Battle of the Ages: Chapter Eye – Blue Beetle
June 21st, 2010
THIS IS HOW IT’S GOING TO WORK. Plenty blather in recent weeks about the reactionary impulses at work in DC’s decision to get rid of all its Bronze (I call it ‘Early Dark’ but ‘whatever, Steve Trevor’)/Dark/Prismatic Age legacy heroes and replace them with the resurrected Silver Age versions, in a bid to placate the SEETHING, ever-chubbier fanman and his desire for everything to be just like it was when he was a child.
(Minus the constant stream of free electronic NUDITY, I’m guessing.)
[Please note we fully accept the non-existence of the Legion of EviL Fan-Men stereotype. With the cultural dominance of the superhero over the early 21st century very well secure, these arguments, these embarrassments, are very much a relic of another age, and performed here very much in the spirit of a historical battle re-enactment society (and don’t get me started on those losers, with their ‘going outside’ and ‘hanging around with other people’ and ‘getting some fun and healthy exercise’). The caricature is being deployed in the current post merely for cosmic effect, a convenient and pitiful rhetorical ghost to lazily lob some poor jokes and manufactured anger at. To reiterate: It’s just a bit of fun. I am as ill-shaven and portly as anyone, and as will become all too apparent my opinions on superheroes are both delinquently partial and barely worth the (very) spare calorie it takes to type them. With those caveats safely in place, read on, if you’ve got the arse for it.]