Mindless Ones

These are my favourite new pants. They bring the total of Hulk pants to five, making the mean green smashing machine a clear winner in the pantularity stakes. (Regular skidophiles will remember that for reasons unclear half the total Hulk pants feature him taking big licks from Iron Man. Technically this is only gamma pant solo mark three.)

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower / Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees / Is my destroyer. – Swamp Thing #140

Things got a bit too much for a minute there in the loft. Get outside for some fresh air. There’s a balcony and it’s a warm night. There’s a crowd, chilled and clumped, sitting around, smoking, chatting too-earnestly, getting the feelings gained through the gnosis of the dancefloor spoken and out into the air before they vanish, quick as the sweat disappearing from your fringe. Take a deep breath and lean against the balcony railing, head back, breathe it out into the night. Look up. Something catches just the corner of your eye.

Shit did you just see something? What was that?

So you’ve skanked a hole in your Batsocks. It’s time to leave the basement. Head on up the stairs – feet light and stomach fluttering two steps ahead. Things go a bit strange and your head slides away into the ringing in your ears, just for a second, but when you pop out the top of the stairwell again, something very strange has happened. You’re not in the basement of some boring britshit revivalist toilet in an imaginary town in Northern England anymore. Like a fearless innovator of some time-tripping new dance move you’ve jumped up two storeys, spun through thirty three years, and flipped sideways three thousand odd miles. A downtown loft. New York. 197Something. It’s time to put your Spidey Socks on.

Witness birth of Disco Punk and HipHop! Thwipp Thwipp!.

The Mylestones – The Joker

There’s talc on the floor. A bag of ‘blues’ in your pocket, or so you like to think – dexys, mandys, but mainly ripoff caffeine pills. Door receipts are down – times are lean, leaner than the waists. Even the youngest acest faces are deep lined, adorned with feather cuts starting ever further up the head. The tribes have had to pull together and mingle even though the soul boy purists hate it, so for you, in those socks, it’s the basement mate – ska, rocksteady, and, of course, 2tone.

And take your porkpie hat with you, victim.

* Bollocks, knew I wouldn’t get this done until Twsday morning.

Whatever. This is me giving up superhero comics.

You can jump 8 times further there.

In much the preferred manner to attend one’s own funeral, I’ve finally added my Alfreds to our two previous Final Crisis coal-rakings.  Sorry, I know, you’re bored and angry with all that shit right now.  Quick, look at this!

You can’t possibly still be angry now.

Just so you know, we’ve all sworn off superhero comics for a few months too – that’s sort of what Final Crisis does to you (in a good way), isn’t it? We’re all going to pretend to get into indies and undies for a while, a bit of cultural tourism to Japan and the Franco-Belgian linguasphere, perhaps. And when April does come, with Seaguy and LoEG (we had some very exciting League/Mindless news this weekend – keep watching this space), our superheroes will be a bit more idiosyncratic, for a wee while anyway.

But for those of you who just don’t get it when the conversation has moved on – updated Final Crisis commentary:

Part One.

Two.

Patrick McGoohan 1928-2009

He taught the whole world how to be cool.

The last glass of complimentary wine is in hand, the fine cheese is either gone or at the stage where it really should be binned, and the pine needles are just fading memories, occasionally sticking in the soles of my feet. So yes, you’re right, that Santa pun’s been hanging around for a while now and, not unlike a certain pair of skids I could mention, is getting a bit ripe. Still, got to be better than ‘Pantuary’, or ‘Happy New Rear’, you’ll agree.

Why front? Click the jump.

Sorry I’m late, been ill. Consider this white and creamy palmfull my contribution to the first annual Mindless Ones Dot Com todgersonthetablefest.

Hero of the Year

2008 – Year of the Bat

more after the jump