Geek Jargon 101: The Multiverse, Time Travel, and Earth-Prime (Part 1)

by Max Doomsday

In this edition of Geek Jargon 101, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, parallel universes. This is not going to be a scholarly discussion of actual scientific theories about the existence of parallel universes - which I find very dull and have little interest in. (You can read more of what I have to say on that subject here.) I'm talking about parallel universes as they're portrayed in fiction.

I think we're all familiar with the parallel universe concept. It's the idea that somewhere, in another dimension in space, there exists a separate universe that is similar to our own, but differs in significant and entertaining ways. For example, during the last half of the twentieth century, writers loved to concoct alternate histories where the Nazis won World War II and went on to conquer all or part of the world. I call this the "Nazi Planet" genre. There are two reasons the popularity of this genre. First, World War II was one of the major turning points in human history. And second, everyone agrees that the Nazis were the greatest real-life supervillains ever. They tried to conquer the world, they killed millions of people, and they all looked great in their Hugo Boss uniforms while doing it!

Any time you have two or more parallel universes, they are collectively referred to as a "multiverse." Growing up, I assumed this term originated in comic books (where I was first exposed to it). But it turns out, the term was coined all the way back in 1895 - by a psychologist, of all things!

The parallel universe has been a sci-fi trope for decades. Many of us were introduced to the idea by the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" (or, a generation later, by the very similar Super Friends episode "Universe of Evil"). In "Mirror, Mirror," a transporter accident sends Captain Kirk and his landing party to a parallel universe which is socially and politically the opposite of the one we're familiar with. There, the Enterprise serves not the peaceful United Federation of Planets, but the warlike and imperialist Terran Empire. The crew members are all murderous, conniving, and disloyal - the exact opposite of the Star Trek cast we're used to seeing. Plus, Spock has a goatee!

Here's your Atomic Gadfly Travel Tip for the week. If you're ever worried that you might've been transported into an "evil" parallel universe, just go around to everyone you know and see if any of them have goatees or eyepatches or facial scars they didn't have the day before. Especially goatees! If we've learned anything from television, it's this: if your Aunt Rosie grows a goatee overnight, you're probably in an "evil" parallel universe! (Or she could just be going through menopause. You should probably make sure before you go on a shooting rampage at Thanksgiving dinner.)

"Evil" parallel universes are my favorite kind, because I like seeing familiar heroes and villains in reversed roles, with the good guys getting to act like scumbags for a change. That's why I'm looking forward to the upcoming DVD release of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an animated movie where Superman, Batman, and other DC Comics icons will battle their evil counterparts from another dimension.

The parallel universe idea has become more mainstream during the last 15 years. In the late 1990s, the TV show Sliders featured a group of interdimensional travelers who visited a different parallel universe every week. Parallel universes were parodied in episodes of The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. Perhaps no one's doing more to popularize the parallel universe concept right now than J.J. Abrams. Alternate timelines figured prominently in his 2009 Star Trek reboot and in recent episodes of Lost. His new show, Fringe, deals with a shadow war waged against us by the inhabitants of a parallel world where the 9/11 attacks never happened.

From the Sliders episode "The Exodus, Part One" in which the team travels to a parallel universe where Earth is about to be destroyed by pulsar radiation. Also, the episode where Kari Wührer joined the cast - which was the exact moment I suddenly became interested in watching Sliders.

Parallel universes go by several different names. You just saw me use two of them, "alternate timeline" and "parallel world." Some others are "alternate reality," "alternate history," "parallel dimension," and, if you want to get really fancy, "separate plane of existence." These terms are often used interchangeably, but for the sake of this discussion, I'm going to use a few of them to describe specific categories of fictional parallel universes.

Alternate Reality. I use this term to describe a parallel universe that is radically different from our own. Geography and topography may be unrecognizable. Civilization may be at a different level technologically. It may be inhabited by supernatural creatures. Physical laws that govern our world may not apply. Yet, everyone you encounter there will speak modern English. Examples of "alternate realities" include Oz, Narnia, and Wonderland from the novels of L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, and Lewis Carroll.

Alternate History. This is a parallel universe which closely resembles our own, but in which historical events have unfolded slightly differently. "Nazi Planet" stories like Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Robert Harris' Fatherland would fit in this category. So, too, would Watchmen, which is set in an alternate version of 1985 where Richard Nixon is still president, costumed superheroes have existed since the 1940s, and the Vietnam War was ended by a godlike being called Dr. Manhattan. These examples are self-contained works of fiction. But what sci-fi fans really love is to see familiar characters cross over from their own universe into a strange parallel universe, then deal with the culture shock.

From a 1973 issue of Justice League of America: robot superhero Red Tornado meets robot Hitler, ruler of Earth-X, in a parallel universe where the Nazis won World War II.

Alternate Timeline. In fiction, there are basically two multiverse models. In one model, all the parallel dimensions that make up a particular multiverse came into existence at the same time, and have co-existed ever since. (Which leads to the question, did one Big Bang create the entire multiverse, or was there a separate Big Bang for each dimension within the multiverse?) In the other multiverse model, you start off with one universe. Any time there's a divergence in the time stream, a new parallel universe forms as an offshoot of the original. These offshoots are "alternate timelines." They're usually the result of mucking-about by time travelers who come from the future and alter the course of historical events. This is what we saw in the last Star Trek: Romulans came from the future, killed Kirk's dad, and blew up the planet Vulcan. The result was a new timeline, separate and apart from the original Star Trek timeline depicted in previous movies and TV shows.

