scientist to see that there are a lot of very unhappy creators at DC lately. Well, can you imagine how many more are unhappy that we don’t know about because they feel if they speak out they will be blacklisted? Can you imagine the miserable conditions some of these creators are subjected to? (Disclaimer: not all creators, I am sure. Some are perfectly happy. Just not me.) The point is that DC has begun to act like a bully, to subject people to shitty working conditions as if it is doing them a favor. If I have seen good comics come from the creator/publisher collaboration, why the hell would I allow myself to be subjected to that nonsense at this stage of my career? I have numerous other interests, including film and video game work and my first novel.

New South Park films may be coming. I’m quite happy with this, since the first film is one of the funniest ever made. The Imaginationland trilogy, the second longest South Park story, was also quite good, although full of too many references to earlier episodes to succeed as a movie.

It’s a few days old, but NPR’s On the Media had an interesting piece about a blogger’s encounter with his troll. My favorite part of today’s Slate’s Culture Gabfest was a discussion on hating, and the ways in which preferences are used to establish identity, something that may happen less now, as pop culture consumers are allowed to be eclectic.

The Daily Beast considers the freakouts of Deadline Hollywood Editor in Chief Nikki Finke.

There was an unusually messed-up double suicide in Brooklyn.

The question of whether a ten-year-old can get an organ transplant from an adult has life and death consequences, although it may have a happy ending when s a judge makes an uncontroversial decision.