Of course, time travel is another sci-fi trope. Stories where time travelers alter history generally fall into three categories, and I'll discuss all three when I continue this discussion next week. After that, I'll also talk about "Earth-Prime," the fictional concept of a "prime" universe from which all other parallel worlds emanate. In the meantime, here are links to the rest of the Geek Jargon 101 series.

Reboots: What They Are, What They Aren't, and Why They Happen.
Reboots and Reimaginings.
The Retcon Explained.
Continuity - Plus a Recap.
It's "Canon," Not "Cannon."
The Dark Side of "Canon."

Theoretical Physics: Science Fiction With a PhD?

by Max Doomsday

I didn't want to bog down my discussion of parallel universes with this, but it's something I've wanted to get off my chest for a while. Am I the only one who's noticed that theoretical physics is just a big academic scam?

Theoretical physicists like to toss out all sorts of enticing ideas about string theory, parallel universes, and faster-than-light travel, but none of it can be verified or refuted by the scientific method. I don't know how many times I've heard one of these people claim we'll someday travel across the galaxy by "folding space," only to later admit - when pressed on the subject - that they have no real idea how to go about "folding space" at all and essentially made the whole thing up!

Theoretical physics is just science fiction, only with less narrative and more math. That's all fine and good, but why are we giving these people university-level teaching positions and treating them like legitimate scientists?

Michio Kaku, the current rockstar in the field, is a very entertaining writer and speaker. I always enjoy listening to him on Coast to Coast AM, sandwiched between interviews with UFO abductees and Bigfoot investigators. But he's not out there collecting data and testing hypotheses - you know, the things a real scientist does. He's just regurgitating ideas that have been prevalent in comic books and sci-fi stories for the last fifty years. Arthur C. Clarke was also an entertaining writer with a scientific background, but nobody's going around pretending like 2001: A Space Odyssey was a documentary.

A theoretical physicist talking about how we'll someday be able to "fold space" has no more credibility than Han Solo talking about "making the calculations for the jump to light speed" in Star Wars. There's no legitimate science to back up any of it. And I'm not seeing a whole lot of hard evidence to back up anything else the theoretical physicists are saying, either. It's time for us all to stop marveling at the Emperor's New Clothes.

* * *

In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to note that I was generally a poor math and science student in high school, and went out of my way to avoid those subjects in college. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with my superficial understanding of theoretical physics or my skeptical attitude towards the scientific community today!

Speaking of "folding space," you can read Fearless Young Orphan's take on the possibilities of interstellar travel here.

Guide to Batman: The Brave and the Bold - Kamandi and Dr. Polaris

by Max Doomsday

Well, it's only taken me three months, but we're finally down to the last two DC Comics characters featured on the second Batman: The Brave and the Bold DVD set. Does this mean I won't be doing anymore DC character profiles? I'll have more to say about that later. First, let's deal with Kamandi and Dr. Polaris.

KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH

The teaser to the B&B episode "Dawn of the Deadman!" has Batman time-travel to a post-apocalyptic world where civilization has been destroyed and the last remaining humans are hunted by mutated, intelligent animals. Does any of this sound familiar to you? It should.

In the early '70s, the Planet of the Apes franchise was huge. DC wanted to do a comic book adaptation of the film series, but didn't get the license. It ultimately went to DC's archrival, Marvel Comics. But that didn't stop DC from putting out their own Planet of the Apes knockoff.

"The Last Boy on Earth": a thought that sends shivers down the spines of Catholic priests everywhere.

Kamandi was the brainchild of Jack Kirby, who'd just defected to DC after co-creating half the Marvel Universe with Stan Lee during the '60s. The setting for the story was several decades in the future, after a global cataclysm called "the Great Disaster" had wiped out most of humanity and transformed much of the Earth's surface. Some of the survivors reverted to savagery, while others lived in underground bunkers. Meanwhile, the newly-ravaged world was overrun by armies of mutant animals - not just talking monkeys, as in Planet of the Apes, but also rats, tigers, and dogs.

Into this nightmarish world came the feral-looking teenager known only as Kamandi. He was raised by his grandfather in a bunker called "Command D" (thus explaining his name). His grandfather was later revealed to be Buddy Blank, the alter ego of another Jack Kirby creation called OMAC, or "One Man Army Corps," who has also appeared on B&B.

After his grandfather died, Kamandi ventured out into the world to look for other survivors. Along the way, he befriended a trio of genetically-altered humans, a kindly dog-man named Dr. Canus, and Tuftan, son of the "emperor" of the tiger people.

Although Jack Kirby created Kamandi to cash in on the popularity of Planet of the Apes, the germ of the idea had existed long before. Kirby published a very similar story in a 1957 issue of a comic book called Alarming Tales, years before the first Planet of the Apes movie or the 1963 novel on which the movie was based. Kamandi, himself, was recycled from Kamandi of the Caves, a proposed newspaper strip Kirby developed in 1956.

Kamandi's comic book series ran from 1972 to 1978, when it was one of a slew of titles cancelled during the so-called DC Implosion. For the next several years, Kamandi was relegated to occasional guest appearances in other characters' books.

DC did a company-wide reboot of their fictional characters in 1986. One of the goals was to streamline the DC Universe, including the varied and often contradictory versions of the future presented in DC publications over the years. The Great Disaster didn't really fit into DC's grand scheme of a happy, Star Trek-ish future inhabited by people like Tommy Tomorrow of the Planeteers, a bland space opera hero DC published during the '50s.

To solve the Kamandi "problem," the folks at DC came up with an unusual solution: they retconned Kamandi and Tommy Tomorrow into one character. DC declared that the Great Disaster would never happen, and the boy who would've been Kamandi will instead grow up to be Tommy Tomorrow.

I never understood the desire for one consistent, streamlined version of future history. I mean, it's all fiction, after all! And as Yoda famously said, "Always in motion is the future." I'd prefer that the DC Comics present readers with dozens of potential futures - some utopian, some horrific, and some that are a little of both.

Eventually, somebody at DC realized what a bad idea it was to turn one of their more quirky, offbeat characters, was turned into a generic Flash Gordon-type. In 1993, the "Last Boy on Earth" was featured in a new mini-series, Kamandi: At Earth's End. Although the story was not "canonical" (nor particularly memorable), it at least returned Kamandi to a post-apocalyptic setting.

In the last few years, Kamandi has been worked back into the "mainstream" DC Universe. The Great Disaster is now said to have occurred in a parallel universe called Earth-51. It's better than nothing.

And, of course, Kamandi has teamed up with Batman in a couple of episodes of B&B, where we can see him back in all his Planet of the Apes-inspired glory.

DR. POLARIS

The B&B episode "Fall of the Blue Beetle!" focused on the history of Batman's frequent guest-star, Blue Beetle - who I've discussed at length before. It also included the B&B debut of Dr. Polaris, who's appeared in a couple of other episodes since then and was also a prominent member of Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom on Justice League Unlimited.

Dr. Polaris was an old enemy of Green Lantern and first appeared in comics in 1963. He was actually Neil Emerson, an apparently well-meaning doctor who championed the healing power of magnetism. But too much exposure to "magnetic forces" - whatever that means - caused him to develop a Jekyll-Hyde split personality. When his evil side took over, Emerson assumed the identity of Dr. Polaris, committing crimes with magnetic-powered gadgets.

Also, wearing this dopey costume.

Later stories attributed Emerson's split personality to that well-worn crutch of lazy comic book writers everywhere, an abusive childhood. (Yawn!)

As the years passed, Dr. Polaris found a better tailor and somehow developed the superhuman ability to control magnetic fields, like the X-Men's enemy Magneto. Basically, this meant he could mentally control anything made of metal.

In addition to Green Lantern, Dr. Polaris had run-ins with Black Lightning, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Superman, the Justice League, and a deservedly short-lived superhero team called the Power Company.

He also found time to get a fabulous new wardrobe!

A few years ago, Dr. Polaris joined an outfit called the Secret Society of Super-Villains and was killed by the Human Bomb, a superhero whose name is self-explanatory. He's now part of an army of zombified superheroes and supervillains terrorizing the DC Universe. (No, really!)

In 2008, a new Dr. Polaris turned up to fight Blue Beetle. This one was John Nichol, an admirer of Neil Emerson. Evidently, the respect was not mutual, because Nichol was swiftly killed by his undead predecessor.

* * *

As I said before, the third B&B DVD set went on sale last week. I'll continue the "Guide to Batman: The Brave and the Bold" series in a few weeks. But first, after nearly a year, I'm going to bring you another edition of "The Dark Knight Annotated" featuring the villain of Batman Begins, Ra's al Ghul.

The "Guide to Batman: The Brave and the Bold" Series:
Blue Beetle and Kanjar Ro.
Green Arrow.
Clock King, Green Fury, Gentleman Ghost, and Dinosaur Island.
Plastic Man, Kite-Man, and Gorilla Grodd.
Aquaman.
Black Manta, Ocean Master, Felix Faust, and The Atom.
Red Tornado, Sportsmaster, and Toyman.
Green Lantern.
Etrigan the Demon and B'wana Beast.
The Outsiders (Metamorpho, Black Lightning, and Katana).
Wildcat.
Deadman.
Speedy.

The Second Annual Atomic Gadfly Film Awards

Presented by Max Doomsday

Best Picture? Best Actor? Best Director? Borrrring! Everybody hands out awards in those categories. The Gaddies recognize truly unique achievements in the cinematic arts, in categories arbitrarily chosen by me! So, without further adieu, let's hand out some statues!*

*No actual statues will be awarded.

THE "PLEASE GO AWAY NOW" AWARD

There were some strong contenders for this year's award. Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, and John Travolta all continued to burn off whatever good will they have left among movie audiences. But I have to give the award to a relative newcomer, someone with a much shorter resume - which I hope won't be allowed to get much longer. Someone we all know, yet none admire: Megan Fox.

How did The Plasticon beat out Hollywood veterans like Martin, Murphy, and Travolta? It's about exposure. You see, those guys all make shitty movies, so I avoid seeing them. Megan Fox I can't avoid. For most of 2009, I couldn't get online, walk past a magazine stand, or flip channels on my television without seeing Megan Fox's vacant eyes and plastic features staring back at me.

And what did she do to deserve all this attention? She's only appeared in a handful of movies, and she was terrible in every single one of them. But she says naughty things in interviews and a lot of men seem to be convinced that she's some kind of a stunning beauty.

Okay, I guess she's kind of cute ... if you're turned on by mentally-handicapped women with lifeless eyes who brag about forgetting to flush the toilet. Sure. Oh, and for all you guys out there who spontaneously ejaculate at the sight of this creature, just keep in mind that a woman who forgets to flush is probably a woman who also forgets to wipe. Think about that next time you're watching Transformers and feel the urge to break out the hand lotion!

I guess I just don't see what those other people all see in Megan Fox. Whatever it is, I don't need to see any more of it. So she needs to go away now, back to whatever stripper pole or lap dance couch they found her on.

THE "PUT UP OR SHUT UP" AWARD FOR ASTONISHING LACK OF EFFORT

I'm going to address the recipient of this year's award directly.

Dear Michael Cera:

We all loved you as George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development. But that show ended four years ago. Don't you think maybe it's time you stopped playing George Michael Bluth in every single movie you make?

You know what I'm talking about. You've cornered the market on playing the awkward teenager who calmly reacts to crazy things happening around him. You're great at it. You were great at it for the three seasons of Arrested Development. But enough, already!

Every movie you're in plays out like a plotline from the lost season of Arrested Development. Think about it. Juno: George Michael Bluth gets laid. Superbad: George Michael Bluth tries to buy booze. Paper Heart: George Michael Bluth dates aspiring filmmaker. Youth in Revolt: George Michael Bluth tries to act more like his Uncle Gob, gets in trouble.

I was excited about Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist until I learned it would not be about a witty, alcoholic private detective who solves crimes with his socialite wife - you know, like the real Nick and Nora - but would instead be about George Michael Bluth driving around New York City at night.

You need to show me you have some acting range, or I'm done with you. I'll wash my hands of you like Pontius Pilate. Was there a Pontius Pilate scene in Year One? I wouldn't know, because I didn't see it. I had no desire to watch George Michael Bluth wander around ancient Judea with Jack Black for 90 minutes.

So I'm awarding you the first-ever "Put Up or Shut Up" Award. I don't actually give out a statue, but if I did, it might look something like this:

Perhaps not unlike what you've been using to "phone it in" lately.

I hope this award inspires you to greater things.

Sincerely, Maxwell Casanova Doomsday

P.S. Can't wait to see you in the Arrested Development movie!

THE WORST REMAKE OF AN ALFRED HITCHCOCK CLASSIC

Let me start off by giving credit where it's due. It takes real guts to remake a Hitchcock film. Unfortunately, those are the only words of praise I have for the producers of 2009's Notorious.

When you remake a movie that was originally released in 1946, you have to make changes. I get that. But did the makers of Notorious have to stray so far from the original film? In place of an espionage thriller with a twisted love triangle, we got a semi-historical account of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop feud in the '90s. I say "semi-historical" because the filmmakers made the questionable decision to base all of the cast members on actual people, living and dead, who were involved in the hip-hop music scene at the time.

The focus of the film is Biggie Smalls (Jamal Woolard), the murdered rapper who was also known as the Notorious B.I.G. I suspect the "Notorious" moniker was the only reason the filmmakers chose to feature him in their remake at all.

Smalls seems to be based on Alexander Sebastian, the villain played by Claude Rains in the original Notorious. I'm drawing this conclusion solely from the fact that Smalls' mother (Angela Bassett) gets a lot of screentime in the remake, and Sebastian lived with his mother in the original. Aside from that, Smalls seems to have absolutely nothing in common with Sebastian at all. I still have no clue as to which of the actors in the remake were supposed to be filling the roles of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.

This Notorious remake left me feeling confused and frustrated. It's one thing to update an old movie. It's quite another to use the name of a Hitchcock classic to lure people into the theatre when your movie bears so little resemblance to the original that it barely qualifies as a remake at all! If they wanted to make a movie about the Notorious B.I.G., why not just call it Big?

I'm sure that wouldn't have confused anybody.

THE "TIME FOR A NEW AGENT" AWARD

Gerard Butler was propelled to stardom in 2006 with 300. Has he made one decent movie since?

Okay, he did make one decent movie, Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla in 2008. That's the one where Ritchie recovered his footing after his ordeal as Mr. Madonna. And by "footing," of course, I mean "testicles." But I digress.

Last year, Gerard Butler stank out the theatres not once, not twice, but three times in The Ugly Truth, Gamer, and Law Abiding Citizen. This year, he'll be appearing in The Bounty Hunter ... with Jennifer Aniston. If he was on a deliberate campaign to sabotage his own career, I don't think could do a better job of it! Four years after declaring, "This is Sparta," Butler seems content to let himself be a poor man's Russell Crowe.

THE "THANKS FOR NOTHING" AWARD FOR OVERALL DESTRUCTIVE IMPACT ON THE FILM INDUSTRY

The recipient of this year's award is not an actor, a filmmaker, or a studio exec. In fact, as far as I know, he has no direct involvement in the entertainment industry at all! He's Nicholas Cage's former business manager, Samuel J. Levin. According to a $20 million lawsuit filed by the actor, Levin "lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin." Cage claims that he "is now forced to sell major assets and investments at a significant loss and is faced with huge tax liabilities because of Levin's incompetence, misrepresentations and recklessness."

I don't have a picture of Levin, but I assume he looks something like this.

How did these actions earn Levin the prestigious "Thanks for Nothing" Award? I'll tell you how.

For years, we've had to suffer as Nicholas Cage squandered his considerable talents in one lousy paycheck movie after another. Or, as some would have it, by making the same lousy paycheck movie over and over again. Usually, he's playing the guy who runs through the streets with an intense look on his face, frantically trying to prevent Something Terrible from happening.

Now Cage is broke, which means he's going to have to start building his fortune all over again. That means we can expect to see Cage in even more lousy paycheck movies in the years to come.

So thanks for nothing, Sammy! I hope there's a special place in Hell reserved just for you.

[Note: My attorney strongly advised me to mention that none of Nicholas Cage's allegations against Samuel J. Levin have actually been proven in court. Levin has countersued Cage, claiming the actor's financial problems are the result of his own reckless spending habits. In the event that Levin is ultimately vindicated, this year's "Thanks for Nothing" Award will go to runner-up Michael Bay.]

MOST COURAGEOUS HOLLYWOOD COMEDY OF 2009

There's been a lot of snark and sarcasm in this year's Gaddy celebration, but let's end things on a positive note. I'm now going to tell you why the year's funniest film, The Hangover, was such an overwhelming box office success. The most obvious reason, of course, is that it was that rare Hollywood comedy that actually makes people laugh. But there's more to it than that.

First of all, adult filmgoers were starving for an R-rated comedy. No studio seems to have the guts to make them anymore. In fact, most of the time, a studio will go out of its way to secure a "magic" PG-13 rating for a comedy. Speaking as an adult filmgoer, I think we're all getting a little sick of it.

Second, in movies of this kind, the focus is usually on a bland everyman character who the audience is supposed to identify with. In The Hangover, the bland everyman was Doug (Justin Bartha). But Doug disappears at the end of the first act, and that puts the focus of the movie on Doug's wacky friends - you know, the characters who are actually interesting and funny. So the comedy in The Hangover wasn't watered down by devoting a lot of screentime to the least funny person in the cast.

My third and final point gets to the reason why I think The Hangover deserves to be recognized as the year's Most Courageous Hollywood Comedy. It involves Alan (Zach Galifianakis). You remember, that creepy guy with the beard. All through the movie, Alan drops hints about his past exploits. He's a registered sex offender, maybe a pedophile, maybe a baby-snatcher. It's the source of a lot of unsettling humor.

Normally, with a comedy, the filmmakers want you to leave the theatre feeling all warm and fuzzy. So when there's a disturbing or sinister character like Alan, there has to come a moment when the movie assures the audience that he's harmless. I call that the "group hug" moment.

But there was no "group hug" moment with Alan in The Hangover, no scene at the end where we find out that he was just kidding all along, or that it was all just a big misunderstanding. In fact, The Hangover ends with Alan developing an unhealthy fixation on another character, Phil (Bradley Cooper) - hinting at more disturbing and possibly criminal behavior to come. The Hangover took us to a dark place with Alan, and left us there. The filmmakers didn't try to redeem or reform him or make him "safe" at the end. As a result, Alan ended up being The Hangover's most memorable character.

Let's hope the filmmakers remember what made The Hangover work when they start on the sequel.

* * *

And that brings the Second Annual Atomic Gadfly Film Awards to a close. You can review last year's Gaddy winners here.

In other award season news, the Razzie nominations were announced this morning, and I'm happy to report that the hellish Transformers 2 received seven nominations. One of last year's other cinematic abortions, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, received only six Razzie nominations - with star Channing Tatum inexplicably snubbed in the "Worst Actor" category. And speaking of grave injustices, the Oscar nominations will be announced tomorrow. I couldn't care less.

Next week, another edition of Geek Jargon 101!

Guide to Batman: The Brave and the Bold - Speedy

by Max Doomsday

Green Arrow's been a frequent guest star on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. But so far, his sidekick Speedy has appeared only twice, making his debut alongside the Dark Knight, Green Arrow, Deadman, and the Gentleman Ghost in "Dawn of the Deadman!"

I talked about Speedy quite a bit in my history of Green Arrow, so a lot of what I'm going to say today will be familiar to some of you.

The so-called Battling Bowmen first appeared in a 1941 issue of More Fun Comics, a series published by the company that came to be known as DC Comics. There wasn't a lot of creativity at work here. Writer/editor Mort Weisinger essentially took Batman and Robin, dressed them up as Robin Hood and Will Scarlet, handed them bows and arrows, and acted like he'd "created" two new characters. Like the Dynamic Duo, Green Arrow and Speedy were secretly a millionaire playboy and his teenaged "ward," they operated out of an "Arrow Cave," they traveled in an "Arrow Car" and an "Arrow Plane," and the police summoned them with an "Arrow Signal."

Unlike Batman and Robin, who seemed to be experts at everything, the Battling Bowmen's MO centered on archery. They fought crime with an arsenal of "trick arrows" like the "boxing glove arrow" (an arrow with a boxing glove strapped to it), the "arrow line" (an arrow with a rope tied to it), and the "boomerang arrow" (an arrow with a head shaped like a boomerang). These were entirely non-lethal and, one would assume, entirely non-aerodynamic.

Speedy's origin story left a lot to be desired. He was an orphan named Roy Harper, raised on the mysterious Lost Mesa by a Native American named Quoag - who, of course, taught him to be an expert archer. Harper and Quoag had a run-in with some crooks who followed archaeologist Oliver Queen (conveniently, also an expert archer) on an expedition to Lost Mesa.

Quoag was killed during the ensuing fight, and Queen decided to take Harper back with him to civilization. They sold a gold idol they found at Lost Mesa and set themselves up like Kennedys. For no particular reason at all, they decided to use their archery skills to fight crime.

Green Arrow and Speedy remained in More Fun Comics until 1946, then jumped to Adventure Comics and World's Finest Comics. For a couple of years in the mid-'40s, they also appeared in Leading Comics as members of a second-rate superhero team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

The Battling Bowmen were among a handful of World War II-era superheroes who survived through the '50s, though they never graduated from the back pages of books headlined by the likes of Superman and Batman.

In 1959, the backstories of Green Arrow and Speedy were retconned. According to the revised account, Roy Harper was still an orphan raised by a Native American (now renamed Brave Bow), but he began his crimefighting career later than Green Arrow did, and only after he helped his future partner thwart some criminals at an archery tournament.

So Speedy's new origin story was just as dull and uninspiring as the old one.

About that time, most of DC's superheroes banded together as the Justice League of America. For whatever reason, Green Arrow, one of DC's longest-running characters, was left out. He was finally added to the team in Justice League of America #4.

Perhaps it's fitting, then, that when several of the Justice Leaguers' sidekicks got together as the Teen Titans in 1964, Speedy was also left out. He made a couple of guest appearances with the "Junior Justice League" (beginning, appropriately, with Teen Titans #4), but he didn't become a full-time member until 1969.

Still, Speedy made out a little better than Green Arrow in one sense. Filmation produced a series of animated shorts about the Teen Titans in the late '60s. At the time, the team's leader and most famous member, Robin, was unavailable, as he was appearing in the live-action Batman TV series. So Speedy filled in for him - beating his mentor to the small screen by several years.

Speedy was active with the Titans during most of the '70s, where he began an on-again, off-again relationship with his teammate, Wonder Girl. He also became a drummer for a rock band called Great Frog. But his most significant story arc during that decade came not in the Teen Titans' series, but in the pages of Green Lantern.

Before I get to that, I need to put things in context. By the mid-'60s, Green Arrow had been dropped from World's Finest Comics and Adventure Comics. Since then, he'd been appearing almost exclusively in Justice League of America while Speedy had been appearing almost exclusively (when at all) in Teen Titans. Practically speaking, their partnership was over.

In 1969, DC gave Green Arrow a dramatic makeover - new costume, new angry personality, and a leftist political bent. A year later, he was paired with uptight, conservative Green Lantern in a series of groundbreaking and award-winning stories in which this superhero odd couple tackled controversial issues like racism, poverty, and the environment - subjects rarely spoken of in mainstream comics of the day.

One of these subjects was illegal drug use, a topic that was off-limits under the Comics Code, the "standards and practices" of the comic book publishing industry. DC's rival, Marvel Comics, had already flaunted the code with a Spider-Man story revealing that a supporting character had developed a pill-popping habit. Green Lantern's writer and artist, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, decided to one-up Marvel with a story revealing that an actual superhero had become a heroin addict. Guess which superhero they chose?

Pretty shocking stuff for a mainstream comic book in the early '70s. According to the story, Speedy felt abandoned by Green Arrow and drifted into the drug scene. Of course, he kicked his habit (perhaps a little too easily) and put his life back together, but his relationship with his former mentor has been strained ever since.

The Teen Titans were reorganized in 1980, but Speedy wasn't part of the new group. Although he teamed up with them occasionally during the '80s, he spent most of his time working for the fictional Central Bureau of Investigation where, owing to his personal experiences, he mainly took on drug traffickers.

Somewhere along the way, Speedy knocked up the supervillain Cheshire. So Speedy may be the only mainstream superhero who both kicked a drug habit and fathered a child with one of the "opposition." He's currently raising his daughter, Lian, as a single father.

In the '70s and '80s, Speedy was generally written as an arrogant, womanizing hotshot. His portrayal in this Robot Chicken skit isn't too much of an exaggeration. In recent years, though, Speedy has developed a more serious, professional attitude.

In 1993, Speedy expanded his repertoire beyond just bows and arrows to include guns and other projectile weapons. He adopted what may be the dullest name in superhero history, "Arsenal," and headed up a new, government-sponsored incarnation of the Teen Titans.

Since then, he starred in his own mini-series, was involved with several more versions of the Titans (a superhero team that's proven about as stable as Courtney Love), and went through several costume changes.

In 2003, he put together a new team of Outsiders, and in 2006, he went back to his bow and arrow, changed his name to "Red Arrow," and took his former mentor's place in the Justice League.

On television, Speedy made a few guest appearances in Cartoon Network's Teen Titans series and had a small role in one of the finest episodes of Justice League Unlimited, "Patriot Act," which turned into an impromptu reunion of the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

In the comics, after Roy Harper adopted the identity of "Arsenal," the "Speedy" name and legacy passed to Green Arrow's new teen sidekick, an HIV-infected runaway and former prostitute named Mia Dearden. She recently appeared on Smallville, but has not yet adopted the guise of "Speedy" on television.

Being the jaded comic book reader I am, I've always thought Mia Dearden was just a stunt. I don't expect her to last very long. DC likes being able to point to her as "the superhero with HIV," but they'll probably kill her off in a few years before letting her get full-blown AIDS. The fact is, comic book fans don't want to read about AIDS. It's depressing. Comic book fans want to read about fictional diseases that can be miraculously cured (or un-cured) according to a writer's whim.

So Mia Dearden will probably die in the next five or ten years, and Green Arrow will spend several years moping about her after that, the way Captain America and Batman used to mope about their own dead sidekicks. And Roy Harper will either take back the Speedy mantle, himself ("to honor Mia's memory"), or it'll pass to some new kid and become a "legacy title" like Robin. (We're currently on Robin no. 5 in the comics.) These are all standard superhero tropes now.

As for the original Speedy, Roy Harper, DC has big changes in store for him in 2010. After getting his arm ripped off by a supervillain, he's going to get a new prosthetic arm and star in another mini-series, Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal. (So, I guess he's changing his name back to "Arsenal," too?)

And it won't be one of those clunky prosthetics like we have in the real world, either. It'll be the kind of prosthetic they have in the comic book world, a cool-looking robot arm that functions just like his old one did!

This sort of thing is what all-too-often passes for "character development" in modern superhero stories, which is one of the reasons I don't read very many new comic books anymore. What's even more pathetic is that the exact same thing happened to Green Arrow in two "non-canonical" comics published in 1986 and 2001, The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again. So the creative juices weren't exactly flowing when the folks at DC cooked up this storyline.

On a more upbeat note, Speedy returned to Batman: The Brave and the Bold a couple of weeks ago in the episode "Sidekicks Assemble!" alongside fellow Teen Titans Robin and Aqualad. Together, they took on the Caped Crusader's old enemy, Ra's al Ghul. I'll tell you all about him in a couple of weeks, in my next installment of "The Dark Knight Annotated."

Batman: The Brave and the Bold airs on Cartoon Network on Friday nights at 7:30 Eastern and Saturday nights at 8:30 Eastern. The third DVD set goes on sale tomorrow. Next week, I'll cover Dr. Polaris and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.

The "Guide to Batman: The Brave and the Bold" Series:
Blue Beetle and Kanjar Ro.
Green Arrow.
Clock King, Green Fury, Gentleman Ghost, and Dinosaur Island.
Plastic Man, Kite-Man, and Gorilla Grodd.
Aquaman.
Black Manta, Ocean Master, Felix Faust, and The Atom.
Red Tornado, Sportsmaster, and Toyman.
Green Lantern.
Etrigan the Demon and B'wana Beast.
The Outsiders (Metamorpho, Black Lightning, and Katana).
Wildcat.
Deadman.

More Reboots That Need to Happen

by Fearless Young Orphan

Here I am, jumping on the reboot bandwagon to propose a few ideas of my own. I have a fondness for the well-realized reboot and think a good story always has enough flexibility in it to take on a new direction. The "remake", I'm less thrilled with, because lazyassed Hollywood likes to take great stories and do them over again not because it helps, but simply because they can. Nevertheless, the remake of a great idea which got no better than a mediocre first treatment is a concept I can wrap my head around.

My ideas follow. If any of these turn up in the next couple years, I am going to feel so totally vindicated.

THE JURASSIC PARK SERIES.

I had as much fun as the next guy at the premiere of this CG extravaganza (and a lot more fun than those little kids sitting behind me, who wet themselves when the T-Rex tried to eat that car full o'children) but even all this terror was just chock full of twinkly Spielbergian magic. The next two were just more of the same with varying degrees of irritation and not as much twinkle. Though I'll admit this much: despite the fact that Jurassic Park III looked like it was made just because the sets from Jurassic Park were still intact and Sam Neill had a free month, I liked it more than the stupidly scripted Lost World.

Let's reboot this series into the sort of grim, joyless post-apocalyptic PTSD-fest that is so popular now. We all know what such genetic technology would actually be in our world: military secrets! Filmed in gloomy blue and gray, human soldiers scramble to save their necks on a secluded military island where the genetically reengineered raptors and T-Rexes have run amok, even as a terrorist group infiltrates the island to steal the technology.

Actually, this has probably already been done by the SyFy Channel, possibly starring A Martinez and Julie Benz and called Dinosaur Soldiers or something, but this is a big budget movie which will be produced by Michael Bay and directed by Ridley Scott, so screw the little guys. This Jurassic will star Christian Bale as Dr. Grant, and Russell Crowe as the chaos-spouting Dr. Malcolm. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that nobody gets off the island alive. If Grant and Malcolm are in the sequel, it's because they've been cloned, and hopefully spliced with dinosaur DNA, which leads me to...

THE ALIEN SERIES.

Actually I'm earnest about this one. I seriously need a re-do for my own mental health, and I'd be happy to write the script, direct the film, or star in it, if they need to save some money in order to get it made.

Alien (1979) was a sci-fi horror masterpiece. Aliens (1986) was a sci-fi action masterpiece and the best sequel I have ever seen. After that, the acid-blooded alien story went down so many wrong roads that I normally pretend that none of it ever happened. I would like everyone else to join me! The Alien vs. Predator franchise is excluded from this wipe because it's a different story arc, and I'd only suggest that they just need to pick a tone and stick with it. Just you watch AvP and AvP 2 and tell me if those movies didn't come from different freaking universes.

What I propose is a soft reboot of Ellen Ripley's adventures, picking up where Aliens left off and oh, I don't know, not pointlessly killing off everything she fought for in Aliens. Instead, let her return to Earth with her adopted family, but then be imprisoned on a distant planet for nuking yet another billion-dollar piece of architecture. Then "The Company" can send alien eggs to her prison, because that's what evil corporations do! Or let Ripley retire somewhere to snog away the hours with Dwayne Hicks and fifteen years later, Newt can take up the guns and clingy underpants to fight the alien menace. Actually, almost anything plausible would be better for me than what they did. And please, please, nobody gets genetically spliced with anything this time.

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE: THE LAURA INGALLS CHRONICLES.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing particularly wrong with this sentimental, goody-two-shoes old TV series, which induced crying jags weekly from 1974 to 1983. You know, if you like weekly crying jags. But this is prime material for a gritty reboot. Without Michael Landon's holier-than-thou influence, this could be like Deadwood only without so many whores. Of course, there would be at least a couple whores.

Wisconsin after the Civil War surely wasn't as saccharine sweet as this show made it out to be. Let's do the weekly dose of death, disease, hardship, poverty, and lack of indoor plumbing without the reassuring family-values-affirming Ingalls family gazing heavenward trusting that it's all God's will. God's will? Please, that's SO Battlestar Galactica. Instead, you intrepid Ingalls family, you just grin and bear all that hardship like the backasswards, bone-tired pioneer folk did, you just hike up your homespun britches and pray the itching of lice doesn't drive you mad before you get your monthly bath and go watch the drunken Reverend Alden try to cop a feel while he's "helping" blind Mary Ingalls down the steps of the church.

Laura could dabble in white witchcraft and lesbianism (well come on, she grew up to be a professional writer - you know she was a probably an experimental girl). How about a few more realistic ailments of the time, like undiagnosed mental illnesses? Why is Willie Olson always talking to people who aren't there? Why does Mr. Edwards have such dramatic mood swings? How about an occasional bout of postpartum depression that can't be solved by Pa getting out his fiddle and playing a jaunty tune? Think of the endless possibilities! This show could run for another nine years.

The books by Laura Ingalls Wilder weren't much like the gazillion heart-rending triumphs and tragedies on the show. She just wrote a sweet-natured but factual account of pioneer life. The setting is over a hundred years in the past, not so long ago that they didn't have an inkling of sense, but long enough ago that everything still sucked and so they had to find ways to entertain themselves until TV was invented. The original show simply livened things up for the Ingalls clan by putting them through more faith-testing ordeals than any entire township ever had to endure. We'd just need to warp the source material in the other direction, to put a slightly more (or, insanely more) gritty spin on it. And if this works out well, just imagine what you could do with the depression-era Waltons, which leads me to...

STEPHEN KING'S IT.

This enormous, panoramically scary, graphically violent, and frankly sexual book by King was produced, not terribly but not terrifically, as a TV miniseries in 1990 starring John Boy Walton, Venus Flytrap, and Jack Tripper from Three's Company. The amount of "editing" that had to be done really left the viewers only with the core story. Seven children fight off a child-eating monster in their home town in the 1950s, then reunite thirty years later in order to kill the thing once and for all. What was left over in the miniseries was still moderately intense. Tim Curry as a homicidal clown will, in fact, keep you up nights forever. He is permitted to stay on in my remake.

Personally I'm a big fan of the book; I feel it's like eating a big old chocolate sundae that kicks you in the teeth. I would like to see it done again, as a lengthy Showtime or HBO series that won't flinch away from the source material. At its core, the story is not just about a supernatural menace, but about the evil that the world can do to children without any paranormal influence whatsoever. That may be hard to sell, yet moviemakers can find ways to make these things watchable without losing their impact.

Consider the movie Kill Bill, which contains a flashback of a little girl prostituting herself to a pedophile so that she can avenge the death of her parents. Tarantino tells the story by switching the film style to anime for that segment, which certainly softens the idea of what we're seeing but doesn't allow us to lose any of the nuance. (Now, if only he could have made the rest of the movie bearable. But that's another story.)

Do this one again. In the right hands and without the imperious eye of a family-oriented TV network watching over it, this could be one hell of a good chocolate sundae.

LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS: A DOUBLE-WHAMMY DO-OVER OF THE BOOKS AND THE MOVIE!

I'm going to go nuts on this one and suggest not only a remake of the 2004 movie but a soft reboot of the entire book series. Lemony Snicket wrote this series of 13 for-kids-but-not-exclusively-for-kids novels from 1999 to 2006; the movie mentioned above was based on the first three in the series. Any adult who picked up these novels, to read to one of their charges, or just thanks to word of mouth, knows that they began wonderfully. These were smart, dark, witty satires in addition to being fine little adventure stories, starring the wonderful Baudelaire orphans in their struggles against the evil Count Olaf. As all great children's literature does, the books transcended the age barrier and were just a terrifically fun read.

Things were grand and the series continued beautifully until somewhere around books 9 or 10, when a terrible truth became apparent. Lemony Snicket had created quite an elaborate plot, involving international espionage in multilayered organizations of good and evil, and he had absolutely no idea where he was going with this. Book 13, The End (2006) was simply one of the biggest disappointments I have ever read and I hope that children who adored these books had lost interest sufficiently not to be heartbroken. As an adult, I felt more capable of dealing. What's worse is that, as awful as the plot may have been, the writing was still exquisite.

Thus, let's give Lemony Snicket a do-over. He may pretend that the last three to five books of the series never happened, and try it again, perhaps this time having some earthly clue what the hell the resolution is going to be. And in this vein, we are also permitted a remake of the inevitable movie. The 2004 film was not bad in itself, and had some great performances. But it missed the point by being almost too damned realistic.

The trouble with filming Snicket's books is that most of their charm is in the writing style. People who saw the movie, which focused heavily on Jim Carrey's portrayal of Count Olaf, without having read the books probably wondered what the big deal was. After all, plot-wise, it's just your standard orphans-in-danger story. Since films of popular novels are unavoidable, might I suggest doing the whole thing in animation, using the magnificent Coraline (2009) as a model for style. It's easier and less scary to put animated children into the perils these particular protagonists face, and outlandish behaviors become far more believable. The entire series has that feeling of fairy-tale unreality anyway. Anyone who saw the film may recall, if you stuck around long enough, that the closing animated credits were the finest part of the movie: gorgeously drawn, full of character and a good deal more exciting than the film they concluded.